7 things I’ve learnt so far from the black lives matter movement

Following on from my recent post where I shared a few of the books and resources I’ve been diving into over the past week, I wanted to share 7 of the things that I have learnt, specifically as a white woman over the last while, in the hope that they may encourage or help you to learn more about structural racism or start to unpack your own privileges. These lessons and learnings are gathered so far from “Why I’m no longer talking to white people about race” by Reni Eddo-Lodge, Layla Saad’s blog post, White fragility by Robin DiAngelo and some podcast episodes from CTZN.

I’m writing this post for 3 reasons – 

1. It is a collection of my own learning up to this point, and since high-school, one of the best ways I have found for me to really learn, understand and integrate anything is by rewriting it in my own words. So firstly, it’s a personal bedding down of information and self integration post.
2. I have somewhat of an audience on this platform, and as someone with an audience, however big or small, I have responsibility to speak up.
3. My guess (assumption) is that many of my current readers would identify themselves as white (and probably woman), I feel that for some people starting out on this learning journey it is perhaps an easier entry point to this work through another white woman’s perspective who is also learning. I want to make it very clear though, that this does NOT mean that you shouldn’t learn from the black voices in this space – in fact, I highly encourage, advocate and think that learning from black voices is a VITAL and necessary part of this work. It is exactly what this work is about. I hope my writings here, just give you an entry point to that work, if you need it.

MY LEARNINGS

1. Racism is not personal, it’s structural.
This is I think the first hurdle that many white people need to climb over as entry into this work. We tend to think that to be “racist” is to be a bad person. Robin DiAngelo explains this really well in White Fragility (Linked above), that most of us are taught as young white children not to make prejudice remarks about people who have different skin colours than ours. To make prejudice remarks about someone because of their skin is seen “as racist” and this as we are taught, is bad. So we draw the round-about conclusion as adults that as long as we don’t make racist comments or judgements about other people based on their skin then we are not racist. Shew! Lucky that! Because nobody wants to be racist!

When we can get over this initial hurdle – that racism is not something you do or don’t say about others, ie it is not PERSONAL, it is a SYSTEM and a STRUCTURE into which we fit, it enables us to really dive into this work. On a personal level you can claim to be “not-racist” in that you don’t make prejudice comments about others (to use an easy example), and at the same time, if you are white (or white-passing) you ARE RACIST, because you are living (and complicit) in a system and structure which favours you based on your skin tone, whether you have acknowledged this or not. Structural racism is nothing to do with your individual character.

2. Prejudice and racism are different.
This was such an interesting lesson for me to learn and Reni Eddo Lodge has a great analogy in her book that I wanted to share with you below, in case you haven’t ordered it yet (Linked above). Prejudice is about having preconceived opinions that aren’t based on reason. We all have internal prejudices and bias. It is part of how we socialise and interact with the world around us and others. Prejudice alone does not have lasting impact. However she goes on to describe an unofficial definition of racism as – 

RACISM = PREJUDICE + POWER.

She then goes on to explain a really clear and easy to see real life example of the difference between prejudice and racism. She was once ordering some food from a Caribbean eatery. The black owner of the eatery waited for his white customers to leave before turning to Reni and saying that he “saves the best cuts of meat for ‘people like us’”. In her reflections, she recognises that this man’s actions are an example of prejudice, favouring one over another – the kind we all have – BUT, given that the Caribbean eatery owner has no real “power”, his action of saving the best cuts of meat for “people like us”, has no lasting impact in the structure of the society. 

On the other hand, think about all the positions of power – CEOs, business leaders, corporate bosses, executives, producers, store owners, law firms, ad agencies, governments, hospitals, estate agents, schools, and policy makers in which the positions of power are disproportionally held by white people, usually men.
In THESE instances, prejudice PLUS positions of power create lasting impact on the structure of society as a whole. It is interesting to think about racism in this way. 

3. Being a moderate (aka quiet) white is more damaging than being a radical prejudice white.
This was for me has been the hardest pill to swallow so far and I thank Reni’s book for the learning I have had on this. She references a quote from Martin Luther King – which explains exactly this when he says that the biggest stumbling block towards black freedom is “the white moderate who is more devoted to “order” than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice.”

If we reflect on the killing of George Floyd, most (sane) white people can agree that it is a gross misuse of power (prejudice + power) and completely NOT ok. We are shocked and outraged. And yet, (perhaps up until this point) what work have we been actively doing to uncover our own privileges? To dig deep into our own prejudices? To look at what whiteness brings us? To dismantle institutional inequalities? For many of us, up to this point perhaps – there has been very little or no work at all in these areas. We are happy as white people to silently exist (say nothing, do nothing) in this system which overwhelmingly benefits us, EVEN IF IT MEANS BLACK PEOPLE ARE BEING KILLED FOR NO REASON AT ALL. This was really a wake up call for me. To be quiet about this, is to be complicit in it. To not do the work, is to be complicit in it. To say nothing and do nothing, means you are in agreement with and silently support innocent people being killed for no reason. And being complicit in this goes against what I believe about the value of people. 

4. Not centring yourself as a white person takes conscious effort.
For those of us who are white we are at the centre of the stage (whether you are an introvert or an extrovert you are at the centre of the stage). When we engage with this work it takes a lot of conscious effort and re-wiring to not put ourselves at the centre. Stepping back and stepping down is hard work because for so long it’s just been the norm.

For a really tangible personal example of this – a few days ago, I was about to interview Michael Ernest for the Kombucha and Colour podcast on a episode about racism within the yoga industry. If I’m honest, I was really nervous to interview him for fear of getting something wrong or causing offence in some way through my own ignorance. I went for a walk around the park before our conversation to clear my head. I knew that talking about race on a podcast, it would be important for people who are not familiar with Michael to know his race so they can understand his experience. From what I had seen of Michael on his instagram feeds, he appeared to me to be lighter-skinned, and so the main thing that was going around my head was, “What do I identify him as? Black? A person of colour? How can I not cause offence when I ask him what I can identify him as? How can I know the right way to identify him?” I walked around the park a few times really mulling this over. 

It was only well into my walk when it dawned on me that this was an explicit and prime example of white-centring. I had completely centred MYSELF in his story.
”What do I identify him as? How can I not cause offence when I ask him what I can call him? How can I know the right way to identify him?” It was only once I had realised this (it took a few park-laps), that I was able to completely take myself out the story with a very simple rephrasing – 
“Michael, how do YOU identify yourself?”
So simple and yet so hard to recognise. 

5. If you believe in women’s rights, you must be anti-racist.
This was also a big learning that came from Reni Eddo Lodge’s book. In my own journey of self empowerment and womanhood, I’ve been more and more into speaking about the empowerment of woman, woman’s rights and the importance of the feminine rising. It was only after diving into this book on race, that I can really appreciate that not ALL women experience women’s rights in the same way in that there is still a massive gap between what a white woman experiences in her life and what a black woman does. The very strong argument then comes up, that if you believe in women’s rights and you want to champion the empowerment of women – then you HAVE to be ANTI-RACIST and active in the anti-racist work, so that ALL women are empowered, valued and seen. You cannot separate these things.

6. These learnings need to be integrated into your life in order to have lasting effect.
It’s taken centuries to establish this current racist system that we are living in and it is going to take time to unravel it all. It is not a one-week fad floated around on instagram, but rather something that is requiring active daily self reflection and integration.

Five years ago I stopped eating meat (I still do eat fish, as my body does need it), but part of that transition for me was in feeling like I was seeing the world in a different way, like some kind of veil was lifting, my awareness and consciousness was shifting and I didn’t want to be part of or ingest things from mass slaughter houses, and crammed chicken-lots. It no longer felt aligning to me. In many ways I am feeling a similar “lifting of the veil” feeling right now as I am learning about structural racism. 

Just like there was this weird and awkward ‘transition-time’ when I was newly becoming vegetarian “um, thanks for having us for dinner, I know I was eating steak the last time I came here, but I’m not really eating it any more…” There will be a period of this type of awkward transition time when we engage with this work with the people around us. We have to move through the awkward and uncomfortable transition time to find our new normal.

7. You will make mistakes, and it’s ok. 
The ability to stay OPEN in the face of messing up is one of the fundamental things I have taken from my yoga practice and self development over the years. When we are faced with feeling like we have made a mistake or have done something which is wrong, ignorant, silly or stupid, we have the option to close down, shut off and go into victim mode (this is especially true in our closest relationships), but we also have the opportunity to stay OPEN, receptive and take deep learning from the experience. 

If you have followed me online for some time, you will know that I have been cartooning myself, a white blonde cartoon lady in a pink dress (aka above) – for almost 10 years! I have always cartooned myself as a way of personal story telling. It started out as something entirely fun for me to document my own life online – but over time evolved and grew as many people started to follow along with this white-blonde-little cartoon-lady-in-a-pink-dress (little ol me). When I began my yoga teacher training, I continued to doodle myself as I was sharing my personal journey of becoming a teacher, on my blog and on my instagram page, just as I had always done. It was early on in my journey to teaching – where I was sharing a cartoon of me teaching yoga and my experience of it so far with the “crazy shit that yoga teachers say” – it was picked up by a big yoga website and shared to their facebook page, when a woman of colour commented that it was “so sad to see the yoga teacher depicted as a blonde white woman” and then went on to lambaste the representation of yoga in the Eurocentric world. 

At that stage in my journey and understanding of structural racism and the importance of representation (which was very clearly little), I was very defensive in my response to her – stating that I only draw things which are authentic to me and, as a white, blonde female  yoga teacher, I didn’t feel the need to apologise for drawing myself, (just as I had been doing for several years online), and stated that in both frames I had intentionally drawn other characters/people in the frame with skin tones different from mine. As I shared this story online the following day, I drew a picture of myself (white blonde female) with a thick black charcoal face mask on, asking that if I was sharing a personal story of myself as a yoga teacher and I am a white blonde female, would I need to add “dye my hair or try and change my skin tone” to make it represent someone else? (aka wearing a black-charcoal face mask). Someone in the comments told me this was “blackface” – which I had to look up because I had never heard that term and was completely ignorant to it, I have to admit that back then, once I did look it up, I completely brushed it off – because I wasn’t ready to do the work as I am now. My level of self awareness and openness to really look within myself for true change, wasn’t what it is now. I apologise for that transgression and the insensitivity of it towards black people and people of colour – I didn’t know better back then. 

I am still trying to find the balance of both standing in my worth to be able to share my own personal story and experience, as a white woman, and at the same time, not letting it become white-centred or unrepresentative. In this regard I am still learning, but I wanted to assure you that making mistakes, getting it wrong is part of this work. It’s how we learn from those mistakes that we can integrate and take forward with us for positive change. 

These are some of the main learnings and shifts that I have been having over the last while and I have no doubt there will be more to come once I’ve had a chance to dive a bit deeper into some more books, podcasts and resources. We shared on the Kombucha and Colour podcast that this work is a marathon not a sprint. If you have anything that you have learned over this last while, then I would love to read them – please do leave a comment below. 

Let’s wake up and do the work, with together.