Sarah Reed: Racism can eat away at your soul

Just the other day I boarded a London overground train to go a few stops down the line. As I got on I saw four seats with two people facing each other. As I approached the spare seat a young woman said to her male friend in Spanish: "I hope he doesn’t sit next to me" - Espero que no se sienta a mi lado-. I didn’t, the nearest seat was next to her male friend.

When such a racist comment is presented to  you, -and clearly I wasn’t supposed to understand- the first feeling was shock, then  denial-maybe she didn’t say it-, then frustration and anger. After all, I’m not obese, and  I’m as clean as any other clean person, so it could only be because of the colour of my skin.

As a few minutes past my levels of frustration and anger rose. Not only was  this crude racism, I thought, but I’m receiving it from  a young person who more than likely is not even British, saying it in my own country.

In the end a mobile phone call came to my rescue. My friend Gary called with a, "Hey Simon how’s things"? My response was, to his total surprise, and in my best Spanish accent , louder than usual, "Hola Gary, que tal estas, hace muchisimo tiempo,"-How are Gary, it's been a while- before continuing in English.

The look on the Spanish woman’s face gave me about as much pleasure as you could imagine. Her jaw literally dropped and her eyes shifted from one corner to another looking for somewhere to escape. Her crude racism had been called out. I can only hope that those few minutes she had to endure before getting off at the next station where as painful to her as they were to me before I took the call. I probably doubt it though.

I write about this low level every day racism because I know many others endure this with sigh and the tired mantra, ‘Well, we just have to live with it’. Or do we?

It is only in very recent years we have begun a conversation about the psychological impact of racism. Even then the main studies have largely looked at the big incidents of racism and the effects the individual rather than the low key every day stuff. But what is all this stuff doing to our soul, our wellbeing?

The big incidents of racism and its effect on individual came into sharp focus this week when we heard of the tragic case of Sarah Reed, who just a few weeks ago took her own life in Holloway Prison.

Reed not only lived with the everyday racism that we’re all supposed to  simply ignore, but she also had the brutal experience of being repeatedly punched to the floor by an officer of the law who was almost twice her size. Add to that awful mix,  the tragedy of losing a child and being locked up in system that institutionally sees you as an inferior,  collectively, and probably pushed Reed over the edge.

Monnica Williams, a psychologist, professor and the director of the University of Louisville’s Center for Mental Health Disparities has been at the forefront of looking at the psychological impact of racism. In a 2013 Psychology Today article, Williams wrote that:

"Much research has been conducted on the social, economic and political effects of racism, but little research recognizes the psychological effects of racism on people of color,".

Adding, "Race-based stress reactions can be triggered by events that are experienced vicariously, or externally, through a third party - like social media or national news events.”

Williams’s work is indeed important, not just to address the structures that perpetuate race inequality, but also for Black people on the receiving end who, like me, experience  denial,  frustration and anger that can easily linger in that troubled that such hatred and wilful discrimination thing could transpire for no other reason than the colour of our skin.

My friend Gary called back later asking for an explanation for my Spanish response? When I told him about it, he said brilliant!

Simon Woolley