Speaking as a writer not an author, and daunting as it is, here is a story. Years ago I stood outside a classroom, waiting for my turn to teach, listening to the woman ending her session. ‘Black Majority’ she said ‘is the way I articulate Black people’s power in the world. I use the words to counter the oppression – the racism - they face’. She went on to explain that it was not the number that marks a minority, but the silencing imposed on experience that minimises group voice. I remember her talking about the whiteness of her world, where few Black people were visible - on streets, in text, in storytelling. She said she needed to frame the strength of a group voice against her own privilege. That was decades ago, it was my first memorable lesson in anti-racism. It stuck.
To inform my research I was guided by the storytelling of Black authors – a cultural immersion (Gladwell, 2008). Their stories helped address my own racism, but more importantly helped me write more accurately about the population I was focussing on. Foremost, I wanted to convey in my own storytelling that many of the people I was speaking about were in receipt of racism. I found myself resonating to a growing collection of stories, nodding in recognition of the pain - if not the words that caused it. I began to recognise, but not identify with, the racism carried by seemingly harmless words. I empathised with Reni Eddo-Lodge’s (2017) wish not to talk to white people. I understood Sara Ahmed’s (2017), feelings of being viewed as a problem. Importantly, I acknowledge that there are aspects of their experience I’ll never have to endure. As Pease’s (2013) story of the mirror illustrates, in the morning I never have to consider the problem most people will have with the colour of my skin. That’s my privilege.
As l made my journey, I continued to look out for the characteristic way different stereotypes drive the character of each discrimination. It was a Black woman who taught me that she understood being Black as a choice [her emphasis in capitals]. She spoke to me of her choice to articulate her belonging to a group of people in receipt of racism. My privilege, she explained was not being white so much as not having to endure the racism she experienced every day - the prejudice, institutional discrimination and global inequality imposed on a Black world majority. As a Black Disabled woman, she said her parents had taught her to frame the disablism she faced as similar to racism. Working in a similar way to other isms, but different in its specific character, a triple whammy.
It was in conversation with a Black trainer that I learned in what way the prejudice she faced was different from mine. My colleague’s name is Smith, yet she tells me how often people ask her to spell it. That’s racism, she says - their prejudice – people are unaware that they expect her name to have an exotic spelling. She is from Peckham she adds pointedly ...
In the words of Marianne Coleman; ‘there are more differences within groups than between them’. ‘Them’ might be useful in pointing to individuals in a park, it has direction and is specific. But trying to identify who is Black, Gay or Disabled it is not helpful. it is probably more true to say that there are people facing racism, homophobia, ageism, transphobia, religious intolerance and ableism ... WHEREVER we gather.
Because the myths about groups have different characters, I feel that we need a conversation about the cumulative negative impact of -isms more than ever. As those in receipt of double or triple prejudice are undoubtedly under greatest likelihood of exclusion in society and in its storytelling. ‘AND’ I find is more useful than EITHER / OR in these matters. We have a long way to go to address racism AND all other forms of oppression, AND we need not choose between them to work under a duty and with agency to dismantle the stories that threatened their lives.
An anti-racist language was easier to adopt than one with a more Intersectional fluency. I think this is because there is such a pull on us to see things in binary, sometimes the ‘them’ and ‘us’ is formed in our hearts before we’ve properly had a chance to un-think it. As a writer I found it hard to talk about ‘we’, avoiding ‘them’ and ‘us’. Statements of identity are personal, and multifaceted. It would be hard to be on the end of any spectrum.
These matters became spiny issues in my thesis. Because when dealing with a storytelling that silenced Disabled people’s stories (Coleman, Brunell, & Hauge, 2014). Not only was it hard to find ‘disability’ on the list of Equality and Diversity literature, but it was rare to find disability studies added to a wide range of critiques. It is telling that early disabled campaigners, fighting for human rights made links between the oppression they faced and the one that drove the apartheid that harmed Black South Africans (Finklestein, 1999). Unlike Ms Smith, I have an unusual maiden name: Mulhern. From an early age I remember my mother having to spell - M U L H E R N - every time we went anywhere requiring identification. In my head I heard the chant as I learnt to write … in two different languages. Yet, I can remember people adding Es, As and Ss! Was it because I could not be trusted to spell my own name correctly?! I also observe, that many of my friends will rarely have people invading their privacy, asking rude questions or telling them what to do and what to say as often as I do. I’m disabled, they are not, that’s their privilege, however those that are allies speak to the power of Disabled people.
Bibliography
Ahmed, S. (2017). Living a Feminist Life [Kindle Edition] . Duke University Press.
Coleman, J., Brunell, A., & Hauge, I. (2014). Multiple Forms of Prejudice: How Gender and Disability Stereotypes Influence Judgments of Disabled Women and Men. Science+Business Media, 34, 177–189.
Eddo-Lodge, R. (2017). Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race [kindle edition]. London: Bloomsbury Publishing.
Ferguson, P., & Nusbaum, E. (2012). Disability Studies: What Is It and What Difference Does It Make? Research & Practice for Persons with Severe Disabilities, 27(2), pp. 70-80.
Finklestein, V. (1999). Professions Allied to the Community (PACs) . Therapy Weekly, 1-9.
Gladwell, M. (2008). Blink - The Power of Thinking Without Thinking. London: Penguin Books.
Pease, B. (2013). Undoing Privilege, unearned advantage in a divided world. London, New York: Zed Books.
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