It’s hard to believe that 2020 was only three years ago. The strange unreality of living in lockdown feels like another lifetime. Like a half-remembered fever dream. So too, do the anti-racism pledges and promises that were made during that time. Protests so vast that our feet shook the streets and centuries-old statues were toppled. Voices so loud they hung in the air, demanding to be heard, a message unavoidable in its simplicity – our lives matter.

The optimism was palpable. It felt like the beginning of a new era. There was genuine hope that, for the first time, anti-racism would transcend the tick-box exercise it had been in the past and translate into something tangible. And yet, three years on – so little progress has been made. And many of the allies who promised so much have gone suspiciously quiet.

It wasn’t long ago. Three years is nothing. And yet, a lot has changed in that short period of time. In the current climate, even the phrase ‘anti-racist ally’ now feels almost twee. Like a nostalgic relic of a naively hopeful past. To understand why 2023 feels so starkly different to 2020, we have to understand how the narratives around racism and anti-racism have shifted in that period. Not only has progress stalled, but there have also been significant backwards steps.

First, there was ‘allyship fatigue’, then there was apathy and silence and, finally, we have reached the stage of hostility and backlash. 

“After the insurmountable interest we saw in anti-racist conversations in 2020, specifically around anti-Blackness, there was no way that was going to be sustainable. I was always waiting for the drop-off,” says Nova Reid, TED speaker and author of The Good Ally. “People tend to deploy a specific kind of learned helplessness when it comes to anti-racism. Instead of being proactive, they will ask, ‘Well, what should I do? What should I say?’ I don’t think we see this level of helplessness with other difficult social issues. It feels deliberate.”

The dwindling of interest and support for anti-racism protests, narratives and resources is directly linked to the wider cultural shift we have seen over the last few years.

In 2021, the government commissioned a report into racial inequalities in the wake of the Black Lives Matter protests and somehow managed to come to the conclusion that institutional racism is not an issue in the UK. The findings were widely condemned and rejected by the UN. 

This year saw another example of institutional denial when the Met police also rejected claims it was a systemically racist organisation, following the Casey Review – commissioned after the strip-searching of Child Q, a Black schoolgirl wrongly suspected of carrying cannabis – and the fatal shooting of Chris Kaba.

“There has been a doubling down in rhetoric from the far-right, diversity and inclusion roles are being dumped from corporate spaces and there has been a drop in book sales from Black authors,” adds Reid. ‘It’s all going in a really worrying direction.’

Even the little wins have been quietly wound back. Footballers in the Premier League no longer take the knee in solidarity with Black Lives Matter before every game. Last summer, the UK’s first journalism prize for Black reporters was scrapped only a year after its launch in a push to “improve overall diversity”. 

And then there’s the backdrop of our toxic political landscape. At the Tory party conference in Manchester earlier this month, Suella Braverman, the home secretary, warned of a “hurricane” of mass migration, drawing on dangerous populist language that sparked praise from the far-right. She went on to say that accusations of racism “won’t work against Rishi Sunak and won’t work against me”, in a brazen admission of weaponising identity politics to deflect criticism.

Meanwhile, just 24 hours after Hubert Brown, a 61-year-old Black man, was fatally stabbed in the neck in what is being treated by police as a “race hate crime”, Tory minister Kemi Badenoch branded Britain the “best country in the world to be Black”. The disconnect is staggering, and intentional.

What can so-called allies do in the face of all this? The model of anti-racist allyship that we hastily defined in 2020 is no longer fit for purpose. Maybe it never was. There are no amount of reading lists, black squares on Instagram or learning about microaggressions that can make a difference in the face of such insidious, government-sanctioned racism and anti-immigrant rhetoric.

Part of the problem, Reid says, is that the reality of committing to anti-racism is just too hard for some. As soon as there are personal consequences or sacrifices required, they retreat.

“People have realised what’s at stake,” she says. “There’s a real honesty about what is required to make this cultural shift towards anti-racism, towards a more equal society. People have realised they might lose something.”

There’s an issue with the language, too. Reid thinks the term itself – allyship – has been “bastardised”.

“The word is used as a flex to absolve personal responsibility,” says Nova. “People use it as a prop to deflect from acknowledging their white supremacy and their racism – without looking deeper or changing their behaviour. That was never what the word was meant to be used for.”

Where does this leave allyship in 2023? Is it time to abandon the concept altogether? Reid doesn’t think so. What’s needed, she argues, is a new perspective on the focus and goal of being an ally. Rather than thinking of it as a label that proves you are “one of the good ones”, allyship should be thought of as continuous, uncomfortable action. It’s also important, she adds, to remember there are no quick fixes when it comes to deep-rooted social problems.

“Educating ourselves is still really important,” she adds. ‘There are still too many of us who simply don’t know our history. This causes stagnation, we get stuck in a moment and can’t move forward, because we are not drawing on the lessons from the past.

“Reading lists, education, doing the work – all of that is still crucial, but it isn’t the endpoint. There isn’t one thing that we can do to solve racism, there are many things we need to be doing at the same time, at different points, and it needs to be continuous.’

For Reid, it doesn’t matter whether we call it allyship, solidarity or being an accomplice; what matters more than language and labels is action. “Ask yourself: are my words aligning with my behaviour? What am I doing to demonstrate better care, dignity and respect for my peers, for my loved ones, for fellow citizens of the world? This is about consistent action-taking. It’s about consistently reflecting and having awareness about our own positionality.

“If you’re seeking comfort, then this isn’t the fight for you. This requires courage. Of course, it is going to be uncomfortable. But it is a privilege if you get to decide whether you engage with that or not. Black people don’t have a choice.”

Images: Getty