Progress, Privilege and Potential for Change

Hello! I’m sorry it’s been a while, I’ve been super busy! 

Firstly thank you so much for reading my blogs, as I say, I am simply sharing my experiences in the hopes it resonates with at least one person, and I’m so grateful it has! 

Obviously Miss Rona came along and ruined our lives, but in true Sherisse nature I haven’t let that stop me! I had to re-evaluate my life plan and to do that, I wanted to connect with my why. Why am I doing what I do, and why do I want to do it? 

The answer is: I want to empower women to step into their power and encourage confidence through building their self-worth. 

Why? Because I want to be the person I needed when I felt my most vulnerable. I want every woman to feel empowered and not to have to seek validation from others, but from their inner-selves and I want to build a community whilst I’m at it! 

Every single person on this planet deserves to be seen and heard, and in a world shaped and structured for men (read Invisible Women by Caroline Criado Perez), us women (who ever identifies as a women) need to stand together.  

This brings me into what I’ve been doing. In order to bring my why to life I decided to get back into education and undertake my masters degree in dance. So basically after 8 years of no academic training/experiences, I was brazen enough to take on that challenge (Yes I am crazy!). There is no two ways about it, its been bloody HARD, but so rewarding at the same time. What’s lovely, is learning as an adult. I know who I am and I am working to my strengths. However, the main challenge I have faced is the judgement. 

Now, as someone that has consistently worked through their weaknesses and flaws, I have made peace with who I am. In education, mateee it is an entirely different ball game! I struggled with putting too much of myself into my work, so when it didn’t go down well, I was defeated. Unfortunately, that is how the (education system) cookie crumbles. I related this situation back to my fave Brenè Brown and standing in the arena, accept everyone judging me is (or has been) in the arena so, as annoying as that is :| I have to accept it just is what it is! 

One of my best mates is a medical student, she’s helped me so much through this process and she’s often always right, reminding me that in education, you have to meet certain criteria, so that is what I’ve been doing thus far. I haven’t got my grades back from semester one yet, so if I fail you’ll know about it in the next blog! Haha.

I must say though, as I’m back with my old university, my mentors have been super helpful and I feel a mutual respect between us. 

This wasn’t in my life plan but, as always, I am doing the best I can. 

As well as my masters, I am teaching online over Zoom, which is nowhere near as fulfilling as being in the studio, but I am grateful that I still get to do what I love to some degree! I have also had the honour of volunteering for a women’s charity that focuses on the advancement of women through dance. It has honestly been such a rewarding process, working with a company that shares my values is incredible. 

This experience is solidifying that everything I want to achieve for myself, and for the betterment of women, is possible! Sorry if my big words are too much, I’ve been using a thesaurus everyday for 4 months and I feel extra AF hahaha. 

I have been told my whole life that I am not smart, but here I am! Never let anyone dictate who and what you are. Only you have the power to do that! 

Ok, so you're up to date! Now, what I am going to say next is something some people may be offended by, this is not my intention and if you are triggered by it, you will have to pull it apart for yourself. 

I’m going to serve some T here. 

Through all of my recent endeavours and experiences, I have noticed a subtle, unspoken divide. It has always been here, since the beginning of time. Luckily, with evolution its’ status has weakened but unfortunately, I do feel lots of people are still hugely unaware of it and that is why I want to talk about it. It is the notion of privilege. 

It’s nobody’s fault, it’s a systemic, ingrained bias that has been drummed into us through mainstream media and society. The oppression of women has a huge part to play in this, society has successfully kept women silent for a long time, if you are a loud woman, you are deemed as being as un-ladylike *eye roll*. - Which relates to another point that I’ve learnt through my studies, genders aren’t binary. There is no rules on how a woman or a man should be or act, and if you think there are, dust off your dinosaur self and step into the 21st century! - Another reason these divides still exist, is due to the fact that a lot of people still don’t think for themselves, they only believe what they are told. No shade, it just is what it is. 

This weekend, I sat (virtually) in a room of 30 women, I was the only person that did not have a problem with conflict/confrontation. Ok, you are all probably thinking, but you are a headstrong Leo. Yes, you are correct but, it is deeper than that. A large percentage of the women on the call and in general, are scared of confrontation and choose to avoid it, (unless you are from chatham) this is crazy to me, because in my life if I had chosen whether to back down or walk away from confrontation, it could have resulted in me getting bullied, physically attacked, or allowed the perpetrator to think it was ok to talk to people like that. No honey, not on my watch!

I am going to unpack why this is a privilege, in the hopes it helps at least one person to understand it from a different perspective. 

We are all a product of our environment and experiences, although we are creatures of habit we are constantly evolving, whether you are aware of it or not. 

Through my upbringing, and as a result of my appearance, I have been conditioned to survive and thrive in confrontational conditions. Now this is a hard subject for most people to understand and my experiences are nowhere near as bad as most, but I have only lived my life, so this is my perspective, from my own experiences. 

As I have mentioned in my previous blogs my Dad was an alcoholic. Anyone that knows what it’s like to live with someone with an addiction, will understand the often aggressive nature of the addicted. That person you love isn’t really there most of the time, instead it’s this desperate, lost soul feeding off of their own insecurities, and as a result, projecting them on to everyone in the path. My beautiful Mum, for a lot of her life, played a passive role (she got with my Dad at 15). She let my Dad have his say and get out of control, knowing she couldn’t stop him, until, my sister and I got older and were able to understand what was happening. Some of my earliest memories involve my parents rowing, and as soon as I got old enough, I began to have my say and so did my sister. Feeling overwhelmed, my Dad would then lash out and with me being the chubby one, I was able to hold him back. 

My Dad passed away when I was 17. I spent a good 6/8 years angry at him, but now I fully understand it wasn’t him, it was his addiction. I am grateful for the lessons I learnt from him. He was small, but he was tough! He would always say ‘the bigger they are the harder they fall’. You may wonder why a father is telling his two girls this, but as people of colour, protecting yourself and fighting back is a fundamental conversation to be had. 

I don’t consider myself to have ever been bullied, as I have not experienced one person/a group of people continuously picking on me. 

With the majority of my experiences, the people involved have had no idea of the damage they were causing through what they were saying and some, felt they were entitle to say it. People have laughed at me, shouted racist slurs in anger or in jest, not said my name correctly or said ‘I’m pretty FOR A BROWN GIRL’, questioned ‘what are you though’ and ‘are you really?’. A lot of the time it was random people, in fact these occurrences still happen. I don’t belong to a generic ethnic tick box so it all really comes down to people being uneducated with the world. There is literally 195 countries in the world! Black and Brown people aren’t just from Africa or India?! 

Don’t get me wrong it is rare that I encounter these occurrences now, but it shouldn’t be happening at all. Sometimes these disputes were not full blown rows, just disagreements from a lack of understanding. There is a difference. Also, it’s important to say here if you don’t understand how someone feels - just ask them. 

It’s ok if you haven’t experienced prejudice of any kind, but what you need to understand is someone feels hurt. When a person feels hurt, we have to acknowledge that (this goes for any time you upset someone) and then it is down to you to research and learn for yourself. You are allowed to ask questions. As a species we are so afraid to look uneducated or stupid. Let that go! You look even worse when you assume … In fact, when you assume you look like an ass. You will be more respected if you ask questions and admit when you need to learn more, if we all knew everything the world would be a crazy clash of egos, I’m sure! 

There are a lot of arguments I choose to not get into these days, but when it comes to race EVERY SINGLE TIME I will stand up for myself and other people of colour. That also goes for sexism, ablism, homophobia and any other minority that feels secluded from society. I got you!

We should all be celebrating individuality and joining together to fight against injustice. 

The very core of what I am trying to say is, if you have the choice to participate in these arguments you are privileged. The people that are forced into these discrepancies have no choice. Privilege isn’t a bad thing, it’s an honour. It’s important to acknowledge here that being privileged doesn’t mean you don’t have problems, it means that the problems you have/had, are not down to your physical appearance/sexuality/ability. It’s not things like being cheated on, (that’s not down to privilege), that’s down to your awful, hopefully ex partner, and you deserve more! Just saying. In the words of Dan Daw associate artistic director of Candoco dance company ‘using your privilege isn’t giving it away’. If you stand up for what’s right and what’s just for the well-being of all people, you will still be respected by/within your community. It’s called being an ally. 

We are conditioned to see indifference, we view each other as competitors, we judge one another. Why? Because we are easier to control if we are all fighting amongst ourselves. 

I hate judgement it gets you nowhere. Everyone is fighting a battle you know nothing about. In the words of the late Caroline Flack ‘Be Kind’. 

Now, no minority is expecting you to hold up banners and shout in the street if you don’t want to, you totally can if you want. All human beings need, is to be seen and heard. By standing up for people that are a minority, you educate your network and help them to understand. It’s basically like that quote floating around about the pandemic ‘we are all in the same storm, but we are each in different boats’, so let’s at least try to keep each other a float?!

I urge you, stand up for what you believe is right, the more you understand yourself and stand in your power, you will see confrontation is not a scary thing, and that sometimes it needs to happen. 

One person may not be able to change the whole world, but if lots of people stand up and contribute to the equality of all human beings, as a collective, we just might have the potential to make that significant difference that really does changes the world.  

There is an infinite universe around you. You are such an important part of it. Just as a pebble thrown into the sea creates a continuous ripple, your words, opinions and being creates ripples and spreads far and wide. So let’s emit more love, more light and more inclusivity, because the world definitely needs more of that!

You have so much power, more than you realise. 

I’ve shared this before and I’ll share it again because Queen Bee is life.

“Your life is your message to the world, make it inspiring, make it something worth reading”. - Beyoncé

However you feel, Whatever you do, You are enough. 

You are powerful. 

You are strong. 

You are beautiful.

You are worthy of your dreams.  

As Ru Paul says “If you can’t love yourself, how the hell you gonna love somebody else?!”.

You are the only You there is and that’s Your super power.