Decolonising writing: it's time we knew more about the people delivering our media
I am a white British woman. I am cis gendered, non-disabled and heterosexual. I was born in the UK, I am a non-immigrant. I am middle class and privately educated.
I was raised with both white privilege and privilege. As much as I may try to discuss issues beyond my own experience, I will always be writing from my perspective. I will have my own experiences, socially ingrained attitudes and subconscious biases. If I was to write about race, I’d be writing from a white perspective. If I was to discuss poverty and reliance on food banks in the UK, this wouldn't be discussed from first-hand experience. These things make a difference. You, the reader, may not be aware of this if it was never disclosed.
Now I have disclaimed this, you know enough about me to head into this article with a fair approach to what I have to say. If you’re male, you will read this and agree (I hope) that I know more about what it means to be a woman than you do. If you’re BAME, you will know that I do not have first-hand understanding of racial oppression. Will this discount anything I have to say on the subject? No, it will just set a precedent that I must work harder to say things right. It will hold me to a standard and to account, while giving you, the reader, the information you need to make a fair judgement on what I'm saying and be critical.
Protest signs, petitions and social media posts over the last week have demanded we “decolonise the curriculum”. While this is absolutely essential to ensure that education is representative and inclusive, decolonising should occur at more levels than just our academic institutions.
Decolonisation is most easily understood as the undoing of colonialism; colonialism being the historical root of racial injustices and inequalities experienced by black and minority ethnic people today. Though we may be sparsely educated about the subject in the UK, colonialism built the structures of white privilege that decolonisation can now play a key role in dismantling.
Decolonising isn’t, and shouldn't be, about improving on-paper diversity statistics. Decolonising is actively engaging with, and questioning the history that brought us here and created our structures. It is attempting to strengthen representation, not through pushing minorities to the front but by addressing the root cause of systemic discrimination and inequality. It is an ongoing process critiquing how inequality is produced, and how it can be changed. Through writers disclosing their background, journalism and written media could be a new opportunity to decolonise.
It is argued in academic fields that decolonisation is everyone’s problem. I interpret this to mean decolonising should occur in all areas. The racist and slave trader statues that stand in our towns are just the beginning. Audre Lorde stated that “the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house”. We cannot create genuine systematic change without change occurring within those systems. Another protest sign rings true here; “nothing changes if nothing changes”.
You may argue that disclosing our backgrounds is only relevant or necessary when discussing topics such as wealth or race. It seems more obvious to disclose that I am white if I write about the oppression of black people, it would even be my duty to disclose this. But if I was writing about the cheapest places to hire a tennis court in south London for example, why should it matter that I’m white or middle class?
The answer here is twofold. One, it is for the reader. Writers disclosing their backgrounds enables readers to be more aware of who they are reading. They can be conscious of their own implicit bias or the biases in what they are exposed to. Readers will be encouraged to be critical. They will be less inclined to make judgements from a person's name or photograph. Readers can clearly see the lens you are writing through and be exposed to the ways in which our backgrounds impact our unique lived experiences and perspectives.
The second thing is, privilege and oppression play into so many more aspects of our lives than what is visible at first glance. From being hired for jobs to representation in films, there are many environments where both privilege and oppression exist. It is not acceptable to be blind to these, therefore it is relevant to disclose your background even if your piece of writing does not primarily centre on race, sexuality, gender or class.
By exposing our backgrounds too, it will reveal how much writing is dominated by one demographic. This will in turn persuade publications to seek to diversify, and minority writers will be more encouraged to write.
It has been a privilege for me to not directly feel the urgent need for systemic change before. Now the pressure is firmly on to decolonise the curriculum, it is time to extend this and make it everyone's problem. As brilliant a writer as you may be, if you are not black you will never fully be able to communicate black issues. We need to address the prejudices that exist in all levels of society and we can start by disclaiming who is behind the words.
