The killing of George Floyd, and the protests in Minneapolis and across the United States have been at the forefront of my mind recently, as I’m certain they have with most other people I know.
I have felt very unsure of how to respond to what has happened, or even whether to do so, on social media. It seems a bit empty compared with the gravity of what happened. I’ve had lots of conversations with friends and family about this over the last few days. I think what it comes down to is that if I’m going to help in any way, I want to help in a way that is meaningful and considerate, rather than ‘screaming into the void’, as one good friend put it.
That’s not to say that using social media, or talking about these events, is a bad thing. It’s not. Social media is an amazing tool for activism. It is a wonderful breeding ground for community. It’s just that within our rose-tinted, liberal algorithms, we’re not necessarily changing anything by sharing our opinions, because – as the very nature of an algorithm dictates - everyone who looks at our stuff already believes in what we are saying.
Social media encourages communities, but it also streamlines them. It’s frightening to imagine that for every parent out there trying to teach their children to be kind, to accept people for who they are, to celebrate and recognise differences and to judge people by what they do rather than what they look like, there are parents out there who are raising their children to believe that white people are superior, and that anyone who doesn’t look like them or come from their culture does not deserve the same treatment or privileges as they do, or even, that they deserve to die. Or even just that none of that stuff affects them, or people they know.
I have grown up feeling fearful of racism and of right-wing ideologies and aware of them in a simmering, under-the-surface, ‘I don’t want to touch that’ sort of way. But over the years, it has dawned on me in increments that we are already living in a powerful white supremacist system. It is like a fine gauze surrounding all of us, touching some and not others. I might have been subconsciously aware of it but not until recently, perhaps, have I realised how potent it is, and truthfully, how little progress we have made. I can say with sincerity that I feel acutely aware of my own privilege as a white person, because I do not have to face the same day-to-day anxieties that my black or brown friends do. My experience of walking through life is always going to differ from the experiences had by these friends.
This also makes me think that fear, like anxiety, is unproductive. Whereas anger propels. I think the anger that people are feeling now will change things for the better. I hope so, anyway. I also hope that people outside of this situation – white people in particular – will understand and empathise with this anger.
Here are some things that I believe to be true: I support change. I sympathise with the anger felt by the people of Minneapolis and by black communities / people of colour across the globe. This anger is right and I hope it will be transformative. I acknowledge my white privilege. I reject racism in all forms and I reject the notion of living in a society that rewards white people for being white and undermines and punishes black people for being black.
I have decided to delete all of my social media for a good long period of time. Anything that causes me the level of anxiety it has caused me over the past few months – pretty much since the start of lockdown, and even before then - is not good for my mental health. Anxiety has played such a huge part of my life, all my life, and as I said, it’s unproductive. I want to be productive. I want to make art, write, watch Toby grow up, be a good friend, grow vegetables, help to fight racism and intolerance, even if that's in small ways. I want to do all this stuff in real life (and write a little bit about it here, on my blog).
In the words of Bill and Ted: 'Be excellent to one another'
