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Racism

Amae
3 min readJan 8, 2025
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If I could use words to describe racism to you, then it would not be racism. You see, it is not a matter of sight or the mere image or representation, even though these encompass its materiality. It is about the emotive tone and intonation, the ‘musicality’ or lack thereof, of the words and expressions. Thus, it is beyond language. It is a language of a kind, but it exceeds the written or spoken word.

When I tell you their words pierce my heart like a lancing sword, you get the emotional meaning of what I felt, but that is not the feeling. I felt the blood gushing out, my life force slipping away. I felt the sharp pain of the sword piercing my skin, shaving against my ribs.

How can I explain racism to you in words? It is about the way they carry themselves; it is about posture. It is about the energy they emit. These, however, have got to be contextualised. It is something I have learnt. It has been imposed on me in specific environments. It is an inclination born out of experience. It is violence personified.

Having grown up in a black environment, it was something that I found unfamiliar. I came to the UK and could not comprehend the angst of many of the blacks living there.

It was subtle words and expressions; it was about reading between the lines, the pauses, the silence, the phrasing, the emphasis on certain syllables. It was about the trite and…

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Amae
Amae

Written by Amae

Interested in people, nature, science and technology, and history. MSc in Research Methods (Birkbeck), MA Industrial Design (UAL)

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