In times like this, when I think so much and feel so intensely, my first instinct is to write. Usually impulsively, reflexively, right there as I’m experiencing, or maybe just the day after. Writing has been difficult for me (everything has been difficult for me) in lockdown, which has delayed these words somewhat. That, in part, is why I have taken my time. But I have also chosen to hesitate. Never do I usually sit and stew on what it is I want to say because, perhaps naively, I believe that capturing that timely passion is the utmost important thing, and any mistakes or mis-spoken words in the heat of the moment can be explained later, in good faith. But this is too delicate to put a foot wrong. I cannot undermine myself with a poorly phrased sentence written in haste.
Reiterating how hollowing it feels to be sandwiched between the news coming out of America and the news here at home in the UK is perhaps a waste of words, but it does bear repeating. I do not know how to describe what it feels like to be aware that the colour of your skin marks you out to receive hatred from strangers, to be assessed and characterised and dismissed before you ever get a chance to give an account of yourself, to feel like some of your friends (and for me, as a mixed-race person, my extended family) will never fully see you as a person. It is similar, but only very slightly, to the realisation that comes with being female, when you suddenly, abruptly, understand that being a girl means that you will always be treated differently in the world and how confusing and frustrating that can be. Except, we sort of acknowledge sexism in ways that we do not acknowledge racism. Even the most devoted idiot would admit that women’s position in society is at least different than that of men, even if they refuse to concede that they are deeply unequal.
But racism is a figment of our imagination, so we would be led to believe. Slavery was “abolished”. No one goes on jolly day trips to lynchings anymore. There was a black President! The scaffolding of structural and systemic inequality is hyper-visible to those locked out of the buildings being supported by it, but from the windows, it’s nothing but blue skies over utopia. We all must be hallucinating.
What is happening right now has happened before, again and again and again. The grief that pours out is so overwhelming, so heavy. Having to say “black lives matter” not as a statement, because it is true, but as a plea, because the world makes it untrue, is emotionally devastating. I hurt for black people, my people, because they are the last stop on a railroad of bullshit, getting it all dumped on them. Hundreds of years of bullshit. And every time we dig enough to see light we can tunnel out through, another load comes down, trapping us in the heap.
It is not for me to give a history lesson because so many other people do it better than I do, understand more, articulate better. There are smarter, more efficient people than me who have done the work of compiling resources and information to better enable us to help in this situation. Present solutions to millennia of problems. The measure of this moment is not just what happens now, but what we are inspired to do beyond this, when the hashtags stop trending and the news cycle churns to the next disaster.
How will we all keep hold of this energy, this fire burning in our bellies right now? I admit, I have not always been a good ally. Not to my own community, nor to others that I am not a part of. I have been lazy. I have been wilfully ignorant. I have been consciously — always consciously — harmful in the past. Which is not to say that as an 8-year-old, or a 13-year-old, or a 17-year-old or a 23-year-old I was wise to the wider implications of a throwaway gag, or the dismissal of an issue because it didn’t feel personal to me, or how I was contributing to the further invisibility of certain minority groups. But that I knew that I was not being a kind person or a good person or a helpful person when I made that comment, or laughed along with that joke or rolled my eyes at someone’s plea for recognition. As much as we may feign ignorance on the rare occasions we find ourselves pulled up on it, I don’t believe that anyone, even small children, doesn’t know deep down, when we are being hurtful.
Sitting with that knowledge of myself was not, has not been, nice. I make this admission because sometimes I think that our own egos may well be the biggest hurdle to overcome when it comes to heading down the right path. Acknowledging we have to improve means acknowledging, even if it is just privately to ourselves, that we have been shitty, horrible people. When we speak of the “discomfort” of “having the conversations”, I think this is what we’re addressing, isn’t it? The discomfort of seeing ourselves in an unfavourable, unflattering light. It is so much easier to be defensive and combative and check out of your responsibility than it is to just concede that you’re a dickhead. Particularly when you know that if you make a visible effort to fix up “cancel culture” may well be quick to pull the This You? receipts on you. You could get all the way up to the line and that sinking feeling of mortification at yourself could have you turning back, turning your back, on what is right. But I have some good news! Years of watching reality TV shows from Changing Rooms, to The X Factor, to Queer Eye have shown to me that people love a makeover! It’s never too late to stop being busted and start being fabulous.
Less flippantly speaking, I think it’s important in this moment, for people to truly come to terms with the fact that changing yourself and by extension the world, is not going to be the glorious, affirming, heroic, love and light experience you may imagine. You have to get past that and accept that instead, it’s going to be embarrassing and painful. You may well feel guilt, though this is really not about guilt. How can we feel guilty for being born into and falling to the influence of a world that was not of our making? Guilt is self-serving. It isn’t useful. I haven’t been guilty about falling short of the bar for being a truly decent person in a long time. But I’ve been angry. Very angry. We should all of us — black, white, asian, gay, straight, male, female, trans, able-bodied, disabled — all of us, should be angry. With our governments, with our media, and with ourselves for being arrogant and inconsiderate enough to think we can opt out of humanity. Hasn’t the coronavirus revealed to us now, more than ever, how reliant we are upon each other? Not on our stupid, not-fit-for-purpose politicians who have left us unprotected, our health and our finances at risk, people not able to feed their children or pay their bills. Each other! And not just our own personal networks, or our local neighbours. Globally, we are weaved together intrinsically. Our systems, the ones we are told are robust and strong and beneficial to everyone, have been exposed as fragile, in need of bail out and only enriching to the already rich over and over again, but can’t you really feel it this time? We cannot keep living like this.
It is used more often than not as a pejorative nowadays, but to me being “woke” simply means no rest. Now that I know the things I know I cannot unknow them. I can push them down, I can rationalise my position on them, I can tell myself the odd £20 donation here and there is helping. I have done that, in fact, for years. Some people will even spin themselves whole delusions that tell an opposite story to the truth to protect themselves from confronting their own shitty, horrible compliance, but there is just no unknowing these things once your eyes have been opened to them. And I can’t sleep. Literally and figuratively. I am not a religious person and I do not hold myself to many guiding principles, but I do find it difficult to lay down at night undisturbed when I have the feeling in my chest that I am not doing the right thing. From young I have got myself into trouble, lost opportunities, walked out on opportunities, made enemies throughout life because ultimately, I will always put my ethics before my advancement. And here I am at yet another tipping point.
What’s eating me right now? That even after years of doing better, what I am realising is that I should do more, can do more, if I can only get over my own selfishness and push past the lazy part of me that longs for convenience over resistance — in both senses of the word. There is a childish reticence in me that resents the position I am in. Having to even put time into writing this instead of doing literally anything else, I resent. I’m too smart and hot and fun for this to be my life, y’know? I don’t want this for me! But it can’t wait anymore. It’s too urgent. It’s not enough to simply be “aware”. It’s not enough to hold myself to certain standards and shrug at others. Commitment to improving this world and leaving it better than it was when I arrived is not a mix & match, opt in/opt out package. I have to make this part of my routine, be as mindful as possible in everything that I do. I have to be all in. We have to be all in.
So what to do? Unfortunately, I don’t know the answers that will solve the problem. I am not a seasoned activist. I haven’t even been salt and peppered. I am just a regular, bland person who cannot keep shifting the pressing issue of human liberation down her list of priorities anymore. I am reading more, learning more, examining my lifestyle, thinking about where my money goes, reconsidering the company I keep, trying to stay focused not only on the life I would want to live if I didn’t have to shoulder this burden, but on the life I need to live to get to that peaceful feeling. I am trying to turn the dread into fuel. I want to be motivated by now, not flattened by it. I am saying it out loud so that it doesn’t become just another “new year’s resolution” to be forgotten about by the end of July. I am pledging to pull my weight. No slacking. No selfishness.
Social media gets a bad rep, and I mean, honestly? Yes, it can be a real cesspit. Everyone with the own soapbox, shouting about their own thing and all we have is a garble of noise, of disinformation, of grift. But if you can get your frequency tuned in to just the good stations, it’s really down to social media that I was ever exposed to so much of the information I now consider vital in shaping my worldview. I got my values from my parents but my community spirit has been born this past decade through “living alongside” a whole myriad of people online. People that I’m almost certain would never have been in my life otherwise. I can see all those people, from their varied walks of life, horrified by what is happening right now. I really hope that feeling sticks around.
Because I know that often it feels like in this forest of fuckery each generation is tasked with clearing out, we keep pulling up weeds because felling the trees is harder. But if we could all come together at once and chop at just this one particular tree we’re all looking at right now, until it comes down, that would be progress. And then, together, we move on to the next tree. And then the next, and the next, and the next. Some trees will crash into others as they topple and take them out at the same time, which will speed the job up. Then suddenly our field of vision will be clear enough that the weeding takes but a moment and we can rebuild in the space we have freed up. That would really be progress. And there are so many fucking trees. I know. I know that they are all so urgent. I know that to be living in the shadow of one, or many, of the trees waiting for your turn is agonising. But I honestly don’t know how else to do this except to pull together, all of us, every tribe, as one force and put our collective energy into each tree one by one until none are left standing. We owe it to each other to promise that we will help bring down every tree, even the ones that aren’t blocking our own personal sunlight.
Don’t get me wrong. This work is going to be long and boring. When I say trees need chopping down, well, none of us have axes! Just plastic knives! Signing petitions takes but a moment, but researching a topic? Figuring out where best to donate what small cash you have spare? Emailing your MP (or your representative, or the CEO of a company, or even just your friends to signal boost)? Knowing when town halls are? Knowing which elections outside of the big banner general ones are coming up? Hell, even just dragging your ass up and out on an afternoon to protest and make your voice heard when you would rather be chilling? None of this is fun. And as I mentioned, I resent that I have to do it. But it has never been clearer to me that I have to. We all have to. All the time. Not just for the next week or so because we feel like eyes are on us and everyone else is doing it. Forever, until it’s done.
I leave you with a thought that comforts me: there are 7 billion people on this planet and 6,930,000,000 of them are really just trying to get by in life, fall in love, raise a family, have somewhere clean and safe to live, mind their business and die happy. The other 1% are the upper class elite who care only about money and profit and exploitation of the 6,930,000,000. But guess what? There’s 6,930,000,000 of us. It’s time we remembered it.
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