Zandra Yeaman, Curator of Discomfort, and JP Reid, Projects & Exhibitions Manager, challenge us to move beyond individual moral performance towards structural accountability, material redistribution, and sustained institutional change.
Content Warning: This piece uses racialised terms such as “white people,” “People of Colour,” and “racialised communities.” We know race is a social construct, not a biological truth. However, to address racism, we must name how it operates.
There is a particular anxiety that surfaces in conversations about race: the fear of getting it wrong.
The fear of saying the wrong word.
The fear of asking the wrong question.
The fear of being labelled racist.
This fear shows up in workplaces, in social media discussions, in diversity initiatives, in museum boards, in policy meetings, and in everyday conversations. It often leads to silence, defensiveness, or withdrawal.
But what if this fear is not a step toward anti-racism at all? What if it is a function of the very system it claims to resist?
What if the fear of ‘getting race wrong’ is itself an expression of racism?
Racism Is Not Theoretical: The Scottish Context
Let’s think about some of the realities.
In 2022, Museum Galleries Scotland delivered recommendations to the Scottish Government, accepted in January 2024, focused on addressing the legacies of Empire and slavery in Scotland’s museums. One key recommendation:
‘anti-racism must be embedded in workplaces and public spaces.’
However, statistics tell us that we are far from that reality.
Under the Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act, Police Scotland recorded 4,794 hate crimes in 2024.
Research by the Coalition for Race Equality and Rights (CRER) shows racialised people are 60% more likely to live in deprived parts of Scotland than their white counterparts and experience poorer employment outcomes in public sector recruitment.
In our sector, a Museums Galleries Scotland workforce survey from 2022 suggests most museum organisations do not systematically publish or share ethnicity data, and only a minority collect it in a way that can be disclosed.
Further research in 2023 indicates that across UK museums (including Scotland), around 92–98% of staff have identified as white, with ethnic minorities (sometimes grouped as BPoC – Black and People of Colour) making up only a small fraction of the workforce.
Racism is not abstract. It is measurable. It is structural. It is ongoing.
Despite the evidence of racism, when race is discussed, the dominant anxiety often centres not on these outcomes, but on white discomfort.
The Moral Binary: Racist vs. Good Person
Many white people have been socialised into a particular moral framework:
- Racism is bad.
- Racists are bad people.
- I am not a bad person.
- Therefore, I cannot be implicated in racism.
In this binary, racism is framed as individual moral failure rather than structural power. It becomes synonymous with overt hatred, slurs, or violence. Acts that are visible and easy to condemn.
But systemic racism does not primarily function through spectacular villainy. It operates through housing, education, employment practices, cultural authority, institutional design, and accumulated advantage.
To accept beneficiary status within such a system does not mean confessing to personal malice. It means acknowledging positionality.
Yet identification as a “good person” becomes so central that being called racist is experienced as annihilation rather than invitation. The fear of being labelled racist becomes greater than the fear of perpetuating racism.
And that is the pivot point.
Fear of Being Called Racist vs. Fear of Racism Itself
When white people centre their anxiety about being perceived as racist, the conversation shifts.
Instead of asking:
- How do we dismantle inequity?
- How do we redistribute power?
- How do we address measurable harm?
We begin asking:
- How do I avoid offence?
- How do I protect my reputation?
- How do I prove I am one of the good ones?
The labour moves from confronting injustice to managing white emotion.
This is not allyship. It is dissociation.
White Fragility, Perfectionism, and Control
Sociologist Robin DiAngelo describes “white fragility” as the defensive reactions that emerge when racial assumptions are challenged – anger, denial, withdrawal.
Fragility functions as a protective shield. It closes conversations before transformation can occur.
Closely tied to this is perfectionism, which is often a feature of dominant white organisational culture. Mistakes are framed as catastrophic rather than instructive. People avoid engaging unless they feel fully educated and safe from critique.
However, anti-racism cannot operate on perfectionism.
The questions become: Who is allowed to make mistakes? And who bears the consequences of those mistakes?
White fear of getting race wrong is often accompanied by an unspoken expectation that People of Colour will educate gently, absorb discomfort, and offer reassurance.
This is control masquerading as caution.
As writer and activist Audre Lorde warned, “the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house.”
If white people insist on controlling the tone, pace, and comfort level of racial conversations, they remain inside the structure they claim to oppose.
Working With People of Colour Who Have Lived Experience but Not Anti-Racist Practice
An important and often avoided complexity in this work is this: lived experience of racism does not automatically equate to anti-racist practice.
People of Colour are not a monolith. Nor are they automatically equipped, resourced, or positioned to undertake structural anti-racist work simply because they have experienced racism.
Some may prioritise survival within dominant systems. Some may internalise dominant narratives about meritocracy or neutrality. Some may reject structural analysis in favour of individual explanations. Others may resist being positioned as “race experts” altogether.
For white colleagues, this can create confusion. If a Person of Colour does not challenge a racist policy, does not use anti-racist language, or does not agree with structural critiques, white individuals may feel absolved.
But this is another form of avoidance.
Tokenising a Person of Colour as validation, “They didn’t think it was racist”, is still centring white comfort. It treats lived experience as endorsement rather than recognising the diversity of political positions within racialised communities.
At the same time, it is important not to instrumentalise People of Colour as unpaid educators or moral barometers. Anti-racist practice requires shared political analysis, resources, and structural literacy. It is work. It is not automatically conferred through lived experience alone.
This means organisations must:
- Invest in anti-racist education and practice for all staff.
- Avoid assuming People of Colour will lead this work without support or compensation.
- Recognise internalised racism and survival strategies as products of systemic conditions; not individual failures.
- Build collective accountability structures rather than relying on individual voices.
The presence of People of Colour in a space does not mean the space is anti-racist. Representation is not redistribution.
The White Saviour and the Narrative of Moral Inheritance
This pattern is deeply historical.
Consider how British abolition is commonly narrated. The spotlight often falls on white abolitionists as moral heroes who ended slavery through conscience and courage. Meanwhile, Black resistance is marginalised or erased.
Figures such as Ignatius Sancho and Olaudah Equiano are often treated as supporting characters in a story centred on white moral awakening. Leaders of uprisings and resistance such as Bussa, Queen Nanny, and Tacky, are frequently excised from the mainstream script.
The result? A lineage of white moral righteousness.
If “we” abolished slavery, “we” must be inherently self-correcting. “We” are the good ones.
This historical framing protects contemporary white identity. It reinforces the idea that whiteness exists outside oppression, as ethical arbiter rather than beneficiary.
But systems of oppression are not dismantled by moral self-congratulation. They are dismantled by material redistribution and structural change.
Performative Diversity and the Master’s House
In contemporary institutions; museums, universities, or companies often see programmatic diversity initiatives focused on awareness and bias training.
Yet material inequalities remain:
- Employment disparities persist.
- Promotion gaps endure.
- Deprivation rates differ along racial lines.
- Hate crime statistics remain high.
If white-led activism centres awareness without redistributing power, if it prioritises optics over outcomes, it remains within the master’s house.
The fear of getting race wrong becomes a convenient detour. Conversations are sanitised. Language is softened. Discomfort is minimised. Structural critique is diluted.
The system remains intact.
There Is No Neutral Terrain
“I treat everyone the same.”
“I don’t see colour.”
“I just believe in equality.”
These statements often signal a desire for neutrality. But there is no neutral ground in a structurally biased system.
Silence sustains the status quo. Avoidance maintains hierarchy. Comfort protects power.
The insistence on neutrality narrows racism to isolated acts instead of embedded systems. It keeps racism legible only at its most extreme, while everyday inequity continues uninterrupted.
Breaking the Cycle
So, what would it mean to let go of the fear of getting race wrong?
Reframe mistakes as learning opportunities
Mistakes are inevitable. Refusal to listen, acknowledge and adjust is the harm.
Shift from self-protection to accountability
White discomfort cannot remain the centre of racial discourse. The focus must be material harm and structural repair.
Decentre validation
Anti-racism is not about being seen as good. It is about supporting justice through resource redistribution, direct advocacy, and challenging racist structures in everyday life.
Accept beneficiary status without collapse
Acknowledging implication does not require self-flagellation. It requires maturity.
From Moral Innocence to Sustained Action
Anti-racism is not an identity. It is not a declaration. It is not a shield.
It is a continuum: examination, discomfort, reformulation, action.
The fear of getting race wrong is powerful because it protects a fragile moral self-image. But moral purity is not the goal. Justice is.
The real question is not:
“How do I avoid being called racist?”
It is:
“How do I stay engaged when I am implicated?”
The work begins when white people stop trying to be seen as good, and start committing to sustained, accountable, and often uncomfortable change.
