Sharon Hurley Hall's Blog, page 5

An Update From Sharon - August 2025

Hello {{ first name | friends}},

Well, that hiatus went by quickly.

And it was really only a publishing hiatus, because the rest of July was BUSY! Here’s what happened:

Identity and Belonging

As I mentioned, I started Erin Corine Johnson's REPLENISH programme for changemakers. Aside from being my introduction to the Identity and Belonging Lab, it's given me the opportunity to connect more deeply with a bunch of folx working on making the world a better place, and to reflect, yet again, on where I si...

Anti-Racism Reading List July 2025

Hello {{ first name | friends}},

For many of us, July has felt heavy. The whole year has, but there's something about seeing the powers that be enshrine their callousness in law in the US that sticks in many of our throats. This month's curation shares a modern example of literal extraction from Black people, explorations of how we got here and what's next, how to approach disrupting the status quo, and much more. Are you ready?

1. We Were Promised Change. We Got a Constitutional Crisis. by Georg...

REBOOT: Dear White Mansplainer

Hello {{ first name | friends}},

It’s that time again, and this blast from the past is about mansplaining, especially from those racialised as white, especially from men. As it turns out, the phenomenon hasn’t gone anywhere. In fact, there seem more of them about than before - I wonder why? I’ve made a few updates to the language, and added a couple of notes relevant to the current times:

Dear White Mansplainer

I was so irate when an ill-informed guy racialised as white ignored my point about racis...

Outsider, Insider - SARN Minis #69

Outsider, Insider - SARN Minis #69 Transcript

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

One of the weird experiences you can have as a Black person in a Caribbean country that's a tourist destination is being in a location and being “the only”.

No, it doesn't just happen in countries run by the global minority (people racialised as white). It happens in other countries too.

I'm not even taking about historically, where the equivalent of segrega...

The Moment of Decision

Hello {{ first name | friends}},

There comes a time when you have decide who you are, what you stand for, and what you're going to do about it.

In fact, from the vantage point of several decades, there are many such points in everyone's life.

But today I want to talk about my first one, which came up in a recent podcast episode with Shanti Joy Gold. It's a decision I made at 21-ish which led somewhat circuitously to the path I'm on now. Or, to put it another way, I had no idea at the time but it tu...

Who Will Speak When They Come For You?

Hello {{ first name | friends}},

The title of this piece inspired by the First They Came poem by Martin Niemoller.*

I've been thinking a lot about what we are witnessing in the USA and the world (because how the world reacts to 47's shenanigans says a lot).

And I know a lot of people are feeling that we didn't want to be in the "I told you so" position but we are. And it's worse than many people could have imagined. The collusion with genocide. The erosion of rights. The erasure, deportation and mu...

An Update From Sharon - July 2025

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Anti-Racism Reading List June 2025

Hello {{ first name | friends}},

There are a few recurring themes in this month's curation - community, erasure, hidden history, rollbacks and more. Of those, the first is where I see a way forward for all of us - and it's something I've had many conversations about in the past six months. With that, let's dive in ...

1. Matriarchy Is Not a Mirror of Patriarchy by Lovette Jallow

One of the things I love about publishing this newsletter is the opportunity it gives me to surface perspectives that ar...

Caring About Identity - SARN Minis #68

Caring About Identity - SARN Minis #68 Transcript

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

Let me start with a quote which resonated with me at the time and still does today:

"It is very easy not to care about identity when your own has never once been questioned or held you back.” - Vaughan Gething, the First Minister of Wales. He lasted just 118 days before being forced to resign amid a donations scandal.

And while I don't question his decisio...

REBOOT: Anatomy of a Microaggression

Hello {{ first name | friends}},

I first published this graphic in 2022, and there’s nothing I would change about it. In fact, I’m delighted to say that a version of it features in my sister Lisa’s new book, Space to Exhale, as an illustration of the experiences people racialised as Black and those from oppressed identities often have in workplaces, organisations, communities and elsewhere. Here it is… and the text that inspired it is below. 

Anatomy of a Microaggression

Here are some ways the ex...