What if what doesn’t kill you breaks you.
Supposedly, what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. It makes you build and be a better person but what if it eventually breaks you piece by piece until you are paralysed. What if all this systematic racism that lies within our cultures breaks you. This racism and the mindsets that compare races and classifications of superiority by race has killed countless people of colour, countless victims. It has killed but for those of us still standing to fight, it can break us.
Now grateful mother of two, I came to Australia about twelve years ago. I was appraised for my work overseas and well known for my skills in the supposedly professional field of civil engineering. When I first came to Adelaide, Australia was appraised for their multicultural identity, an identity doubted by various statistics. One of the many incidents that criticises Australia’s pride in their multicultural identity began as they broke mine at a market nearby my Adelaide home where I was denied the service of buying essential groceries with a glance at the headscarf around my neck. A caucasian man came shortly after I was asked to leave as the store was about to close and was kindly welcomed.
We moved to Melbourne later that year as I received an opportunity at an internationally renowned company as a civil engineer. I offered my involvement in a project and my assistance was happily received but short lived. A woman approached the man who had discussed this project with me and refused to work with someone who ‘didn’t speak English’. An internationally renowned company. A professional level worker. I was denied assistance yet again because of my mother tongue. I was made redundant shortly after and took a long time to get back to work. A period which proved difficult with a daughter and son, 6 and 3 years old respectively.
After a difficult period, I picked myself back up at a smaller company. Within 6 months I proved my worth and was promoted to project manager. The happiness surrounding this promotion was short lived after a newly graduated engineer informed me that I was receiving a much lower wage.
Afterwards, I managed to work at an internationally renowned company. I was stopped after my lunch break by security after having worked a year in the same building. It had seemed targeted, I confronted the officer, asking why in my entire year I had not ever seen a person stopped by security. I had never seen in a professional environment, an officer impede especially considering I would not even have been able to go into the building without a security tag. We have all heard the stories, we have all heard about Zainab Merchant. Time and time again, in professional environments, I am stopped over the fabric around my head. What kills you is supposed to make you stronger but what if one day, it breaks you into pieces.
I am now working at a large company and am thankful for my persistence but these are by far not the only instances to which racism, to which someone’s mindset has caused an inferiority complex, to which someone has enforced the idea of white supremacy at the expense of others has occurred. The 2018 - 2019 Australian Human Rights Commission's Complaint Statistics found that of the 13,989 enquiries, 16% of complaints were lodged under the Racial Discrimination Act. In the professional workplace, in countries as seemingly progressive as Australia, racism is a large barrier to achieving your dreams. Racism has stopped people from persisting in a field that not only do they have large potential in but compassion and determination.
What if what doesn’t kill someone breaks them piece by piece until they are paralysed. Stop the cycle. Stop this mindset.
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