Racism thrives on silence -- speak up!

Racism thrives on your silence and apathy, says human rights lawyer Dexter Dias. Telling the story of a harrowing UK court case that spotlights the corrosive effects of injustice, Dias urges us all to speak out and expose toxic myths about race -- in order to allow hope, change and justice to flourish.

I'm a human rights lawyer.

I've been a human rights
lawyer for 30 years,

and this is what I know.

Once there was a man alone in a room.

And his name was Alton.

And then seven other men, seven strangers,

rushed into his room and dragged him out.

And they held him
in a horizontal, crucifix position.

One on each arm,

two on each leg,

and the seventh man held Alton's neck
in a vice-like grip

between his forearms.

And Alton was struggling for breath

and saying, "I can't breathe,"

just as George Floyd said,
"I can't breathe."

But they didn't stop.

And soon, Alton was dead.

When I was asked to represent
his mother and his brother and his sister

in the inquest into his death,

they asked me, "How could it happen?"

And I didn't have an answer.

Because Alton had injuries
all over his body.

He had bruising to his neck and his torso.

He had injuries to his arms and his legs.

He had blood in his eyes,
his ears and his nose.

But they claimed no one knew anything.

They claimed that they couldn't
explain how he died.

For Alton had two problems.

Firstly, the corridor in which he died

was a prison corridor.

And secondly, he was Black.

So I want to talk to you today

about Alton's mother's question.

How could such a thing
happen in our country?

How can these things happen

in countries across the world?

How can they happen still,

and what could we do to stop it?

For three decades,

I've been representing the families
of people of color

who have been killed in state custody
in the United Kingdom.

And I've done human rights work
across four continents.

And what I've learned is this:

that if we want to do
something about racism,

we have to first understand what it is.

So let's talk about
this thing called race.

What exactly is it?

A fact of our lives?

One of the most powerful
forces in the world?

Something we don't particularly
want to talk about?

It is all these things,

but it is something else.

It is a myth.

There is no such thing as race.

Scientific research shows
that race is an illusion.

For example,

someone of European descent

might be genetically closer
to an Asian person

than to someone else of European descent.

So if race isn't a biological fact,

what actually is it?

It is a social construct.

Which means it's been invented.

But by whom and for what reason?

As a species, we share 99.9 percent
of DNA with everybody else.

But visible external characteristics,

like hair type and skin color,

have been used in order
to promote this racist genetic lie

about the supposed
racial genetic differences.

Racism has been endemic for centuries.

The Nazis, of course, were very keen
to promote the racist lie.

But also, in the United States,

there were eugenic experiments
and eugenic laws.

And in Australia,

children of dual Aboriginal heritage
were confiscated from their parents

in order to create a white Australia.

This kind of thinking is rising again
with alt-right groups

hankering after racially pure homelands.

How does this work?

You see, we don't have
social inequalities because of race.

We have social inequalities
that are justified by race.

I started to understand this

when I was representing
anti-apartheid activists.

And they showed me how apartheid
was a system of social exploitation

and discrimination

that was justified by race.

By the supposed superiority
of white people

and the supposed inferiority
of Black people.

The apartheid regime said it was nature

and so it was inevitable

and there was nothing
you could do about it.

The Mother Nature lie gives
discrimination and injustice a pass.

I've also found it in cases

where people suffer from the legacy
of colonization and empire.

I've seen similar effects amongst people
of the same color in Africa.

And how people of certain castes
are looked down upon in India.

The victims may be different,

but the mechanism --

the labeling and the lies --

is exactly the same.

And so you can see why people
are so keen to embrace the race thing.

Because it gives the privileged,

people like us,

a get out of jail free card.

The simple truth is that race is a system.

It's like oxygen, like an atmosphere.

It flows everywhere in our society.

It infects everybody it touches.

It protects power and privilege.

Whose?

Well, look around you.

So what is it like for people of color,

people like me,

to try to speak to white people

about racism?

Many, many white people
find it extremely difficult to do.

Some white people say
they know nothing about it.

Others say that our societies

may not even suffer from racism at all.

So if you are a white person
who is wondering about all of this,

there is a thought experiment
that you can do.

Because here's the truth.

You know.

You already know.

So ask yourself this:

Would you, would you really
want your son or your daughter,

your brother or your sister,

to marry a practicing Muslim
from the Middle East?

Or someone recently arrived
from South Asia, who is a Hindu?

Or an asylum seeker
from Sub-Saharan Africa?

Or someone who's recently crossed
the US-Mexican border?

You may not have a total objection,

but you may have a concern.

A qualm that scratches
at the back of your brain.

It's not because
of the color of their skin.

But because you know
that in countries like ours,

as things stand now,

their life prospects are likely
to be affected by this union.

And you realize that you do know,

you do understand
that people will judge them.

And in a hundred ways,

those judgments will impact their lives

and the lives of their children.

At that moment,

you are connecting with a powerful truth.

Which is that you know
systemic racism is real.

So why do you not want to talk about race?

Because it's uncomfortable, certainly.

But that's only part of the answer.

The bigger truth is far more damaging.

Your bristling isn't just defensiveness.

It is a defense mechanism.

It defends the system of privilege

and the unequal division
of wealth and power.

Fragility gives racial inequality a pass.

Who are the winners and losers?

Well look at the data.

In income.

In health inequalities.

In school exclusion.

In career prospects.

In stop and search.

Look at how people of color

have been disproportionately
dying of COVID.

So if the racial myth invisibilizes

and the fragility response silences,

what choices are you left with?

The binary choice between
you being a racist and a non-racist.

Or is there another way?

Because almost everyone in this TED Talk

will say that they are non-racist.

But we have to face it,

being non-something is not enough.

The third choice
is being actively anti-racist.

So if you agree that Black lives matter,

ask yourself,

"How do Black lives matter in my life?"

"What have I done to show

that Black lives matter to me?"

By adopting a visible, conscious,
active anti-racist stance,

what was once invisible is made visible.

What was once silenced,

is shouted out loud and clear.

But that still is not enough.

After weeks of bitter
struggle at the inquest,

the all-white jury returned
to the courtroom in Alton's case.

There was a moment of complete silence

when the foreperson stood

and then he announced the verdict.

And it was unlawful killing.

And at that moment,

all hell broke loose in the courtroom.

And there was just this deafening noise.

People were screaming,

Alton's sister got up
into the aisle to my left

and she was pointing
at the prison officers

and shouting at them,

"You killed my brother!

You killed my brother!"

And the family desperately wanted

that the prison officers
who were responsible for Alton's death

should be prosecuted.

We all desperately wanted that.

But not a single one of them
was prosecuted.

So we took the chief prosecutor to court,

the director of public prosecutions.

And the highest judge in the land,

the Lord Chief Justice,

agreed that the decision not to prosecute

was fatally flawed and unlawful.

Every day during Alton's case,

his brother would sit
on the courtroom steps

and he would say to me,

"Train them up good today, Mr. D."

But when he realized
that nobody would ever be prosecuted

for the killing of his brother,

it crushed him.

And he died a few years later
in a psychiatric hospital.

So how does Alton's death connect to you

and to the racism and privilege
in our societies?

What do I want from you?

What I want from myself
is to be put out of a job.

You see, families come to me
who are grieving

and I see the hope in their eyes.

And I have to tell them

that the chances
of anybody ever being prosecuted

for being involved
in the killing of their loved ones

are very remote.

I saw these grieving faces

in the springtime of my career.

And I still see them

now that I'm entering the autumn of it.

And the summer season was full of blood.

And somehow I think
that the blood is on my hands,

even though I know rationally
that that is not the case.

But I could not bring back

Alton or Gareth or Zahid

or any of the others,

which is all their grieving
families ever wanted.

So I'm asking you to see through the lies.

And to see through one of the most
disempowering lies of them all.

That what we do will not
and cannot make a difference.

I'm sure they said that to Rosa Parks

and to Martin Luther King

and to Nelson Mandela.

And they just went ahead
and did it anyway.

And I tried to think of them

as I was cross-examining
the prison officers.

And I would say to each of them,

"Look at Mrs. Manning, Alton's mother,

and you tell her why her son is dead."

And not a single one of them
could look at her.

They wanted her to be invisible.

Sadly, realizing that no one
would be prosecuted for her boy's death,

she sank into a deep depression

and she died.

But I'll never forget how,
in the chaos and mayhem,

when that verdict was announced,

I turned to her and said,

"Mrs. Manning, I'm very sorry
for your family."

And she looked at me and said,

"Mr. Dias, you are family."

And she pointed at the prison officers
and the jury and she said,

"And they are family.

But families bicker and fight,

but we've got to sort it out.

And we've got to find a way."

So how do we sort it out and when?

Dr. King taught us

the time is always right
to do the right thing.

These contentious deaths in state custody

have taken place in prisons
and in police stations.

But finally, the spotlight
has been shone on them

by the horrendous death of George Floyd.

Now we can't say that we didn't know.

The COVID crisis and George Floyd's death

have shocked us out of our complacency.

They put the world in flux,

because what has been seen
cannot be unseen.

So right now is a historic
moment of change.

Now is the time to take action

in our spheres of influence,

and we all have them.

We have voting power,

we have pocket power,

where we spend our money
and what we spend it on.

We have the power to confront racism
wherever and whenever we find it.

Those of you listening today,

who have benefited from that privilege,

have the opportunity
to turn it on its head

and to demand that society changes.

Ultimately what happens
is now in our hands.

And this is what I know.

When someone in state custody
says, "I can't breathe,"

they are in mortal danger.

But when a society doesn't challenge
the oxygen of racism

that everyone breathes every day,

the hope for racial justice
and equality in that society

is also in mortal danger.

There can't be any more Altons,

and Gareths and Zahids,

and Olasenis and Jimmys and Seans

and Sherrys and Breonnas

and Christophers and Georges.

But this isn't just about deaths,

but about life.

And about our human flourishing together.

And all of us are needed for that.

Racism wants to stay invisible.

Expose it.

Racism wants your silence.

Make a noise.

Racism wants your apathy.

Make a commitment now to use your voice

and your privilege and your power

to fight for racial justice always,

and to join the crescendo of voices
calling for change.

And to be part of the hope.

Will you join us?