“In all these shades of grey”: Of hidden discriminations and everyday racism

Italy's demographic landscape is evolving, with 8.7% of the population now being non-Italian citizens; a shift reflected also in the country’s schools and workplaces. While this diversity fuels innovation, creativity and social and economic resilience, it also brings challenges: pupils with migration background more often have to repeat the school year than their Italian peers (29.9% vs. 8.9%), and are at a higher risk of dropping out: a third of them compared to a national average of 13.1%. Employees with migrant backgrounds often have lower wages than their colleagues with Italian citizenship (migrant workers earn an average of 30% less), and they have more unfavourable working hours than their Italian colleagues. Their intergenerational social mobility is also often more limited.

The insidious subtleness of discrimination

Limited language skills or a lower economic status contribute to these disadvantages, but so do discrimination and racism. Most of this discrimination is subtle and occurs in everyday interactions: stereotypes, jokes, rudeness and insults. These are often un- or under-reported and are notoriously difficult to study. Traditional research methods often fall short in capturing the subtle, everyday forms of discrimination that these young people face. This is especially the case for research with young people or migrants or other marginalized people: power hierarchies and lack of language skills can influence negatively the research results. By using creative tools such as cards, posters and stickers, we found ways to go beyond the verbal, to put the young people at the centre of the research and acknowledge them as the real experts of their experiences.

Back in our classroom, Alessandro, Ahmed and Adina have selected the cards they want to place on the big sheet of paper: the scribbles, the colours, the words that best reflect what they associate with the topics written on the paper - work conditions, relations with colleagues, tasks and responsibilities. “Why did you choose the cards you chose”, my colleague asks. Ahmed laughs, pointing at the red card he just placed on the term “work conditions”: “Red because you have to do what you are told to. You have no choice. [Red] like a traffic light.” He continues joking with his fellow apprentices about the cards they chose. And then suddenly and without prompted, the discussion turns more serious: talks about customers who refuse being served by an apprentice with headscarf, colleagues who snigger at somebody’s accent, employers giving the worst shift to the person with a foreign surname, teachers who don’t take seriously the child with Pakistani parents.

The young people in the classroom never use the words “discrimination” or “racism” to describe what happened; many of the apprentices in the classroom laugh as they describe these moments which, as a single occurrence, could be quickly forgotten. But when they happen again and again, day after day, they morph into exactly that: discrimination and racism. Maria, an experienced teacher we interviewed, explained: “There’s this form of discrimination that you only feel internally. You cannot link it to a law, but you have this feeling in your stomach that something is not ok. And it is exactly there, in these shades of grey, that a lot of discrimination happens.” And Thea who works in the field of non-discrimination, adds: “I feel there is a lot of fear around admitting to yourself of being discriminated. It’s such a part of our culture that even those suffering discrimination have normalized it. There is a lot of discrimination, but it stays under the surface”. At first sight, it might therefore seem as if our schools and workplaces are free of discrimination (“I don’t see any discrimination in my classes”, a headmaster declared). Only upon digging deeper, talking about and around the issue with people directly and indirectly affected by, it, but also with those that the picture becomes clearer: discrimination does exist on an individual level, on a structural and systemic one, but often it is not recognized.

Call it by its name

So what to do with these bad feelings in the stomach, the fleeting perceptions that something is not right, these “shades of grey”? Young people experiencing discrimination need to be empowered so that they are able to call by its name what they are experiencing. People who aren’t discriminated need to be made aware of their privileges and called out for discriminating behaviours. Schools and companies need to implement anti-discrimination measures in their policies, routines and structures. And as a society, we need to ensure that nobody ever normalizes discrimination, neither the victims nor the perpetrators.

All names used in the text are pseudonyms.