Dear Ally …

Like many women of colour, I have found the more nuanced racist behaviours the most difficult to respond to, the undermining stares when I am the only person of colour in the room, the racist compliment when they exoticize the colour of my skin and look at their own with dismay. The discomfort when people start talking about ‘them’ and realise I am sitting at the table. Denial of unconscious bias when I share I know I didn’t get that job, promotion, opportunity, or a chance to speak up because of the colour of my skin. I have swallowed down many attacks and sometimes said nothing to minimise my distress.

If childhood had gifted me the tools to navigate racism, I know my life would have been different. It wouldn’t have necessarily prevented me from being exposed to racism, but it would have given me the tool kit to know how to respond. It was deeply upsetting not knowing how to say, hey, wait a minute, what you just said there or did is not okay.

Now I have the tools I am dealing with the reality it isn’t ever easy to have the racism conversation. The truth is, having the tools might provide a pathway with a clear, supportive way of explaining, but it doesn’t account for the stress of the conversation and the denial of which folks still, too often, respond.

This denial, a construct of white fragility, is painful and creates toxicity that needs processed. It’s work we shouldn’t have to do, and it’s time we shouldn’t have taken from us. There shouldn’t be a choice of who we can and can’t have the conversation with; there should be a universal understanding the history of racism has created realities of racist mindset and behaviour.

If folks cannot step out of white fragility to hear us, all the tools and resources we have are redundant festering on the scrapheap of the oppressed.

If you don’t have a lived point of reference, you can only relate through learned experience, and sadly it doesn’t mean you are a switched-on evolved ally because you have done your homework. We can only truly evolve through meaningful connection with lived experience; this is where we truly get it and understand.

Allies honour the lived experience; let us speak and value our truth, and when you are called out, don’t take it personally. See it as an opportunity to acknowledge the harm the system of white supremacy has caused you and the healing you can create for yourself and others.