By Dr Claire Stewart-Hall (Integrity Coaching – Associate Coach)
The Fading Momentum of Anti-Racist Work
It is hard to write about the current state of race relations in the UK in October 2025. In 2021, there was much hope and momentum circulating about anti-racist work and its potential to evolve the cultures moving through institutions. Cultures we have worked in, cultures we have grown up in; cultures that keep leaders awake at night because they do not feel right.
We hoped that by awakening to, strategising about and naming the abhorrent practices of racial justice would enter the mainstream, as just a normal, usual, everyday practice. It was hoped that byrecognising that it was group behaviours of discomfortand avoidance that led to racism being dismissed, ignored or justified, that racism would be easier to talk about, become an integral foundational strand of our values and organisational vision. The reimagining involved people developing the bandwidth to challenge racism and find ways of metabolising training to expandthe range of tools required to dismantle racial injustice. Most of all, we had the opportunity to maintain connection with one another whilst challenging racism.
What We Learned Between 2020 and 2024
We were given in 2020-24 the opportunity to be quiet and listen to, to really engage with experiences of racism and recognise how talking about or experiencing racism felt like in our bodies and felt the damage it does. We saw, live and in the moment, the abomination of Derek Chauvin’s abhorrent murder of George Floyd and witnessing first-hand what the violence of a public sector worker who emotionally detached, ignored Floyd’s pain, looked away and murdered an innocent man.
The past five years of training, reading and learning, have prepared so many people for having conversations about racism, about embodied trauma and about recognising harm. We have already undertaken work on policies, practices and had ‘difficult conversations’ which help us at this divine point in 2025. We have practised what we would say in zoom rooms; we have read examples and case studies. We have watched videos about people’s stories and the harm racism does. Some white people, in particular, have learned to sit with and get to know their discomfort, learned to understand internalised patterns of whiteness and begun to recognise themselves as racial beings. Now it is time to use this learning. For this summer, and last, our mettle was tested.
A New Era of Fear and Division
Addressing far right fascism requires anti-racist action. Historically, a method used to address the far right in white communities has been silence with the aim of starving fascists of airtime and platform. Addressing current assemblages of racism can be stressful. With far right fascism, so much pressure rests on having ‘the conversation’ or finding ‘the right words to say’ that can turn someone’s opinion without becoming the target yourself.
Why Silence Is No Longer an Option
Anti-racism as a behaviour can suffer from stage fright. White people often expect anti-racist practice to be a one-hit-wonder – to suddenly land and convince someone to change their minds all in one conversation. People can often be deterred by minds that seem so fixed they appear futile to change. Resistances to change present in multiple ways – shouting back, not turning up, being late, eye rolling, avoidance, ignoring, interrupting. But we would not dream of ever tackling such an embedded set of beliefs instantly in other areas.
Across the UK, the St. George’s flag, formerly flying to celebrate the success of winning the World Cup at last,was sharply reappropriated as a symbol of white nationalism and racial hatred. Hung from lampposts, windows, painted on roundabouts, in our streets on the way to school – fascist sentiment is unavoidable across British towns and cities. Fascists and racists marchedthrough our streets, attacked people on public transport, threatened to lynch people in hotels who have come to the UK for sanctuary. In a terrifying, grotesque display in Birmingham, identified as an international war crime, male fascists attacked a woman using sexual violence as an act of racial oppression to reinforce the message ‘immigrants go home’. If there was ever a time that we needed thousands of people trained in anti-racist practice in our schools, in our councils, in our institutions, surely, it is right now.
Anti-Racism as a Safeguarding Issue
If we choose to understand racism as a harmful, dangerous and damaging behaviour that causes unimaginable and long-term pain to people, we can instigate a different story. Further, if we choose to understand racism as having a dangerous and damaging impact on white children too, it calls for us to be strategic about how we protect and safeguard all children from racism over time. We would not dream of safeguarding children from grooming, from serious youth violence or from teenage pregnancy, through one conversation alone nor would we be deterred by resistances or discomfort.
Conversations for Legacy, Not Performance
It is worth remembering what these conversations about far right fascism are for. Conversations about fascism do not seek to make change instantly, for today. We are having conversations so that in future years, children will tell their children:
“Racist people used to put flags up here when I was a child…and the flags meant ‘immigrants go home’… but the people on my street went nuts…!The teachers at my school doubled–down and made sure we knew that way of thinking about another human being and violence was inhumane. Teacherstaught us about racism and what we could do to keep ourselves safe…they were relentless in teaching us why this violence and threat was harmful and caused pain…
At this time, the people at my church joined forces with people from the synagogue, the mosque and temple around here, in solidarity to stop the racismgetting any worse and told people that racism would not be allowed. As a child, it showed me what community was – before that I had no idea how strong and ready my community was to challenge and eradicate racism…it taught me how I needed to be when I saw racism and I took that practice intothe rest of my life.”
Turning Learning Into Leadership
Now is the time to utilise what has been learned in all of those hours of training. It is time to deploy strategy, to enact conversations that seemingly go nowhere, but are crucial. It is time to draw on the diversified and decolonising curriculum put in place and re-anchor what British means and connect the dots about what Britain has done to the world. It is time to bring your best assemblies about love, solidarity and the meaning of humanity, community and sanctuary. It is time to teach unity, problem solving and how to be an ally. It is time to liberate your staff and children to generate their own ideas and responses to the abhorrence of racism. There are so many avenues to take, and five years of training upon which to draw.
The Cost of Silence, the Power of Action
An unacceptable response to fascism? Silence and apathy. Now is not the time for silence and avoidance. It is time to for organisations to protect children and speakout against fascism.
Working Together to Tackle Racial Inequality in Education
Are you curious to find out more about how to handle conversations about race in your school or trust? At Integrity Coaching, our race work empowers Headteachers, Principals, and MAT CEOs to lead with moral purpose, courage, and vision; creating schools where every voice belongs, and every learner can thrive. To find out more about our Race Conversation Programme click here: “The Race Conversation” Programme – Integrity Coaching
To find out more about Dr Claire Stewart-Hall and her programmes at Equitable Coaching on tackling racial inequity in the workforce, please visit Antiracist leadership and training.
