Essays, observations and ideas to explore.
There is a particular burden in being expected to object to your own humiliation. Someone makes a racist remark, other people hear it, and the person it concerns must decide whether to challenge it,…
Read article →When someone has been displaced, the question of how they are managing can quietly replace the question of what has happened to them. Food, shelter, somewhere to sleep: these matter urgently. But a person…
Read article →Being able to go about your day without having to explain why you belong is an easily overlooked freedom. You can disagree with your neighbours, irritate them, live in ways they find peculiar, and…
Read article →Being seen in a way we did not choose can be deeply unsettling. Something said in one setting reaches another audience. People who know us begin asking questions. We lose control of the account…
Read article →A familiar name can make a distant event suddenly feel close. Someone whose life seemed to belong to the recognisable world of elections and public debate appears in a report about military detention, and…
Read article →A family should be able to make plans for worship without having to win the affection of everyone living nearby. That seems a modest expectation. It becomes considerably less modest when the place they…
Read article →Someone makes a complaint at work, and before anyone has examined it, the conversation turns to their personality. They have always been difficult. They take things personally. They could have raised it more politely.…
Read article →There is a particular cost to having to decide, before mentioning someone you love, whether the room is safe. A casual question about the weekend becomes a calculation. Other people can answer without thinking;…
Read article →Someone trying to explain a racist incident may be angry, hesitant, muddled or simply tired of explaining. What responsibility does the person listening have? There is a temptation to make the speaker do all…
Read article →A person has a life to get on with. There is work to find, a family to care for, some private ambition that may never look important to anybody else. When belonging itself becomes…
Read article →Someone dies young, and those of us reading about it can find ourselves making promises. We will stop wasting time. Telephone somebody. Pay more attention to the people at home. There is something understandable…
Read article →A driver can be inside a car park before knowing whether it is somewhere they can afford to stay. There is a price to find, a sign to read, perhaps a payment system to…
Read article →We use essential cookies and, with your consent, analytics, marketing and affiliate tracking cookies. Privacy policy