Rural Racism: Racism towards black people in rural areas

Abstract

The BAME community only makes up 1% of tourism in rural areas, with one of the contributing factors being due to racism. Therefore, this paper will be discussing the problems with rural racism with its focus on black people and their tourism experiences.

Key Words: Racism, Rural, Race, Racial Equality

The countryside has been labelled as a ‘no-go area’ area for black people, this is due to the estimation that black people are ten times more likely to be a victim to racial violence in the countryside (Stephenson, 2006, 144). This has given black people limited access to rural tourism due to the threat of experiencing racism when travelling. The countryside is a predominately white area, in which has communities who have a sense of belonging and have generally never taken a step out of their rural bubble which has led to the communities being unwelcoming and susceptible to stereotyping (Garland and Chakraborti, 2006, 159). The countryside is seen as a peaceful, low crime, and overall idyllic environment, however within the literature found, black people who decide to move to a rural area to leave the urban lifestyle and live in this idyllic environment is not the case. Black people are more exposed to high levels of racial harassment, comments, violent and isolation in these areas (Neal, 2002, 448). Discussing what it is like to live in a rural area as a black person also gives a narrative as to what it would be like as a black tourist visiting these areas which is why it is key to discuss within this paper.

A semi-structured interview was conducted for this paper in order to gather information on a person’s experiences with racism in a rural area. The interviewee was a Cape Verdean female who has had experience with travelling to a rural area as well as living in a rural area. 10 questions were asked for this interview which enabled enough information for this topic to be explored thoroughly and gather enough primary data.
The primary data indicated that overall, in rural areas there is not as much racial aggression, violence, and comments as indicated in the literature in rural areas. However, the interviewee states that she was still treated differently compared to the people around her and was a contributing factor to her moving to a city. The interviewee travelled to rural Spain on holiday and did not encounter any type of racism. However, she felt as though she stood out due to the area being predominately white. These findings concluded overall that the main factor of racism in rural areas is ignorance. The local communities in these rural areas have not experienced or taught themselves about different cultures which is why they tend to have adopted an unwelcoming nature towards black people.

This topic has been explored for this paper due to the lack of research around racism in rural areas in the past few years. Most of the articles found for this paper are 15 years old, in which most explore a very aggressive and violent narrative towards black people. Although racism still happens in rural areas, this study has shown that there has been a slight improvement in racism which means black people may now feel more comfortable visiting a rural area. However, there is still a threat of being treated differently by the local communities, which overall creates a negative tourism experience.

References

Garland, J. and Chakraborti, N. (2006). “Race”, Space and Place. Ethnicities, 6(2), pp.159–177.

Stephenson, M.L. (2006). Travel and the “Freedom of Movement”: Racialised Encounters and Experiences Amongst Ethnic Minority Tourists in the EU. Mobilities, 1(2), pp.285–306.

Neal, S. (2002). Rural landscapes, representations and racism: examining multicultural citizenship and policy-making in the English countryside. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 25(3), pp.442–461.

This paper particularly stood out to me as it is a topic that many people, especially white people have avoiding talking about in the past in a fear that they may seem prejudiced themselves (Apfelbaum et al, 2008). This makes the topic of this paper particularly relevant as if these topics are not spoken about things will never improve, and it is also an extremely relevant topic due to the current BLM movement. The researcher highlighted how black people are limited to the tourism destinations they can visit due to their concerns about racism and highlighted how marginalised groups like the BAME community are treated differently while travelling (Mitten and Wodak,1993). Many of the points in this paper brough up new topics and findings that I had not considered before.

The interview was the perfect addition to this research as it shows this topic from a personal perspective and as the author notes it had some contrasting findings to what could be expected from the literature. To me, this was one of the most interesting parts of the paper as it shows that everyone’s experience is different. The author notes that the literature used is quite dated, and this proves the need for more research on this topic from a more modern perspective, which this paper has given.

This study stated that black people are more likely to experience racism in rural areas and lead them to choose not to travel there. This has an interesting parallel to my own topic relating to gender and Valentines (1989) ‘the geography of women’s fear’ which suggests that women can feel their worlds have been made smaller due to concerns about their safety. Perhaps a future topic could involve an intersection of these two topics involving gender and race and an adaptation of this theory.
Overall, this study brought new insights to the topic of rural racism and challenged the existing literature that may be outdated. The key themes were identified and the project was well researched and has the potential to be explored further in future studies.

References
Apfelbaum, E.P., Sommers, S.R. and Norton, M.I., (2008) Seeing race and seeming racist? Evaluating strategic colorblindness in social interaction. Journal of personality and social psychology, 95(4), 918.
Valentine, G. (1989) The geography of women’s fear. Area 21, 385–390.
Mitten, R. and Wodak, R., (1993) On the discourse of racism and prejudice.