For the International Day for People of African Descent, “UN News” spoke to Dominique Day, a human rights lawyer and chairperson of the UN Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent, about her experience of racism and why there needs to be a wider acceptance that today’s global economy was built on the oppression of Black people:
UN News You say that “everyday racism is normalized”. What do you mean by that?
Dominique Day The idea that I can't always get a taxi in New York City, the lengths my parents went to, to make sure that I was super educated, to be able to counter the ways I might be misinterpreted or mischaracterized by a world that sees my skin and comes to a different interpretation than who I actually am.
UN News So you internalize it and you and you just say this is life, that's how it is?
Dominique Day Well, not so much “that's how it is”, but to actually confront every episode of everyday racism you experience from teachers, judges, police, regular society, even people who are your friends.
The idea that casual racism is so normalized in our society means that, for us to survive it, we actually need to be very thoughtful about the ways we engage.
This everyday casual racism has actually been so interwoven into our society, we not only fail to see it, but there's a really active culture of denial that operates transnationally.
UN News In the US we’re seeing a backlash to Critical Race Theory…
Dominique Day It is a threat to white supremacy, a threat to the privilege and power that people have been able to accrue by commodifying their whiteness as value.
We even see this in international development work.
Critical Race Theory says, let’s look at what has created the world we're living in today, let's take a critical view of history. It actually shouldn't be a threat.
We're trying to offer a rigorous and honest look at the world as it exists today, and when we talk about things like the slave trade, we're talking about a moment in history, a moment in global history where transnational relationships were being developed, where the market economy and credit economy were being birthed.
And all of these fancy economic terms we use today were being developed using black bodies as collateral, as subjects of trade, both in the financial and agricultural markets.
UN News Is it correct to say, then, that the current global economy is built on the oppression of black people?
Dominique Day That is fair to say. Look at the flight paths: if you ever travel in Africa, you'll be traveling on British Airways if you're going to former British colonies. You'll be traveling on Air France if you're going to former French colonies.
Who owns the diamonds in South Africa? These are the legacy of colonial relationships that continue to govern not only global wealth but geopolitical power.
I'm not suggesting that racial justice work will upset that, but perhaps the awareness of that can motivate activities to right what's been wrong.
