Racism: The Background Noise We Must Not Ignore

This week has been filled with many highlights for me. Honest conversations. Openness. Courage.

These three elements have been demonstrated by all those I have worked with and led in development sessions. And yet, alongside those moments of hope, the heaviness of the current societal climate has been ever-present.

I found myself likening this societal backdrop to the experience of tinnitus; that persistent, underlying noise that is sometimes possible to mute, and sometimes impossible to “unhear”. Always humming in the background.

Right now, that background noise is being framed and shaped by people in positions of power and authority. That makes it harder for the everyday person to speak against it and easier for harmful rhetoric to be amplified, normalised and repeated.

When a public figure shares a racist image of Barack and Michelle Obama.When influential voices describe the UK as being “colonised by immigrants.”When outrage over a Super Bowl half-time performance is rooted in coded narratives about culture and belonging. These are not isolated incidents. They are signals. And they form part of our societal soundscape.

This is the noise.

Educators and leaders are not insulated from it. Organisations are not insulated from it. The young people and staff within our institutions are certainly not insulated from it. We are having to respond to the reality that this noise affects learning spaces, workplaces and relationships. It seeps into conversations. It strains trust. “Banter” begins to creep back into professional spaces. Racist comments are debated instead of interrupted. Harm becomes something to argue about, rather than something to address. So what can we do?

This week, I spoke with over 70 educators about precisely this question. We discussed our responsibility to hold onto hope; not as passive optimism, but as an active discipline. We talked about harnessing courage: the courage to challenge, to interrupt, to ask the follow-up question when someone makes a throwaway comment. The courage to be curious and firm at the same time. Because silence does not neutralise the noise. If we choose not to respond when we hear racist rhetoric, we do not mute it; we allow it to grow louder. We contribute to its amplification.

Courageous leadership requires us to stay anchored to our organisational values and to uphold them consistently, not selectively. It requires us to commit to our own ongoing development - equipping ourselves with knowledge grounded in fact, not myth; history, not nostalgia; truth, not colonised narratives.

And it requires us to interrupt racism not only for those directly harmed in the moment, but for the wider societal soundscape we are all living within. The noise may well be constant. But so must our commitment.

If racism is part of the background noise of our time, then anti-racism must be the steady, intentional practice that refuses to let it go unchallenged.