I want to preface this piece by acknowledging a couple things, namely:

I can’t speak for everyone’s opinion – this is just a reflection my own behaviour.

I’m scared of saying the wrong thing and what people might say.

But, it feels important to me write this irrespective of that fear, because it feels like a step in a positive direction.

I’m a young white woman, and as such that affords me the privilege of not being prejudiced against because of my skin colour, and don’t have an nth of an inkling what it’s like to face racism, in all its forms, large and small. I deal with a whole other set of prejudices due to my disability so while I I feel like I can empathise to that limited degree, I don’t understand. I never will, but I want to learn and teach myself how to be a better ally.

On May 25th, when George Floyd was killed by a Minneapolis police officer, my Twitter feed exploded. People came together to express their outrage and stand in solidarity. I sat for a while, wrestling these feelings of anger and disgust that something so barbaric went on, but also what riled me up even more was the fact that the officer in question was so blase about the fact he was kneeling on a man’s neck whilst he was struggling to breathe, and that the three other attending officers did nothing. The four officers have all been fired and Derek Chauvin, the officer in question eventually charged with second degree murder.

I sat there, watching all these people add their voices to the outrage and highlighting the Black Lives Matter movement, and after multiple attempts, found I couldn’t, despite the anger and shame I was feeling, because everything I attempted to write just sounded inadequate and  meaningless.  I know as well that there was an element of fear in that decision: fear of messing up, offending, the backlash if I did inadvertently say the wrong thing, the “I don’t know enough, therefore I’m not getting involved”, all of that was in there, and as a result I stayed silent.

This has definitely changed the way I look at social media lately: people who I admire and those I consider friends are being incredibly brave and vocal in their support, and that’s wonderful. On the flip side, there seems to be those who say that silence equates to complicity, and it’s causing a lot of friction within friendship groups and amongst my various communities. To be brutally honest, my knee jerk reaction to that way of thinking is one of dislike, doesn’t it create more problems if we are all fighting amongst ourselves and avoiding the bigger issue? There’s an immense sense of pressure around that I’ve struggled to reconcile with.

For the avoidance of doubt, I’m not saying we shouldn’t be vocal against racism, absolutely we should. But whereas I’m not posting or retweeting about it, I’m fighting for the cause in small ways – mostly through expanding my reading list to encompass a more diverse set of authors and non fiction as well. I’m also donating what I can to various causes, both local and worldwide – thankyou to those friends who have directly and indirectly helped me on both of these counts! I’m also having a massive sense of a wake up call about racism in the theatre industry thanks to folks sharing their stories and experiences. It made me realise I could do more to affect and support change for the better whilst still loving it the way I do.

Small steps to be a more pro-active ally have been huge for me – I cannot easily get out and protest the way people have due to my disability and the pandemic. I’m hopeful that these small ripples will translate into big change. It’s a learning curve that I know will have challenges, but I want to rise to it.