When is it right to talk about a subject you don't know?

Back in the day, when I worked for Twitter, we used to have an expression - tweet your beat. It meant, basically, that you should post about the things you know about.

Largely, I still believe in it. I try to post on social media about things I know something about. If I don’t know about something, I don’t post about it. That’s pretty simple.

Hence during the coronavirus, I have commented on the marketing of the NHS app (since I know a bit about marketing apps), but I haven’t commented on how pandemics spread, since I have no medical knowledge.

This week feels like an exception to that guiding principle.

The global response to the tragic death of George Floyd and the subsequent conversations around the Black Lives Matter movement have taught me that it’s not OK to stay silent just because it’s a subject I’m privileged to not experience.

I have always tried to be an ally - give opportunities to people from diverse backgrounds or give advice when asked. But I would never have talked about racism because I felt it wasn’t my place, as someone who has never experienced it.

It would have felt outrageous for me, as a white, middle-aged male, to offer any kind of comment at all.

This week I realised that (a) anything I have done is nowhere close to enough and (b) people like me should be talking about this, and doing more.

The advice I’ve seen and heard this week that has most resonated with me has been: “it is not enough to be non-racist; we must be anti-racist.”

That quote was in a wonderful video I watched earlier in the week from Obioma Ugoala. You can watch it here:

https://twitter.com/PoliticsJOE_UK/status/1268264740171759616

(With thanks and credit to Hugh Woozencroft, one of the best people I follow on Twitter, for sharing that video into my timeline.)

So it’s down to me to do more.

I have tried to use my own channels this week to promote BAME voices - most notably my Twitter where I have the biggest audience. That's where I felt I could be most useful.

But I also need to educate myself more. I bought one of the books mentioned in Obioma’s video: Brit(ish): On Race, Identity and Belonging by Afua Hirsch. It's available on Amazon here.

I'm looking forward to starting it and I’ll probably work my way through all of the books referenced in that video.

Educating myself doesn't scratch the surface in terms of what I, and others, could and should do next, but it feels like a good place to start.

#BlackLivesMatter