Empowering and engaging minorities Anti-racist work with young people (and in general) does not make much sense without engaging and empowering those who suffer the most from racism. Even if our anti-racist educational activities are mainly targeting representatives of the majority – because as a rule they are best positioned to both perpetuate and benefit from racism – we still need to make sure we do not leave communities behind in this process. First, racism can only be fully understood when the experiences of those who suffer from it are given proper space and their voice is heard. Second, because of their vulnerable situation, young people from minorities should be better equipped to react whenever they witness or suffer racism, and also have the courage and the support systems to do so. Third, engaging young people from minorities communities in our educational activities normally results in intercultural dialogue, deconstruction of stereotypes and prejudice and building trust among communities, all of which are in turn contributing to an antiracist environment. Finally, due to the broad take we have on racism (i.e. not only limited to skin colour, but making references to other types of oppression), allows us to open a conversation about the situation of ethnic minorities, sexual minorities, people with disabilities, women etc. in various communities, where such conversation might be very much needed.
Who are minorities? For linguistic reasons, we often define a minority as a social group which is smaller in number in comparison to another social group – majority. However, this can be very misleading and in social science other approaches have also been taken. In our view as well, what determines a minority group from the majority is not their number, but their limited access to power (see sub-chapter on power). Access to power is usually linked to how big the group is, but not always. One sad example is the apartheid in South Africa, where for decades a group that was much smaller in number (white people were estimated to be 20% or less during the time) has practically full power and thus suffered no minority-related exclusion whatsoever. Women, who usually represent a bit more than half of the population, are traditionally suppressed in their access to power – even if they have the numbers, they do not have the power. Finally, let us take the perspective of wealth: according to Oxfam’s inequality report (January, 2020) the world’s 2153 billionaires have more wealth
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Constellations . A manual for working with young people on the topic of racism and invisible racism
