20: Immigration solicitors

Sometimes in my work and personal life I have accompanied black friends/families to appointments with Immigration Solicitors or the No Recourse to Public Funds (NRPF) team. I have often been very aware of my white privilege in these environments and sense that it has helped the situation of the person I am with to have a ‘white friend’. This is may be something the person I am with is aware of but I have never discussed it with them because it feels so wrong and sickening that my skin colour should help in a situation that is really nothing to do with me. I have also been aware on occasion that if the black person I am with raises something/challenges a decision it can be met with more hostility than if I had said something similar as a white person. As I reflect on these situations I can see that I tried to ‘help’ black friends by using my white privilege but in reality when I stand back I am disempowering them and playing my part in an institutionally racist system. I am also aware that I have not always been as angry as I should have been about the way black friends/families I work with have been treated. I sense this is because as a white person I am shielded from the depth of the pain/reality and also that my white British upbringing has taught me not to make a fuss and instead to smooth things over.