I Don’t Hate White People, I just can’t stand white supremacy.

Julie Wright, MA Central Saint Martins graduate. P116-117 Shades of Noir: Peekaboo We see you: whiteness. April 27 2018.

I Don’t Hate White People, I just can’t stand white supremacy.

My first initial thought reading this article was to put myself in my student’s shoes. How does the environment affect them emotionally and physically? How, I as a white Irish person, plus cis, plus male occupy this space.
Reflecting on my biases around this, I can’t fully justify if my presence is what I assume it to be, I have to take into consideration that I can have a threatening appearance, that my height of 185cm can seem scary to someone who is much smaller and younger.  There is the physicality of being in a room that can deter someone’s experience dramatically, I believe Wright justifies this while working at an eyewear company;

“the subtle and sometimes not-so-subtle microaggressions had my blackness being glared at from 10am – 6pm, 5 days a week. The pressure of being under the white gaze and living up to any stereotypes such as the angry black women wore thin on my mental and emotional health as it almost felt like I was being antagonised and goaded into falling into that stereotype”.

I have friends in the knitting industry who are people of colour, and increasingly I’m starting to see the number of doors that are being shut, as an industry professional I can justify their skills! They have the capabilities of doing those jobs and some! After a while though, you really see it start to attack their mental health and body language.

From this reading and talking to my BIPOC friends and colleagues, I have been taught that the most powerful tool I can do to help, is to listen and provide space. I find that with my teaching career, I have developed more patience in allowance and to even slow down my own accent to allow for clear and respected communication. As Wright goes on to say, the feeling of being ignored was highlighted when the white student, cut them off and started talking over them.

“And that’s the problem right there, clear as day”.

Wrights provide incredibly potent samples of how corrupt and biased are media (western) is towards beaconing whiteness over BIPOC, with references to Serena Williams and Sharapova, who were proven to being performance-enhancing drugs, yet Williams was belittled by the media in being referred to as a man and a gorilla all to squash her confidence and achievements. While also goes on to explain another micro-aggression from the BBC asking if ‘Vogue is still relevant today?’ in conjunction with the first black man becoming editor-in-chief of British Vogue.

Without reading this article, I don’t think I would’ve ever known those two facts, maybe this is my own white supremacy and being blinded towards these microaggressions. The fact is that I am growing, and this unit has taught me to reflect more closely on my environments, language and body language. My biases are something I need to flag and be more aware of, and if and when challenged I allow the conversation to hold a place for growth and the opportunity to be taught about others’ lives in their lived experiences.