The Cost of Challenging Racism

Working to challenge racism takes a toll.For many Black people doing this work, there is no neat dividing line between the professional and the personal. We are challenging racism in institutions and systems while experiencing and navigating racism ourselves.

And often, we are doing it as one of very few Black people in the room.

That brings its own pressures. When do you speak? How hard do you push? How will what you say be received? Will you be seen as difficult, angry or confrontational? How much of yourself do you have to manage simply to be heard?

There is a constant vigilance that comes with that.

And it is exhausting.

Yet those working for racial justice are often expected to absorb these pressures and simply carry on. Wellbeing can easily become something we think about only when people are already depleted, rather than something that helps sustain them while doing difficult and demanding work.

That is why we are particularly pleased that BRIG has been awarded £5,000 from the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation specifically to support the wellbeing of the people leading our work.

The funding allows us to think differently about how we support those carrying this work, including creating space to step away, reflect and process some of what it asks of us.

If we are serious about sustaining people who challenge racism and inequality, wellbeing cannot be something we attend to only when people are exhausted. It has to be part of the infrastructure that makes sustained change possible.

For BRIG, this small but important grant is an opportunity to begin putting that principle into practice.

Wellbeing is not separate from the work.

It is part of the work.

Find out more about Emsée Fairbairn Foundation.