ELLIE HARRISON
To address racism, we all have work to do to understand the issues.
As the Black Lives Matter movement crescendoed across the world, took the decision to acknowledge it with a film presented by Dwayne Fields about racism in the countryside. The reaction on social media took the production team at least a week to unpick and respond to. I spooled through the comments, which broadly came in three flavours: “I’m not racist so there is no racism in the countryside”; “I’m black and I’ve never experienced racism here so there is no racism in the countryside”; and importantly, “I have experienced racism in the countryside”.
So there’s work to do. Even a single racist event means there is work to do. In asking whether the countryside is racist, then yes it is; but asking if it is more racist than anywhere else – maybe, maybe not. In my rural school we had one black pupil who was generally worshipped for being handsome, sporty and brainy. But his experience may not have felt that way. I enjoy watching the flicker across contributors’ faces when they ask me what we’re doing today and I pass them to Michelle,
black director, saying “ask the boss”. Now feels like a time of reckoning more than many before. Unlike fuzzy CCTV or chest-cameras, George Floyd’s death showed anyone with the stomach to watch it the full-framed face of the man who held him down as he died while acting on behalf of the state, prompting many to ask if this
What I have come to understand too, is that it’s our individual work to wrap our heads around history. For people of colour, so much time, energy and passion has been spent on the same conversations that have been had for generations: educating white people and “hand-holding people through a process that never takes hold” as DuVernay says. Every event people are asked to speak at in the name of educating others is time away from their own lives. It is work for us each to do individually rather than expecting a black friend to educate us simply because they are black.
The work also includes recognising the pain of the past and the lingering ambient racism we don’t get to feel. It means acknowledging that we have benefited from our past, the behaviours of many generations ago. It means noticing that for white people, skin colour is not the cause of hardship and suffering, even if our lives haven’t been easy. It’s seeing a problem, even if it isn’t a problem to us; asking what the grievances are and listening to what the solution is. It’s not just protesting about cruelty but being motivated by fairness and making room. And far beyond policing, it’s about economic equality too, which, going back to the
of 1773, snatched lands for rich friends, putting most of us in an equality mess.
Revolution isn’t a one-time event, a single act or one election. It’s decades in the making, being part of a moral coalition with people worldwide and keeping our foot on the pedal of what’s right for the whole journey of our lives.