Sharon Hurley Hall's Blog, page 4

Building Our Own Table - Nanna S Soenya

Hello {{ first name | friends}},

A few weeks ago, I happened upon a post from Nanna S Soenya about supporting Black women. After a quick browse of her profile and a short chat in the DMs, I knew I wanted to feature her work here. Please meet Nanna, and check out what she’s doing at OmegaSeven.

Nanna, tell me briefly about your background prior to founding OmegaSeven

Before founding Outreach for Multifaceted Ecosystems and Global Advancement (OmegaSeven), I built a career in high-end hospitality, ...

An Update From Sharon - September 2025

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If I had to pick one word for August, it would be clarity! Thanks to some work I did in Yinka Ewuola's Inevitable Cashflow programme (seriously good, and if you sign up, tell her you read it here), I was able to work out some things about how the different areas of my business fit together, which lays a good foundation for the work I'll be doing in the immediate future. I also had some great conversations in Erin Corine Johnson's Replenish programme, which added s...

Black MAGA - Whyyy? - SARN Minis #71

Black MAGA - Whyyy? - SARN Minis #71 Transcript

Hi, I'm Sharon Hurley Hall. Welcome to the Sharon's Anti-Racism Newsletter podcast, SARN Minis.

I was walking on the golf course with my sister friend when I saw something I never expected to see in Barbados - an old Black guy wearing a MAGA tee shirt.

My sister-friend didn't even notice. But I did. I'd noticed the shade of red first, then I saw the words and the guy wearing it. I'm guessing he was in his late 60s, early 70s.

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Anti-Racism Reading List August 2025

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If I had to pick two words to talk about the themes in this month's edition, it would be erasure and reclamation. Some articles focus on what's been left out, while others look at ways to take back agency and take up space. See what you think...

1. O’er the Land Built on Greed… by The Invisible Black Woman

When I first learned there was a third verse to the US national anthem, it blew my mind. In this short piece the author looks at that erasure and what it means f...

REBOOT: Why I’m Not Watching Any More Videos of Black Death

I’M GOING LIVE ON WEDNESDAY TO CELEBRATE 5 YEARS OF SARN!

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This issue came up again recently, and I realised I still feel the same. I don’t need to see any more videoed violence and trauma. I’ve seen enough and it’s seared on my consciousness. Nothing much has changed since I first wrote this, except that more people racialised as Black have been brutalised and killed.

REBOOT: Why I’m Not Watching Any More Videos of Black Death

The other day I was scrolling through m...

Remembering "Theo" (Malcolm-Jamal Warner)

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The news of Malcolm-Jamal Warner's death hit me hard, not just because he was a young Black man, well younger than me any way, but also because of what he represented. All of us have actors and shows that represent our childhood, that gave us something to relate to or aspire to, and The Cosby Show* ** was one of those shows for young, Black people of a certain generation, and perhaps even for their children.

This was the first show I had seen where the families loo...

Making Space For Anti-Racism Discussions

Have you done the 2025 SARN reader survey yet?

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Companies often ask what they can do about racism and discrimination. But instead of wringing their hands, there's a really simple starting point: creating the space to talk about experiences.

Back in 2020/2021, when I was working in a DEI role in an educational technology company, that's exactly what we did. The company had a handful of Black and Global Majority contractors, but most people working there were racialise...

Rage and Hope - SARN Minis #70

Rage and Hope - SARN Minis #70 Transcript

Hi, I'm Sharon Hurley Hall. Welcome to the Sharon's Anti-Racism Newsletter podcast, SARN Minis.

Today, I wanted to talk about rage and hope. I was chatting with a friend and colleague on the fifth anniversary of George Floyd's murder by Derek Chauvin.

My friend said that they felt an absolute and unutterable rage that day at the lack of progress, rage at the DEI an anti-racism rollbacks, rage at the performativity that we had always suspected was there.

The...

Speaking of Anti-Racism and Colourism

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I was delighted to join Katie Allen on her Speaking of Inclusion podcast to talk about anti-racism and colourism. Here's a flavour of the conversation:

"The Water, Not the Shark"

Of course, I shared my my favourite quote from singer Guante, "Racism isn't the shark, it's the water." In other words, it's all about the environment we're in, and that affects all of us. As I said, "It's like the groundwater theory: if the water is poisoned, then everything else that come...

Is Privilege Situational?

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A while back I was discussing privilege in the SHHARE community. It was after a thread which shared and discussed a couple of versions of the privilege wheel.

Shifting Privilege

As I've said before, the idea that all Black people lack privilege is reductive and often incorrect. It's perhaps more helpful to think of privilege as an intersection, where some aspects of it can shift.

For example, all people racialised as white have the reduced disadvantage that comes wit...