Hello {{ first name | friends}},
I often date the start of my anti-racism advocacy to the essay I'm Tired of Racism, which I originally published on Medium on June 3rd 2020, and which later became the title of my award winning book. But as it turns out, there were three earlier inflection points.
The first was arriving in Barbados at the age of 12 and observing that the social dynamics of racialisation were different from those I'd experienced in Trinidad. That led me, years later, to do the research on colourism that became my book Exploring Shadeism.
More recently, I wrote an article in 2016 called I'm Not American, But... which shared my feelings on the results of the US election. Looking at it now, I can see the features that would become characteristics of my writing style. I can also see the foundation of my current approach both to anti-racism advocacy and community building. If you're interested, I republished that article here in the newsletter in 2024, with updates on the most recent US election result.
And on May 31, 2020, a week after George Floyd's murder I wrote While Black: Thoughts on the Assumption of Wrongness. That was the essay that directly led to the founding of this newsletter. As with many other essays, it could have been written today. It seems timely to reboot that article today, with some current reflections.