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Racism within the Scottish Borders

Updated: Jun 15, 2020

In response to the recent wave of information and resources on the Black Lives Matter movement, here at GIRRL WRRLD we thought it would be appropriate for us to postpone planned posts which were unrelated to BLM and leave space on our follower’s feeds to draw focus to the important and informative materials circulating, which are hugely useful to those (hopefully all of you) who are keen to learn about how to be an ally. On our story highlight titled ‘BLM’, you can find some of the resources which we have found most informative.

We have been using these past few days to acknowledge and reflect on our white privilege and transform it into something tangible, through beginning to recognise and dismantle prejudices that have been conditioned into us, predominantly those of which that are not obvious, learn about our privilege in all forms it takes; and how to use that privilege in an effective way. We’re aware that this is not a journey that’s going to take a week or a couple of books about racism - for a movement to make genuine change, it requires more than momentary hype and promotion, it requires continuous and meaningful action. It’s not even necessarily something that can be fully ‘achieved’ by us, but it is something we will continue to acknowledge and work on throughout the rest of our lives. A constant cycle of challenging our belief systems and relearning. We hope all of our white followers are also beginning this journey because it is so, so, so fucking necessary. It’s been too long.

A lot of the focus in the media has centred around the experiences within the US. But - fuck sake - Britain is not innocent. And neither is Scotland, my lovelies! We’re sure you’ve heard all of this already, but as a Scottish based account, we think it’s incredibly important that we acknowledge the racism that is local to us, as this is the best place to begin to challenge it. It’s here. It’s in the schools we went to, in the areas we grew up in, in the friend groups we have been in. It’s everywhere and there is no escaping it. It is undeniable, and so to deny or become complacent of it is to become part of it.

Our team are based in Edinburgh and the Scottish Borders. Of course, Edinburgh has a lot of problems regarding racism and we are going to be discussing this soon, but for now we wanted to talk about the Scottish Borders. Over the last week there have been numerous posts circulating our feeds of people from Peeblesshire discussing the palpable, yet largely ignored racism and xenophobia within the area, predominantly that of which is associated with the Beltane Festival in Peebles, such as the cultural appropriative costumes, and blatant use of blackface. We’ve gathered a number of the resources we have been sent and collected from posts that we’ve seen, please have a look through these. It is so important we are aware of the racism that occurs daily and that we research this shit!

Anyways, enough of my spraff,

Here’s a list of resources you should look at. If anyone has any other useful resources - please DM us and we will update the list.

Thank you!

GIRRL WRRLD


• https://www.peeblesshirenews.com/opinion/13568674.peebles-from-the-past/




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