Gaap

Writer: Huayro Pootjes
Getting up has never been more difficult. Still under the covers, I grow weary as I scroll through my timeline. It is not long before I am confronted with a fresh load of angry comments from white Dutch people who no longer support freedom of speech as soon as it is used to expose their privileges. Sigh. The days may be getting shorter now with the onset of winter time, but the underlying frustration that keeps piling up week in, week out suggests the opposite.

The debate around issues such as Black Pete is not in a vacuum. The wall erected by whites - be it verbally by spamming racist comments on Facebook; or physically by disrupting traffic in several protests - is only a small reflection of the perspective on discrimination that people still hold in 2020.

Further illustrations are well known to me and other persons of colour. For instance, every day I receive glances from strangers who almost make me think a rotten apple is coming their way. Not much less noteworthy is the classic surprised look as soon as I open my mouth and appear to speak fluent Dutch. The security guards who delightfully subtly chase me around shops. The idea that I am lazy and probably party a lot, and the negative connotation this has with me. Something that white peers don't experience - after all, if they have a busy social life, it's normal, comes with age! However, the worst thing is ultimately the habituation to this and countless other similar cases. A habituation that, in my case, has built up structurally from the moment I was sent out of the OBA as a seven-year-old book nerd because I would be “one of those irritating Moroccans”.

The individual causes of fatigue are accompanied by societal causes. When this year's protests began, the white media went into a frenzy. Oops, they turned out not to be quite diverse enough. So every night on every talk show, you suddenly saw X number of guests of colour sitting in to talk about their experiences. This turnaround was basically enforced by public interest. This became woefully clear when Margriet van der Linden was confronted by a guest on a broadcast of M with the fact that although she might now have invited guests of colour, her entire production team behind the scenes remained completely white. The media's obvious unwillingness to find time somewhere in the past decades to adjust their lack of diversity left a nasty aftertaste in the new programming as a result.

Politicians also took the developments highly. Many parties expressed support for more inclusive representation in politics and media and equal treatment for all our residents. After all, everyone should feel safe and welcome in the Netherlands. Unfortunately, propagating this conviction remains just words and we see little action materialising. In Amsterdam, the completely problematic plan of preventive frisking continues. The report by Meldpunt Islamofobie, which has shown that the ‘burka ban’ has not been enforceable and has only resulted in further racist treatment (including physical intimidation) towards Muslim women with or without a face veil, has been completely ignored by the majority of the parties. Even within the parties, there is no follow-through. The draft candidate lists of GroenLinks, D66 and SP - unfortunately but expectedly - do not exude diversity in the actual electable positions. Is all this a result of unwillingness? Or still ignorance? I don't know anymore. What is clear is that, as with the media, there is talk of using people of colour to make a certain ideal appear like an oasis in the desert. However, if you rub your eyes and blink twice, you automatically get a view of reality.

It is our duty as citizens to constantly and consistently rub our eyes. Not only to slowly improve our living conditions, but also to counter collective fatigue and create a little peace in our own minds. When you meet another person who comes from seeing the same as you, you no longer feel lonely. You feel heard and finally understood. Then you stand together, shoulder to shoulder, in the fight for emancipation. The protest at Dam Square was an impressive example of such an experience. Whatever you think of the way the protest was arranged, I want to emphasise from there that before that day I had never felt so heard. Tig people of every colour, from young to old, came together to change the history books of our future children for good. That day, we made progress together.

Because tsja, it is indeed regrettable that the media's turnaround had to be so forced. But now that the momentum of the protests has dropped slightly, we don't necessarily see a step backwards. The turnaround is starting to become the new status quo. Similar is the current emergence of various calls for action and change within a political world that before this never had the extensive platform that we have now managed to secure. After years of far-rightism, we are finally providing the opportunity to pull the core of the public debate back somewhat to the left and make it more progressive. We are no longer alone. Indeed, our voice is being heard. The accumulation of frustration and fatigue remains; but admittedly, it is making way for hope. With hope, I will go back to bed tonight. With hope, I think getting up tomorrow will be a little easier.