Page 11 - Anti-Racism Pocketbook for Schools and Academies
P. 11
People from ethnically diverse backgrounds can face societal
disadvantages due to discrimination, and therefore they are
more likely to:
• Experience unemployment, poverty, and homelessness
• Have less support in the education system
• Face challenges accessing services
• Become targets of unfair treatment form the criminal justice
system
The negative impact of racism can also cause ethnically diverse
people to change their behaviour in public due to the fear of
being treated differently like not using their real names on a job
application.
Similar to this, one person commented that they were “asked to
change our actual names as they sounded too Black and
customers wouldn’t want to speak to us.”
Other changes can include:
• Not speaking native languages or having an accent
• Hiding parts of their cultural and religious identity
It is important to understand the different forms of racism in
order to understand how to best combat it the workplace.
Although racism can be very overt with intentionally hurtful
words and actions, microaggressions and subtle acts of exclusion
(S.A.E.), can also be very damaging on the overall health and
mental wellness of ethnically diverse people.
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