A Note from the Leads: Julie Wright

During my MA journey I had to search deep within myself to figure out what I wanted to do and what really mattered to me. This was hard and took a while as I was so used to having to do what I was told to do, no questions asked. From primary school, to secondary school, college, university, jobs and internships, I was conditioned to follow certain paths that would I guess lead me to what’s traditionally classed as “success”. Stand in line. Work hard, go to school, then college, then university, get a good paying job and then B A M you’re successful. You’ve made it. You’ll be happy, fulfilled, your parents will be proud. That’s the narrative we’re sold, especially for us whose parents moved here for a “better” life.

That’s not how it went for me anyway, the harder I tried following this blueprint (and trust me I tried, hard) the more I started to lose myself, my own identity, self respect and worth. I found myself trying to adapt, to please, seeking approval from those who I now realise would never value me until I valued myself. I remember when I first graduated from my BA asking my friend who is mixed raced about how I should wear my hair for an interview I had for a company knowing I would most likely be the only black person there, “should I wear a weave or have my real hair in a bun?” He replies telling me to wear it in a bun and something along the lines of me having an English last name means they’ll have an easier time pronouncing it in the office and be happy with that, “White people love that”. That’s how I began to navigate. Attempts at assimilation for survival purposes became my reality “Black and brown bodies have to navigate a tricky territory when working in white spaces. The associated demands are often trivialised partly because assimilation is the default expectation when it comes to whiteness and partly because white supremacy naturally needs to invisibilize the harm it inflicts upon people of colour to naturalise itself.” (Kinouani, 2017) A warped reality that plagued my very existence “Once such (racial) difference enters the workplace, if it does at all, the expectation is usually that it must dress itself in whiteness. This rule is as powerfully enforced as it is enforced tacitly. It is that very rule that dictates that we must remain silent when subjected to racism, that we must adopt organisational narratives, that we must overlook micro-aggressions and generally that we must keep white people comfortable. When there is no space for you to be, self-erasure becomes the modus operandi” (Kinouani, 2017) I started to reflect on my experiences of repeatedly being forced to crop out my hands from product photos that were to be shared on an “affluent” brands instagram page, yet every white hand, face and body was approved instantly whilst a few lighter skinned bodies were acceptable for the brands “Image”.

I’ll never forget a conversation I had with Activist Jane Elliott “internationally known teacher, lecturer, diversity trainer, and recipient of the National Mental Health Association Award for Excellence in Education, exposes prejudice and bigotry for what it is, an irrational class system based upon purely arbitrary factors. In response to the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. over thirty years ago, Jane Elliott devised the controversial and startling, “Blue Eyes/Brown Eyes” exercise. This, now famous, exercise labels participants as inferior or superior based solely upon the color of their eyes and exposes them to the experience of being a minority. Everyone who is exposed to Jane Elliott’s work, be it through a lecture, workshop, or video, is dramatically affected by it.” (Elliott, n.d) who told me very bluntly that if I wanted to re-enact her famous Blue eye/ Brown eye exercise myself I should say that my father is white. Then it all made sense.