Student Confessions on Anti-Racism: Martin
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 Martin. Martin is a researcher within the NHS. He’s a parent, and it was when he and his wife discovered they were going to have a child that he began his anti-racism journey. He wanted to bring his child up knowing the truth and also to find out how to become a better person himself.
Interviewer: When did you begin your anti-racism journey?
Around six – seven years ago. Me and my wife had just found out we were going to have a child and so we were looking at parenting and things like that. We came across Nova Reid on Instagram and how children form racial bias at such an early age and stuff to do with brain development. You know, you go down rabbit holes.
I can’t remember what the first videos or posts by Nova we saw were, but I remember being hooked straight away and knowing I wanted to be able to bring my child up knowing the truth and knowing how the world works. And knowing how our brains work, I guess, as well. And knowing how to be a better person myself.
I jumped at the chance to take Nova’s online course, and I’ve been thankful ever since.
Interviewer: What motivated you to start/continue your anti-racism journey?
My daughter motivated me to start. Then it was myself. The unlearning that I had to do in myself. There was well-hidden trauma in myself that I had to address with things that came up, with some of the course content and with people in my life. And I talked to them about it and about how to talk to them about it.
And through that came – after quite a few years – the embodiment of it and just the day-to-day of, this isn’t about me. It’s about the collective, and whoever I can get on board, I’ll get on board. And whatever I can do in my day-to-day, I’ll do. And I’ll just keep on learning. And keep spreading the truth.
Interviewer: What was the most difficult aspect of the course for you and why?
I always remember the first thing that came up was to watch the documentary 13th [by Ava Duvernay] and that just blew me away about how much of it [racism] is hidden in plain sight, through the amendment in America. After that there was The Colour of Fear documentary video and one of the Black men was talking to another white man. He started saying things like, “You come over to my side of town”. And because it was such a safe space all kinds of things came out of him. There wasn’t any interruption. People just held space for him and all this stuff inside him that had been bottled up, to keep him safe, came out. Seeing that really opened me up to the work and how important it is to let people be their full selves.
And after that – maybe about halfway through the Course, I think – I remember some friends sharing a post on Facebook and it had [an image of] two malnourished African children, and the text was important but the image wasn’t necessary / required. And I said, You can share the text but there’s no need to share the image because it reinforces that stereotype.
I got lots and lots of notifications after that, people replying, and then someone replied and I replied to them. And then my friend said, ‘I don’t think you know who you’re talking to’. So then I looked at that person’s profile on Facebook – and the person was a lecturer at a university. And I remember going into a bit of a [shame] spiral then. I’d just graduated university and because this person was a lecturer, this class bias came in, for myself.
It’s all this unpicking I’ve been doing. It’s all been a learning curve for me.
So I went into a bit of a [shame] spiral then, like, ‘Oh no everyone’s going to think that I’m stupid’ and everything like that. And Nova just held space for me then, amazingly well. I remember I posted about what was happening in a former graduates’ Facebook group and Nova replied saying: ‘The big problem here is that I’m wanting to belong to whiteness.’
As soon as she said that the walls fell down and I was like, Oh yeah. And I sat with that and let it be. There’s been a lot of moments like that, but that was a big one. And it was that bit of me that was going, It’s not about me. And once I came down from that I was just calmly able to join the discussion again. And I reiterated my point [on the original Facebook post] and said, If you want to talk let’s talk. But nobody replied after that.
Interviewer: Did you ever think of giving up? If so, why and what kept you going?
No I definitely didn’t want to give up on the Course, even though it was hard.
I knew once I’d started the Course and seen those first two documentaries – they were the very first things I saw – and Nova asked, ‘what did you feel in your body’? it was like coming into my body for the first time, probably in my life. And even though it was hard and there was a lot of discomfort coming up, it was enlightening and it wakes you up too. And that’s what I think about a lot of other people, you know you need to wake up. There’s a lot of things going on in the world that you don’t even see.
So many things I wouldn’t have seen so clearly if it wasn’t for Nova’s Course. And I think it’s that that keeps me going. The fact that I can see the world in a whole new way. I can see all sorts of discrimination going on whether it’s little or large, in different people and with systems as well. And how to approach it.
It’s unseen by so many [but] this work is to help other people, but I think it’s creating liberation and stopping the suffering for everyone, whether it’s Black, Brown or white people.
There’s a lot of suffering in white people and that’s what’s stopping them from doing the work.
Even a few weeks ago I brought something up at work, I held a mirror up to the [white] people, and they just couldn’t take it. And concerns were raised, about me.
But the hard thing with that was that the sense of belonging – which I’ve already talked about, the belonging to whiteness – that happened all around me. And I was the one then left alone to fend for myself. Which is fine, because that’s part of the work. But that was hard. But it’s fine because I can handle it. It’s nothing in comparison to what other people [people of colour] have to go through if they were to raise these issues.
Interviewer: But this having to fend for yourself, having to hold this on your own, it didn’t make you want to give up anti-racist work?
No. It made me want to pause and rest. And try not to over-analyse. And just be. And be in my body. It made me increase my self-care. Moving my body. Doing lots of somatic work. In the end it just made me want to do the work even more. I want to do somatic work even more now. That’s the path I definitely want to go on. Because that’s what came up with other people. And that’s what came up with me.
Interviewer: How did you navigate and how do you navigate shame without turning it into self-loathing?
It’s a hard one with me because I’m the king of disassociation. So it’s something I’m always working on.
So with me the shame is over-analysing things and running things through my head over and over again. And I remember doing that at the start of the Course. And I came across a post by Layla F Saad asking a question only for People of Colour. And the next day she had to take the post down because lots of white people were coming in on it. And because it was early on in the Course I came in on it too, saying I was shocked that white people can’t understand that it was only for People of Colour, or something like that. And Layla F Saad replied just saying, “Shock equals privilege”.
That was a big shock.
And I’ve been through saviourism and stuff like that too. People saying; ‘we don’t need you to come in on this'. We don’t need you in this space.’ And it took some time for me to get to the stage of just saying, thank you for replying and then leaving it.
Now I’m at the stage where even when things happen, I can sit with it more. And let it be. And if shame comes I know that it’s normal. And I can bring it to the table and say, come dine with me. It’s fine.
So there’s never really been that much self-loathing with me. There’s the over-analysing and the disassociation, so, yeah.
Interviewer: How does it feel to know this work isn’t about you? That you’re not at the centre of this work?
Yeah. It’s completely fine by me. I just need to help. There are moments, times, when you’re not going to be everyone’s friend. You need to know that. But I think we’ve probably all got some part of us that’s a people-pleaser that needs to be addressed anyway, whether it’s anti-racism or not. So some of that comes into it as well. You’re not going to be everybody’s cup of tea.
White people created this [racism] so white people have got to deal with it.
So I feel that’s the part I need to play. Like setting up a WhatsApp group with friends to talk through this stuff regularly, that’s something I’ve done. Because I’ve been on this journey by myself and I know it’s really hard journey to do by yourself. So I’ve brought that up for other people. And reaching out to other people to do the work.
And in the WhatsApp group people post questions and I post some of the learnings that I’ve got from readings and the Course and then any sort of training [for others] that I want to do would definitely have to be co-facilitated by a person of colour as well.
Interviewer: If you had to pick some ‘aha’ moments in your anti racism journey, what would you pick?
When I started to interact with other people and not being afraid: that comment by Layla F Saad was one, the one about centring whiteness by Nova was another.
It’s the wanting to belong to whiteness, in me. A big sense of belonging that’s always a part of me and the shame of that wanting to belong [to whiteness].
And another one was learning about how young racial bias starts in children. But how easily it can be overcome.
And the power and the effects of microaggressions. And how fatal they are. And how every day they are.
And the knock-on effects of history. How we’ve covered up so much history. And we’re still doing it. Discovering who we show and who we don’t show. Like, on the news this week with the ICJ.
Interviewer: ICJ?
The International Court of Justice ruling about Israel and Palestine. So nobody saw South Africa’s side of it on the news. But the Israel side of it was shown all day long.
Just how important history is. I was brought up learning about the Romans. And Henry VIII – but nothing to do with Henry VIII – just to do with the patriarchy. About him having seven wives or however many wives he had. And chopping people’s heads off and things like that.
So it’s all these things that I’ve been piecing together and I’m still piecing together now.
History is a massive thing that I got from doing the Course. And just how important it is. And how it interlinks to everything that goes on today.
And when people say, It’s so long ago [I say], It’s not. It’s not long ago at all. Like the pictures of Martin Luther King: most pictures you see of him are black and white to make them look old. But there are loads of pictures of him in colour. That’s a very simple thing that I think about.
And the importance of the Black Panthers and the several weeks of education and lots of reading that you have to do before you can join the Black Panthers.
And just how important reading is.
Nova’s Course has got me into reading for the first time. I was brought up in a world with no books. So that’s very important.
Interviewer: All the things we weren’t told and weren’t taught.
Yes.
Interviewer: How has doing the course helped you and the people around you? At work or in your personal life, or both?
In my personal life it’s made me look at how I react to things. And it’s made me look at historical trauma in myself and that’s made me look at historical trauma, cultural trauma and generational trauma and how that gets passed on. And how important it is to look at that and talk about it again and again.
And that’s obviously made me not want to pass on certain things that I may have inherited or picked up from society to my daughter.
In my work it’s just doing the work rather than preaching it.
I now work in inclusive research, an opportunity which came about because I was chasing up something called the Race Equality Framework and asking what was going on with that. And now I’m one of the leads on that. And then recently we’ve been approached by the Antiracist Cumbria organisation. And I’ve become one of their volunteers to create some online posts.
Also I started doing the Course when I was working in a department where there were around five South Asian nurses and after about three or four years after doing Nova’s Course it suddenly became really really easy for me to talk to them and for them to talk to me. And now we’re lifelong friends which would never have happened [without the Course].
It was only after 4-5 years of doing this work that these nurses I worked with fully opened up to me about their experiences and I was then able to form deeper, lifelong friendships with them instead of just being a colleague. Forming these deeper relationships I was asked to support them in person during meetings around discrimination.
Getting myself into groups of people: face-to-face is the best way to learn but also something I find hard after being alone for so many years. Recently I travelled across the country to be part of a group that was majority Black and Brown people who I had never met before (with Healing Justice London) for a 6-day somatic retreat.
I was the only white man there. And that created conflict in me and other bodies there, but we all sat with it and worked through it and at the end I was glad I’d done it because some different practices came up for different people who were able to work with a white man who wasn’t violent to them, for the first time.
And then moving to a new job, people are starting to identify that I’m a safe person to come to. That’s the thing that I love the most about it [the Course] really. That’s the most positive thing I’ve got from it, that people have started to see me as a safe space. And that’s affected all parts of my life and relationships, really.
Interviewer: How has it informed the work you do?
When we had lockdown and George Floyd [was murdered], there was a workshop in the NHS, called Let’s Talk about Race and Racism. And I put my name forward for that and I was glad I did because it got me doing some public speaking and pushed me out of my comfort zone.
I also arranged round table events in the NHS where all staff, clinical and non-clinical, come together regularly to discuss the emotional and social aspects of working in healthcare. And I’d love to hold an event called Let’s Talk About Whiteness, but they’re not ready for that yet.
Running those workshops has been really good. Most of them have been online. I wanted to do them for the people in the Trust that I worked for. There were a number of people who, if anyone wants to raise any concerns, they go to these people. So I thought, what training have these people got? And have they got any training to do with race? So that’s when I raised the concern that we need to get as many of these people on this Let’s Talk about Race and Racism course. So I set that up, to run. And that was the first one I did in person. And I ended up doing it by myself as well. And it just went really beautifully. And I was able to look into how important it is doing this work from the body first, before the mind, before the cognitive brain. I was able to bring some of that into the workshop and keep bringing people back to their bodies. I was able to do a bit of grounding and I was able to do a somatic exercise at the end before they went, so they could release energy within their body before they went into the next part of their day.
And now I’m part of an inclusive research group working with different communities and different organisations to be more inclusive with research and with patients and with the public and get them more involved with research within the NHS.
And after doing Nova’s course I was learning about the polyvagal theory and trauma and how it affects the body and that got me onto Resmaa Menakem’s work and I read his book several times – My Grandmother’s Hands. Then I’ve done several of his courses as well because I wanted to learn more about that side of it. And how to help with communities.
And I’m currently doing a somatic course with Staci K Haines who wrote The Politics of Trauma. She’s been doing social justice and somatic work for around twenty or thirty years now. And now I definitely want to become a somatic trainer. But the cost of it [is difficult]. As Dr Jennifer Mullan of Decolonizing Therapy says, ‘The medical health industrial complex’ means the privileged people get to pay for these courses and there’s no way I can afford it, even if I was to get fifty percent off. The travel and accommodation make it prohibitive. I don’t know how anyone affords it really. But that’s what I want to do now.
But I have started a WhatsApp group and Zoom group with psychologists and healers in Europe and the USA who are meeting monthly to go through Decolonizing Therapy – the book by Dr Jennifer Mullan.
And like I said I’ve started up the other WhatsApp group with friends and I think that’s really important to have a lifelong journey with these people and see what comes up there, for us all, as well.
Interviewer: You talk about teaching / training other white people – can you say what qualifies you to teach white people about anti-racism and racism? I wouldn’t feel qualified to teach other white people – but to call them in and walk alongside them and learn beside them. Nova taught me so so much. But can you speak to how a white person can teach other white people about racism and anti-racism?
That’s a really great question and I think I come at it from the point of view that no one else in my organisation that is white is wanting to talk about it. How can I help carry any burden for People of Colour? Any training I’ve done has always been co-facilitated with a Person of Colour. Then you’ve got both perspectives. So it’s not just me as a white man teaching. I think if it was just me teaching then that could create its own problems in the long run.
Interviewer: You started this interview by saying that you began your antiracism because of your daughter. But as your life and her life has continued, how has your anti-racism work changed or informed the way you parent?
A simple thing, but having books on race and racism in the house, which we’ve had since she was three or four. And how race was invented by white people. There’s a book called Our Skin: A First Conversation About Race by Megan Madison which teaches her about melanin in the body and how we each have different amounts of melanin to protect our skin, and how race was invented and what racism is and how it can be little or it can be big.
Our daughter knows to say, ‘That’s not fair.’ A very simple thing. You can just imagine a child holding up a sign at a protest saying, ‘This isn’t fair’.
And she always notices what’s on telly. She always tells us things like, ‘Everyone on this programme’s got white skin.’ Or, ‘Everyone on this programme’s thin.’ So she knows about the body types. She knows about the skin colour. And we ask her what would we want to see on telly? Like, who’s missing? And she answers these questions, like people with disabilities are missing. But then there’s the hard thing with princess programmes. She’s a daughter and she’s got hooked into them. Teaching her about the class system is the next stage. It’s hard when the princesses share, and they’re all kind [but still they’re princesses]. So little by little, we’re teaching her these little things.
She knows a bit about the government, and some laws. You know, all these things that I didn’t get, that we didn’t get, that, in previous generations it just wasn’t possible.
Interviewer: How has it changed the relationships you have with Black people and People of Colour in your life?
Because over the past few years I’ve been doing work on the body and the nervous system – I was able to put on a self-care talk for the people I work with, recently. And I was able to bring a social justice element to it as well. So all the different things that I’ve learned over the years, and the one that I always come back to is the one from Resmaa Menakem about clean pain and dirty pain. And how dirty pain is going round things that we don’t want to face, that we go around it. And then that pain lasts a lot longer. But how clean pain is saying, ‘I don’t know what’s going to happen but I’m going to do it anyway.’
And just having little things like that, little grounding exercises with the people that I work with. I started introducing things like, rather than saying, How are you? (which we do say in emails to each other) but I always add in another question now, like, How are your shoulders? How is your jaw? And then, if I’m really getting along with someone, I’ll say, How is your heart? Saying little things like this that you don’t think about, that you really don’t get asked, but when you do you can tell how much is hidden in the body.
If somebody asks me how my heart is, it’s usually like it’s broken in some way or another, that I need to address. And sit with.
One person at work has said how much their mental health has improved since I started working there. So that’s something.
Interviewer: How do you remain self-aware? eg, How do you avoid moving into saviourism? (How do you recognise when you are moving into saviourism?)
I guess, a big thing with me is noticing if I’m just being performative. Posting stuff [on social media] and not doing stuff. Whether it’s doing stuff for myself or on myself. Or unlearning. Or not deep-diving into anything that I don’t know about.
Yes, it’s the performative side. I’ve been through saviourism and thinking I’m one of the good ones in the early days and then you get to that stage where it’s like, You don’t need to say that. People know if you’re doing the work or not.
Back in the early days I posted things to tell people what I was doing, underneath that was an, ‘Oh, look at me. I’m one of the good ones.’ And I got called out a couple of times. But I was able to sit with it, apologise and not react because of Nova’s Course.
So I guess there are times when even now I’m just posting and liking things online, reading articles and books. Doing stuff online does help other people’s accounts – it helps with the algorithms – but doing stuff in person will always be less performative. You learn a lot more from being face-to-face with people, coming up against different bodies in movement work, discovering what your defaults settings are under pressure. I’ve been doing much more movement work in the past couple of years.
Interviewer: What’s been the hardest lesson to learn / accept?
I think it was belonging to whiteness. Looking at a life of not belonging to anything, really. I didn’t even know that that thread – no that rope – was there, of whiteness and wanting to belong to it. When that came up that was a big thing to sit with. And I think that’s the biggest thing for me.
Belonging to whiteness. And with that comes not wanting to upset what you belong to. And I think, years after doing the Course, now it can be belonging to an institution, like you can be part of a system that is racist. And even if you’ve worked there for years, there’s that sense of belonging, but it doesn’t mean that you can’t hold it accountable at the same time.
Interviewer: What’s been the most important lesson you’ve learned that you carry forward?
I think it’s to speak up about it. Due to my privilege as a white man I do go into spaces and I do say what’s happening now. And previously I wouldn’t have ever done that whereas now I’m happy to do it and I know that it needs to be done, that these things need to be addressed. And I’m not afraid.
Interviewer: Is there anything else you’d like to say about the course or about your anti-racism journey that we haven’t talked about?
Just that the course - Becoming Anti-Racist with Nova Reid has been the best thing I’ve ever done in my life. I’m so glad I did it because it’s made me a better human being. And it will hopefully help stop trauma from passing on in my family, or make it less so. And hopefully help other people as well, help stop the trauma in themselves. Lama Rod Owens said, “If we don’t do our work, we become work for other people”. I can’t put it any better than that.
One last thing: I’d like to recommend my friend’s book: Palestinian Music in Exile, Voices of Resistance by Louis Brehony. It’s the first-ever book written about Palestinian music, and the voices of resistance. He’s been writing it for about ten years and it came out a couple of months back. I’m very proud of him and I like to big him up.
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Martin adds: I’ve got a deep, life-long commitment to the work now. So even when difficult things happen I know it’s the path I want to be on. I know there are going to be moments that take me off the path but I know it’s a little thing that takes me away and I always see the main path – like a yellow brick road or something.
Books Referenced:
Me and White Supremacy - Layla F Saad
The Good Ally - Nova Reid
Palestinian Music in Exile, Voices of Resistance - Louis Brehony.
Our Skin (A First Conversation About Race) - Megan Madison
Decolonizing Therapy – Dr Jennifer Mullan
The Politics of Trauma - Staci K Haines
My Grandmother’s Hands - Resmaa Menakem