Our Fear Is Justified? Is Yours?

Hello {{ first name | friends}},

I wrote this letter a while back, but it seems particularly relevant in view of the unexplained deaths of Nolan Wells and many others. There are reasons why so many Black people exist in a state of hypervigilance…

Dear people racialised* as white, let's get real: if you look at history, people racialised as Black have more to fear from you than you do from them (us).

I was talking to a young Black woman the other day and she commented that everywhere she goes she's aware of white people watching her. She's not doing anything out of the ordinary but that white gaze is always there, and it's unsettling.

I've experienced this myself, walking through towns and cities in the UK, US and elsewhere. That prickling at the back of your neck that tells you you're being watched. Or seeing someone blatantly staring.

You might wonder how we know this has to do with our skin colour or identity. The answer is long years of experience and an epigenetic inheritance from the trauma of our enslaved ancestors. We know.

The deep irony is that most of us are minding our business, going about our day and just want to be left alone to do that. We don't want to participate in the view of us the white gaze has. Yet often we are forced to. We sometimes alter our behaviour to appear less suspicious, less dangerous, more palatable. The codeswitching is exhausting. And still that gaze demands more, questions our presence in every space, looks for reasons to exclude us, wants us to shrink even smaller.

A few months ago I was on a street in Manchester waiting for a store to open. I went to lean against a railing and I was social distance away from the guy at the other end. He still raked me with his gaze and moved further away. The passers-by also had a good eyeful (and again, you can feel in your body the difference between disinterest, approval and hostility).

This happens to some Black people, Global Majority people, and people from marginalised identities every day. And just because we live our lives anyway it doesn't mean it isn't wearisome.