Skadegård: racism and bullying should not be conflated, but rather propmt different solutions

In a recent opinion piece in the newspaper Berlingske, Mira C. Skadegård uses a recent interaction with a acquaintance to discuss how racism and bullying differ and why companies need to have policies addressing both. 

Skadegård's acquaintance had witnessed a racist incident and was recommended by a manager to consult the company handbook's section on what to do in cases of bullying. Skadegård however, outlines why bullying, discrimination and racism are not the same. While discrimination and racism target specific groups, bullying can strike anyone.

Find the Danish opinion piece by pressing here.

Discrimination categories such as racism are outlined in both Danish law and in the international human rights declarations. These exist to defy behaviour that reinforce inequality and repression of minoritized groups. Discrimination is in this way inherently tied to an uneven historical power imbalance that is structurally and institutionally anchored and is reproduced through acts of e.g. racism. Bullying on the other hand can happen to both minoritized and majoritized people and this plays out socially, and while a violation, it does not reproduce certain groups as being kept from equal treatment. Therefore, the two - bullying and discrimination such as racism - should not be conflated but instead prompt different solutions. 

Skadegård highlights how different approaches are needed to the different problems which includes clarity in the terms and definitions used. Assuming that "treating each other properly" is enough of a statement we neglect to consider the difference in how people perceive this advice. This can entail social rules and conventions but needs to be distinguished from what we can reasonably or legislatively expect of each other. With these distinctions comes different appropriate responses that need to be varied and clarified.

Read more of Skadegård's research and work by pressing here.