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Anti-Racism Educational Pack ESCALATION OF HATE 3: THE LADDER OF RACISM Age: Primary Time required: 30 – 40 minutes Resources: sets of 5 definitions, large paper or flip chart paper with ladders drawn on (could get young people to do this), post-it notes, white board and pen. Delivery: Begin by creating a definition of racism with the young people. There are some activities in the first section of this education pack (page 9) that will help you to deliver this. Once this has been made and written up on the whiteboard, ask the young people to think about how racism starts. What must happen first before racism gets very serious? How does it get so serious? Use the Holocaust as an example; how was it possible that over six million Jewish people were murdered? Explain that after the Holocaust, psychologists tried to understand how it had happened and one explanation was called the ‘Ladder of Prejudice’ or the ‘Ladder of Racism’ (Based on Gordon Allport’s scale in his book ‘The Nature of Prejudice’ First Published: 1954; 25th Anniversary Edition: Basic Books, 1979) On the board write these five key words: Extermination Physical attack Speech Discrimination Avoidance Give the young people a couple of minutes to discuss what each of these words mean with the person sitting next to them. Share the definitions of each word from the pre-prepared sheets (Escalation of Hate 3 supporting materials: Definitions) and clarify anything the young people are unsure of. Explain to the group that these things happen in an order, starting with the least damaging type of behaviour and ending with the most damaging type of behaviour. This can be represented on a ladder; each rung representing one of these words in the order. Split the young people into groups of five or six and hand out the large paper with ladders drawn on and

a set of definitions to each group. Ask them to try and position the words on the relevant rung of the ladder. Once groups have had time to decide, ask them to share the order with you. Stick up the words with their definitions in the right order on a ladder drawn on the board. Ask the young people to individually think about examples of any of the stages on the ladder. This could be anything that they have experienced, witnessed or heard about in their own lives and communities. Get them to write these on post-it notes without including any names of people or any details that would make it obvious who it involved. Once they have written their examples down ask them to come and stick their post-it note next to or on the relevant rung of the ladder. Discussion Points: • Are the young people surprised to see so many examples of acts of prejudice happening in their own communities? • How does it make the group feel that people are experiencing these types of things? • What have the young people learned from looking at the ‘ladder of racism’? Explain how one stage of the ladder leads to the next, how if we take part in the lower rungs we are creating a society where the more serious things are possible and how we are part of the problem of racism if we are involved in any of the different forms of racism. It is also important to point out that it isn’t always an individual who escalates the racism alone; it is often society as a whole which causes one thing to lead to the next. Unfortunately because there have been genocides across the world, including the mass killing of Jewish people during World War II, we know that it’s possible for hate to escalate – if people do nothing, or add to, the things that seem ‘harmless’ or ‘just for a laugh’, they are offering support to other people who may decide to take another step up the ladder of racism. This was Adolf Hitler’s plan during World War II and the result of this plan was the death of approximately 11 million people (over six million Jews).

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Anti-Racism Educational Pack To provoke more discussion about this, you might like to share the following quotes with the young people: “Hitler’s plan was so successful not because so many people were desperate to join his army and kill people, his plan was successful because so many people did nothing” Ruth Barnet, Holocaust survivor “Don’t ignore it by thinking this is the other guy and I cannot be involved, I would say, you have to be involved because if not, god forbid, the same thing can happen again, no matter how wonderful a country is, you only need a couple of people that start spreading rumours and the whole darn thing can come tumbling down worse than an earthquake.” Mollie Stanber, Holocaust survivor "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it is the only thing that ever has." Margaret Mead, American Anthropologist Discussion Points: • How can we prevent the escalation of hate? • How can we intervene and stop the ladder of racism?

• How would it feel to be helping and supporting people to do terrible things? • What can we do to make sure we are not part of racism happening in our society or community?

The ladder of racism is a strong visualisation of the process of hate/racism/prejudice. Explain to the young people that they have the chance to make a change before the racism can escalate.

Deliberate, planned killing of an entire group or groups of people

Extermination

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On people or property

Physical Attack

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Name calling, words, jokes, rumours, gossip

Speech

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Treating people differently and unfairly

Discrimination

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Leaving people out, ignoring, not including people

Avoidance

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