Vicky Donnelly is a facilitator with the Galway One World Centre whose work includes coordinating the Global Teachers Award, and carrying out global justice and diversity training with colleges, schools, youth and community groups around the country. This workshop aimed to deepen our understanding of racism (and other forms of oppression) in the context of strengthening diversity in our libraries.

2. Building the foundations for Equality
Anti-Racism Perspectives
June 2017
Galway One World Centre
Vicky Donnelly
education@galwayowc.org

3. Development Education/Global Justice Quiz
1. Which country has the lowest representation for women in parliament:
Rwanda, Ireland or Afghanistan?
2. Which country beginning with S______ did women only get full voting
rights in 1990?
3. What is the average life expectancy in Ireland?
4. What percentage of people making claims for asylum are (eventually)
allowed to remain in Ireland? (Including appeals for Leave to Remain)?
5. UN estimate cost of providing clean water for all: $30 billion. How much
is spent annually on bottled water? $__
6. True or False: The ‘Developed World’ throws out enough food every day
to feed every hungry person in the world.
7. What was the most valuable traded item in 15th centuary Timbuktu?

4. “Racism, it’s about…”
Some people say…
•It’s about numbers -
being in the minority
•It’s about human
nature
•It’s about ignorance

5. Our analysis of the problem…
But maybe…
•It’s really not about
numbers
•It’s not about human
nature
•It’s not about
ignorance
“It’s about the
imbalance and
abuse of
POWER”

6. If ‘sameness’ is the solution, what was the
problem?
“I treat everyone the same…”
“I don’t see colour”
“We’re all the same underneath”

8. ‘Whose Reality Counts?’
Whose voices are we listening to?

9. No Easy Answers…
1. Ireland (22%) has the lowest representation for women in parliament:; Rwanda (64%) ; Afghanistan (28%)
http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SG.GEN.PARL.ZS
2. Switzerland granted full voting rights to women in all local Canton elections by 1989. Women only got the right to vote in
general elections in 1971, following a referendum (where 34% of the all male electorate voted against equality) and the first
woman to serve in government was in 1985.
http://history-switzerland.geschichte-schweiz.ch/chronology-womens-right-vote-switzerland.html
3. Average life expectancy in Ireland is 80.5 years. For Traveller men it is 61, and 70 for Traveller women. The suicide rate for
Travellers is 6 times the national average. Traveller infants aged under two are 10 times more likely to die from SIDS (Sudden
Infant Death Syndrome) or congenital diseases than the settled community. Homeless people have an average life span of 42. The
mean age of death for a homeless woman is 38, and 44 for men
http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/travellers-life-expectancy-still-lags-far-behind-26677596.html
http://www.irishexaminer.com/ireland/urgent-need-for-traveller-mental-health-services-with-suicide-rates-six-times-the-
national-average-378557.html
http://www.irishexaminer.com/ireland/homeless-people-have-an-average-lifespan-of-just-42-422638.html
4. 9.8% “In the 12 months to the end of June this year, Ireland received less than 10pc of asylum applicants to similar-sized EU
states. Denmark, with a population of 5.4m, accepted 21,000 asylum applicants; Norway, with a population of 5m, accepted
28,000 applicants. Ireland is recorded by Eurostat as receiving only 2,780 applicants during the 12-month period to June this year.”
http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/ireland-refuses-asylum-to-90pc-of-applicants-35229842.html
5. UN estimate cost of providing clean water for all: $30 billion. Annual revenue from bottle water , globally $100bn
Kline, John (2010) Ethics for International Business: Decision-Making in a Global Political Economy (pg 226)
6. True – three times over: According to Raj Patel (2007), author of Stuffed and Starved, the ‘Developed World’ throws out three
times enough food every day to feed every hungry person in the world. See also Concern:
www.concern.net/sites/default/files/media/page/1_in_8_resource_final_0.pdf

10. “I’m not political, but...”
Politics is who gets what,
when, and how.”
Harold Lasswell (1902 – 1978)

11. What was the most valuable traded
item in 15th Century Timbuktu?

12. Books were the most valuable traded item in 15th century Tombouctou
“Many manuscript books…are sold. Such sales are more profitable than any other goods,” wrote Leo
Africanus in the 16th century.” (Translation by John Hunwick)
Founded in the 5th century, by the15th and 16th
centuries Timbuktu was an important centre for
the diffusion of Islamic culture. One of the first
Universities in the world was Sankore,
Tombouctou. At its height, the universities has
over 25,000 students (in a city with a population of
100,000).
It was also a crossroads and an important market place
where the trading of manuscripts was negotiated.
Sankore University still holds 700,000 manuscripts,
including a number authored by women, and works
covering the history of Africa and southern Europe,
religion, astronomy, philosophy, mathematics, medicine
and law.
BBC documentary, Lost Libraries of Timbuktu, presented by
Aminatta Forna (2009)
www.youtube.com/watch?v=GULyAEjVRi8

13. Legitimising Exploitation and the invention of ‘Race’
(Chinua Achebe’s ‘good excuse’)
“It is always useful to think badly about people one has exploited or
plans to exploit”.
Prof. James W. Loewen
Professor James W. Loewen (1995): Lies My Teacher Told Me The New Press: New York

14. “Colonisation may indeed be a very complex affair, but one thing
is certain: you do not walk in, seize the land, the person, the
history of another, and then sit back and compose hymns in his
honour. To do that would be calling yourself and bandit, and
you don’t want to do that.
So what do you do? You construct elaborate excuses for your
action. You say, for instance, that the man in question is
worthless and quite unfit to manage himself or his affairs…
Finally, if the worst comes to the worst, you may even be
prepared to question whether such a man as he can be , like
you, fully human.
From denying the presence of a man standing there before you,
you end up questioning his very humanity.”
Chinua Achebe: The Song of
Ourselves (1990)
www.newstatesman.com/books/2013/03/song-
ourselves

15. ‘Underdevelopment’

17. Legacies of Colonialism
“When Belgium left the Congo, a total of three
Congolese people held positions of responsibility in
government.
When Great Britain left Tanzania, the county had but
two engineers and twelve doctors.
When Spain left Western Sahara, the country had one
doctor, one lawyer and one specialist in commerce.
When Portugal left Mozambique, the county had a 99%
illiteracy rate, not a single high school graduate, and no
university.”
Eduardo Galaeno (2009) Mirrors (pg.329)
London: Portobello Books

18. 80:20
80:20

19. 5 : 50 : 500
•$500 billion
•Unfair Trade
•Tax Injustice
•Illegitimate Debt

20. ‘Underdevelopment’

21. “Aid in Reverse”www.theguardian.com/global-development-professionals-network/2017/jan/14/aid-in-reverse-how-poor-countries-develop-rich-countries
$125 billion in aid annually going to the
Global South, while
$3.3 trillion “flowed out”
“What this means is that the usual
development narrative has it
backwards. Aid is effectively flowing in
reverse. Rich countries aren’t
developing poor countries; poor
countries are developing rich ones.”
Global Financial Integrity (GFI) &
Norwegian School of Economics

22. Train Journey Activity:
Pick your seat

23. Model of Oppression
Davis & Ohri (2000) Anti-Racism and Equality in Action, NICEM
Attitudes / Assumptions / Stereotypes
PREJUDICE

24. Model of Oppression
Attitudes / Assumptions / Stereotypes
PREJUDICE
+
Power to Act

25. Model of Oppression
Attitudes / Assumptions / Stereotypes
PREJUDICE
+
Power to Act
=
DISCRIMINATION

26. Model of Oppression
Attitudes / Assumptions / Stereotypes
Prejudice
+
Power to Act
=
Discrimination
+
Ideology of Superiority

27. Model of Oppression
Prejudice
+
Power to Act
=
Discrimination
+
Ideology of Superiority
=
Racism / Sexism / Classism / Disablism / Heterosexism etc.

28. Model of Oppression
Ideology is:
•Systemic
•Institutionalised
•Internalised
(by both groups)
Wendy Davis, Basil Manning & Ashok Ohri http://www.osdc.co.uk/

29. "Britain is an island that helped to abolish
slavery, that has invented most of the things
worth inventing, including every sport
currently played around the world, that still
today is responsible for art, literature and
music that delights the entire world.”
David Cameron at G20, Sept 2013

30. “We peddle a curriculum that says
95% of all achievement is European”
Trevor Gordon, head-teacher and winner of the Stephen
Lawrence Award for Education 2002

31. Model of Oppression
Prejudice
+
Power to Act
=
Discrimination
+
Ideology of Superiority
=
Racism / Sexism / Classism / Disablism / Heterosexism etc.

32. White (1997) Richard Eyre
“There is no more powerful position than that of being ‘just’
human. The claim to power is the claim to speak for…humanity.
Raced people can’t do that – they can only speak for their race.”

33. "White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack", by Peggy Mackintosh
First appeared in Peace and Freedom Magazine, July/August, 1989, pp. 10-12, a publication of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, Philadelphia, PA.
Quotes: nationalseedproject.org/white-privilege-unpacking-the-invisible-knapsack
“My work is not about blame, shame, guilt, or whether one
is a "nice person." It's about observing, realizing, thinking
systemically and personally. It is about seeing privilege, the
"up-side" of oppression and discrimination. It is about
unearned advantage, which can also be described as
exemption from discrimination…
I was taught to think that racism could end if white
individuals changed their attitudes. But a “white” skin in the
United States opens many doors for whites whether or not
we approve of the way dominance has been conferred on
us. Individual acts can palliate, but cannot end, these
problems.
To redesign social systems, we need first to acknowledge
their colossal unseen dimensions… Disapproving of the
systems won’t be enough to change them… The silences and
denials surrounding privilege are the key political tool here.
They keep the thinking about equality or equity incomplete,
protecting unearned advantage and conferred dominance
by making these taboo subjects.”

34. Aamer Rahman
Comedian Aamer Rahman deconstructs the
notion of ‘reverse racism’, and,
clarifies the links between
Ideology and colonialism and
Exploitation.
All in under 3 minutes.
*Contains hyperbole.*
Reverse Racism
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dw_mRaIHb-M&feature=share

35. Thank you.
Stay in touch
Vicky Donnelly
education@galwayowc.org