I was involved in a roundtable discussion recently about racism and how to combat it if you witness it.
This subject is one of my pet hates and, of course, discrimination in general came up while we were on the subject.
One of the really impressive members told a story about how he explained racism to some schoolchildren. He collected a whole bunch of leaves in a bucket and tipped them out in front the kids and asked them what they saw. “Leaves” was the response. “They are all leaves.”
He then picked leaves of different colours – and the penny dropped with the kids. They were still leaves but they were different colours, different shapes and, in some cases, different stages of decay – but they were still leaves.
I thought this was a wonderful example, not just for kids but for all of us. I started thinking about discrimination of the disabled and how people look in general.
Now, here is the thing: at times I make jokes about the way I look, and at times people I know join in. But every now and then, someone I don’t know (or someone who doesn’t rate with me) has a crack and I get offended. But just like if we witness someone being racist, the best strategy is to ask them what they meant – to explain their remarks or attempted humour. Sometimes that defuses a situation.
I clearly remember back in another life when this social climber said to me at a function I was MC-ing: “How can you go out in public looking like that?” I asked him to clarify. “Your nose, mate. Why don’t you get it fixed?” I explained I had an operation which obviously failed and in fact it was a disability … and did he go around asking others why they don’t get things fixed? He didn’t know what to say, and shuffled off.
I must say that over the past decade or so, we have become a society that loves being outraged about things. If you listen to comedians such as John Cleese and Stephen Fry, we need to be careful what we wish for: if we lose our sense of humour, life may become somewhat tedious. So, if we see racism, don’t accept it. We need to make the person doing it feel alienated. But we do not need to lose our sense of humour.
By the way, in the bucket of leaves, I was the old, grey and wrinkly bent one.
But hey, I am still a leaf.
Ashley Robinson is chairman of the the Sunshine Coast Falcons and Sunshine Coast Thunder Netball, and a lifetime Sunshine Coast resident.
