Student Confessions on Anti-Racism: Rachel
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.
Rachel teaches history and loves it. She’s married with two sons and she likes to learn and to keep learning. When she began her anti-racism journey she felt an initial defensiveness, a white fragility which she didn’t recognise at the time. But something kept her observing and reading even though she thought, at first, that she didn’t need to sign up for Becoming Anti-Racist with Nova Reid. She didn’t think she was racist, until an ex-student posted on social media, after George Floyd’s murder, about the microaggressions she’d experienced at the school and Rachel realised that if she’d been engaged in anti-racism work then, if she’d been engaged in unlearning her own racism, the student might have felt able to come to her and report the racism she’d experienced.
Interviewer Angela - When did you begin your anti-racism journey?
It’s hard to pinpoint a particular moment. I can’t remember precisely, but I know it was sometime in 2017, 2018. I can’t remember what led me to start engaging with Nova’s content on Instagram. But I do remember lurking on her Instagram page for a while. I remember reading some of her posts and feeling what I recognise now as defensiveness and white fragility, that I didn’t recognise at the time.
But there was something that kept me observing and reading things. Something lodged in my brain and I felt, ‘I can’t ignore this. I want to keep listening here’, even though it wasn’t very comfortable. And I remember I eventually worked up the courage to comment on a post. It was a panel, mostly white women, one Black woman, and there were some very problematic comments. I posted something like, ‘I can’t imagine how frustrating that must be for that woman’. Nova responded and gently called me in. She said, ‘It’s not frustration. It’s trauma. It's PTSD.’ And it really riled me, that comment: I remember thinking, ‘How have I not recognised this?’
That was a moment when I thought I need to do more. And I lurked for a bit longer. And I kept going to Nova’s website where she was advertising her Course. And months went by when I was back and forth, back and forth. ‘Should I do it?’ ‘Oh, no, it’s too expensive.’ ‘Should I do it?’ ‘No, I don’t need to do it. I’m not racist.’
[Angela laughed and said she was laughing in recognition of what Rachel was saying: she felt exactly the same]
I even had the Course page bookmarked. And I’d open my internet browser and I’d look at it and I’d make every excuse, particularly the excuse of, ‘I don’t need to do this’. In my head, at the time, as a teacher of history, I thought, ‘I’ve taught about Black history, I’ve taught about Civil Rights, I’m not racist. I don’t need to do this’.
But, eventually, I couldn’t not. There was something saying, ‘You need to do this’. So I signed up. I don’t remember exactly when, 2019? 2020? And now, so many years down the line, the learning from the Course, the learning from Nova’s book, The Good Ally, and the learning from other things I’ve done since then have begun to merge. But it began with lurking around on Nova’s Instagram page and being prompted into doing more and getting involved in the Course.
Interviewer - What motivated you to start / continue?
The realisation that this stuff actually matters. It didn’t just matter in a big sense, it mattered for me individually. This was something that I needed to work on.
Before starting the Course, my idea of what racism was, was that it was a problem that other people had, other people were racist, and maybe I’d be happy to call out that kind of thing if I saw overt racism happening. But it wasn’t something I was complicit in or guilty of in any way.
But realising that, ‘Oh, actually, it’s me as well’, and realising there was work to be done on myself and realising it wasn’t a straightforward thing, it wasn’t something where I could just tick a box but that there was a lot to be done, that motivated me.
And long-term, what’s motivated me to continue, not just from the Course but on the journey itself, is realising the difference it makes. It took me quite a long time to see any external benefits from the Course and there’s reasons for that which I’ll probably circle back to – but once you start to see that the work works, as Nova says, that motivates me to continue because you realise that it’s making a difference both internally, and then, as you move forward and start to be able to make a difference in the sphere that you inhabit, that’s a motivator in itself. I don’t feel you can walk away from an anti-racism journey once you’ve started and you see that it actively makes a difference, to walk away from that would be actively deciding to no longer call out racism, or to do something that is so so important that I hadn’t realised for 30+ years of my life.
Seeing that it makes a difference, in my work, in my parenting, all those kinds of things, that’s a big motivator as well.
Interviewer - It’s that thing, perhaps, of we white people have a choice. We can choose to stop. Black people, People of Colour, have no choice
One hundred per cent. It’s privilege, even on a daily basis: I can choose to not engage with anti-racism. I’ve had days at work where I can compartmentalise and if I want to focus on another aspect of my job then I can and I wouldn’t have to engage with anti-racism. But Black people, People of Colour, they don’t have that choice because it’s there all the time, or racism comes out of nowhere. So, yes, absolutely, I agree.
Interviewer - At the beginning of your answer, you said, ‘When I realised it had to do with me’. Like it wasn’t out there, committed by other people. You said, ‘It mattered for me individually. This was something that that I needed to work on.’ Was there something that triggered that recognition that it was to do with you?
Not a particular moment. I can’t recall having an aha moment where I realised that. It was more of an ongoing thing. Actually no, having said that, it wasn’t on the Course, but when I realised racism had to do with me was when there was a moment about two weeks after George Floyd was murdered, 2020, one of my ex-students posted an open letter on social media about her experiences of racism at our school. She’d left the school a number of years before.
Interviewer - Was she a Person of Colour?
Yes. But at the time our school wasn’t very racially diverse. She was one of two Black students in her year group. I taught her, we got on well, she did really well on the course, but she posted this letter and went through a lot of the experiences she’d had at our school and I’d never realised what she was going through. She talked about the microaggressions she faced. And it wasn’t stuff that I thought, ‘Oh, my gosh, I was guilty of that particular thing’. But
I was guilty of not noticing what she was going through. And also I realised that she had never felt able to come and talk to me about it. She never reported anything. So this is about me as well: had I been engaged in anti-racism work then, perhaps she would have felt able to unburden herself of some of those issues and felt able to report it. But she obviously didn’t.
It was at that point that I thought, I need to do more in my workplace and I need to work on my own anti-racism and my own unlearning, so that I can be effective and other students who I now teach don’t have to go through the same experience as her. I actually reached out to her on social media and we had a conversation about it that was really helpful. But what’s really lovely and what’s come full circle, is that her younger brother is now at the school and he’s in our Anti-Racism Ambassadors group that we set up and I’ve talked to him about her experiences and how I don’t want other students to go through what she went through. So that’s why he wants to be engaged as well. It’s taken a really long time, but it’s nice to see that that change has happened, because of the work and the Course and Nova’s book, The Good Ally, and everything I’ve learnt from her.
Interviewer - Can you explain your Anti-Racism Ambassadors group?
I guess this is linked to your later question about how has the Course influenced your work, but yes, a couple of years ago, at school, a small group of us started talking about what we term ‘cultural issues’ at school, in the sense of our culture around sexism, racism, homophobia, transphobia, and started looking at lots of issues around that that weren’t being dealt with particularly well in school. We started talking about ways we could do more.
A colleague and I reached out to students and asked, ‘Are there students who would like to be part of a solution to tackling racism’? The response was overwhelming. We had around 30 Black students and students of Colour, who came along to an initial meeting that my colleague, a Black woman, headed up. She’s one of our English teachers. And she was very open about her experiences and she invited students who wanted to be part of a solution to become involved and a number signed up and said – in answer to a questionnaire – : Yes, this was a problem they’d seen and experienced and yes they wanted to do more. That was about 18 months ago.
It started off quite informally, but now we’ve got about 30 students from Year 7 through to Year 11 who are part of our Anti-Racism Ambassadors group. We meet every half term at school. There’s a whole range of things the students do. I facilitate the meetings, but they are beginning to take on more of a leadership role in the school. At first it was a space for them to share their experiences of what was going on, but now it’s morphed into them talking about one particular issue and they offer solutions. And then a few of them will feedback to our leadership team.
A couple of months ago, at the suggestion of one of our Maths teachers, a Black woman, who asked me, ‘Who feeds back?’ I said, ‘I do’. She said, ‘Why are the students not doing this?’ I made excuses, said it wasn’t their responsibility, but then I put it out there and said, ‘Would any of you like to go and talk to the Head Teacher about it?’ and there was a group of Year 10 and 11 girls who jumped at the chance.
They were amazing. They sat down with the Head a couple of months ago and he was very open and said, ‘Tell me about the issues. Tell me what you’ve been discussing.’ And they talked openly and honestly about the racism they faced at the school, about issues with students, issues with teachers. But then they also spoke about how they saw the school progressing and what they thought the leadership team could do, they laid out their vision for how things could be better. That’s the point it’s got to.
So now, every time Year 7s come in we open it up to them and ask if they’d like to join. It has varying degrees of success. Sometimes the meetings are absolute chaos because it’s a group of young people and they all want to talk over each other and they’re all really excited, but it’s a really lovely thing to be involved with and it has had an impact. Students have been feeding into policy. We wrote an anti-racism policy. Before I’d written it I got them to talk about why they felt it might be necessary, why we needed one. After it was written they read it and gave me feedback and some of their ideas and feedback were incorporated into the final draft. So they are having a direct impact on policy which is then affecting teachers at the school and how we deal with incidents, and all kinds of things. It’s really good.
Interviewer - What was the most difficult aspect of the course and why?
On a cognitive level I didn’t find the Course difficult. But I think that’s because I approached it, at first, all wrong. I’ve done the Course twice. But the first time through, my attitude and my motivation was, ‘I need to get this done’.
[Angela laughed and said, Again, this is laughter of recognition: I felt the same, at the beginning]
I wanted my Certificate of Completion. I wanted to achieve this thing. I enjoyed it, but I approached it on this learning, head-knowledge level: I think my motivations were all wrong. On reflection, when I decided to do the Course a second time, I realised the first time I’d been going through it because I wanted to tick those boxes. I was saying, ‘Yes, yes yes, I’ve done that. Great. Now I’m anti-racist. Now I’m all done’.
The difficult part for me was, second time through, slowing down and really reflecting on what that meant for me, for the people around me and realising that it’s not ultimately about me achieving something, or me completing something. It’s becoming anti-racist, that’s the name of the Course. It’s the beginning of a journey. When you finish the Course it’s not completed. If anything it’s this tiny moment, and then, for the rest of your life you’re going to carry on on this journey. You’re not done when you finish the Course, you’re not suddenly absolved of responsibility, you’re not suddenly never going to get it wrong again.
The Course opens your eyes to things and you’ve got to take that learning and, like we said before, you’ve got a choice to either run with it and to keep allowing it to influence you, or not. We have that privilege, don’t we? So I think, it’s not a difficulty so much, that realisation that I needed to go through the Course again, but it was sinking deep and permeating those layers.
On that second time through, one thing I found difficult and something that triggered quite a lot of defensiveness in me, was the module on Black women and white women. I remember feeling quite defensive when I read about the legacy of how, historically, white women had treated Black women and how that continues to impact on those relationships today. I felt some guilt over not recognising that relationship before as a teacher, and a teacher of history. There was an element of, ‘Oh, my goodness, how have I taught this? How have I taught the history of slavery in the British Caribbean? How have I taught this, without realising that relationship between white women and Black women?’
But also it led me to reflect back on prior interactions I’d had with Black women and realising that, at the time, I hadn’t recognised it as racism. I had to sit with that for a while, initially it was even hard to recognise it as bias and then recognising that it’s not bias, it’s racism. It’s something I have done. That was hard.
It’s difficult to recognise racism in yourself. It’s very easy to point it out in other people. But you’ve got to deal with it in yourself first.
Interviewer - Yes. Although I don’t know whether you’ve found what I still find, that now there’s a kind of indescribable thing that says to me, not even in words, but it’s like, ‘Well, what are you going to do?’ I’m a writer and I can’t even describe it, but it’s like, ‘There’s something more to do, here. That happens when I’m avoiding something I need to do. Before I face it.
Yes. That prompting. And you try and ignore it because that thing might be difficult and challenging, but actually you know that when it feels difficult and challenging it might be something that’s worthwhile and necessary. Something that needs to be done.
Interviewer - Yes. One of many of Nova’s phrases that I love is, ‘Getting comfortable with being uncomfortable’. I find that really helps.
It does.
Realising that sometimes discomfort isn’t a negative, it prompts you to action. If I think back to pre-anti-racism work, things were actually very comfortable. But doing anti-racism work makes life more difficult. It would be so much easier, at work, if I was still in my ignorance, for me personally. If I didn’t see racism between students, if I didn’t see microaggressions from other members of staff, if I didn’t see things in myself, it would be easier because I wouldn’t have to do something uncomfortable. But it wouldn’t be better.
Interviewer - And do you find you can’t unsee it now?
One hundred per cent. I see quite a lot of parallels between anti-racism and faith. I’m a person of faith, I’ve grown up in a Christian home and I’m still a practising Christian: there’s a story in the New Testament about the scales falling from somebody’s eyes : it’s like that. The blinkers have been removed. So now, much as I might like to bury my head in the sand, I can’t. I can’t not see racism. If I shove it down and pretend it’s not there, it’s still going to be there. So I need to act on it, even when it’s not comfortable, even when it’s challenging.
Interviewer - Did you ever think of giving up on the course? If so, why and what kept you going?
I don’t think I ever thought about giving up. That’s more to do with my personal nature of wanting to finish things and needing to finish things. There were definitely times, though, where I put the Course down for a while. I told myself it was because I needed some reflection time, time to process what I was learning, or I was really busy. But actually I’d put it to one side [Rachel made a very definite pushing movement with her hand and arm across her body].
The first time, what kept me going was that I needed to finish the Course. That tick-box thing. The second time through, what kept me going was the realisation that the work matters. And that it was going to have an impact, it was going to make a difference in me. And wanting to be a small part of change and realising that me learning this stuff and unlearning this stuff was going to enable me to make an impact in a positive way. Second time through that’s what keeps you going because you realise that it’s bigger than you, but you can have a positive impact if you keep going.
Interviewer - Just before you said that you did this [made a very definite pushing movement with her hand and arm across her body]. Any insights into why you decided to put it aside, the first time round?
Because it was hard. It wasn’t comfortable.
It held up a mirror to what I perceived as failings in myself. And for me that’s not comfortable. Realising that I’ve got things wrong, that’s not a comfortable feeling, that’s not a nice space to be in. Especially if you struggle with perfectionism. And, as I’ve now learned, perfectionism is all tied up with white supremacy, I realise that now. But for somebody who was quite an over-achiever at school, and always has been, perfectionism is definitely something I struggle with.
So going through a Course like this where you can’t get it right all the time, and that’s not the goal, and not being able to be perfect in it, that’s what led me to put it to one side first time round because it was difficult to sit with those feelings of not getting it right.
Interviewer - Yes. It is difficult. That was a courageous answer, I feel.
Thanks.
Interviewer - But this isn’t a test. And it’s not about perfectionism.
Even before this interview I was beginning to get a little bit nervous and then recognising that that’s because those feelings are still there. And the realisation that other people are going to read this. What if I say the wrong thing? What if I make myself look too good? Or too bad? So I just need to go, ‘Just be honest. It doesn’t matter. Just be open and honest about it.’
Interviewer - My interview happened to be the first up and when I read it I thought, at times, ‘Aaaah! Did I say that?’ Well of course I did. But that’s part of learning to get comfortable with discomfort. I think Nova says, ‘Honesty not perfection’.
That’s much better, isn’t it?
Interviewer - How do you navigate shame without turning it into self-loathing?
This is an interesting question because I’m in an accountability group and shame is something that often comes up in our discussions.
It’s [made up of] former graduates of Nova’s Course. I was invited to join and it’s been really helpful. But shame comes up a lot in our discussions but it’s not something I massively struggle with. And I think that’s because of my upbringing. I grew up in a house where grace was really important. I was very aware that, as a human, we get things wrong but there was always forgiveness and grace in our house and I’m really grateful for that, from my parents.
So I feel discomfort and when I get things wrong I don’t enjoy that feeling, but I don’t find that it spirals down into a shame cycle. That’s not really something that happens for me. I can name it when I’ve got something wrong and it doesn’t feel nice, but I can process it and if it’s something where I’ve harmed somebody else, then going and having that conversation and saying, ‘I’m sorry’, and getting that forgiveness, that’s not an unusual thing for me to do, it wasn’t new when I came to anti-racism work.
So when I feel those feelings of shame, being able to sit with it, name it and have conversations with people about it – that’s what stops it from turning into self-loathing.
And being a person of faith, I’ll pray about it. And that helps me too. So I think it’s not that shame doesn’t exist in me, I do have shame, but I can reflect on it.
Interviewer - It sounds like in your family as you were growing up, you were shown the tools to manage shame and what to do, and you did it, in terms of reflecting on it and apologising.
Within my family, that was modelled for me. How to manage it when we get things wrong. And also I was taught that,
getting things wrong is a natural part of human nature. So that helps me to not feel shame about it because, yes, I’ve got something wrong, but that doesn’t mean there’s something wrong with me. It’s just a part of being human, that we will get it wrong sometimes
It doesn’t mean it’s easy. Nobody likes being told they’ve said something problematic or harmful.
But fear of getting it wrong is an issue for me. There’s a whole perfectionism thing going on. So I’ll over-think things before doing anything in order to avoid getting it wrong. But actually when I do get something wrong that’s not as bad as the thinking about getting something wrong.
Interviewer - Do you have any ways of managing the over-thinking?
No. Not really.
Interviewer - It’s difficult.
Over-thinking is something I’ve always done, but I’m more aware of it now because the more I talk to people in the accountability group, and other people who are engaged in anti-racism work, particularly women, the more I realise it’s quite common. The people-pleasing thing. There’s a lot of people who over-think, over-analyse, about what other people think. That’s a huge thing. But talking about it, naming it – sometimes my husband and I chat about these things – just talking it through, that helps. But I’ve not yet got to a point where I don’t analyse and don’t over-think.
Interviewer - It’s very challenging. I find the same thing. But I think as you say, naming it and talking about it really does help.
Over-analysing and over-thinking can actually hold us in inaction. If you’ve seen something you know you need to call out, if you spend days, weeks, mulling it over and thinking about it, often the opportunity to act has gone. So in some ways it’s a defensive mechanism to prevent you from getting involved.
So you’ve spent all of this energy worrying about it, analysing it and thinking about it, but actually who has that served? It’s actually served you, because you haven’t done anything about it because you’ve been feeling bad. But that doesn’t solve anything. It doesn’t help challenge racism. So remembering that of course there’s a time to think, but sometimes it’s the time to say, ‘Now, I need to act’. And I might get it wrong, I might say the wrong thing, but I’m going to do something.
That’s just reminded me that, a while back, in 2020, after George Floyd was murdered, when Nova’s Instagram account really blew up, a few of us got together in a group and we monitored her Instagram account for problematic racist comments and we engaged with them, or not, or deleted them and things like that. And I remember at the time I would over-analyse: every time I was going to make an interaction or a comment it would take me an hour to think what comment to make in response to a problematic comment.
Sometimes it would get to the point that two or three other people had commented and it was too late. And I wouldn’t do anything. But a few months ago, after someone made a comment on one of Nova’s posts, I realised straight away, ‘Oh, that’s not cool’, I’ll just comment. I didn’t think about it, it needed to be done and then Nova messaged and said, ‘Cheers for Instagram. Thanks for Instagram.’
I realised what a shift there’s been in those few years, since 2020. Because anti-racism is more deeply ingrained in me, it’s something that’s become a practice that I try and do all the time. It’s just easier sometimes to just jump in. So maybe that’s the answer to not over-thinking: just doing. Doing it more and more and it becomes easier over time.
Interviewer - And, speaking for myself, not letting the fear of making mistakes stop me.
Yes, absolutely. My two-fold fear used to be, ‘What if I upset the person who’s made a racist comment?’ and also, ‘What if a Person of Colour, what if Nova, reads this, and it’s not quite the right thing?’ Then somebody’s got to call me in and that’s not going to feel comfortable. So all those kinds of things were going on. But now I think, ‘I’m going to say something. And if I get it wrong, somebody’s going to call me in and then I’ve learnt and I won’t do that next time.’
Interviewer - And I also feel that a thing you said a little while back, when you were talking about over-thinking, ‘Who is that serving? Who does that serve?’ is key. I’m going to remember that, thank you.
How does it feel to know this work isn’t about you? That you’re not at the centre of this work?
In some ways it’s quite freeing to know that it’s not about you. I don’t know if that’s even the right thing to say. But I like knowing that it’s bigger than me. So I’m part of something that’s beyond what’s going on in my own head and my own heart. There’s a community feel to it, it’s not just about you as an individual.
But I think also, on the flip side of that, when you realise it’s not about you, there’s quite a responsibility:
You’re being changed in order to make a change, more broadly.
So there’s a level of responsibility there that if you don’t act, then nothing will change in those particular spheres that you find yourself in. Unless you’re lucky enough to be engaged with lots of different people who are working in anti-racism.
It's also important to realise that this isn’t about making you a better person, this isn’t about self-help, the work is not for me. So realising that is a motivator for making, or trying to bring about, change in the right way. In some ways it’s freeing to know that it’s not just about you and there are other people involved. But in other ways it’s quite heavy to know that there is responsibility there, there’s a requirement, I feel, to act and to use your learning, beyond making you a better person.
I think so much of the stuff in the world today is about me me me me me, what can I do for myself? How can I serve myself? But this is about not being selfish and about doing something for others which, again, for me, ties in with stuff I was brought up with. My religious background is doing things for others, putting others before yourself. So I see those parallels. It’s a heavy responsibility but it’s a good thing to know this is not about me.
Interviewer - What were your aha moments on the course?
A big one for me was around microaggressions. And the recognition of the impact that microaggressions have, particularly for People of Colour. But it also opened my eyes to other kinds of microaggressions.
Before the Course I was one of those people who thought racism was those big overt acts of hate. Now there’s the recognition, the realisation that it’s the little, insidious but almost imperceptible, daily interactions that have the most impact. And Nova talks about some of the research that was done in America about microaggressions. And I’ve gone away and done a little bit more research for myself in order to talk to people at work about the impact of microaggressions.
I had that initial understanding of (a) what microaggressions are and (b) the harm they cause. That was quite an aha moment in terms of realising what I could do and how I could start to challenge things. Because if you only see racism as those big acts of hate, how often do you actually see those? I mean I’ve seen them at school relatively infrequently, but if you’re walking down the street you don’t see massive incidents of racism. It’s those little things, those little moments where you ask yourself, ‘Was that racism?’
But because microaggressions happen so frequently that’s an opportunity to act. So realising what they are, understanding what they look like, and then realising that you can actually make a difference there, that was quite a big aha moment. Realising this is what racism actually is, not what I thought it was, for the majority of my life.
Interviewer - I can’t remember if it’s on the Course, but I know it’s in The Good Ally, where Nova says microaggressions are like snowflakes. They seem harmless, but collectively they become a devastating avalanche.
Yes. It’s really understanding that. And it gave me a much greater level of empathy for what it must be like to navigate the world as a Person of Colour, constantly having to experience that and, particularly in school, we talk quite a lot about barriers to students’ learning. And I’ve always thought about socio-economic barriers, students who are coming to school hungry, of course that’s a barrier to learning.
But I hadn’t really realised the impact that constant microaggressions are going to have on many of our Black students. Because they’re trying to navigate learning in a space which might not be safe for them. And if you’re on alert, where you don’t know if the teacher in your classroom is actually going to pick up on the fact that a child in the class has said something racist to you, or you don’t feel represented because every single textbook is full of white people – all of those things on a daily basis. So that student is trying to achieve the same level of success whilst also having to navigate that level of racism. That’s a barrier to learning. And I hadn’t realised that.
But once you have realised that, you start thinking about how to start to dismantle microaggressions, you remove that barrier to learning. So then you have greater equality in the classroom and in the school.
It’s huge. But doing something about that and wanting other people to realise that microaggressions are a thing, in terms of calling people in, that’s probably the hardest thing at work at the moment, trying to get leadership to understand what racism actually is and how important it is that we tackle those ‘small’ things.
Even the term microaggression, it’s not a term people are familiar with. It’s not understood very well. But then I didn’t understand it, either. So that was my moment of learning, realising that we need to treat people with compassion because they’re not on the same anti-racist journey, they’re not on the same place you are on that journey, so treating them with compassion to bring them to that place of learning is really important.
Sometimes I want to hurry people up. To get people to the same place where I am, without realising that this has been a long journey. But now, in 2024, 6 years in for me, I can’t expect people to get to where I am, or further on than me, in the space of one meeting.
Interviewer - It’s another thing Nova says that I find very helpful: remember that they are where you were. It’s both compassionate to them and to myself and it stops me calling out and helps me call in, curiously and without blame. But I still get it wrong ...
Yes. If I think, ‘How would I have wanted somebody to speak to me?’
Interviewer - I love that. Thank you.
Remembering that helps me to be more effective in my calling in. Nova says something about – I can’t remember if it’s in the Course or in the book – but she says, ‘Nobody learns from a place of shame’. It’s really not comfortable to learn from there. So making sure that when we do call people in – it’s difficult to navigate not wanting to centre white feelings and white comfort, but equally not wanting to shame people so that they shut down, that’s a tricky balance to get – but I think it’s important if you want to see change you know that people are not going to respond well if you call them out. But they might respond well if you ask them to get curious. That’s really helpful, isn’t it?
Interviewer - How has doing the course helped you and the people around you? At work or in your personal life, or both?
The Course and the learning permeates everything. It’s not just something that affects me at work. It affects my interactions with my parents, with my children, with people at church, with work colleagues, with friends. Because it’s changed me and it’s changed the way I think about things, it’s changed the way I navigate and progress through every different part of my life.
So in terms of work, yes the Anti-Racism Ambassadors. But it started off more slowly than that. It started off within my role as a history teacher. So we started to tweak the curriculum and started to look at what Black history we were teaching. Recognising that for the majority of my career up until a few years ago, we just taught, one could say, slave saviour narratives. So we taught about slavery and we taught about Martin Luther King. And they were the two options in terms of our students, and for Black students in terms of who represented them: only those two options, no new ones at all.
So as a history department we looked at our curriculum, we audited it, and we’re at a point now where we teach about the Malian Empire to Year 7, and we look at knowledge and learning in the medieval Middle East and Baghdad; we look at the Kingdom of Benin and students will learn, before they get to what we still teach about, the British Empire and Britian’s role in slavery, Year 7 and 8, before they even get there, their learning about Black history is already much more nuanced and so they don’t leave Year 9 – that’s when they finish their history curriculum – they don’t leave Year 9 with a negative assumption that Black history is synonymous with slavery. And, if I’m being honest, that is the narrative that students were leaving our school with in previous years.
So there’s a much more nuanced history curriculum now.
And at work it’s led to me working more formally with our leadership team in terms of tackling not just racism but all forms of inclusion: we’re working on increasing equality at school, we’re writing policies and getting staff training around issues of inclusion and equality as well.
But it’s also changed my relationship with students and with colleagues in a really quite humbling way. I’ve got a number of Black colleagues – who are now friends as well – who have come to me to offload when they’ve experienced racism at school. And they just come to talk because they feel safe to do that. And it makes me quite emotional to talk about it, because it’s really humbling to have got to a point where I can be a safe space. It’s quite a weighty responsibility. I’m very aware that trust is being put in me when those conversations are being had and I need to take that really seriously. But that never would have happened a few years ago. Colleagues wouldn’t have been able to come along and say, ‘I saw this happen today. Who else is going to get it?’ That’s a huge thing.
And students, as well. Nova came into my school in December (2023) to meet with the Anti-Racism Ambassadors: it was beautiful. She came in and spoke to them and they loved it. She asked them, ‘What difference has Rachel doing the Course made, for them?’ I’ve never asked them that before, because it’s not about me. But she asked them and the students said, ‘She gets it. And it’s really great we’ve got this opportunity to feed back to the school’s leadership about racism here and see things change’.
I don’t really like talking about this, because it feels like I’m centring myself. I don’t like to big myself up in any kind of way because I’m very aware that,
everything I’m doing is because Nova has shown me the way. But equally it shows that it has made a difference. Students saying, ‘Well, I’ve gone and spoken to our teacher about this issue and then she’s gone away and done something. And I really appreciate the fact that when I go and talk to her, she actually does something about it.’ When you hear that from students you know it is making a difference. It’s not tokenistic.
What I do is not often seen by a lot of people, but that’s not important. It’s had an impact and it means those students feel safer than they did before. It means that colleagues have got somebody they feel they can come and talk to, which makes it slightly better. So if I can be making a difference there, then I’m all for that. But it never feels enough.
The Course has changed so much. So much. But the work is unfinished. There’s so much more to be done. To bring the school to the point where it is more equal. Not just in a policy, but in practice as well.
So I’m still trying to make that difference. The Course changes everything.
Interviewer - The question I was going to ask you at the top when you were talking about your Anti-Racism Ambassadors is, apart from you, are there any other white people in the group? I mean is it a mixed group?
There are four white students, but at the moment I’m the only white teacher involved. The English teacher, who’s a Black woman, was involved but her timetable just doesn’t allow for that this year. So not many. But the group is open to other students.
Interviewer - I was thinking that it’s us, white people, who need to do the learning. So that’s what was behind my question.
I think the students feel more comfortable with it being a group that is predominantly Black and Brown students, because they feel that then the space is safe for them to speak openly. And I think initially our leadership team wanted the Anti-Racism Ambassadors to be an equal mix because that was ‘fair’. But actually sameness isn’t always equality, is it? In order to be fair and to be equitable, the group actually needed to be predominantly voices of students who have experienced racism.
It’s interesting when you hear some of the students who are white, their ideas and their solutions are just on a completely different level to the students who have actually experienced racism. So it’s so important that the Black and Brown voices are centred in that group and then, for white students who are in the group, it’s really important for them to just come and sit and listen.
Interviewer - And listen, yes.
One student spoke to me after one group and said, ‘I don’t know if I should be there.’ I said, ‘What do you mean?’ She said, ‘I haven’t experienced this so I just don’t know.’ So we unpacked it a bit and she was feeling discomfort about being in a minority. She didn’t know what that felt like. She’d experienced xenophobia because she’s not English – so she knows what that feels like. But she wasn’t used to being in a room where she was one of the only white people. And she hadn’t really recognised that that was what she was feeling. I asked her why she’d joined the group and she said, ‘Because I hate racism. I see how it impacts my friends and I don’t want that. But I don’t feel like I’ve ever got anything to say.’ And I said, ‘That’s okay. You can be here and listen and learn and when something needs to be done you can get involved with whatever needs to be done. But it’s okay to be here, listening.’ And she said, ‘All right then.’ But it was good to have that conversation and to have more of those sorts of conversations with other white students as well. It’s a different kind of impact that you’re having, but it’s no less important.
Interviewer -Can you tell me the age group of your school? Is it from Year 7 to Year 11?
No. We’ve got a sixth form as well, but our sixth-formers haven’t formally been involved in the Anti-Racism Ambassadors – that’s their choice. There are number of students in sixth form who I’ve spoken with about issues of racism, particularly when we were writing the anti-racism policy and they offered reflections, but they’re very focussed on their studies. And there’s some snobbery among them about being involved with younger students! But they did come along when Nova came to the school, because they wanted to meet her. But also because they’ve been at the school a long time, they’ve experienced the school when it wasn’t potentially trying to do anything about racism. So they’ve had some very very negative experiences at the school – five, six years ago there wasn’t anything. I was at the school then, I’ve been at the school for 15 years and I wasn’t doing anything about anti-racism then, nobody was really doing anything. So they are, understandably, at times a bit jaded about whether anything will actually change.
Whereas there’s more hope in the younger students. Year 9s and Year 10s have already begun to see a change. And they’re keen to continue to be a part of that. So what I expect will happen next year is that the current Year 11 Anti-Racism Ambassadors, many of them are staying on to sixth form, I think the group will expand and they’ll probably take more of leadership role and I’ll probably take a step back and the sixth-formers will, if they want to, take on that wider role.
Interviewer - How has the course changed / informed the way you parent (if relevant)?
It definitely has. I’ve got two boys. One is 9 and one is 5. So when I had my eldest, in 2015, I wasn’t engaged in any anti-racism work. I was beginning to get involved when my youngest was born, in 2018. So I can see a very obvious difference in very practical things, like the kinds of books we buy. We’re very intentional when we buy new books now, ensuring that the boys have books with Black and Brown lead characters. Whereas before it was just, ‘We’ll buy a book’. And when my eldest would go and choose a book we wouldn’t necessarily guide him towards a particular book, we’d just buy them. So there’s that conscious choice to buy toys and books to make sure that they’re experiencing that kind of diversity. But it’s also helped us to have conversations with the boys about racism, in an age-appropriate way, and I think I can honestly say that we wouldn’t have had those conversations, or spoken openly and comfortably about issues of racism, if I hadn’t done the Course.
A couple of weeks ago my youngest brought home a book from the school library. It was an Enid Blyton book. So I had a quick flip through it and it turned out that there was some racist language in it. So I said, ‘We’re not going to read that book. And my eldest said, ‘Why not?’ Before the Course I would have just said, ‘Oh, there’s some stuff in there that I don’t think’s good for your brother to read’. But we actually talked about it. I didn’t show him the pages in the book, but I said, ‘There’s some words in here which are offensive, which are harmful to Black people. And I don’t think that book should be in your school library.’ So my eldest asked if I was going to talk to his brother’s teacher about it and I said I would take the book in the next day and have a conversation about it. And he said, ‘Oh, all right then.’ It was very normal, without trying to hide anything from him.
Similarly, a couple of years ago we were walking home from school and there was an incident with a couple of students from the school where one student was racist towards another. In the past I wouldn’t have had a conversation about it, or maybe thought it wasn’t an appropriate thing to talk about to my son. But my son had some questions. So we talked about it and I said I’d go into school and report what I’d seen. We had that conversation because, now, I don’t want him to be unaware that racism exists.
And we’ve had conversations about what racism might look like. Nothing heavy, but normal conversations about the fact that racism exists. And he’s said things like, ‘That’s really mean’. And I’ve said, ‘It’s not kind, is it darling?’ And I’m hoping that that’ll mean that – it’s not happened yet – but when they see it and they will, that when they see something racist without me there, that either they’ll have the courage to do something about it themselves, or at least come home and say, ‘I saw this thing,’ and then we can help them navigate it.
The Course has definitely made me more conscious, more intentional in my parenting, and making sure that they’re aware of issues of inequality. And we talk about things like sexism as well, and inequality and LGBTQ discrimination. The Course has enabled us to have conversations in all areas where there might be inequality and discrimination, at an age-appropriate level.
Something else the Course has helped with as well is, in terms of both shame and self-care, how we – my husband and me because we talk about these things a lot so the Course is not just something that’s affected me, he’s engaged with these conversations as well – but it enables us, when the boys get things wrong, to find ways to approach them that don’t make them feel shame but help bring about change.
And also in terms of self-care for ourselves, because of that module on the Course, we can be better parents and better people and make sure we’re looking after ourselves so that we can be there for our children and we’re not pouring from an empty cup as it were.
You think you’re just getting involved in anti-racism, but actually Nova’s Course is so holistic, it’s not just about anti-racism, it’s got applications in all sorts of other areas: her background in mental health is vital there. The Course is relevant learning for lots of other aspects of life as well, not just racism and anti-racism.
Interviewer - How has the course changed the relationships you have with Black people and People of Colour in your life?
So we’ve talked about work and that aspect. But elsewhere as well, the Course has enabled me to have more authentic relationships; conversations have changed. I’ve noticed that with Black friends, they will talk to me about racism, and they will talk to me about things they’ve experienced. A friend of mine, a few years ago, was talking to me about when she’d experienced a racist incident. I know that if that conversation had been had prior to me doing anti-racism work, my reaction would have been, ‘Are you sure? Are you sure it was that?’ But that’s not how I respond now. There’s a deeper level of conversation. It’s not a surface level.
But the key thing from the Course is the authenticity of my relationships with People of Colour now, that deeper level. Which is, again, really humbling. To be able to talk about things that matter to them.
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?)
It’s a tricky balance, isn’t it, because you’re wanting to take action which can easily fall into, ‘I’m going to fix everything’.
But for me it’s the accountability group. If I feel I might be falling into saviourism then I’ll dig into the group and ask that question. I picked up a role at my school last year, Diversity and Inclusion Lead, but before it happened, when I knew it was a possibility that that role would be coming up, I checked in with the group and asked, ‘Is this a role I should even be doing? As a white woman, should I be leading on Diversity and Inclusion at school?’
I’d been doing the role voluntarily but the school wanted to formalise what I’d been doing. But I wanted to make sure I was the right person to do it and this wasn’t me being saviouristic and being performative in any way. So, checking in with the group and asking those kinds of questions and knowing they’ll ask the difficult questions back. That’s really important, holding yourself in check, and holding yourself accountable.
Hold yourself accountable. That would be my big recommendation for anybody who wants to get involved with this work. You can’t do it on your own. I think it has to be done in community. And I think if you don’t do it in community you absolutely run the risk of not just saviourism but of being performative and of tokenism.
You’ve got to have other people around you. And that doesn’t have to be people you know face-to-face. When we first started our accountability group it was just a digital WhatsApp group. But having somebody there where you can ask, ‘Is this okay? Call me in here.’ And knowing you’ve got people there who will do that, and be honest with you, is vital.
Interviewer - What’s been the hardest lesson to learn / accept?
That I get things wrong. That racism isn’t about those people out there but it’s something not just that I have got wrong in the past but that I will continue to get wrong, at times. Even when I’m trying not to. And, again, going back to the perfectionism, it’s hard, and knowing that it’s not finished yet. That the work is not complete. That it’s an ongoing journey which means things are going to go wrong and people will have to call me in at times. That’s still hard.
The other thing is that I need to act when I see things. And I still don’t always. I can think of times at work where I’ve known I should have a conversation with a leader about something and I haven’t because of fear of how I might be perceived. Or for fear of knowing that it might have an impact on my career progression. That’s a reality. I have had conversations where I know that it’s made people uncomfortable. And I know that that has then led other people to avoid having interactions with me because it doesn’t feel comfortable, because I might call them out. So it does have an impact and it’s hard to accept that you might sometimes have to make decisions that might make you unpopular and say things that make you unpopular, but it’s the right thing to do.
I’d say I get it right about fifty per cent of the time. But sometimes I don’t take action where I should take action. And recognising that is so hard.
Interviewer - I’m the same.
Knowing that it’s not just me helps.
Interviewer - An acknowledgement that it’s hard.
Yes
Interviewer - What’s been the most important lesson you’ve learned that you carry forward?
That it’s lifelong learning. That perfectionism isn’t the goal.
That perfectionism is going to be counter-productive. If perfection is what you’re striving for then you’ll spend so much time feeling the guilt of not achieving. And I think that’s as important a recognition in anti-racism as it is in all sorts of other things.
And that links in with another lesson, that it isn’t about me. And knowing that once you’ve realised that, then you can start having an impact.
I realise that when I’m answering these questions I’m giving three or four answers before I get to my actual point.
Interviewer - It’s fine. It’s all good. It’s all part of the answers.
I think out loud a lot to get to what I’m actually thinking.
I think another thing that’s a really important lesson is learning where your lane is. Where you can and should be having an impact. And then doing it. And staying in your lane.
I know that I can have most impact in my parenting and in my particular school. Sometimes we can fall into wanting to be involved in everything. Wanting to fix all of it. But you can’t do it. I can’t really have an impact on things like government policy. I can write to my MP but it’s not going to have a massive impact. It doesn’t mean I won’t do that, but if I focus all of my attention on things that won’t really make a big difference because they’re not my sphere then I’m not going to have much of an impact at all. So remembering that my anti-racism role is in the place that I’ve been put. I’m in my school, I’ve got links with people, I’ve got connections.
If everybody was engaged in anti-racism in their own small spheres then we’d be in a much better situation.
That’s the most important thing. Recognising where your lane is in anti-racism and sticking to it.
Interviewer - I think Nova has an expression about this as well, she calls it where your front line is.
I like that. Because sometimes we go off on tangents and dabble in other areas but you’re not going to be effective in those spaces.
Interviewer - Or want to change the world.
Interviewer - How have you, and how are you still, calling white people to anti-racism work?
Most often at work. In quite practical ways. Through modelling anti-racism at work by triggering curiosity in people and then being willing to have those conversations when people approach me. But also – in terms of calling people in – there’ve been situations at work where a student might come to me and say, ‘This thing happened to me and can you go and talk to this member of staff about it.’ And going in and having that conversation. Not calling them in to do an anti-racism course necessarily, but saying, ‘Notice this’. Or, ‘This has been said. Can we think about doing things this way instead’.
But then also I’ll recommend Nova’s book to people. I’ve bought copies for a number of colleagues. I’ve said, ‘Go and have a read of this’. It’s drip-feeding, little things. I might lead a briefing session, a five-minute slot on diversity and inclusion, and I’ll mention something, ‘Here’s something to think about. Here’s something to go away and read’. And I don’t know how effective it is, but it’s certainly there.
And then in conversations with family as well. And always being ready to respond when you hear things that are racist or problematic. Being ready to have those conversations quite naturally. It doesn’t have to be a big deal. I’ve had conversations with my mum where she’ll say, ‘Oh, this thing happened’. And I’ll say, ‘That’s really racist’. And she’ll say, ‘Is it?’ And we’ll have those kinds of conversations.
It's not in the big things. Sometimes I might put something on my social media but actually I don’t think that’s very effective. I think those one-to-one interactions you have with people are the ones that have an impact.
Interviewer - How was the format of the course for you? Was it accessible? Is there any way that the course accessibility could be improved for other people?
Very accessible for me. I did both versions, the current one’s great. I can’t think of anything that would improve it.
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?
I think we’ve covered quite a lot, haven’t we?
If it hasn’t come through so far from me, I want to say just how vital this work is. I want to encourage other people who are thinking about getting involved, who are on the peripheries, like I was, back and forth with, ‘Should I do it? Should I not?’, and making excuses not to. I want to encourage them to just do it. Because it’s so transformative.
People who do the Course, who start that journey, they’re not going to be the same person at the end that they were at the start. And that’s not something to be feared. That’s something to be embraced. All the discomfort and the difficulties that may arise once you start doing this work are totally worth it.
The first time Rachel did Becoming Anti-Racist with Nova Reid she went through it cognitively, to tick anti-racism boxes, but she realises now that her motivation was wrong: she wanted a Certificate of Completion. The second time she realised Nova’s Course was the beginning of her anti-racism journey, a journey that she’ll be on for the rest of her life, a journey that matters to her, internally, and that matters in the spheres where she can have a positive impact.
Before the Course, Rachel thought racism was about overt acts of hate. Now she knows it’s the little, insidious, almost imperceptible, daily interactions, the microaggressions that have the most harmful impact on People of Colour. ‘The Course,’ she says, ‘changes everything’.
Rachel says, ‘I can honestly say we wouldn’t have spoken openly and comfortably about issues of racism with our children, if I hadn’t done the Course.’
Rachel has a tendency to over-think in her anti-racism work, but she also realises that over-thinking can hold us in inaction, it can be a defensive mechanism to prevent us from getting involved. And who does that serve? Doing something and getting called in if it’s wrong and learning from that, is better than doing nothing. Perfectionism is counter-productive.
Rachel helped set up an Anti-Racist Ambassadors group at the school where she teaches. The student-led group feeds back to the school’s leadership; students have been feeding into anti-racism policy and practice at the school.
And she says, ‘I want to say just how vital this work is. I want to encourage other people who are thinking about getting involved, who are on the peripheries, like I was, back and forth about Nova’s Course with, ‘Should I do it? Should I not?’, and making excuses not to, I want to encourage them to just do it. Because it’s so transformative.
Stop sitting on the fence. Just do it. Read the book. Do the Course. Just do it.
Learn more about Becoming Anti-Racist with Nova Reid
Books Referenced:
The Good Ally - Nova Reid