You can do it! You can take one more step!

Decide not to stay

i think i know to some extent how you are feeling. You’re tired. You’re frustrated. You’ve really been making an effort in terms of these race and privilege conversations and you just want to get through another day without having to feel bad about something else. You feel attacked when you’ve tried to give an opinion. You feel misunderstood when you have made every effort to understand. You feel disillusioned but don’t feel like you have the permission to say that. As if you needed someone to give you permission to feel how you feel. This whole thing feels like navigating your way through a minefield, one step at a time, waiting and wondering and listening for the tiny click that will signal your demise. A simple answer on a simple survey about how much you tip your petrol attendant and suddenly someone has jumped on and is probing again. You’re not doing enough. You’re doing too much. You’re too angry about this. You’re not angry enough about that. And now one of your friends has just posted a status asking when we can all just realise that apartheid was finished in 1994 and can’t we just move on? You’re supposed to do something about that, right? Is that the subtle racism you’re meant to have committed to in that status you wrote or liked or retweeted?

REMAIN IN THE GAME

This Race Conversation in South Africa thing is a tough animal. What makes it really difficult is that there is no clear rule book and people are entering the field at different times and in different places. So something that is acceptable for one person is completely insensitive to the next and the one person who comments in a thread had literally just a day before accepted that they have white privilege and finally know the difference between that and feeling like they are meant to be carrying white guilt and then they come head to head with someone who has been an activist for twenty years and is tired of educating the new people.

It is messy and tricky and complex and requires a certain amount of thickened skin to just stay present and involved, but that is the key.

Too many [white] people, at the first sign of push-back or disagreement or challenge, take it personally and disengage or resort to attacking the person rather than engaging with the conversation or issue, and that immediately signals game over. It is so important for us to realise that something as evil and hardcore and cleverly-manufactured [to be honest] that went unchallenged for so long before finally being dismantled in law [which didn’t do much to change or affect mindset or belief or emotion or residue or consequence] is going to take a concerted effort and a really long time to completely bring to an end. “But it’s been twenty years!” is long to someone who has been involved in the struggle for that amount of time or longer, but not even five minutes to someone who is only now grasping ‘white privilege’. Their twenty years begins now.

What may help, as we continue to invite you to participate and engage in conversations and surveys and dinners and thought processes is if you take a deep breath and read through the words on this list, and realise that for us to move forwards in our country, given our history and the levels of animosity that still exist between so many, it is going to take conversations and moments and interactions and maybe even relationships that are:

Awkward

Uncomfortable

Painful

Angry

and involve some form of Sacrifice

We are going to have to get a lot more AWKWARD and THAT IS OKAY.

  • people will misunderstand your intentions
  • people will judge you
  • you will say something that will be heard differently to how you meant it
  • you will feel bad about something you wrote
  • you will realise that you don’t get something you really thought you got

We are going to have to get a lot more UNCOMFORTABLE and THAT IS OKAY

  • people will say things that make you feel uneasy
  • people will suggest changes that you won’t feel like making
  • people might take issue with a word or phrase or line of questioning or statement-making
  • people may ask questions about what you are actively doing to bring about change

Conversations and Engagements may get a lot more PAINFUL or contain a lot of ANGER and THAT IS OKAY

  • if you are able to, even in the smallest of ways, put yourself into the life for a moment of someone whose family was uprooted, whose education messed up, who may have lost family members, who had a ceiling put on their lives in terms of what they might or might not accomplish, who have experienced the colour of their skin as ‘less than’ in terms of the media/entertainment/life experiences they have had their whole lives, then it is OBVIOUS and NECESSARY that there will be some PAIN and a lot of ANGER. That is okay.
  • we have to learn to create spaces where people can express these emotions that are so real and so raw and for too long have had to remain unexpressed and hidden
  • you may feel like you are being blamed for the pain
  • you might feel like the anger is directed at you

There may be SOME FORM OF SACRIFICE involved at some stage, when we can figure out what is appropriate and necessary and helpful and THAT IS OKAY

  • as someone who has benefited from being born a particular colour there might be a call to be a part of addressing what has been a huge imbalance
  • there might be a personal buy-in needed in terms of MONEY or SKILLS or TIME or NETWORK CONNECTIONS or RESOURCES
  •  there may be moments where creating spaces for people to share pain and anger will cause huge moments of awkward, uncomfortable and maybe even painful for you will feel like a bit of a costAnd more.

    And then tomorrow we will likely all wake up and have to do it all again.

Not one giant step

For me, personally, most of the time it feels like i’m making it up as i go along. Fortunately i am not alone in this and so i have the voices of people like Megan and Craig who have been walking this woke walk for twenty plus years and people like Sindile and Linde and Felicity who inspire and encourage and keep me on the straight, an incredible truth-seeking wife in tbV who engages in deep conversations as well as helping create the spaces for them with others and more.

This is not easy. But it feels so so vital. And so we have to keep coming back. And taking another step. Or attempting to. [And then bringing others with us, or helping them catch up if they’ve been lagging a bit behind]

HOW I DO IT?

A lot of people really like and really agree with what i say and write.

A lot of people really don’t like and really don’t agree with what i say and write.

And maybe the best are those who really like and agree with some of what i say and write and really don’t like or agree with some of what i say and write.

So here’s a little thing i try to do that helps me.

When someone expresses their intense disagreement with something i say or write, i ask myself, “Are They Right?”

[A] If they are not right, then i ignore what they say and refuse to let it affect me any more as much as possible, sometimes harder than others]

[B] If they are right, then i need to take it on and see if there is something i need to change or an apology i need to give or a direction i need to move more towards or a retraction i need to write.

It is THAT SIMPLE!

Oh, and that complicated too!

Get up, dust myself off and head off back to the table tomorrow. Be empowered and excited and inspired by all those who are already there, some who are doing way more incredible exciting and significant things than i am… and be motivated by all those who are yet to learn something i may have learnt, or hear something i may be able to say or share, or willing to engage in another difficult conversation.

But all of us need to keep stepping forward. Because therein, i believe, lies the hope for South Africa.

You willing to give it one more try? You may get it wrong again, and that’s okay.