Vying voices of the pandemic

Abstract

This article documents and explores the painful impact of a gruesome racial attack during the first lockdown in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic. It occurred less than a fortnight before the brutal murder of George Floyd in America. It is a reflection on the issue of racism and the marginalisation of less dominant groups in and outside the borders of Great Britain. It is the recognition and exploration in myself of an internalised colony of voices emerging as a response to the traumatic event. Tracking the intra-psychic and interpersonal dynamics involved in the racism and the subsequent attempt at an anti-racist answer leads to self-reflection on my part and the confrontation of my own bias. Eventually, I can feel my underlying vulnerability and the resulting shift. The sense of self-awareness and agency evolves into the mobilisation of an extensive mentalizing process. The article attempts to capture the subtle, insidious nature of othering and the fear behind the defences we use to keep this in place; the centrality of our capacity to courageously embrace our vulnerability as crucial to our ability to embrace and treat with dignity people who are different from us. The article touches on hopefulness that one day this socially constructed monster, racism, would be a thing of the past, not just on paper but in the human psyche also.