My column in The Kerryman. 4 September, 2013
I saw a great clip on YouTube recently. It’s a sketch done in the style of a Nationwide report, about ‘Ireland’s foremost racist B&B.’ It was made by comedian Tara Flynn in response to her husband suffering racist abuse in her hometown of Kinsale. The best comedians say the things we mightn’t like to hear. When they warn that racism is on the increase in our communities, many of us prefer to look the other way.
Worse, some of us will look the other way even when we see the real thing, as happened to Kerry woman Una Minh Kavanagh when she was racially abused and spat on, in broad daylight. No one helped her.
I’m sure it must have been scary for the people who saw what happened to Ms Kavangh, not as scary as it was for her, but scary nonetheless. I can’t even be certain I’d have intervened, but I do know one thing; we were all told the same stories and watched the same films growing up. It is ingrained in most of us, that when we see someone in trouble, we help.
That’s how we are raising our children. I had Clint Eastwood films, today they have Harry Potter. Stories about heroes who prosper and stories about the terrible things that happen in this life and the next, to the villains who do not stand with or for those in distress.
No one stood by Ms Kavanagh’s side, but I know we haven’t lost the ability to be brave. Not the courage under fire, climbing Everest and winning Sam Maguire kind of heroism, but the bystander intervenes at great cost, kind of heroism. Not so long ago we read here about a man intervening to help a wedding party that was being attacked. In this cynical age, it’s inspiring to know that real heroes still exist.
Does that mean we should all be obliged to step up and step in, every time we see someone being attacked or abused? I wish it did, but who knows how any of us would react in the presence of real danger. But in the face of a rising tide of racism?
Our parents and grandparents endured ‘No Irish, No dogs, No blacks’ when they emigrated. Today our sons and daughters in Australia are already being accused by some, of overstaying their welcome.
It might be naive to expect us to be strengthened in our resolve to combat racism, just because we suffered it, but it’s not naive to take some simple steps. We can ridicule the racists, as Tara Flynn has done. We can call them out, as Una Minh Kavanagh has done. Easier still, we can raise our kids properly. We can correct our siblings, parents or friends when they say or do things which hurt the powerless. We don’t have to correct our neighbours, but we can certainly show disapproval. And if condemning a stranger is too scary, at least log onto www.iReport.ie to have it recorded. It’s not much, but it becomes useful information, which is better than doing nothing.
Ultimately racism will be defeated by telling our children very much the same stories we were told, but bigger and roomier stories. Stories with ever more characters. That’s a kind of heroism open to us all.
