I’m Ready To Re-engage In The Struggle To End Racism, Are You?
It’s been over a year since I stopped regularly writing on topics of racism. Why so long? for those of you who know of my journey, I had reached a point of near burnout and realised I needed to retreat. I have taken time out to heal, receive professional counselling and recover to the point where I can re-engage in the struggle to end racism.
I felt that I became angrier and needed to become more militant in order to get my point across.
During the early months, I was writing from a place of anger and frustration at the heinous racist acts being perpetrated against Black people and people of colour across the globe. I was also frustrated at the mostly white people who consistently expressed surprise, with phrases like “I didn’t know or how bad it is for those people”. There are others who would gaslight and sea-lion us about our lived experience, as though we were just making it up or being over sensitive. All the while I was reliving my own racial trauma commonly known as race-based traumatic stress.
Some of the posts I was reading at that time fed my anger and frustration, such that I felt that I became angrier and needed to become more militant in order to get my point across. I wanted everyone to understand how unfair this situation is.
When we talk about the dystopian life of a black person from a macro global and a micro individual perspective, it was important to me for everyone to know that this is real and affects every Black person without exception, globally. Even with Oprah Winfrey being one of the world’s richest people, her life is still dystopian. With with all of her fame, her power, her influence, and her wealth, she can and is still being treated like a black person.
Black people in majority black societies treat other black people as individuals
No Black person wants to be treated like a Black person, we want to be treated as the individual person we are. White people globally are treated as individuals because this is considered the default; there is white and there is other. Terms like BIPOC and BAME speak of the othering of all people who are not white. Even Jane Elliot’s speech identifies that white people know what it’s like to be treated like a Black person and don’t want that for themselves.
Black people in majority black societies treat other black people as individuals, that’s why it becomes very uncomfortable for people like me who grew up and live in white majority or dominated societies and cultures to feel at peace. We have not learnt how to exist in a society that doesn’t see us as black.
This situation becomes toxic when we deny our blackness in pursuit of acceptance of who we are not. This requires conscious or unconscious acceptance and agreement with oneself that the situation of discrimination and prejudice will never change and so one must make the best of a bad situation. To the point where the individual no longer recognises the dystopian nature of their existence anymore as they continually strive for acceptance.
I thought I had I had to become someone else in order to be heard
I reached a point of burnout because everything that happened everything I wrote about was about me how unfair it was for me. And how you, all of you Black or white, need to change to make life fairer for me.
“Hush Money” written by my Co-AntiRacism Ambassador Jacquie Abram, is an excellent example in explaining the situation for Black people at work and I strongly recommend that everyone read it whatever your race or ethnicity.
But what this and many other books that I have read have missed is how to bridge the chasm of understanding between where we are as Black people and where the default global culture is.
I thought I had to become someone else in order to be heard, to get more likes and followers and to build my platform as an antiracism influencer in order to increase my presence. What I realise now is that I need to come back to my first principle.
It’s not about me, it’s not about how unfair it is for me and how I can change the situation for my benefit.
It’s too late for me!
And even if it is not too late, if I focus on me I limit my effectiveness. I believe that the civil rights activists of their day also recognised this in. Dr. King’s speech just before he was assassinated he said these words,
“But it really doesn’t matter with me now, because I’ve been to the mountaintop … I’ve seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the Promised Land”
I believe he knew his time was coming to an end, but his sacrifice was far greater than his self preservation, in order to win the prize for his children.
In conclusion, my first principal is to bridge this gap, not for me but for my children. It’s not too late for them even though they have already been tainted by the stain of racism. It’s Also for my future grandchildren so that they do not have to suffer as their parents, grandparents and ancestors before them have suffered.
Finally I have learnt that everything I do must be done with love, the bible says in Hebrews 12:11,
”No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.”
So even if I bring hard teaching by what I write, it’s because I love you and I want you to learn to love others who are not like you.
Only then can things change for the better for everyone.
Thank you for taking time to read my words. I would be interested to hear your views on this post.