From Universities to Gaza and Israel, to walking around whilst openly Jewish or Black. When no where is safe and thousands of innocent children are dying…

 In this article and the Youtube video below I reflect on the situation in Gaza and the experiences of Jewish and Black People in the UK, the importance of speaking up and the reasons we fail to do so.

Youtube

https://youtu.be/JIkHzHy-g0M

Podcast

https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/shungu-hilda-mgadzah/episodes/From-Universities-to-Gaza-and-Israel–to-walking-around-whilst-openly-Jewish-or-Black–When-no-where-is-safe-and-thousands-of-innocent-children-are-dying-e2k5vso

Blog

https://www.inclusionpsychologists.com/post/from-universities-to-gaza-and-israel-to-walking-around-whilst-openly-jewish-or-black-when-no-where

Linkedin article

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/from-universities-gaza-israel-walking-around-whilst-openly-m-gadzah-j6nwe

From Universities to Gaza and Israel, to walking around whilst openly Jewish or

https://youtu.be/JIkHzHy-g0M

When no where is safe and thousands of innocent children are dying. 14,000 children have died and mothers can do nothing to protect their young.

I saw the news story in the UK about the Jewish guy who was stopped from crossing in front of protesters by the Police and what one officer said to him.

We all have a duty to make sure that this does not happen

Recognise your selective compassion and empathy. You are making a choice who you sympathise with and whose cause you will support or not support.

Watching the news that evening the question was asked

We are learning what many of us knew already that you cannot put a price tag on suffering and see one life as more important than another. The International Court of Justice reminded us that no one race, peoples or country are above the law.

You cannot turn the other way and pretend that “it’s” not happening. You cannot exist at Stage +2 or -2 of the Six Stages Framework, in a world of denial and avoidance.

We cannot be selective about what forms of discrimination or racism we speak up against and then be surprised when we don’t have a fair and inclusive world.

“The virus of antisemitism is spreading at campuses.” This is what

https://www.inclusionpsychologists.com/post/if-racism-was-a-virus

“First they came for—- and I did not speak up… then they came for —- and then finally they came for me and there was no one left to speak up.”

It’s so important to understand that when we are silent when marginalised groups and people from the global majority are facing every day racism then we are condoning and complicit in allowing the racism virus to thrive. This in turn opens the floodgates for other discrimination viruses to thrive.

The Six Stages Framework Bias Impact Tree reminds us that we need to get better at challenging biases at the roots before they turn into symptoms of hate and discrimination. Before we all end up on the killing fields with nowhere to go, nowhere to run and no one to save us.

A failure to speak up when you see someone being discriminated against or when you see racism in action whether that be within schools, the workplace or within the community results in the racism virus becoming stronger. Its no different to how a failure to wash your hands during the pandemic caused Covid 19 to spread further.

That bias or that same virus that you ignored last week and did not challenge could one day come back to challenge you; growing and emerging that much stronger from the roots, it becomes stronger and more difficult to stop and eradicate.

It is so difficult when watching the news to get a sense of who is safe and who is at risk. Who deserves protecting and who does not? On the one hand, one would think it’s a good thing that students are taking an interest in these issues and speaking up; exercising their free speech and their second amendment rights.

On the other hand, we’ve been told that some students are being intimidated and in fear of their lives.

Surely we should be concerned about the freedoms (academic, economic or otherwise) and free speech of all humanity.

What will we tell them?