White Allies

Sharing our stories and working together to end racism

White Allies is an initiative to create change in our society by collecting stories from white people. We ask white people to contribute a story/ stories that describes an occasion when they witnessed racism or they became aware of privilege. By going within, doing this work and sharing your story, you can become a white ally and help fight racism.

Josephine’s first story: how it started

A good friend of mine recently told me this story. A few years ago, her son who is a gentle giant, about 6ft 4 was jogging to his basketball training session on my road in South London. He was wearing an oversized hooded jumper with the hood quite low on his face but also covering his hands. Suddenly, a police car stops, and a couple of officers approach him. He stops and takes his hood off. At that point in the story, my friend asked me to guess what might have happened and I just couldn’t. After realising he is white the officers ask if he was OK. Was he in any trouble? Was anyone chasing him?

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