What does your daily anti-racism work consist of?

It is not even a year ago when everyone supposedly woke up and looked racism into the eye, for many that was the first time in their lives. And BIPOC are still being killed by police. Which is only the tip of the ice berg, it’s what we can see visibly in the media but really it all starts within us. We were brought up in a white supremacist society which taught us that white people enjoy certain privileges without having done anything for it. BIPOCs are being systematically marginalised and that for centuries. It is not enough to engage with anti-racism for one week in one’s whole life, save it in one’s highlights on Instagram and add a black square to one’s feed. BIPOC need more from us, they need us to really do the work, and I know we’ve heard this a lot now but it just has to be said again and again. We need to show up for BIPOC. And this starts within us. It starts at that family dinner where a family member says something racist and we call it out. It starts in your friends circle where jokes about BIPOCs, the Asian community and Jewish people are the norm and understood as totally alright. It starts within us to understand why we have that white privilege, what it means, where it originates and what the consequences of white privilege are for BIPOCs.

I recently read the book called “Me and White Supremacy” written by Layla F. Saad. A great guide to understand what white supremacy is and why we have it all internalised. The book is split in different chapters and is layed out over a month for the reader to digest and reflect properly. At the end of each chapter there are questions that ideally the reader should respond to by writing the answers down for reflection. I believe it can be very eye opening for many and it’s written in a clear way so people understand what this is all about. Don’t think that even if you have read many books and studied anti-racism you don’t need to do the work (that’s called white exceptionalism: the belief that you are exempt from learning about anti-racism because you think you know it all and spoiler alert I also thought at the beginning I won’t learn anything new from this book). It is a good place to start if you don’t know where to begin with your anti-racism work. Layla F. Saad shows us without judgement how we have been raised in a white supremacist society and what we can do to change our deeply rooted racism (even if you are not overtly racist, we are all racist somewhere deep inside, which comes to the surface in different ways). It’s about understanding that we all carry it inside us and what we can do to be actively anti-racist. It’s not a topic you can choose not to be interested in, and your activism can show up in different ways: protesting, reading about anti-racism, informing people around you, calling out racism, going to talks, having discussions, raising awareness online and offline. There is no one size fits all, but you can pick what works for you. The important thing is that you show up and don’t stop.

Calling out racism can be very daunting for a lot of us because we quickly become the party pooper, or are at least perceived as such because, let me remind you, the real party pooper is the person who said that racist stuff in the first place. Don’t shy away, because the pain that BIPOCs experience every day because of the legacies of colonialism, white supremacy and white privilege is much worse than what you might feel when people get upset at you by calling them out on their racist behaviour. We are no saints, and also I have had situations where I did not stand up and call people out. And I regret it, but I have made a pact with myself that I will do better and start calling people out. Just always remember, you are not the problem by letting someone know they are racist, they are the issue by having this perspective.

It’s also important to understand that one week in 2020 of anti-racism work is not enough. It is a lifelong journey to unlearn what we have internalised. For many 2020 was the first time they engaged with that topic or realised that racism exists which is something I cannot grasp but I don’t want to start bashing people now that they did not realise, but I really wonder sometimes in what world these people live in. What particularly annoys me about social media for example, is that last year in 2020 every white influencer I seemed to be following at that time had their awakening moment, paused for a day to go and (un)learn and listen, post a black square often with the wrong hashtag and that was that. One day of reading and (un)learning and we haven’t heard anything else again, they have since gone back to their usual posts about what they wear and what they eat. What I am really trying to get at is, as I said before, anti-racism work is not something we can choose not to engage with, it should be on our every day agenda whichever way it might look for you. It is such an important topic and we need to understand that by staying silent we harm BIPOCs (white silence: by not doing the work, not calling people out and causing real harm with this).

Anti-racism work is not here to point the finger at anyone and one of the most important thing to understand when starting your anti-racism journey: it is not about you. This is not about blaming you, it’s not about making you feel bad or wanting to change what our ancestors have done. It is about creating a better world for BIPOCs to live in and that can only be done when we start with ourselves. You will feel bad and miserable because you step out of your rosy world into what this is really about. And it’s not something you will get a reward for either. And please also don’t look for approval and admiration for doing the work. Just do the work, read, get books and really dig deep within yourself, listen to podcasts, follow the people online who speak out about anti-racism, and don’t ask BIPOCs to explain it to you, that is not their task and there is numerous information online that can be accessed.

So on that note, go off and start or continue (un)learning.