A Letter to Someone Who Trolled Me

Hello friends,

When you write about racism and anti-racism, you often get trolled. And though it doesn’t happen to me as often as it does to many folx, it still happens too frequently for my liking. One of the questions I was asked by an internet troll is “What qualifies me to write or speak or teach about racism?”

Can you imagine?!

Before I get to the answer to his question - because of course it came from a white guy, eye-roll - let’s talk about this idea of needing special qualifications to speak about an issue that’s relevant to you. Sounds a bit like white supremacist BS to me. After all, most of us can talk about and share opinions on anything that takes our fancy - nobody has to be a Cordon Bleu chef to have an opinion on a meal. So it was clear that his question was meant to deflect and derail me from the topic I was discussing, which was racism.

While I absolutely don't need his approval or validation, if I had deigned to answer him, here are some of the things I could have listed, formulated as a letter:

Dear person who trolled me,

You questioned my qualifications in writing, speaking and teaching about racism - here's my answer

Expert level lived experience

People often say it takes 10,000 hours to become expert in something.

I don’t know if that’s the case, but if you consider that most Black people report their first experience of racism occurring around the age of six, by the time they’re 21 they’ve already had 122,000+ hours of experience. In my case, with 5 decades of experiences of racism, that’s around 438,000 hours. (And yes, even if you take out time sleeping and time NOT experiencing racism, it would still add up to way more than 10,000).

Added to that, my experiences are global, since I've lived in several countries and have experienced racism in all of them. My colleague Gillian Marcelle, PhD calls this "lived expertise", and it should not be undervalued.

More words than a PhD

I’ve been a writer for well over three decades, covering all sorts of topics, so it’s fair to say my writing skills are expert-level. I notice nuance in language and can use it too.

I’ve stopped counting, but let me do a rough calculation. There are 250+ essays in this newsletter (not counting reading lists, interviews or podcasts which take the total number of pieces of content to more than 500). At a conservative average of 500 words apiece that’s 125,000 words.

With the average PhD dissertation coming in at 80,000 to 100,000 words, I’ve written more about racism in this newsletter alone than someone doing a doctorate. And, as you know, I've written and spoken about it in plenty of other places, too. So that's the writing piece.

Teaching qualifications

I don’t talk about it much, but I have an MA in Media and Cultural Studies, which alerted me even more to disparities in media coverage of different groups, plus 5 years teaching at university on journalism. And an MA in Teaching and Learning in Higher Education. Add to that my recent experience teaching and facilitating in a variety of settings and it’s another reason why I can do this well.

In summary, when it comes to racism and inequality, I've lived it, I've studied it, I've written and spoken about it and I've taught it.

So, in answer to you, my dear trolling person, I’ve got plenty of reasons why I’m qualified. The question is, how are YOU qualified to question me about racism, because I don’t think you are.

Sharon

Now that this letter is written, I've got a ready answer the next time I get this kind of trolling, don't you think?

Thanks for reading,

Sharon

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I am an anti-racism educator and activist, the author of “I’m Tired of Racism”, and co-host of The Introvert Sisters podcast.

© Sharon Hurley Hall, 2024. All Rights Reserved. This newsletter is published on beehiiv (affiliate link).