A NOTE ON MOST CURIOUS AND ANTI RACISM

image by @blcksmth

Thanks for listening to my other post after the US election! I just want to say, I know this is a wedding account and I also know since May I have lost more followers than I have gained - maybe that’s because of the restrictions around weddings and parties, or maybe because we currently have no event to promote, OR maybe it’s because I have made a point of starting my novice and lifelong and long over due journey of being intentionally inclusive and diverse and being vocal about why and the issues around it. And perhaps many/most people are not here for that! 

I for sure don’t have all the answers, and it is not my voice which needs to be heard, but I feel it’s so important to keep banging the door on this issue because I believe that to truly make change and BE anti racist, it must run through everything we do like a thread. Because racism runs through every thing like a thread too, so the only way to counter it is consider it every where we are.

And also, it’s something I have had my eyes opened to in a proper sense for a year (after 10 long years of NOT seeing it AT ALL in any true way and instead spending my time contributing and sustaining the white supremacy in the industry)  and I now understand that the wedding industry is, just like, well, every single other industry, is racist. In the inspirational images it puts out there, to the hierarchies within it, to the people who are the decision makers and the people who are marginalised, it has racist structures. So I don’t believe that a wedding account isn’t a place for anti racism. Last week I listened to @LaylaFSaad Good Ancestor podcast with @novareid as her guest, as well as being a inspiration meeting of minds to listen along to, many, MANY things came up that there that were relevant for me and Most Curious, and all wedding platforms, to act upon so please do listen to all of that for more of an eloquently put and personal story of why we have to keep listening and acting on the problem of racism in the wedding world. Layla’s podcast is here.

It’s nothing new, its a problem and message that has been there ALL ALONG and has been said countless times now. And it should not be any marginalised person’s job to have to explain the problem anymore, unless just to have a conversation of solidarity with friends who get it, for the purposes that serve THEM, not us. We need to get over the stories and the anecdotes and the requests and need for more evidence, no more shock, or shame, let’s just act now. (something @studiooudizo kindly prompted me to wake up to as well!)

So we have to say thanks for those babes for spending their energy going through it all AGAIN, whether it was for us to take on board or not. Thank you to Laura @festivalbrides for flagging it for me as well. 

So- Obviously I’ll keep the giant monologues to a minimum, when it comes to Most Curious’s content, and the most important work, when it comes to Most Curious, is dismantling white supremacy with representation, diversity and true inclusion in the loves and lifestyles that we celebrate, via our marketing, socials, couple content, fashion shows, the companies and people we listen to, admire and elevate, as exhibitors, as colleagues, we work with, collaborate with, campaign with, make magic with… but I do feel it’s important for me to speak explicitly about this on my platform too. 

And here’s the other reason why , which was reinforced again in Layla and Nova’s chats.

For me it has very minimal, minimal effect on my mental and in turn physical health to raise these issues. It does not exhaust me to say it and ‘go there’, to have people question me, doubt me, get angry at me, abuse me (which they don’t), completely ignore me, gaslight me, silence me, it has zero effect on my identity, my sense of sense, my self esteem and value, my life choices, as it does for the marginalised people speaking up because their lives quite literally depend on it. 

People who, as @loveallthedays puts it in her analogy - feel as though they are standing in the middle of a busy street, screaming that that are being mugged and no body even so much as turns their head in your direction. Or worse come over and say, are you sure? I don’t think mugging is actually a thing is it? Or say, do you think maybe it’s your fault you got mugged, perhaps you even mugged the mugger! That surely is the epitome of exhausting - to even get to the point where some one is listening, and believing and understanding that there is a problem, before you can even start working out how to solve it. Every single time. That feeling, that process of being worn down, of constantly swimming up hill to even get to the starting line, does not happen to me every time I push this issue, every time I ask another person to think about this and act upon it, it doesn’t feel like labour, it doesn’t drain and damage me, but it does for marginalised people. So we, the ones with the privilege should be carrying the labour of acknowledging and highlighting the problem, as well as working on it. Is that not the very, very least we owe?

Yeah sure people might be like, I don't get it, or ask why do we have to keep thinking about that, or they might say, can we revisit it another time, do we have talk about that right now/again, or, I hear what you are saying but can we concentrate on the ‘priorities’... and it’s frustrating but hearing that doesn’t effect my whole sense of self, whatsoever, it doesn’t make me feel like less of a person or question my own value. I can just keep batting the balls in like one of those tennis machines, and people might actually catch some, because they like the way I play tennis. (Did I go too far with that analogy!?)

But surely this is why people must get to the point where they, at best just CANT BE ARSED to keep fighting this fight and at worst are actually DESTROYED from trying, and stop trying to be heard under our terms and just go and enjoy themselves and live their best life. Doesn’t it sound easier to simply go off and BE inspirational, or simply go off and be ORDINARY, or a bit of both, just let it go and be their true selves, where ever and whenever possible, just like we all want to! 

But the systems still rage on, the limits on lives, the injustices still happen every single day, spoken or unspoken, oppression looms over head, even when no one is talking about it anymore, and then the pain turns inwards, when its not going outwards. But I DON'T have that. So I’m just gonna keep talking about it, listening and lifting up, fight that corner, make authentic connections, interrogating my own biases and go into spaces that are just too damm exhausting and DANGEROUS for marginalised people to even be in to fight to even get to the starting line.

I can use my white passing privilege to raise the issues and to dismantle the status quo, like a spy from inside, to ask the questions, to throw a spotlight on the constant and unchallenged whiteness, and white fragility, to shoulder and share some of that burden. I’ll be that guy! I’ll be the woman who keeps showing up to ask about diversity and inclusion, to insist on it, to practice it, I have nothing to lose, people might roll their eyes when they see me coming, but it is not a harmful situation for me. It does no harm to me.

I really don’t want it to be white saviourism or patronising, I am so conscious of that, people don’t want ‘help’ they want a co-conspiritor as @brandonkgood puts it. Let’s just get on the same side.

I know that one of the most vital ways forward is true inclusion, people do not want some one speaking on behalf of them, or to be gate kept and waiting to be chosen to be lifted up.. they dont want their value and validation to still come from someone else saying, yes I agree - you do matter after all, well done, your time has come. I chose you! But I’m saying that, those of us with white privilege are not tired, we don’t get tired, we’re already on the top, so we can begin fresh and new, without the scramble up to starting line with our battle, not a lifetime of fighting just to get in the room.  There needs to be a seismic (but do-able!) change so that the decision makers ARE these people, space is given up for true inclusion and absolute equal value, from the top down, so there is no sense of adding it on as a bonus. The aim is an end to the made up concept that there is the ‘norm’ and then ‘otherness’, that the norm, allows the ‘others’ to join in. An end to the idea that a select amount of space can be handed out, with a rationing note, so the scales don’t tip. I am making decisions in my life, where I can, to purposely work towards that as the goal. But while we get there I’ll keep batting that ball in! 

Layla’s podcast is here.

Buy Layla’s book Me and White Supremacy

Nova’s podcast is here.

And she’s about to finish her book The Good Ally, which you can pre-order here coming out in September 21

Jordan from the brilliant @loveallthedays also has the Ally To Advocate Summit taking place for those in the Wedding Industry and beyond to step up- today is the deadline to sign up!