“When you’re accustomed to privilege equality can feel like oppression”, Jody Day 2018
As you all know I’ve been having a lot of conversations around race so you won’t be surprised at how excited I was to come across the Project Love platform thanks to Sophia Andeh, where Selina Barker has a conversation with Nova Reid about race, white privilege and dismantling racism (you’ll understand once you listen to the podcast). Nova Reid she is an anti-racism educator – I just love that title – and runs courses on Race and White privilege.
From my own experience of talking about race, or should I say observing how white people react to me/ people of colour raising concerns about a potentially racist situation, I see the need (from said white people) to shut it down. To be fair not all white people I’ve spoken to are that unconformable talking about race which could be to do with the position they are in that particular conversation, however when you are in that uncomfortable moment, it’s as if they want to remove the awkwardness as well as any possibility of them being racist themselves – let’s not take a peek into the looking glass to see what lies within [insert sinister voice]. But as I’ve often said how can there be healing, how can this change if we are not willing to have these difficult and yes at times uncomfortable conversations?
I often wonder why we can’t talk about race without it being “shrouded in stigma, secrecy and silence”? I must admit I’ve found that I am starting to feel agitated when I hear about “inclusion and diversity” when the very people talking about it have not done the work to hear, let alone understand the voices/ stories from people of color let alone done the work to look deep into themselves and see what truly lies within. If we are not able to openly talk about race and our experiences of race how can we possible learn why we got here in the first place? As mentioned in the podcast “racism is insidious, unconscious, systemic…” we are no longer (just) looking at the stereotypical figures such as the aggressive KKK member or the football hooligan, racism (microaggression) is done by everyday people on a subconscious level that they are not even aware of – it’s not about a good or bad person. Unfortunately and unhelpfully the lack of conversation will hold us back from seeing the change that needs to happen. There are not just the obvious forms of racism anymore because racism is broader than what has traditional been defined but until this is recognized it will never change.
The hard truth is that we live with a history of legalized slavery, legalized as treating black people as sub-normal, where white is the default, where the message is that one is more superior than the other. Nova Reid teaches that;
- We have unavoidable racist views programmed into us and
- Children form racial bias from 3 years old, they learn their social queues from by what we do and don’t do – negative stereotypes leads to internalized racism and low self esteem.
To move away from this there needs to be some de-programing.
One of the problems is that there is an automatic response of defensiveness around the conversation (sound familiar??? yep this scenario is all around us, it’s with us everyday) but our defensiveness means that we have lost the capacity to listen which in turn shuts down our capacity for transformation of growth – change cannot happen without the difficult stuff!!!
I’ve heard white people say that they are “fearful of saying the wrong thing”, do they always ‘get it right’ in other areas of their lives? Do they have this fear of saying the wrong thing when they are talking with their white friends or colleagues??? What is the fear anyway? Is it about me or is it about you? Is the fear what you’ll find out about yourself??? Is the fear that you will have racism in you???? I did chuckle when I heard Selina mention this realization of herself.
To quote Nova; “release the judgment, guilt and shame around the conversation… we have been born and raised in a society that normalizes white supremacy and there are byproducts of this in all of us. The change won’t happen until individual people collectively start recognizing their power in that change. The silent majority recognizing they are part of the change by doing this work…. and to remove any guilt and fragility and fear around white privilege and recognizing that you can use your white privilege as a superpower and help be part of change…”
Thinking about this I can truly say that this is not just about racism. On reflection I am reminded of a number of scenarios’ (which had nothing to do with race), where I was fearful of saying the wrong thing. But it was those times when I got it wrong that I learnt the most about myself. I often say to people who tell me that they don’t like conflict (not sure who does really) that it is in those difficult situations where we learn. There is freedom in talking about this stuff and until we can get past the ego that doesn’t want to hear or acknowledge this we will remain in a defensive state and we will remain unchanged. If we remove our ego we operate from a place where we are more open and receptive – the work starts on the inside.
Knowledge + Compassion + Action = leads to change
Surely this is where the healing begins???
Click here to listen to the Power Project Love podcast.
Click here to can find out more about Nova Reid. Make sure you also check out Nova’s Ted talk ‘Not all superhero’s wear capes – How you have the power to change the world’
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