Why I stopped talking about race

Many people who follow me here, came into this space during the ascendence of Black Lives Matter in 2020. At the time I was writing a lot on what it would take to heal racism. I am deeply grateful for the community I’ve built as a result of that time. And of recent I’ve stopped talking about race here. And I wanted to share why.

This picture was taken in June 2020. It was the height of ascendence of BLM and I felt imbued with great hope. I still believe that this great awakening to the depths to which racial inequity lives within our histories, our cultures, our bones - is one of the most important shifts of our time.

And soon after this picture was taken I began to notice the ways this awakening had adopted the same systems of violence that characterise the thing we wanted to transcend. Blame, shame, subjugation, policing behaviour. I saw that no matter how noble the cause, when we try to “fix” something created in thought (the thought that one person is fundamentally better than another) with the same mind that created it, we always create the same outcome. Even if it on the surface looks different.

I also saw many of the conversations about racial justice collapsed into a single quest for representation. Pass the mic. Black bodies on board seats. And there was a stirring within me that felt the tragic irony of this goal. Is it really liberation to have more black bodies at the top of companies that are built on a foundation of extraction and oppression? Are we not just moving colours around a chess board where the game depends on winners and losers? It may look different, but it still smells the same to me.

I began to feel we were on the wrong path, or perhaps, back on the same path but looking at it from a different angle.

I didn’t name these stirrings because that would mean questioning the cultural narrative. And in this culture of cancellation, sticking your head above the parapet is a way to get it blown off. And honestly this year, I didn’t have the capacity to cope with that. But now it feels important to share what I’m seeing and feel comfortable suffering any fall out.

I believe fundamentally that we cannot heal a racist society with the same minds that created it. That in our rush to fix, solve, eradicate we are neglecting the deep inner work of looking all the ways we all blame, shame, subjugate, judge, victimise, abuse power and taking full responsibility for integrating them.

I believe we cannot heal a racist society with the same method that created it. Waging war on that which we fear. The war on drugs. The war on crime. The war on COVID. The war on racism. Fixing, controlling, eradicating. Time and time again we see war does not beget peace. And yet we keep trying, in ever more frenzied ways to eradicate that which we fear. It is time to lay our weapons down and stop fighting.

I believe that we should focus less on constructing the systems that would exist in a post-racist society and focus more on becoming the people who would inhabit a post-racist society so that the systems we seek naturally emerge as a result of who we are.

I believe that we do not yet have the map that will navigate our way to a post-racist society and so we need to slow down and get lost. Allow ourselves to fall into the space between stories, into corners, crevices, take the long route. Accept on the deepest level that creating a post-racist society is an inter-generational programme that is already underway.

I believe that a big part of what will actually dismantle oppressive and repressive structures is to live their opposites - to prioritise pleasure, joy, ease, play and full expression in all its forms.

And yet to say these things, I think, triggers something in people. Well if we don't fight, if we don't fix, if we don't blame - aren't we just accepting it? The answer, I think is both yes and no. And the pathway to a post-racist society, lies in allowing ourselves to fall into this paradox.

As the culture wars drew division lines, I saw two sides become increasingly entrenched in their positions. On one side the “woke” insisting that everything be viewed through the lens of identity, so that finally the voices of the marginalised would be heard. On the other side the “anti-woke” dismissing this kind of totalising discourse as unhelpful, untrue, even dangerous (I’m massively simplifying here - but I think that’s a fair summary).

As I saw these lines solidify I found myself scurrying to find my place in this war. Finding home in neither camp but finding truth in both.

I posses a particular combination of character traits, that are politically dangerous if left unexamined. I am gifted with the natural ability to see any issue from all angles, I’ve had this as long as I can remember. I’m also cursed with the tendency to people please. Able to see both sides and hesitant to rock the boat, I find myself politically in no man’s land. The safe, moderate middle.

For a long time I told myself my position was that of the pacifist, mediating between two increasingly violent sides. Remaining moderate, measured, an anti-dote to the chaos of division. There is beauty in moderation, for sure. But it’s not pacifism. True pacifists are anything but moderate, they are radical. They are so radical that they choose to sit completely outside of the existing paradigm.

I see now that in choosing to occupy a safe middle between two warring factions, I am not stepping outside of the paradigm, but sitting right in the middle of it. And I crave something more radical.

So what does it mean to step out of the paradigm completely? Here are two threads of thought I’m exploring.

Racism is a manifestation of a far deeper ill. It is a symptom. One of the most vicious symptoms of the story that we are choosing to live in. The story that Charles Eisenstein calls the story of separation. Separation from ourselves, each other and the earth. Other symptoms look like abuse, environmental catastrophe, war, poverty. All symptoms of the same root cause. And so why fritter about on the surface trying to soothe the symptoms, when we could go right to the root. Create a new story. A story of interbeing. Of unity. Of love.

The unsettling thing is living in this story often appears to have nothing to do with the symptoms that are hurting us now - it might look like dancing under the moon, or being totally present with our children, or practising radical self-acceptance (dismantling the oppressive systems within ourselves). It doesn’t directly address the symptom because it’s not concerned with symptom it’s concerned with cause.

The other thread is even more uncomfortable to sit in. And it is this - to admit, fully, that we do not have the answers. To stop asking - ok I agree with you Holiday, but what do we DO differently, what’s the alternative? To know that in the absence of answers, what we do have is questions. Why do we fear each other? Why do we hurt each other? What is love? The big mysteries of existence. And yet we are so quick to desert the questions and settle for half answers that satiate our need to know and to do but do not truly ever feed us. But perhaps there needs to be a space, a literal temporal space between these two stories. Fallow land. To allow ourselves to become new. This is what it means to fall into the space between stories.

I remember back in 2020 reading three words everywhere. Silence. Is. Violence.

I got it. And I had questions. Are we not all silent on something? If not racism then sexism. If not sexism then the Amazon. If not the Amazon then child trafficking. And still I understood the power of rallying the global voice behind one cause even if it means others are sidelined.

And after Ocean was born and then Sushi died, everything turned inwards. I didn’t open a newspaper for months or think about how I could contribute to a better world. I just thought about my life and my family. Within the framework of silence is violence this would be selfish. Within the framework of my lived experience it was survival. Barely able to hold the weight of pain within my own family, there was literally no space to hold the pain of the collective. But I’d lived through birth and death, there are social “allowances” for this. But we never know the personal hell that someone may be living in. Who are we to judge who has the right to be silent and who must speak?

A culture of telling people what they should and shouldn’t do. A culture that moralises behaviour relentlessly and weaponises the guilt of people who genuinely long for a more beautiful world. Is not the road to a more beautiful world.

And I wondered if we’re all the ones telling each other what to do, who are the ones doing? I needed to know if I could actually live the message. Can I live love in every action? Do I listen to voices other than my own? Do I speak the truth even if I might lose something?

What I know now is that the answer is yes, and no. That I am not yet the person who would inhabit the new story we dream of. That this road is long and slow and I feel deeply committed to it.

I will be talking about race, justice and liberation again. But there will be more questions less answers. More explorations and dead ends. More meanders and detours. More personal work. More joy. And beauty. And freedom. The long route. But the one that I think will get us there, wherever it is we are going. The more beautiful world.

Love xxx