What you, as a white citizen, should do

Earlier this year, I went to a party with a friend. Upon arriving at the location, I parked my bike, and Adam went to park his scooter further down the road. It was already dark, and two officers walked past. They stopped abruptly and began asking my friend in a suspicious tone what he was doing, while their hands were already reaching for their batons.

Adam remained calm and responded politely that he was parking his scooter. The officers waited just long enough for Adam to walk away from the scooter and join me, and only then did they continue on their way. You have probably already guessed, but that friend of mine does indeed have more pigment cells than I do—in other words, yes, a dark skin color. At that moment, that day in January, I stood rooted to the spot, let it happen, and didn't know how to react.

If I had parked that scooter, the officers would never have stopped, and it would never have occurred to them to associate the situation with theft. Adam works just as hard as anyone else to be able to pay for that scooter, so you can imagine how humiliating it is when something like that happens. My friend sighed deeply, and we continued on our way to the party.

What had just taken place is called ethnic profiling, which means making assumptions based on someone's physical characteristics. This is discrimination and prohibited by law. Our Prime Minister, Mark Rutte, said so on live television earlier this month. Although he did not dare to use the words institutional racism, he did admit that systematic discrimination occurs in Dutch society. Police engaging in ethnic profiling is a very good example of this.

Not only is ethnic profiling prohibited, but research also shows that it is a very ineffective way to combat crime. Officers who use it are therefore doing their job poorly. Other research also shows that crime is primarily a postcode issue. Neighborhoods with high crime rates were already like that before people of color came to live there.

"It is deeply rooted in our entire system. People who do not conform to the standard norm in the Netherlands have to deal with it constantly; in their communication with government agencies, on the labor market, on the housing market, at school, on the street, in the supermarket, in the café, on the sports fields. Everywhere."

No one is born a criminal or racist, but the environment in which you grow up largely shapes and determines your worldview and how you behave accordingly. The term 'systemic' is appropriate here because this occurs structurally in all layers of society. It is deeply rooted in our entire system. People who do not conform to the standard norm in the Netherlands have to deal with it constantly; in their communication with government agencies, on the labor market, on the housing market, at school, on the street, in the supermarket, in the café, on the sports fields. Everywhere.

I spoke to Adam about this incident last week because it resurfaced for me in light of the #blacklivesmatter movement. The attention currently being paid on a global scale to racism and the discrimination of minorities in society has not been this great for a long time, and we must not let this opportunity pass us by unused. I see people, whom I have never seen communicating about it before, now posting black screens en masse on social media in solidarity with the Black population. That is a fantastic statement, but at the same time, the question immediately arises: “Okay, and what now?”

Additionally, I have also spoken to people who say: “I agree 100% with this cause, and based on my fundamental principles, I have always been in favor of mutual respect and equal treatment for everyone on our planet. But is it really still such a problem here in the Netherlands, or is it up to me to speak out against racism, especially since I come from a white family myself?”

The fact that it might not be so visible in your own environment does not mean that something does not exist. For a change, talk about it with people who do experience it daily or who have been victims of racism in the past. Whether you speak out about the matter online is entirely up to you; not everyone is accustomed to speaking out about more serious issues on social media, and you do not need to force people to do so. People who simply post a black photo due to the magnitude of the social pressure involved in recent weeks, but who do not delve deeper into what racism truly entails, may help give the movement more visibility, but structurally, that will not change anything. It is precisely that awareness, which starts with oneself, and truly understanding the entire problem that can contribute to structural change.

Change begins in multiple places and proceeds via multiple routes to ultimately converge at the final goal. In this case, systematic change regarding a major societal problem.

Back to that Saturday evening in January. With hindsight, I would have intervened. I would have stood up for my friend, confronted the officers about their discrimination, and filed a complaint with the responsible authorities. If everyone did this... if even one in three people did this every time they saw someone with dark skin, a migration background, a different sexual orientation, an unusual hair color, a distinctive figure, or a different culture being harassed, then racism and discrimination would be a thing of the past. I told my friend this as well and apologized for not standing up for him at the time.

His reaction was: “Thanks, Kaj, but this will never go away. All Black people will suffer from this forever, and we have to live with it.”

Can we please prove my friend wrong?