The ‘Racist’ Gremlin
T H E . W E A K E S T . I N . T H E . R O O M
Him or I, the weak one?
I thought I was done, truly, I thought I was over sitting in spaces where Islamophobic remarks are thrown and I put on a false brave face pretending not to be insulted. The amount of times I’ve played past situations over in my head of micro aggressions from apparently safe spaces - friends family homes, to a mother in law with loose lips, and I cringe at how little I knew about what I could ask of myself. Since those teenage moments I’ve grown, learnt how to stand up for myself & others, and allied myself to those breaking through the same discomfort.
However, along the journey I foolishly allowed the privilege of education and confidence to think that I can always right the wrong - how naive.
Along the thirty year stretch of growing into my back bone it seems that I forgot the context that placed my spine against the wall in the first place… P O W E R.
You see, many of us might have done this at some time in our life- when insulted, directly or indirectly, we chose to smile in order to appease the atmosphere. Although it doesn’t challenge the racist belief, it somehow allows for enough grace to keep mutual respect and hope that somewhere down the line a conversation can be had, and in time our behaviour will shift perspective.
This week I was reminded a simple lesson; it’s not always safe to speak out. And in that discovery I found an even greater gift; that I am able to forgive the version of me who chooses comfortable friendship over uncomfortable belonging.
T H E . S T O R Y . W E . T E L L
The context - a glorious diving trip in Indonesia - it sounds dreamy, and in the most part it was, but it was also a nightmare. I spent a week out at sea on a boat with 8 other tourists, a sea captain and a crew of beautiful Indonesian dive guides and workers. I said yes to the adventure, thinking of how magical it would be to swim with the Manta Rays and wake up to dolphins at sunrise. I didn’t however, counter in a sea captain with a distaste for muslims, shark encounters in the pitch black, panic attacks at 30m below sea and loosing my phone to the Indian ocean. It was one of those classic ‘hits you at all angles’ alchemy of events. If it was just the racist remarks, just the challenging dives, just loosing the phone, it would be fine, but when all the things were put together I felt so uncomfortable, I had no where to turn but inwards and the meaning I was casting from this lesson.
Our time on the boat looked like a day of diving, closed with a group dinner. The dinners were our bonding time and when the captain spouted the kinds of comments to make Nigel Farage proud, I found myself distancing from those around me. As the least experienced diver on the boat, the only tourist of colour and a solo female traveller, the dynamics of power were very much slanted towards the sea captain and his trio of newly acquired young cubs. I went into ‘keep my head down mode’ and lost the spark of brilliance that makes me brilliant. I feel a bit ashamed to admit that, but I am sharing because it’s the humbling part of being human; sometimes we don’t show up in the way we wish. On the boat, I had an epic life changing magical time, and I also felt incredibly small. Whilst I leant closer to my higher self and a higher power I saw that my ego fell into victim hood.
In the UK if someone says something racist, often we speak out, and if not, then we leave the space. But what do you do, when you’re out at sea, for 5 days on a small boat with someone you disagree with AND your life is in their hands? I now see that the other guests’ silence and even my own, was an acceptance to the obedience of power and hierarchy on that boat. Because we were out at sea with no way to travel back we each slipped into a behaviour we never would have chosen if we were on home soil. It was a minor dystopian lesson in how inaction is in itself action.
I’ve taken plenty more lessons from this trip and the one I’d like to leave with is this, to remember never to become as arrogant to think that I and others are always in a position to speak out, sometimes we aren’t and circumstance renders it unsafe to do so. Sometimes, things aren’t black and white, integrity is nuanced, and we deserve self forgiveness when we knew better and didn’t do better.
In doing that. In seeking that level of forgiveness within, I can forgive the captain and his double edged tongue, knowing that he too, has been the receiver of hurt himself.
Till next time you beautiful beast.
K X
