Latest / In Her Own Name / It’s in the Water: Sharon Hurley Hall on Racism, Resilience, and Reclaiming Rest

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It’s in the Water: Sharon Hurley Hall on Racism, Resilience, and Reclaiming Rest · In Her Own Name

0:00
Welcome to In Her Own Name, where women stop whispering their greatness and
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tell the power of their own stories.
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With your host, Lillian Obogo.
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Good afternoon, good evening, good morning, wherever in the world you are,
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and welcome to an episode of In Her Own Name.
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This is where women start whispering their brilliance and reclaim voice,
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legacy, and presence. Now today I'm joined by a woman who's made truth telling her life's work.
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I'm talking about Sharon Hurley-Hall. She's an author,
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educator and an anti-racism activist who has helped thousands make sense of
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the systems we live in and why we need to dismantle them, why we must dismantle them.
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A former journalist with over 30 years experience.
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Sharon is the author of I'm Tired of Racism, through stories of existing while
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Black and exploring shade-isms.
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And for those who don't know, we're going to go into what that is,
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and as well as the creator of Sharon's anti-racism newsletter and the founder
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of Share Anti-Racism Community.
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So join me and welcome my incredible guest hey
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sharon hey mandian thanks for having me on your podcast it was wonderful you
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were so welcome i mean i had no choice but to have you on you you wrote a book
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that says i'm tired of racism we have to talk about that let's just talk about
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it let's talk about it oh my gosh.
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That okay so i was gonna say what is that moment that made that moved anti-racism
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work from something you understood to something you had to act on,
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write on, and commit to as a daily practice.
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Yeah, that is...
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Like many people, the murder of George Floyd really got me feeling that Bondi
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weariness and feeling the need to use my gifts to make a difference where I could.
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Now, I, at that point, had been a journalist. I had bought a journalism at university.
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I had a freelance writer writing about digital marketing. And I thought,
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well, these gifts of writing and education can't be here to tell people how
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to put pop-ups on their website.
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There has to be more that I'm called to than that.
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And I was just...
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While that was catalytic, it wasn't the first time I had actually written about racism.
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I had done it on and off over the years. And my book, Exploring Shagism,
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which is Colorism by another name, was about another aspect of inequality.
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And so I had written about it before.
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But like many of us, you go through life. I worked in England for 15 years and
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I experienced racism there. I lived in France for, yeah, I experienced racism daily there.
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And a lot of the times you just swallow it, you talk about it with your Black
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friends, you move on, you try to live your life.
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And George Floyd's murder made me say enough.
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Made me say, I need to do my part, right? I need to use my gift.
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And also, I was, it started out as casasis, because I was so angry and upset.
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Right? And so I started writing.
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I started writing. And in fact, I'm tired of racism.
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The title I see of this book was actually the second piece that I wrote.
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The first piece that I wrote was called, While Black, Thoughts on the Assumption of Wrongness.
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It's about that idea that when you exist in this skin, people will assume that
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you are not entitled to be there, that there's something wrong with your presence,
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with your being, and so on.
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And you can see how that connect with the George Floyd's murder.
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And then it was as if the floodgates opened in the end because once I started, I really couldn't stop.
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And I just kept writing and writing and writing. I started on Medium.
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And within a few months, I had moved to my own anti-racism newsletter.
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We're now five years and four months in, I think, maybe five months in,
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nearly five and a half years in.
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I launched it in August 2020, and it's still going.
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So yeah, I just, I had to say something. I had to do something. I had to do my part.
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And it's, you know, George Floyd's murder coinciding with the pandemic where people were at home.
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We had nothing to distract us.
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And so a lot, it was so deep and so personal. And it's like, it was alarming.
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It was alarming. And I can understand why that would have shaped where you are
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right now in this conversation and the books and the newsletters.
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Why the title? And the title is obvious to me, but when you decided you were
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putting this book together,
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why this five words, I'm Tired of Racism, what made you say that was going to be that title?
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Because of that is what the message I wanted to convey.
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I wanted to convey that people who share our identity, people who walk at the
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skin, people of the global majority are experiencing this thing every day in so many ways.
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And it is wearing and we are tired of it. This is not what has happened in our lifetime.
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This is what has happened in the generations before. This is multi-generational
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trauma for centuries, and it's this epigenetic trauma that we feel in ourselves.
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And so I never actually considered any other title.
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That book, it's kind of in your face, but there's no mistaking where I'm coming from.
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I'm tired of racism, as are we all. Exactly. And now what are you going to do about it?
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Yes. The title is like, bam, this is what I am. There's no, let's kind of equivocate the point.
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Let's make it, no, it's I'm tired of racism.
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And in your past, you know, keeping that theme of being tired of racism,
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keeping the theme of this is now your worth.
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In one of your past interviews, you said racism is in the water,
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not the shark. What does that mean to you? Because I want to understand it's a bit better.
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Right. So first of all, I want to credit the singer Guante for that.
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He wrote a piece and that line was in it, racism is the water, not the shark.
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People are all over here looking at the individual acts, the microaggressions,
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the calling people the N-word, all of those things.
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Whereas it's the whole thing that we're swimming in, the whole society that we're living in.
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It's in all the policies. It's in all the processes.
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It's something that is baked into how our societies run because many societies,
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I mean, you could talk about the U.S.
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Explicitly as a society that was founded on genocide and exploitation,
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but none of the European countries have their hands clean.
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They all went swimming around the world to grab people and enslave them and
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exploit them and extract things.
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And so, yeah, I mean, it is the water.
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And so you have to recognize that in order to change the things that really
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need to change the ingrained anti-Blackness,
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to change the societal norms that suggest it's not okay for Black people to
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have their natural hair,
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to change the behavioral norms that mean that When we get animated among ourselves,
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people suddenly assume that a fight is about to break out or that we're angry about something.
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We've changed all of those things. Everything that we are was made into a problem
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or a crime in order to justify enslavement.
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And you don't get out of centuries of that narrative without taking a long,
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hard look and having a willingness to change.
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So that is the water. That is the water. That is the water.
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It's not about you calling me the N-word today. It's about your ancestors dehumanized
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my ancestors for centuries.
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And that you think that it's okay to then use the N-word.
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Yeah, exactly. I think in things like system design, which says you cannot just change one thing.
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Because even if, so let's say, like using the analogy of system design,
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system design will say, okay, you have a problem with your ceiling.
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But changing one shingle on the ceiling is not
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going to fix the problem it's going to patch up
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a section of it but it's not going to fix
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the problem and if you keep swapping out the shingles all you're going to be
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doing is spending a lot of time shingle swapping without actually dealing with
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the issues and so when you think about that it's when you say it's the water
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not the shark the shark lives in the water and is going to do what it's programmed to do in that water,
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Yes, and there's another analogy, which is the groundwater analogy.
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The groundwater is poison, everything is poison.
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Right? And it's a founding premise of many societies, the way in which they
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enrich themselves, the way in which they became the so-called powers they are today,
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was because of those horrible actions that their ancestors took in the path.
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And so you have to have a reckoning with that, I believe.
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Right. And it's interesting, you know,
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your shingle analogy is interesting because you look at the DEI backlash and
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rollbacks in the US and not just in the US because similar things are happening
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in other places too. Oh yeah, there's a trickle effect. It's global.
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And what you see is that for some people, DEI was about swapping shingles.
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Some never bothered to replace the rules. Right. Thank you.
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And now it's all falling apart. But there you go.
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And, you know, that's because they weren't committed. That's because it was performative.
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That's because they weren't committed to cleaning the water. Yes.
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It was not about changing the water. It was just about the performance.
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Yeah. It's not about taking the shark out of the water. It's about cleaning the water.
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Make it in-house spittables for the shark. And a lot of people never clean that water.
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Yeah, because they're afraid of the skeletons that they will find. Oh, yes.
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I don't know. I could go down. We should go down a whole other rabbit hole about
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skeletons. Oh, yes. Oh, yes.
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I mean, you speak with incredible clarity about these complex systems and your
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work behind it and your history of journalism.
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What is the role of storytelling in anti-racism? And how do we stay honest without burning out?
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How do you even stay honest without the fatigue of always being tired of racism?
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Oh, two great questions, Vivian. Well, first of all, the role of storytellers,
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and I think possibly Toni Morrison said this, I can't quite remember if it was
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Toni Morrison, but quite likely, is to shine a light on the things that are happening.
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This is when artists do their work, when there's inequity, when there are things
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that need to be brought out into the light.
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And so that is the role of storytellers, to keep saying, we see you.
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We see what's happening.
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We're sharing this with people. We're letting people know that it's happening.
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There is a role for those people, just people like me, just because there's
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a role for the people who are marching in the streets, just because there's
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a role for the people who are changing policy, right?
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We all have different lanes that we can be in, and we're all working to the same goal.
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And actually, returning to the water analogy, me, one of the things that I've
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said a couple of times this year is that we have to beat the drops. In other words.
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Water is very powerful when dogs get together. It created the Grand Canyon and
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all the valleys and all that kind of thing.
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So we have to remember that there's a bunch of us working on this,
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on undermining that system of racism and inequality.
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And we keep doing what we have to do, but then it's okay for us to go off for
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a second and then come back, because we also need to look after ourselves in
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this process. You know, to announce into your second question, there are ups and downs.
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You know, there are definitely ups and downs. There are days when the weariness is a bit, right?
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There are days when something new happens and you think, oh,
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and it reminds you of things that have happened to you as well.
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I mean, there was a research story in the US about a pregnant black woman whose pain was ignored.
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I did not look at the video. unfortunately i saw clips of the video and then
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i had to shut it down because i'm like,
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we yeah let's and if you've ever
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been in the health system and a black parent
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some of those experiences will be familiar to you and that
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is not just in the u.s i oh no that's global
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okay that is also global you know
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i had my own experiences of having my pain ignored
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of having my body wisdom ignored which
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could have led to some serious consequences had I
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not come across a Jamaican midwife at the last minute who
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knew what was what had got me in front of the right people so you
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know on days like that you do feel that bone deep weariness and that's when
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you need to refill your cup and that's why the analogy of the drops comes in
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because I can step away for a minute get myself back together get regulated
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knowing that there are other people also working on this.
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And so, yeah, there are days when I say, okay,
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Today's the day I am going to watch something silly or read a romance.
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Or my favorite thing to do, actually, because I live in Barbados most of the
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year, is to go to the beach.
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Because I find seawater is immensely calming, soothing, and regulating.
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You didn't have to drop that in there right now. I know, I thought winter for
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you all is the only thing now.
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As we are about to base a winter.
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But yeah, go for a walk.
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Get out in nature. Even if you're in a wintry place, you know,
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if I happen to be in a cold place, then go to the gym and go in the swimming pool.
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So I think it's really important. I'm very inspired by Fisher Hersey and Restless Resistance, right?
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And that's about the importance of reclaiming our rest as Black women and Black people.
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Because in our history, rest was not encouraged.
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And anytime we rest, we are stigmatized as being lazy, right?
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And this is where generational trauma is real. Because when you hear that word,
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doesn't it just give something to you inside? Oh, yeah.
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Even though you know you're not lazy, right? You know, it's like,
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it's funny when I see black women embody that is, oh, no, I can't rest because rest is lazy.
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I'm the first one up, the last one in bed. I'm like, nope. Okay.
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No. No. So it's really revolutionary for us to reclaim it.
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My sister Lisa wrote a book called Space to Exhale, and it's all about that
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idea that we as Black women need that space. Oh, yeah.
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So I think it's really important for us to reclaim that and take that as a right for ourselves,
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especially if we're doing this kind of work but
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but even if we're not even any kind of
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work your right to rest is is
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a fundamental right and i'm gonna i'm gonna switch gears very quickly because
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you spoke about the drops and how coming together and having the drops and being
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this community but what would you say to those who are meant to be part of the
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drops who call themselves allies,
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but hesitate to get into the water, so to speak, who hesitate to get uncomfortable,
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especially in corporate or community settings, but want the benefit of the word ally.
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One, ally is not a name that you give, a label that you give yourself.
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And I think a ship has been so tainted by those people that it's not a word
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I even use that much anymore.
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I tend to talk about advocates.
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And in any case, all of it has to be active. Whether you're calling allyship
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or advocacy, it has to be active. It means doing something.
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It means facing the things you haven't faced.
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And, you know, discomfort is not the same as oppression. It just isn't.
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Right? And so I think that people have to recognize this and to really take
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a good, long, hard look at themselves in the mirror and think, well,
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what am I willing to give up in order to make this right, in order to do the
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work that I know needs to be done?
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And if you're not willing to do that, then you can't call yourself another. It's as simple as that.
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I think whenever I think of an ally or an advocate, I go to the movie Hidden Figures.
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Oh, yes. Great movie. And that was advocacy in action.
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And I think the scene I'm talking about where they were walking into the room.
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What's his name? Had walked in. Help me. His name has just escaped me.
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I don't know his name, but okay. He walked in. yeah and
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then they close the door on taraji henson's
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character and he opened the door and says if she's not in the room i am not
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in the room that is it that is it exactly lillian how are you opening doors
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how are you creating space how are you requesting imbalances it is just words,
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does it even count exactly and just sorry to interrupt kevin costner oh no his
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name escaped me i was searching and his name escaped.
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It's like this is what you have to do and we do it for each other too right
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you we appear on each other's podcasts we promote each other's work we do all
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that kind of thing right we lift as we climb We don't put the ladder up behind us. Right? Yes.
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And I think that advocates have to do that even more because they have so many
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unearned advantages and it's time to use those advantages to make the wrongs right.
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And just for people listening, this is not about saying, okay,
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so you've had an advantage, which means we're going to come and dig into your
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pocket or for you to give up your house. Or that's not what this is.
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And I think that is where people have misconstrued what it means when they talk
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about diversity, equity, and inclusion.
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It doesn't mean that you don't get to have. It means we just level the playing
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field so that, yes, everybody gets to have.
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Everybody gets to have. and but
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doesn't mean that because they have you have less
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it means we make space for people it is not high it is not high yeah right but
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it's been sold that way or you know if somebody is a diversity hire it means
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they haven't earned the right to be in that room it's like oh please first of all,
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Diversity hire is coded language for the N-word.
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And first of all, let's start there. Second of all, as a Black person,
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you have to be twice, three times as good or as qualified just to get in the door.
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So if anybody's leading that diversity hire, it's not people that share our identity, Lydia.
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It's other people, right? It's the people that are, you know, it's the Nipo babies.
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It's the people whose daddy got them the job, right? And I'm not saying you're not allowed to do that.
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All I'm saying is, you can't get your opportunities that way and then be upset
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at leveling the playing field to let people who don't have those shame advantages in. Exactly.
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And then you start branding words about metriocracy and it's like,
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I don't think you will know what that looks like if it came up and smacked you. But I digress.
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Well, there's never been a meritocracy. That's fair.
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I've sat in spaces where people are like, oh, he's a CEO or he's come in as
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a CFO and he's talked candidly about how he's gotten that role because,
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you know, somebody else who was sitting in another role said, oh, we need this role.
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Let's, I know this person, let's sit and have breakfast.
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Yeah. And so the question is,
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if you are an advocate, how are you making those opportunities available to
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people that don't normally get invited to breakfast or after-work drinks or
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golf or whatever it happens to be.
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How are you making sure? I think...
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There's so much that goes on behind the scenes that you're not privy to.
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And, you know, one of the ways that advocates can show up is to just pull that
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curtain away and let's see what's going on. Exactly.
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So that conversation about breakfast was like, oh, oh, okay.
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So then my question is, how can I have those breakfasts to be in those rooms?
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Then it's like, we should all be having breakfast.
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We should all be having breakfast. We should all have the opportunity to get in those rooms.
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Exactly. We should all be having breakfast. And let's have breakfast together
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and let's see who else can, you know, we can put together.
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And before people think this is a let's bash advocates, let's bash everybody.
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Because of the nature of your work, you've even addressed, you're not just addressing racism as a whole.
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You're addressing colorism, shady-ism. you
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were addressing those important things so before you
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think this show is just saying one thing i would
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have you listen with a level of curiosity yeah and i want to say also that i
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wrote anti-racism but i also founded the share anti-racism community which is
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a polycultural community of people working to to counter racism in their daily
23:05
lives and features accountability check-ins.
23:07
It features reparations practice. 10% of membership goes into supporting micro-reparations
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for other activists and creators, right?
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And so it's a way to say, let's do something practical together,
23:22
right? So no, as to your point, Lillian, I'm not sitting over here saying,
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oh, we are terrible at this.
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I'm saying, let us create spaces and avenues to these things to happen,
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to make changed the model in different ways of approaching things.
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And so that's definitely one of them, sure.
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And there is also to your point, a big difference between being performative.
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And being an advocate who might mess up sometimes, but whose heart is in the
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right place and is really trying to do better.
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And, you know, it is okay to make mistakes.
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It is okay to make mistakes. As long as you repair the harm,
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you get up, you keep going.
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You don't wallow in guilt and shame, you keep going. Because wallowing in guilt
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and shame doesn't help anyone.
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And, yes, so getting back to colorism, yes, I did a master's in media and culture some time back.
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And the book that became Exploring Shadism was that.
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Research, which was done in the Caribbean, and it was about discrimination in
24:21
the Black community on the basis of the shade of your skin, right?
24:24
Which we know exists, and it doesn't just exist in our community,
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it exists in many other communities as well.
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I know, for example, colorism is right in India, just to give you one example.
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And most post-colonial settings, anywhere the Europeans went,
24:39
you'll probably find a little bit of colorism.
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And so that is something that we have to address ourselves.
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We have to say, well, are we happy with the people that we are when we look in the mirror?
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Are we constantly trying to make ourselves more European in teacher behavior, language, outlook?
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How do we feel about the different cultures of our ancestors?
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Is there a difference between how we feel about the culture of our African ancestors
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versus our European ancestors?
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Those are an uncomfortable question to ask because many of us were raised to,
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privilege whiteness as a standard, even those of us who,
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clearly are not white. But you know, you grew up in a post-colonial setting
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and I remember my aunts combing their hair at weekends.
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I remember applying for a job in Barbados and being told I could not wear my hair in braids.
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If I got the job, I would have to straighten my hair, right?
25:40
And so, you know, there's all of that that we have to look at as well.
25:45
Yes. To what extent are we still living by those norms that were imposed on
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us during enslavement and colonialism?
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How ingrained are they in our societies? And the answer is very.
25:58
And what are we doing to fight them?
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Oh, that's a very big question and a very good one, especially not just what
26:06
are we doing to fight them, but what are we doing to make sure that people don't die for it?
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And I say that and it sounds dramatic, but I know women and men who are literally
26:19
poisoning their skin in that desire for whiteness or lightness.
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And there are whole industries that have been established that are literally selling poison.
26:33
And to stop using hydroquinone people, right? Those skin lightening creams, right?
26:39
Because, yeah, I remember people saying, oh, you've got a dark mark, you should lighten it.
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Or the whole idea of if you were darker skinned, you couldn't possibly be pretty.
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Yes. For example, right, is probation. And so there's a lot of trauma to unpack as well.
26:56
I don't think we have enough time on this show. back then.
26:59
I think my favorite one I've heard is, oh, you're pretty for a dark girl. Like, oh yeah.
27:06
The anti-blackness, the anti-blackness. Because somewhere the idea is that if
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you're black, he can't be used to it. Yes.
27:15
And this is many moons ago. My cousin set me up on this day and this guy was
27:19
almost four or five shades darker than myself.
27:24
I remember him telling me, oh my god you're really fun and really nice and really
27:28
all of these great things but i can't date you and i'm like uh-huh he goes yeah
27:35
you're too dark for me and i was like my brain glitched and,
27:42
and i blinked and i said a few choice words and i remember this is in my 20s
27:49
and and he's like yeah that he needs to date someone outside of our race because he wants to have...
27:58
Children that are biracial. And I remember getting up and going, I wish you luck.
28:04
Have a nice time. And use my number.
28:07
Yes. Doesn't it show you how pretty she is? But then that is the legacy of ensignment
28:12
and colonialism, isn't it, Lillian?
28:14
It's like, you know, there was a rhyme.
28:17
There was a rhyme that was pervasive in the Caribbean, and I don't know if it
28:22
was in other places, right?
28:24
It's like, if you're black, stand back. If you're brown, stick around if you're
28:27
white you're all right and you know we didn't have we didn't have that as as
28:32
obvious we had other other things yeah we we had others but it's interesting i know right.
28:42
Yeah and that legacy your brain glitched yeah i think my brain has glitched
28:49
again and i am grateful that we are in 2025 heading into 2026.
28:54
No, the problems haven't gone away, but we are so much further than where we have been.
28:59
And I am thankful for people like you who are, who are not work to undo that
29:08
trauma, to undo that legacy,
29:10
to undo the birthing of that very strange fruit.
29:15
And because that is the only way we're going to heal.
29:20
And I know that I'm going to throw a question in because here's the question.
29:25
Your work looks at all the intergenerational trauma that collectively lives. And here's the thing.
29:34
I say this trauma that is racism does not just impact us.
29:38
It impacts humanity. It's a humanity stain, not just a Black problem.
29:44
It's a humanity stain. is,
29:47
The one thing that I find that we do a lot, especially in the global majority,
29:52
we talk about intergenerational trauma, right?
29:56
I find the one thing we don't do so often is talk about the intergenerational blessing.
30:03
So I'm going to... Yes.
30:06
I love it. I love it. So, I must ask you,
30:12
looking at your family, looking at your family tree, what is the intergenerational
30:18
blessing that you have received from that family tree?
30:23
My intergenerational blessing is definitely the facility with language and the
30:30
urge to educate and teach, right?
30:33
My mother was a teacher for a hot second, but she was also a librarian.
30:37
She was a language scholar.
30:39
My father also it kind of runs in the family and just while you don't want to have to be resilient,
30:48
the intergeneration blessing is also that deep knowledge that we have survived
30:53
our ancestors have survived terrible things so that we could be here yeah so
30:59
we also have that fiber runnings to us and that too is a blessing the reason
31:03
they needed the resilience is not a blessing, but the resilience is a blessing.
31:08
Even if you don't want to have to, you don't want the resilience to be all you're
31:12
about, but you like knowing that it is there as a part of you.
31:16
I like thinking about it that way because, yeah, sometimes being resilient is a pain.
31:22
Let's be honest. It's a pain. It is. Because we're just upholding the system
31:26
and we're giving women tools to survive a system that is just, no.
31:33
No. And we want to undermine the system. We want to take down the system.
31:38
We want to stop the system from doing harm, but love that framing of blessings.
31:42
And it's one of the things, actually, in my newsletter,
31:46
in addition to sharing experiences of racism, one of the things I started doing
31:50
was sharing interviews with Black founders because I wanted to show solutions
31:56
that people had to the issues that were facing us,
32:00
to show ingenuity, to show excellence, to show joy,
32:04
right, as well as all the stuff that is happening.
32:07
So I definitely like to balance those
32:10
things, because I think it's very important, even in doing this work,
32:17
not to suggest that everything is terrible, even if it feels like that sometimes,
32:22
not to suggest that there's nothing that we can do, and to recognize that there
32:28
are people working on solutions every day and putting new things into practice
32:33
that can help us get out of this. And we need to be aware of that too.
32:37
That's part of what gives us hope in this work, I think.
32:41
Absolutely. And hope is needed. Hope is needed. More than ever right now, hope is required.
32:48
So I love your work. I love that you are, as a Caribbean British woman working globally.
32:57
To find the blessing, shine light on the trauma, and actually do the work.
33:04
You've spoken about invisibility not being equality.
33:08
How do you define true visibility for Black women in professional and activist spaces?
33:15
Oh, that's neat.
33:20
Yes, I think I've talked before about being seen but unseen. Right?
33:28
So there's a way in which often as a Black woman, you are seen when there is
33:33
work to be done or a problem to be solved.
33:36
You are seen when there's blame to be apportioned, but you're not seen when
33:40
it's time for promotion and pay rises and things like that.
33:44
And it's a bit of a tightrope also because of all these stereotypes,
33:49
you know, about the angry black woman, about who's seen as being a griffin or
33:52
who's seen as being a go-getter and all that kind of thing.
33:55
So it is really quite difficult in many respects to have that visibility.
34:02
And in a way, I think we have to create it for ourselves.
34:05
We have to be shy to see who we are and we have to show up consistently as that person. And...
34:11
You just don't know how it's going to go. I mean, if you would ask me six years
34:15
ago, if I would be doing this work now, I'm an introvert, I'm much happier at
34:20
home with my book, right?
34:22
Not being online and out there, but the work is too important.
34:27
And so for me, it's about, okay, how do I do this work in a way that honors
34:32
my introversion, that allows me to be the person that I am, that allows me to
34:37
show up, but also to rest?
34:39
How and I think as black women
34:42
we have to use other tools because sometimes if
34:45
you're talking to people and your words are being misinterpreted or
34:48
being seen through a different lens sometimes you
34:51
have to call that out sometimes you have to activate your advocates if you have
34:57
any right because we don't always have any we might be the only person in there
35:01
nobody might be helping us out right but if you have advocates explain to them
35:06
what is going on get them to do a little bit of firesighting for you.
35:10
Use emails and written documents that if you get them right are less prone to
35:15
misinterpretation as to tone, right?
35:18
So there are lots of things that you can do in order to make sure that you are
35:24
credited to your ideas and get things in writing, get things in writing, right?
35:30
As Black women, I don't think that we can be having a lot of side conversations
35:33
that never get documented because when it comes time for people to check and
35:37
say, well, what did that person do? He doesn't say anything.
35:41
So when someone just says to you, oh, such and such was great,
35:46
oh, you know, you can send them an email thanking them for what they said,
35:51
right? You get an email back, which will confirm it.
35:53
You know, there are all kinds of little things that you can do.
35:56
So make sure that you have the evidence when it comes to the time when you have
36:00
to say, well, I did a great job, and here's why I deserve this next step.
36:04
Right? Absolutely. No guarantee it will work, but it will help.
36:10
Definitely. And there's some of the key things that you have put in place.
36:14
Yes, always keep a trail is very important.
36:18
And actually, the one thing that we've been taught as part of this trauma bonding
36:24
that we have is, oh, we need to keep our head down and do the work.
36:27
Our work should speak for us. And it's like, absolutely not.
36:31
We have to speak for us. Because the moment we do that head down,
36:36
do the work, we are then seen as, well, she does the work, she's valuable, so we can't promote her.
36:43
But the moment we actually start to advocate, and Black and Brown women are
36:48
so great at that advocacy for everybody else but themselves.
36:55
Is you have to learn to advocate for yourself. You have to learn to be in those rooms.
36:59
Where talk, oh, don't put your head above the, because it gets chopped off.
37:02
It's like, well, okay, that's the risk you're going to have to take once in a while.
37:06
Yeah. Find the practices to be in. Yeah, sometimes if you're not talking,
37:12
if you're not speaking, if you're not advocating to yourself and nobody else is, then you get stuck.
37:17
That's why women end leaving in order to get a promotion when they'd like to
37:23
stay where they come to be that they're quite enjoying. for example, right?
37:27
You get overlooked. And so you have to have other ways to not be overlooked.
37:32
But then again, you know, from bringing it back out to a DEI perspective,
37:37
we have to think about what are the policies?
37:40
How is information gathered and valued within a company, right?
37:44
If companies can make it possible for, you know, your Black people,
37:49
your global majority people, your neurodivergent people, your introverted people
37:53
to contribute in different ways, even if they're not speaking up in the context
37:58
of a meeting, because not everybody can, right?
38:00
I'm a classic example of that as an introvert, right?
38:03
I would sit very quietly and then I'd say one sentence at the end and people
38:08
would say, oh, she was paying attention because people assumed that I was disengaged,
38:12
whereas what I was doing was actively listening.
38:15
And so, in a way, you have to advocate for yourself.
38:19
And it will sometimes be uncomfortable, and it won't always be well with she. But...
38:26
You know, sometimes you are not doing it for you. Yeah, you do it for everybody
38:29
else too. You have to call people on that.
38:31
You have to, and I always cite my friend Linda's questions.
38:36
My friend Linda Burberry, she says, who told you that and why did you delete them?
38:40
And so you ask people, when they assume something based on what you said to
38:47
them, you can point to them, you can ask them why they saw it in that particular way.
38:51
Would they have seen it in that way had it been from one of your white colleagues?
38:54
And they'll get upset, probably. I'm a little bit flustered.
38:58
But if you're lucky, they'll go away and think about it.
39:01
Everyone is lucky, yes. Yes. Otherwise, they may not.
39:05
But you will at least have interrupted the thought pattern, which is not a bad thing.
39:11
Absolutely. And that is a start. Like you said, that interrupting of the thought
39:16
pattern, it may not be well received in that moment.
39:19
And if people are and here's the assumption that you're working with people
39:23
who are decent who open-minded and and all of the good things that sometimes people are acting from a,
39:32
A place of bias or a place of unconscious bias.
39:36
Let's phrase it that way and not realizing, hey, I may have been coming across this way.
39:41
So being able to interrupt that for a moment for them might be just what they need to recognize.
39:47
Bring it to their awareness and then it can never again be unconscious.
39:51
Absolutely. And if they choose then to be actively biased, then they know what they're doing.
39:56
And they have to sleep at night, right?
40:00
Exactly. And that's the thing. And so I think more women from the global majority,
40:04
we need to learn to actively advocate for ourselves, corporate spaces,
40:11
because invisibility doesn't keep you safe.
40:14
It makes you, people will look past you.
40:17
And you need to be able to say no as well, because, you know,
40:21
we're almost socialized into being people-pleasers, A, as women,
40:25
and as women of the global majority. So it's a double one.
40:28
Yeah, and sometimes you have to say, you have to say, no, no,
40:33
that doesn't work for me. No, I'm not doing that.
40:35
No, whatever it happens to be, right?
40:39
And that, and I know, no is a complete sentence.
40:44
It is for sure, Lillian. It absolutely is.
40:47
No is a complete sentence. So on the show, we often talk about reclamation of voice space identity.
40:55
And I know that you shared about George Floyd being pivotal for you to write the book.
41:02
Can you share another moment when you fully stepped into your own name and stopped shrinking?
41:09
That probably came that that probably
41:12
came maybe about a year later right i'd
41:15
been writing i was doing i was doing the jinx letter i
41:18
had started to do a couple speaking engagements and somebody said oh you're
41:23
an activist i said i am i said i didn't even realize that's what was going on
41:29
there and that is the point where i started to claim it and i started to say okay well yeah this is
41:37
It's just something, I mean, I knew I cared about it and I was doing the work
41:40
anyway, but that was the moment at which I claimed that was one of my identities.
41:46
It's never stopped. So now I talk about all the things I am because we're not monoliths.
41:50
We've been talking a lot recently about introversion because people find it
41:55
hard to believe that you can be an activist and be introverted.
41:59
But I'm here to tell you that you can be both.
42:02
Exactly. It's not mutually exclusive. No, not at all. And so,
42:06
yeah, I can't remember when that conversation was.
42:11
I have a feeling that I had gone to, I was recording a show somewhere and somebody
42:19
mentioned it and I said, wow,
42:21
I hadn't thought about it, but I suppose if you look at what,
42:25
you know, I'm doing, yes, this is right.
42:27
And it's around that time that I actually stopped writing for freelance writing clients. Right.
42:35
And stepped fully into doing this work.
42:38
And that is a beautiful thing to claim. That is a beautiful thing to claim for
42:42
yourself, for your identity, and the work that you do.
42:46
I have one more question along this line. What is the legacy that you hope your
42:51
work leaves behind? Not only through your books and platforms,
42:54
but through the people you've taught and walked beside.
42:58
I always talk about the ripple effect, about influencing those I can reach so
43:04
they can influence others.
43:06
So I hope that my work is like a pebble or 20 in a pond.
43:13
And so the work is spreading out and reaching people to make change.
43:17
I'm already actually really happy. My daughter is a feminist and joins the ADL
43:23
committee at her university.
43:24
So I feel like I'm already well along that path there. So that was very pleasing.
43:29
And I think when I see people change their behavior as a result of being in
43:35
my spaces or conversations we have had,
43:38
and then they're able to take those out and have conversations with other people,
43:42
because I think it doesn't stop with us.
43:44
No erin corinne johnson talks about the change we see and the change we see
43:49
and so a lot of this work is about seeding change i don't think you undo a centuries
43:55
old edifice within my lifetime but i can pay certainly take a good hard swing at the foundations.
44:05
Have a good whack at it and i do love that and
44:08
that is a beautiful thing and i like the imagery
44:11
of the pebbles and being that single drop and
44:14
I think as women naturally is something that we
44:17
do anyway yeah we always
44:20
we connect we communicate we're in community I think that's how we operate isn't
44:26
it that's also as women we do that as black women with a particular history
44:31
that is also part of our ancestral gift that you were talking about earlier
44:36
and so it's part of how we show up in the world.
44:39
It's how we move through the world and it's part of how we pour into the world.
44:45
This is true. And this is true. So I'm so grateful to have you on the show.
44:50
I want to look at your journey so far from journalists, activists,
44:56
everything that you've done.
44:57
What will you whisper or shout to your 18-year-old self?
45:02
My 18-year-old self would not believe any of this.
45:08
My 18-year-old self was the grown-up version of the girl that used to hide in
45:13
the library at lunchtime and read books.
45:15
You know, my closest friendship was with the library books at school, probably.
45:20
At least until I got to about 17. It's friends, but that's where I spent my time.
45:24
At 18, I'm going to talk to my 21-year-old self, and I'll tell you why.
45:30
Okay. Because I spent a year in France between the 80s of 21 and 22,
45:35
and I experienced the most outrageous racism every day.
45:38
And at the end of that time, I had to decide, who am I going to be in the face of this?
45:43
I could choose to be angry. I could choose to hate all white people.
45:48
I said, no, I am going to be the kind of person who does not treat others in
45:53
the way that I was treated.
45:54
And I think if I were to talk to myself then, I would say, yeah,
46:00
you made the right decision because look at the work you're doing now.
46:04
That's beautiful. That is the ripple effect that we just talked about.
46:10
Yes. That one action has led to this. It has.
46:14
So we salute your 21-year-old self.
46:20
And here's my final question. What is bringing you, Sharon, joy right now?
46:26
Even if it's something small and unexpected, what does that look like?
46:30
Joy is friends and family and community, right?
46:36
I have a few very close friends. Getting to spend time with them is always a gift.
46:41
I mentioned going to the beach. Yeah, I can do it again. All right.
46:47
And having quiet time to contemplate, you know? Very simple, really.
46:54
Very simple. Good friends, good fellowship, good food.
46:58
You know, what more do you need? not a
47:01
lot not a lot at all and then throwing the sunshine
47:04
so yeah yeah that is
47:08
that that is beautiful and having those things feeds
47:11
your cup so that you can do the work that you do and we are very grateful that
47:16
you're doing the work that you do tell us how can people contact you join the
47:21
newsletter let them know how they can stay in touch with you okay yeah sure
47:27
so my The main website is SharonHH.com.
47:30
You can subscribe to the newsletter on anti-racismnewsletter.com.
47:35
My book is available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Apple Books,
47:40
and a bunch of other places.
47:42
And you'll find information about the share community also on SharonHH.com.
47:47
And people can also connect with me on LinkedIn, which is where I'm most active.
47:51
All right. I will put those links in the show notes.
47:55
You'll be able to find them. reach out to Sharon if you want to discuss anti-racism, being an advocate,
48:01
being a true ally, even what you can do on a day-to-day basis to ensure that
48:08
you're not unconsciously walking through this life and creating more trauma in its wake,
48:14
how you can actually deal with your own shady-ism, colorisms.
48:18
Reach out to Sharon and have that conversation.
48:21
Thanks so much, Lillian. So I want to thank you again for being on the show.
48:26
And yes, we're going to stay in touch. And I can't wait for you to come back to the UK.
48:31
Oh, yes. I am hoping to be back next summer. I am for Quiet Queensburg, too. Bye.
48:38
All right. Thank you so much. Guys, you know what to do. Follow us.
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48:45
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48:48
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48:54
so i'm gonna say have a very good evening goodbye thanks for listening to in
48:59
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49:07
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