Nova Reid - The Good Ally

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First published in Great Britain by HQ in 2021

Copyright Nova Reid 2021

Nova Reid asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

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Ebook Edition September 2021 ISBN: 9780008439507

Version 2021-08-12

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• Page numbers taken from the following print edition: ISBN 9780008439484

To: my husband, I love you.

Cousin J, I found it.

Tin Tin, I did it.

In deepest gratitude to my ancestors, to all those who endured and have gone before: thank you for guiding me every step of the way throughout this process. I am changed by you.

I imagine one of the reasons people cling to their hates so stubbornly is because they sense, once hate is gone, they will be forced to deal with pain.

JAMES BALDWIN

So here we are: talking about racism. Again.

The fact that you have come to find this book means you probably agree that we are in the most curious of socio-political times. With social injustices rising in frequency, and an increase in far-right movements around the world, the rise in hate against the other and the resistance to moving closer towards equity are palpable.

At a time when it seems like the world is imploding, it feels like I am living in an alternate universe, having an out-of-body experience that I expect to be jolted out of at any moment. But with every headline, every new debate about racism, and broadcasters casually using the N-word like popping bread in a toaster, the continued exposure to normalised racism, and the constant release of studies highlighting racism in healthcare, criminal justice, workplaces, media and even in primary school playgrounds, only reinforce what many have been speaking, writing, studying, protesting about and indeed, dying for, for centuries.

We are repeating cycles and patterns of behaviour. Until we take individual and, in turn, collective responsibility to address racism, nothing changes. If nothing changes, racism will continue to morph and take on new, insidious and destructive forms that strip us all of our humanity.

The good news? Well, youre here for a start and there is also a growing number of people who have been sleepwalking, who are now waking up. People like you who want to be part of change, but often feel helpless or frozen by frustration and dont fundamentally know what to do or how to help. Which often means you regularly feel frightened, angry and hopeless (or all of the above) by the state of affairs, and that generally leads to three things:

1. Inaction
2. Total disengagement
3. Ineffective allyship

All key reasons why we are still talking about race in 2021.

At the heart of anti-racism work, or at least my approach to anti-racism, is the process of healing both individual and collective. If youve ever been in therapy or perhaps broken a bone in your body, you will know it generally feels worse before it gets better. Because, for most of us, intentionally and consciously addressing anything that makes us feel any kind of discomfort, vulnerability or shame, is quite frankly, painful. So we avoid it, like the plague; we bury it.

We keep calm and carry on, we bypass human experiences with love and light, or just be kind hashtags and put up appearances instead because its what many of us have come to know, what we have been taught to do and ultimately what makes us, well, you, feel comfortable and safe. But history has shown us change will not happen in the cosy corners of our comfort zones.

I often get asked why I do this work. Ill be honest: it was never in my career development plan to become an anti-racism activist. Growing up in Great Britain in a white-majority town meant that navigating racism was always a backdrop to my life. This only intensified as I entered the world of work, from acting and stage theatre, to working in mental wellbeing for ten years. It was during my professional training to work in mental wellbeing that I started to truly get to grips with understanding and working with human behaviour I found and continue to find our behaviour fascinating.

It was my former wedding business, Nu Bride, birthed out of my own wedding engagement and the vast lack of representation of Black women and couples in the wedding industry, that really was the catalyst to starting this work. I eventually started being asked to consult for wedding businesses, five-star hotels and creative agencies to improve diversity and inclusion in business and I noticed the relative ease in talking about other types of inclusion, like gender, and the contrasting embarrassment, shame, awkwardness and resistance to embed change that came up every single time I spoke about race.

That was my cue to lean into anti-racism. I now have the pleasure of speaking internationally, have a TED Talk on the subject, work with courageous leaders and offer an online anti-racism course that attracts brave human beings from all around the globe who want to role-model change by courageously unlearning their racism, to reduce racial harm and change the world around them. Theyre a pretty awesome bunch.

I wish I didnt have to do this work. I wish that we didnt continue to live in a racist society and, as a Black woman, I wish I didnt still have to experience the dehumanising impact of racism; not even I am immune to its suffocating grip.

The truth is, I felt a strong calling that is unexplainable, the more I ignored it and pushed it away, the more it came back, a powerful call to arms, a purpose to serve something greater than me, a call that all of my life experiences, my own racial trauma and my training has led me to be in this moment, to inspire you to role-model change. I dont question it anymore, I just trust that I am acting in service for those who endured and came before me.

I do this work because I want better for us and I want better for you and I want to leave this world in a far better state than when I entered it. But, and its a big but, the only way to tackle something as insidious as racism is to be honest about what we have buried; to be honest about what we have always known, what weve recently come to know, and how that makes us feel implicated. We need to be able to rip off the metaphorical plaster. To deal with the infection that has been mutating underneath the surface of us and our lineage for centuries, to see the messy and ugly reality of what lies beneath. Before we can understand the root cause of an issue, we have to look first, to really look, even if it horrifies you, even if it scares you, then seek to resolve it and finally, to heal.