BLACK LIVES MATTER (on white privilege)
“When somebody asks you to ‘check your privilege’ they are asking you to pause and consider how the advantages you’ve had in life are contributing to your opinions and actions, and how the lack of disadvantages in certain areas is keeping you from fully understanding the struggles others are facing and may in fact be contributing to those struggles.” Ijeoma Oluo
“Solidarity is nothing but self-satisfying if it is solely performative” Reni Eddo-Lodge
The recent horrific events in the US are just the most current, most visible expression of a systemic racism that we, as white leaders of a publicly funded arts organisation in the UK, know that we have benefited from. This blog post is our way to acknowledge the terrible situation in which we find the world, a call to arms (yes) for everyone to fight harder for social justice and to be anti-racist in all ways and in every way we can. We write this from a position of solidarity with, respect and care for our black, brown and ethnic minority colleagues, collaborators, participants, and audiences, and for the wider black community. We are your allies and we are trying hard to be the best allies we can.
We’re aware that in writing this post, we’re centring on our own experience as white people and white artistic directors. We know that this is problematic, because we’re using violence against black people as a context for white people to talk about themselves. We want to talk about white privilege because that’s what we feel we can most usefully talk about in the present moment, on this platform that’s created by Fevered Sleep.
Here are some thoughts we want to share with other white leaders, white artists, white funders, white people in positions of power in the arts and more widely in society; white people who teach our children, white people whose voices are heard. This is addressed to you. We make no claims to be exemplary, and what we’ve written here is probably deeply flawed. And we know we still have much to learn and much to do. Not one single letter in any of this implies that we are doing things as well as we could, nor that we have done enough. We’re just trying to do what we can.
1/ If you are a white artist, a white leader, if you run a company and you’re white, if your work has been produced, been in demand, been supported and you’re white, if you have agency and opportunity and you’re white, if you can make plans and bring them about and you’re white, if you get to make choices and you’re white, have options and you’re white, can afford to take time out to consider your options and you’re white, can create or deny options for other people and you’re white, if you’re living any version of the life you wanted to live and you’re white, all these things are possible for you wholly or in part because you’re white and you benefit from white privilege.
2/ See your privilege. Acknowledge your privilege. Share your privilege.
3/ Don’t think that seeing, acknowledging and sharing your privilege is anything like enough, because that’s just the really easy part. That’s just the start. The next part - the challenging part, and the important part, is the part where you acknowledge that your privilege is built on your ignorance, and that your ignorance is what’s allowed you to reap benefits from your privilege without shame. You don’t need to feel ashamed of being white, but you need to acknowledge that you know nothing about racism and that you have to educate yourself and use your privilege to educate others.
4/ Read. Listen to things that you find uncomfortable. Keep your mouth shut when you want to disagree when you’re told about your white privilege, learn to fight your desire to speak when you just need to listen, own your ignorance and chip away at it, bit by bit. Educate yourself, educate yourself, educate yourself. Remember that this isn’t a project, it’s a process. Don’t use discriminations you may face to erase the need for you to admit how you have benefited from discrimination against others. Admit that while identity is intersectional, not all discrimination is equal. And at the same time remember that an intersectional approach is the only approach that is ever going to even begin to approach a world of social justice. Fight for social justice, all the time, in every way you can, and learn everything you can to help you do this, and relearn, and learn again, and learn deeper, and learn the things you don’t want to learn and didn’t want to hear. Admit when you are wrong.
5/ Decolonise your practice. See the systemic oppressions, prejudices, structures, ways of thinking and ways of working that reproduce white privilege. Seek help to help you see this, and pay for that help. And when you see something for the first time, and you see how it’s an articulation of your privilege, and an oppression of someone else, change it.
6/ Never, ever ask black and brown people and people of ethnic minorities to do this work for you, or to lead this work for you. It is not their work to educate you, it is your work to educate yourself.
7/ But if you do ask black and brown people and people of ethnic minorities to help you with this work, pay for it properly. Pay people what they’re worth and don’t try to pay people less than they ask for, in order for you to learn from their trauma.
8/ Support black, brown and minority ethnic artists. Not just once, but consistently, repeatedly. Share the privilege of your whiteness, and the privilege of your funding. Amplify the voices of others, create opportunities, give over your platforms.
9/ And keep learning. Keep educating yourself. This is not a project, it’s a process. Do the research, do the reading, listen to the podcasts, watch the films. Social media is full of suggestions of where to start.
10/ We are immensely grateful to the following people who over the last few years have helped us learn about our privilege, and helped us begin to shape new ways of thinking, and new ways of working: Amelia Ideh, Annabelle Sami, Christina Poku, Ewuraba Hama-Lansiquot, Nike Jonah, Susanne Alleyne, Teresa Cisneros.
We know that what we’ve written here is full of gaps, and we welcome critical feedback. We know we are part of the problem. But saying nothing while black people across the world are overwhelmed by grief and rage is not an option. Because to be silent is to be complicit in racism, and we refuse to be complicit. We don’t claim to have worked out how to do all the things we call for here, we know we’ve made mistakes, and we don’t expect to stop having to try. Because it’s not a project, it’s a process, and the process starts now.