Student Confessions on Anti-Racism: Angela
Welcome to Student Confessions - an interview series where graduates of Becoming Anti-Racist with Nova Reid share the challenges and triumphs of their anti-racism journey.
Meet Angela. Angela writes fiction, lives with her partner - who also writes fiction - and is an unofficial step-mother, step-mother-in-law and step-grandmother. Her antiracism journey began late in life (in her 70th year) but she’s discovered it’s never too late to unlearn racism and begin to relearn. Her unofficial step-daughter was the catalyst: her distress when George Floyd was murdered in May 2020 showed Angela it was time to pay attention, seriously, to racism and how it manifests in the world. At the time, she didn’t realise she was also going to discover her own racism and her own shame. And so much more.
Interviewer: Angela, so good to see you. Let’s dive straight in…when did you begin your anti racism journey?
I began after the murder of George Floyd and I sometimes, despite understanding about shame spirals, still do feel ashamed of how long it took me. I’ve spent a long time unaware, deliberately ignoring and not paying attention. But in 2020 my partner’s daughter came to see us, it was covid, so we were sitting outside in that lovely but unusual spring weather. She was devastated about what had happened to George Floyd and I thought ‘why am I not feeling this devastation?’ This isn’t the first murder by police, this is not the first Black person to die. But I was really moved by how moved she was and how much she was grieving. And I also felt, in retrospect, that because it was lockdown, we had so much extra time to think, and that certainly made a difference to me.
I had actually already bought ‘Me and White Supremacy’ by Layla F. Saad, but had I opened it? No. But after that conversation, I read that book and I genuinely started to get curious. I started talking to my sister in the States and we decided to set up an anti-racism book group. We were very aware of the privilege, even within that decision…Black and Brown people are dying and here are two white people talking about it in a book club. But it was a place to start for us. We asked friends from both sides of the pond to join us and that is how it began. And it’s evolved. We still meet by zoom twice a month to read and talk about an anti-racist book. But we also meet quarterly to hold each other accountable for individual antiracism actions we’re taking or planning to take.
After starting that book club, I then wanted to do something more and I wanted to do something much too fast.
Interviewer: I can relate to that; I think all course students and graduates could relate to that!
…. then I looked online, and I found Nova’s course, but I parked it. But it kept ticking away in my head and finally I signed up.
Interviewer: What was the most difficult aspect of the course for you?
There’s several, I think. Which I find interesting. But a big one was recognising that anti racism is not about me. That I can’t fix it. The desire for it to be fixed once I ‘got it’, was and is enormous. But now, almost four years on, now I get it. I understand that this isn’t about me being the saviour. But it still makes me very sad because I’m a natural fixer. It saddens me for Black and Brown people and communities that this continues. So that anchor of ‘it’s not about me’ is so important.
Interviewer: Theres definitely something about that ‘fixing and rescuing’ that as white people we equate to be a good person.
Yes, definitely and Nova’s course helps to unpack that, to show us how cut off we are from our bodies. How as white people we so often stay away from our hearts and not listen, truly listen. There’s something about rescuing that gives more power, and it’s that white supremacist need to be seen to be better or above, that makes us reach for this title of ‘rescuer’. And that’s why we often struggle so much with it when we do this work.
Interviewer: Was there any point in the course where you considered giving up and if so, at what point?
I didn’t think of giving up, but I think that’s because for so much of my life I’ve been the ‘good woman/the good person’ which meant that I couldn’t quit – it was embedded in my identity too much. But sometimes I would disengage from my heart. So, I didn’t disengage with the course as such, but I did disengage from my feelings, so it was ‘easier’ to carry on. So, in essence that is a giving up as it meant I was just doing it to tick a box and ‘get a cookie’. If I did it again now, with my heart much more open, I might think of giving up because of the sorrow that would come up. But I know that that is making it about me, so I would hope I would be able to spot that and still carry on, exploring and holding space for that sorrow without it halting me.
Interviewer: How did you navigate and how do you navigate shame without turning it into self-loathing?
Well, I didn’t!! (*we both shared some laughter here, recognising in each other the spirals that we had been down*) I didn’t at all for a long time.
I would blame and shame and not take responsibility. I did not admit at all to the shame whilst in the course, which might surprise some people. But I cut off my feelings and my body so I wouldn’t feel the shame, it was too much.
But then I read Nova’s book ‘The Good Ally’ and somehow in some way it all started to settle in my body, and I started to explore and unlock that shame.
This is where the self-care section of Nova’s course came in, gosh I was so grateful for this, because I did not know what to do. It was so difficult. I was being accusatory to people that weren’t doing the work just to make myself feel better and deflect the shame.
So, returning over and over to Nova’s self-care guidance was instrumental in understanding my spirals and self-loathing and shame. I really took on board Nova’s advice about ‘getting curious’ and started to ask myself questions about the shame and self-loathing: what is this, what is this about, where does it come from etc.
I haven’t yet done this, but I have begun to think about tracing my family’s heritage to see whether any of my ancestors owned enslaved people. I’ve been putting off doing that, because of shame. But now, I’m trying to deeply understand curiosity and use it to help me move through my ancestral shame. I can feel myself moving closer towards this research and actually doing it and then talking to my family. One reason for doing this is that if my ancestors were slave-owners I want to find out if they were compensated when abolition came in, so as a family, we can talk about reparations.
I do still worry about people not liking me, especially my family. But the more I get curious, the more I realise that doing this work is more important than those fears and my shame.
I’m reading ‘My Grandmothers Hands’ by Resmaa Menakem at the moment and there’s so much body work in it. I’m beginning to understand better about the physical layers to my shame and that sometimes I don’t need to understand it, sometimes it’s just about moving my body and feeling it.
Interviewer: We touched on this earlier, but let’s speak more about it now, how does it feel to know that this work isn’t about you?
To start with it was really difficult. I didn’t believe it! I would have these sneaky little thoughts, saying to me ‘well how I can do any good if it’s not about me!?’. It was a slow dawning of that lesson and understanding what being performative looked like. Sometimes I knew what I was doing, that I was doing it for ‘cookies’. But I learnt and still learn from my mistakes. Sometimes it’s small things, with big learning.
For instance, I now understand that to tag Black people in posts etc., if I’m challenging a racist comment is absolutely NOT helpful. It’s re-traumatising for them and it’s clearly me being performative, wanting Black people to know I’m ‘one of the good ones’. Big lesson about what not to do.
Interviewer: If you had to pick a single ‘aha’ moment in your anti racism journey, what would you pick?
Gosh, the first thing that comes to mind, is that racism is entirely invented. Made up and learnt by white people. And we have believed it, supported it and kept this made-up lie going. And even our silence has been complicit in this. And it’s appalling. Appalling the power that it has allowed us to dehumanise Black and Brown people. It really affected me this lesson. As soon as I discovered this, I never resisted it, something in my body just immediately knew it was true. Silence is violence. It really is. And I am a part of that silence. There were obviously other moments too, but that one really sticks out for me, and it supports any anti racism conversations I have. I find in my generation or older, they want facts, and this is fact I can tell them. It’s not a subjective emotional response from me, it’s a fact. And it’s a way that I can support those more subtle conversations.
Interviewer: How has doing the course helped you and the people around you?
Work is quite solitary, as I’m a writer, but my partner works just down the passage. And when we meet for supper, we talk about our work and now we talk about anti racism, which we never ever did, and he also became part of that book club we created four years ago.
In the novel I just finished, I have a North African gay character, and I would never have had the confidence to write such a character. It never used to occur to me to write about anyone other than myself or someone that looks like me. And he’s not tokenistic, he’s important to the story, he’s a full human. And that is a big change in my writing. It reminds me of the interview with Toni Morrison when she’s asked when she’s going to write about white people. I saw it back then and thought ‘yeah why doesn’t she’. But now, now I can see the racism in that question and the extraordinary intrusion and harm.
Also, I’d never consciously read fiction by Black writers but now I’m searching them out and reading them, because you can learn and enjoy so much, even in these imagined worlds. My work, my imagination, my creativity is so much more enriched.
In my personal life, I do feel like I’m failing because part of me wants everyone I know to do Nova’s course and do this work, but actually I haven’t spoken out loud to many people about the course. And it’s because I don’t want them not to like and love me. But it is definitely, definitely shifting and I learn and unpack more about my shame and need to be ‘good’.
When I hear racist remarks now, even subtle ones, I challenge it with ‘can you say something more about that’. I follow my curiosity rather than staying silent or responding with blame and shame. I haven’t done enough of that but it’s changing.
As an example in my personal life, one of my girlfriends, some time ago, knew I was doing Nova’s course and she said at this supper, with a group of us, she said “Ange is doing this thing about being nice to black people” and I said “ it’s far more than being nice to black people” and I left it at that because I didn’t want to shame her in front our friends.
But if I had been feeling the way I feel now then I would have said something more. Been more curious about her comment. But subsequently, not that long afterwards actually, she said to me “it’s not about that is it? You’re really thinking about it. That’s what you’re doing. You’re really thinking about it. It really matters to you”. And actually, I was re-reading some of the Good Ally recently and Nova says, ‘here are some things you can try saying with your friends, including ‘this really matters to me’’. So that’s what I say, and it helps.
I know that there’s a lot more to do in my personal life, and I don’t want to make excuses for my slowness, but maybe something in me that has kept me from doing a lot quickly has been because I know it would be very much about blaming and shaming. The ‘I’m doing something and you’re not’ kind of thing. And now I know that it needs to come from curiosity instead of that. As Nova says, ‘they are where you were once’, so remembering that and moving forwards with that is so important.
Interviewer: How do you avoid moving into being a white savour or holding yourself as ‘one of the good ones’?
I feel like where I am now, it comes from directly understanding that this isn’t about me. Because if I’m being a white saviour then I’m performing, I’m saying ‘look at me, isn’t this good, isn’t what I’m doing great, aren’t I a good person’. But if I’m really doing the work then I’m not telling anybody, because I’m serving a greater cause. It’s not about me and my childish ‘Id’, that part of my ego that wants praise. It comes from my understanding that my ego doesn’t belong here. The desire for recognition, for ‘cookies’, (always for cookies !) is there, but there’s an understanding that if that’s what I’m looking for then I’m truly not doing anything that’s helping to lessen the travesty of racism. So that’s the long answer! But the short answer is, if I’m making it about me then I know I’m heading towards saviourism.
Interviewer: How has it changed the relationship you have with Black people and People of Colour in your life?
In all honesty there are very few, but there are two or three. When I was going through Nova’s course there’s a point where you’re encouraged to think about and write a letter of apology to Black people you know, especially Black women. So, I wrote to a Black ex colleague and she, do you know what, I think she was a bit stunned. And there wasn’t anything specific that I had done to her, but I was always nervous around her and I was always very, very conscious that she was Black and I was white. And also, that the organisation that we worked in was almost entirely white. I didn’t want to do anything wrong, but I was so conscious and nervous that I probably did! Because I didn’t treat her naturally like I would with a white colleague. Anyway, I wrote to apologise, and she wrote back and said ‘I hope it won’t affect our friendship’ and I replied saying ‘of course not’ and now we see each other more regularly and I’m at ease so much more with her now. I’m not fawning or falling over backwards to overcompensate and I’m much more myself and natural and authentic. She’s a baker now and she wrote a book that released before Christmas, and it included a recipe from her mum who is Guyanese for a treacle black Christmas cake and I made it and wrote a blog post about it and sent it to her. It was such a natural thing for me to do, she’s a friend now and it clearly gave her joy. I would never have done that before, but this was a lovely way to amplify her and her work but without it being fake.
Interviewer: it sounds to me like there was a shift between only seeing her skin colour … and then actually seeing her as a human being and wanting to be friends with that human which then led your behaviour to change…
Yes, that’s exactly it, I don’t edit what I say. But that’s making me think, I actually need to say to her when we next meet that she is welcome to tell me if I say or do anything racist. Because I haven’t said that to her and it’s important that I do.
And just one other thing that occurred to me. The workers that collect the rubbish from our bins are Black. I would never have said hello to them before. Which is so dismissive! So, some time ago when I was doing Nova’s course, I opened the window to thank them, and one guy said back to me ‘bless the lord for you madam’ and I thought ‘that is wonderful! He smiled, I smiled, we got to share a little bit of joy’
Interviewer: What’s been the hardest lesson and the most important lesson that you’re carrying forward from doing this work?
I know I’ve already said this, but that this work is not about me. This lesson influences me so much. Including how I talk to my family. When that deep knowing locks down inside of me, I’m better able to talk to my family because whatever they say, I know that it’s bigger than me. And is saying more about them than me. For instance, last night, I had a conversation with a cousin about reparations where the deep knowing I’m serving a cause guided me to saying things that helped our conversation. I didn’t get angry or sad or start dictating - but the deep knowing that it’s not about me had me listening to him with curiosity and empathy … and we made (a small amount of) progress.
Interviewer: Can you talk more about your experience of how accessible the course was for you?
I found it very accessible, I did the BETA version first and then changed to the newer version. It was clear and smooth; I didn’t struggle at all. But that’s just my experience. I did find the community comments aspects hard sometimes, but that may be because I don’t feel confident with tech!
Interviewer: To wrap up, is there anything else you would like to say about the course, the book, Nova or more about your anti racism journey?
I just want to thank Nova from the bottom of my heart for her courage, her empathy, her love, just everything. The way she never blames, she always welcomes us in and talks about collective healing. She always includes and never pushes people away. She is so wise; it really is extraordinary – I find it very moving.
She clearly, is a healer.
Her courage to stand up and do this work and call us in, alongside the risk it poses to her, it’s just incredible. To say I love her, sounds mad, but I feel like I know her soul and I love her soul, because of the way she expresses herself on the course. So, I’m just utterly grateful for her and her work and helping to open my eyes, I could talk about her for ages! A huge, huge thank you and love to you Nova.
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Angela struggles with shame and the desire to blame but the deep learning, the settling into her body of the sense and the knowledge that antiracism work isn’t about her is a powerful thing. It feels now, as if onion skins have been falling off – even as she replied to the questions in this interview. There will always be more work to do, but something shifted during this interview – realised a couple of days later when she was reading the transcript – and her ability to be courageous and curious feels much stronger, and so her ability to withstand dislike (or worse) from white family or friends when she talks about anti-racism is stronger. Now she really understands what it means to get comfortable with being uncomfortable. Thanks again to Nova for her soulful teaching and guidance.
Learn more about Becoming Anti-Racist with Nova Reid
Books Referenced:
Me and White Supremacy - Layla F Saad
The Good Ally - Nova Reid
My Grandmothers Hands - Resmaa Menakem