How committed to inclusion are we?

I’ve struggled this week to find the energy to navigate the narrative that is playing out in front of us again.I take hope that many of the posts about celebrating women and commitments to the advancement of women will bear fruit.

What troubles me though, is the narrative around ‘yes, but’ or worse ‘no, and’, which seems to be growing legs.

I haven’t really slept this week, and yesterday morning, when I conceded that I had lost the bid for a good night’s sleep, I got up and started reading some of the commentary around the perceived value of women in our society. Then I did something that I haven’t done for a while, I started writing out my thoughts, because honestly, if I hold them inside for any longer, I think I’ll throw up anyway.

By the time my son got up, he found me crying about the injustice, frustration and pure fuckery of it all, he heard me and added his own layer, ‘And then try being black, mum’ – his lived experience.

Our shame responses are in overdrive, we are struggling to listen to the lived experiences of others, because as ‘good people’ we are unsure of what we are expected to do. So, the easiest thing to do is absolve ourselves of any burden of action by saying, ‘I don’t believe it, it can’t be true’ and if we need more back up, we discredit the individual, because then, their experience is definitely invalid. If we get caught in that place where our boundaries of change are pushed, but we consider ourselves progressive, we offer up ways that the individual, should change to be more acceptable, less challenging, more palatable.

And that has been what we’ve witnessed this week.

We saw a woman vilified for sharing her lived experience and we saw a woman murdered for walking home.

If you’re happy to - join me on a walk through my thinking about the response to the Meghan and Harry interview.

When Meghan shares her lived experience as a woman of colour in a society built for a white male narrative, she is not offering it up as an idea for validation from Piers. (do some research if you are stuck already - https://www.waterstones.com/book/invisible-women/caroline-criado-perez/9781784706289 ).

When Meghan shares that her mental health has suffered as a direct result of her lived experience, she is not asking for a diagnosis from Piers, who is not qualified in such matters. https://www.mind.org.uk/information-support/types-of-mental-health-problems/mental-health-problems-introduction/diagnosis/

When Piers writes over 30 articles about Meghan, who by his own admission, he’s only met once, that is the door where we should lay down our claims about attention seeking and sour grapes.

Piers, 16 yrs Meghan’s senior, well known for unscrupulous associations with negative press stories, contacts Meghan, a young woman of colour working in an industry fraught with exclusion and misogyny and she replies politely, that is not a come-on.

If after Meghan and Piers met, he never heard from her again, it’s undoubtedly because the dynamics of an in-person conversation is significantly different to a text one, and maybe Meghan just didn’t like him. For Piers to then spend the next 5yrs years telling a story of being ‘ghosted’ from a ‘friendship’, is an ego issue. It hurt, he didn’t like it, he felt he was entitled to more, he doesn’t have closure.

What’s difficult with Piers’ response to Meghan not forging a relationship with him, is his sense of entitlement that he is owed a relationship in the first place. Rather than doing the work to understand how society has conditioned us to believe that when men give women attention, women must be pleasing in their response, instead Piers leans on exclusion and derision tactics, manifesting as misogyny and racism.

It is not for Piers, a white man, not involved in the relationship between Meghan and her family, to debate with the public that her experience, which he and the wider public, had no interaction with, has not been racist.

It is not for Piers to dictate when difficult conversations about inclusion and diversity are to take place, poor mental health is just as life threatening as any other condition, there shouldn’t be a hierarchy of who gets to be more sick or more protected.

Using ‘free speech’ as a get out of jail card has actually created a click bait culture of poorly researched, bias loaded soundbites, which are all designed to vindicate the orator. What Piers refers to as free speech, is actually a monologue to which no response can be given or is welcomed. It’s a modern day example of dictatorship, there is only one view, there is no discussion, any other way of thinking is ridiculed, attacked and deemed to be a threat to our way of life.

When the press office at the Palace responds with a statement that says ‘recollections may vary’, that is absolutely true, we all know that, from our own disagreements with people.

However, this disagreement is not about whose turn it is to bring dessert for dinner at Windsor castle, this is about an issue that is built into the very fabric of our colonial society. Our historic wealth is embodied in the grand buildings that were built off of the backs of the slave trade and the pillaging of resources from countries we colonised. Our history lessons in school have literally been whitewashed and had all but a few traces of women removed. If you are over 25, your first introduction to ‘black history’ was the slave trade. And with women only accounting for about 0.5% of recorded history, most people are only able to bring forward the highly sexualised stories of Cleopatra and Helen of Troy. Again, if you need help (https://www.waterstones.com/book/natives/akala/9781473661233)

Our Royal family is not representative of the society it serves, it has never been. Throughout the history of this family, ‘other’ has always been poorly handled. Family members with mental health issues and disabilities have literally been locked away and all but erased from the family archives. Religious views and martial status have caused fundamental shifts and resulted in banishment.

It’s been over 200 years since the Royal family had a woman of colour as a member of it's elite privileged group, we’ve got to expect that they were likely to get it wrong. I’m not absolving them, I’m endorsing Meghan’s narrative, because the data doesn’t offer me any other view. What I do think, is that rather than making this story about shame and sensationalising Meghan vs Monarch, we should instead create safe spaces for these conversations to happen. Whilst I don’t think anyone reading this will be directly involved in the listening, learning and healing that needs to take place in the Royal Family. We are all involved in our own equivalent scenarios and if in reading this, you think you aren’t, I can tell you in complete certainty, from lived experience that you are sat with Piers.

Wherever you are working today, you have the opportunity to look around you and not only call out exclusion but challenge yourself to identify it in the first place. You may believe that you are not intentionally biased, but take a look at the list of protected characteristics and name the close friends that you have in your immediate circle, (not the people you kind of know because of social media, but the people you would get out of bed for in the middle of the night), who resemble those characteristics. You will have gaps, we all have gaps – ask yourself why and if you find yourself starting with ‘well I just didn’t grow up in an area/environment/family/other experience that presented difference to me, so therefore as an adult, things have just stayed the same, let me tell you gently, you're walking around with blinkers on. https://www.gov.uk/discrimination-your-rights

And here’s what I know to be true, we all perceive ourselves to be ‘good people’ and ‘good people’ are nice. We believe that people who are racist and misogynistic are rude, uncouth, uneducated, outdated, and yet ‘good people’ are all over social media this week, with their ‘yes, but’ or ‘no, and’ statements.

This is the new language of exclusion;

"I’ve been decent enough to let you have your say, but now let me tell you how it is for you in reality, not because I was there, or because I have had the same experience, but because, by my own reckoning, I just know better" caveated with "I’m a good person, I’ve never excluded or discriminated against anyone my whole life"

To quote Pretty Woman:

 Edward: “I never treated you like a prostitute.” [Walks away] Vivian: “You just did.”