One thing being a racial equity coach has taught me is that not all white tears are harmful. You might be wondering what I mean by white tears so let me explain. White tears have been linked to white fragility. A term that was coined by sociologist and anti-racism educator Robin DiAngelo and author of the book White Fragility – Why understanding racism can be so hard for white people. Robin describes white tears as the inability for white women to sit in the discomfort of anti-racism work without being fragile, breaking down in tears and centering themselves around their pain that it completely takes away the focus on the issue at hand and those who are on the receiving end of racism.
I’ve studied the work of Robin in a bid to understand whiteness from the lens of whiteness. I have found it interesting to learn from a white woman who has a lot of awareness of her own internal biases and prejudices which have led her to actively speak up in this area.
I’ve experienced white tears as part of my lived experience and can attest to how this type of behaviour hijacks the experiences of those who have been racially discriminated against and the role shifting from trying to educate white women to one of comforting them because of how bad they feel about the acts of racism they’ve committed.
Ruby Hamad’s book White Tears, Black Scars has been a great resource in helping me unpack some of the experiences and behaviours I’ve encountered that I didn’t have language for at the time nor understood what they actually meant and the impact that ensued from those events. Now with the amount of research I’ve carried out as well as educating myself and my students, the lens is so much more clearer.
One of the gifts of being a coach is having the skill and expertise to hold space for coaching clients. In this case for me it means holding space for a lot of white women who are trying to understand how they arrived here i.e. being so uninformed of the racial inequities that exist and how they have unintentionally played a role in upholding exclusionary behaviour. Once that awareness has sunk in, the guilt and shame check in and it feels unbearable for them to sit in that discomfort.
Being able to coach them through without judgement is what I have found in my experience to help them navigate to a place where they feel “safe” enough to continue unpacking their own individual journey and STAY in this work. They stay in the work because they haven’t been shamed for their actions. Instead, they’ve been shown grace and kindness and offered an opportunity to do better. That’s part of the art of calling in that I bring to the work I do because constantly correcting people without nurturing them and holding space for them to reform is a sure way to keep them from wanting to do the work despite how much they might know it’s important.
As coaches, we are in the business of working with people and their feelings. How we make people feel plays a critical role in how they move through. I love these words from Reverend C.T Vivian who was an aide to Dr Martin Luther King Jr. “When you ask people to give up hate, then you’ve got to be there for them when they do.” There is no way I can do this work day in and day out in anger. I’ve got to find a moral compass that is aligned to my values that allows me to show up in love, kindness and grace.
That’s why my recent experience with white tears looked different to what I’ve seen before. I’ve had 2 white women recently negatively impacted by the treatment of other white women when they messed up. They were called out and made to feel so ashamed of the wrong they had done that it made it feel impossible to do or even remain in this work of racial equity.
Holding space for them with the permission to come as they were with anger, pain and even fragility allowed them to take the first step to healing. Healing as we know is a journey and it isn’t linear. Providing a space where they felt safe to be vulnerable has helped spark and reignite their desire to do racial equity work.
I truly feel this is the missing piece in racial equity work that is the bridge to seeing more genuine allies and advocates remain in the work and grow in their journey to bring more people along. I feel racial equity work has been viewed and positioned as this place where you need to know your stuff, be some kind of super-hero perfectionist and be switched on all the time.
That my friend is not what I’ve experienced with my students. I see women who have a strong desire to do this work and are looking for a place that will guide them without shaming and judging coupled with the constant correction that leads to overwhelm and ultimately reclining from this work.
If you are someone who is struggling with shame or guilt as a white person trying to navigate anti-racism work, allow me to submit the following to you so you can make progress on your journey.
✍🏾 Journal your feelings. Write down everything you can that’s coming up for you and what it is making you feel. Try and find out where these fears and feelings originated from. Come back to your writing and reflect on it and write some more about how you might like to feel and what actions you could take from there. Journaling is a powerful exercise in releasing the grip that fear has on you.
👩🏾⚕️ Find someone you trust who can support you to unpack the feelings coming up for you. This might be a coach, a therapist or a counsellor. Make sure this is someone who is qualified and trained to speak about anti-racism and can offer you support in this area of both healing and education.
💛 Invest in doing the inner-work on an ongoing basis. You’ve got to contribute to your own healing journey as much as you’ve invested in the support. You will find that it’s the inner work you do on your own with the support you have received that will allow you to go deeper and experience release and healing.
💪🏾 Don’t give up on yourself. Keep going because you are needed more than you can imagine in this racial equity journey. Change begins with you and you’ve got to personalise this work in order to see the change. This is not work that you can hand over to others to do.
Nothing brings me greater joy in my work than when my clients trust me enough to share their deepest vulnerabilities with me and I in turn support them to work through the pain and discomfort so that the fear they have can begin to loosen its grip on them.
Here are some of the words from one of the clients I mentioned above. I’m sharing this with you with her permission. It’s a little excerpt from an email she sent to her community recently.
“So much so that it’s become a barrier to actually making a difference and being an effective ally. The fear and inner turmoil had become paralysing.
But in today’s coaching call that all came flooding out…
… I cried about how I censor myself and overthink and fear being visible.
… I cried about how no matter how much I learn, I always feel like it’s never enough.
… I cried about how deep in my heart I want to be part of the difference, but I can’t seem to move past these barriers.
And Annie held me so tenderly through it all – not only that she welcomed it and celebrated it as part of the path forward. She saw my heart. Felt my intention. And kept calling me toward my truth.
That’s the kind of coach she is. In her spaces you can be in the mess of the process without fear of judgement, criticism, or being shamed. Which is exactly the kind of nurturing my wounded inner child needs, and what enables me to stay open, curious, and consistent in my exploration and unpacking of this critical work.”
What I know for sure is that we need genuine allies in this work. In order to do that we need spaces that allow us to come messy, come wobbly and most importantly spaces that see us for who we really are. And that’s the kind of space that lights me up. It’s the kind of space I have been intentional in creating and it’s one I can see the impact of.
If this is the kind of space you’d like to personally step into, I’d love to invite you to book a 1:1 session with me so you are no longer looking through the lens of fear but rather activating the healing process.
If today’s blog has resonated with you, I’d love to hear from you by dropping it in the comments below.
With Love,
Annie
How I can support you:
👉🏾 Want to build a racially equitable online business? Join the waitlist and be the first to find out when doors to my 10 week signature program REPRESENTED open in September 2023. Join REPRESENTED waitlist
👉🏾 Want to take your allyship to the next level and help your clients in the process too? Book me to come in as a masterclass guest teacher for your group program.
