My Dear White Friend: Please Don’t Make Me Your Textbook
When you ask a Black friend to explain racism, who carries the cost of the lesson? Letter Four explores self-education, emotional labour, defensiveness and a harder question: does your allyship extend to Black people you do not already know?
What Dolly Parton Taught Us About Belonging Across Difference
Why did Dolly Parton seem to connect with people across race, class, faith, sexuality and politics? This SSF Weekly Reflection explores childhood memory, music, poverty, Whitney Houston, allyship and what it means to create belonging without requiring sameness.
My Dear White Friend – Letter Three: When Bias Arrives Before You Do
What happens when a story about you reaches the workplace before you do? In Letter Three of My Dear White Friend, Dr Shungu M’gadzah reflects on how labels such as “difficult” and “intimidating” can travel through professional networks, how repetition can be mistaken for objectivity, and what White colleagues and leaders can do to interrupt racial bias rather than becoming the next domino.
My Dear White Friend – Letter Two: The Discomfort of Looking Within
What happens when friendship, allyship and inclusion no longer reassure us, but ask us to examine ourselves? Letter Two explores racial bias, institutional silence and the difficult work of looking within.
My Dear White Friend
Understanding racism intellectually is one thing. Sitting with it when it becomes personal is something else. In Letter One of My Dear White Friend, I reflect on friendship, White privilege, bias, belonging and what happens when the lens turns inward.
