Not everything is an attack on you

Why we need to stop instantly assuming someone is out to get us

Note: Before we get into this post, I want to be extremely clear that this post is NOT disavowing the importance of fighting for social equality, equity and justice across all areas of society. I am NOT saying we shouldn’t call attention to oppressive, harmful, discriminatory, exclusionary behaviour, practices or policies; nor lobby for fair and compassionate change.

Rather, this post responds to a particular type of complaining that I have been encountering more and more among my peers and in wider social (online) conversations - usually among a particular community of people who themselves are pretty privileged. I am disagreeing with and arguing against this ‘flavour’ of conversation that I believe, as you’ll see, doesn’t actually help or contribute productively to any cause that truly champions equality, fairness and compassion; but often just falls into a kind of defensive, self-victimising pity-party and inadvertently replicates / reinforces the very structures it’s complaining about.

Take a deep breath. Let’s get into it.

---

When I was moving towns a year ago, I was excited to share my news with friends.

This was a big moment. My partner Stuart and I were moving in together, and moving to small town that’s known for being beautiful and a good, steady place to live. It was marking a fresh start for Stuart, who had begun a new job in the area, and for me, as I completed my PhD and was starting to build my own coaching business.

Everyone I told about this move responded sparkily - sharing our excitement, exclaiming over the tea rooms and countryside walks that the area is known for.

One friend, however, very much didn’t.

I met with them over dinner to share the news and made what I thought was a grand and exciting announcement that we were moving to this town!

Instead of the usual happy, lit-up reactions I’d been receiving though, this one scrunched up their face in disdain and spat-shouted, “WHY?! It’s full of rich, middle-class white people there!”

(This, uttered by someone who was currently living not only in one of the most affluent, middle-class, white cities in the UK; but in one of the most affluent, middle-class, white neighbourhoods within that city).

I was disappointed and even a little shocked that someone who was supposedly a good friend of mine couldn’t put aside their saltiness for even five minutes to just be happy for us. Instead, their default setting was to go straight to what was (potentially) wrong about my news.

There’s racism everywhere; it doesn’t mean *this* interaction is racist

Here’s the thing. This post isn’t about (just) about the annoyance I felt over a friend’s less-than-desirable reaction to my bit of good news. It’s about this increasing tendency I’ve been seeing among peers to immediately and automatically take a defensive, outraged position - to look for the racism and the sexism and the whatever other isms before it’s even happened… if it even does, which in many instances doesn’t.

Look, I get it that there is racism everywhere.

I fully understand that most of the world’s population live in and amongst patriarchal, hyper-capitalist, colonial structures that mean that we’re always, in some ways or other, constrained and oppressed.

I recognise that much of this same population, globally, is thrumming with traumatic pasts, intergenerational traumas and the very real, very painful experiences of being on the receiving end of this oppression - whether because of race, gender, religion, class, sexuality, ability. I understand how we might become hypervigilant to any potential threat to our sense of belonging, acceptance and ultimately, safety.

But I also believe that while it can be helpful and (self)protective to be aware of potential inequalities, disparities and attacks against our person (literal physical attacks or metaphorical), that alertness or carefulness is a very different thing than actively looking for difference and then making that difference something that automatically and necessarily means something personally harmful or negative against us. (Note 1)