Author Archives: clydesidecomms

How to make minorities feel unwelcome at your event: A fellow worker writes about their experiences communicating with organisers of a local protest.I was recently speaking to a Fellow Worker (another member of the union) about the events in the US and how we can best be supportive. The FW asked me if I’ll be attending any of the protest being held in support of the uprising. I explained that I live in a small town in the south of Scotland and I highly doubt that any would be organized. Suddenly, Lo and behold! I came across an FB event calling for exactly that, a solidarity protest in our small-town centre! I was excited, happy that I would be able to express my support.Taking a quick look at the organizers, I realized they were all white. I thought to myself, that’s fine, it’s a small town, white majority (a massive understatement), so I was happy that someone was taking the initiative to organize this and invited some friends to tag along. The event description also mentioned that they are open for suggestions and input, so it seemed that they were willing to listen to actual people of colour and provide them a safe space to express themselves.What followed, however, and unfortunately, was a series of perfect examples of how not to organize a solidarity event or deal with feedback from minorities.
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