I have hesitated to write this…I’m grateful to several friends for their views, but this is bubbling underneath my thought processes and is part of my own work on BLM and tackling my own privilege and unconscious bias…

It’s Pride month and I wrote before that I was dismayed that the usual visibility of rainbows through June would be swamped under the NHS support on show…

Now, I’m perfectly content to see Pride somewhat sidelined whilst the world turns its attention to systemic racism…It is right and just that we focus our attention there right now and commit to a long term effort to dismantle the systems that maintain injustice against Black people and other people of colour…

Long intro, huh?

What’s been in my thoughts a lot is how I keep reading “We just need to stop labelling people and stop seeing skin colour!”

This is bias, supremacy, privilege and denial all in one big ugly bundle…

I’ve already written a bit about why labels are important – in brief (ish), because they help to define who we are and where we come from, our beliefs, our values, our character…Labels are intrinsic to identity, and diverse labels allow us to discuss diverse experiences…Labels are essentially adjectives, descriptive words, that provide information about us as individuals and allow us a vocabulary for dialogue, for education, for recognition…and whilst they define an individual, they also assist in finding community and connection…

Next up – invisibility of characteristics, doing away with labels – I am going to come at this as a gay woman:

I have been asked so many times why anyone needs to know I am gay….*sigh*….

Technically, they don’t…except that they would have known anyway when I started dating my wife, when we held hands or kissed in public…When we got married…

So why should it be incongruous for me to SAY that I am gay…because I am..?

I *could* dress in a way that disguised me as a stereotypical heterosexual woman (don’t even get me started on how, I mean, that’s insulting too, right???)…I *could* choose to NOT hold hands with my wife, hold her hand, be affectionate towards her in public (I know plenty of lesbians who don’t hold hands in public, even though they are out, even though they are married, because it doesn’t feel safe…)

OK, so I choose to be visibly gay…I’m gonna say this bit louder, for those at the back…Black people, and anyone who is not white, cannot hide their skin colour…I have the PRIVILEGE of being able to pass for what is considered the norm, if I so choose, and I don’t…because why should I?

So, I acknowledge my privilege…

And now I ask you, you probably don’t consider yourself homophobic after all…Should I have to pretend I’m not a gay woman when I walk out my front door? Should I ambiguously refer to my spouse or partner at work and avoid Pride marches in case I am seen and recognised?

Here’s just a fraction of the work we all need to do….If you are shouting that we should not see skin colour or label race…WHY???? Skin colour is not something you can keep inside your own home, and WHY would you want to? Do you think that non-white skinned people should be ashamed of their colour? Because that it what you imply by saying we should not see it. If you say it is not visible to you, do you realise that makes it sound like it might matter if you did? Do you understand the centuries of colonialism, slavery, segregation, apartheid and belief in racial superiority behind that statement?

White people lives are not affected by their skin colour, so they don’t have to feel or think about their race…Just think about that – it only doesn’t matter to you, because you don’t have to think about it…it doesn’t have to matter to you…

Difference is NOT the problem.

The problem is that skin colour and other differences have come to signify less, wrong, aberration, anomaly, abomination, inferiority…Whether YOU see them or not, centuries of oppression mean that those very differences that you have the privilege of not seeing, affect the lives of those ‘others’ every day…

NORMAL is essentially white, cis, male, heterosexual, middle/upper class, physically & cognitively able…Not being any one of those makes you ‘other’…

ANYONE outside these is immediately in a group that has to some extent been marginalised and oppressed…women were the property of their fathers and then their husbands (like a dining table or a fine wine ffs)…gender non-conformity has moved from reverence in more traditional society to being the most at risk LGBTQ+ identity in terms of violence and loss of life…you only have to google and check out the plethora of BLM resources to learn about how not being white affects people…non-heterosexuality has been and still is punishable by imprisonment, and by death…gay marriage was only first legalised 20 years ago!…class/wealth is huge in terms of impact on access to education, health care, opportunity…dis/ability still creates inequalities in opportunities across every dimension of life….

DIFFERENCE IS NOT THE PROBLEM

Seeing difference is not the issue! Can you hear me yet? NO ONE should have to hide their difference…Otherness is not the problem!

Otherness should not have to hide itself for your comfort nor should it be ignored….SEE DIFFERENCE…just don’t allow difference to result in discrimination, prejudice and injustice!

Difference, otherness, should not affect access to healthcare, education, maternal mortality, promotion chances, or any opportunity…BUT IT DOES…not seeing difference, not recognising others, will not change things…

Embrace difference, embrace otherness…and stand up, speak out and show solidarity when society threatens people simply for being different…

See difference…just don’t exploit it for your benefit or allow it to be a way of denigrating those who seem, look, act or identify outside the norm.

You’re not being inclusive when you say skin colour doesn’t matter and that you don’t care if someone is LGBTQ…”we’re all just one big race, humans”, I hear you cry…Well, yes…but that doesn’t stop systemic racism and other isms from taking lives.

So, please stop saying labels don’t matter, that difference shouldn’t be seen. Either you’re ignoring your conditioned biases or wilfully denying they exist.

Talk about, learn about, understand and respect differences…that’s how we make a difference…