Thank You Chadwick Boseman
Written by Karl Pupé
Qualified classroom teacher with a decade's experience across the Primary, Secondary and Further Education sectors.
Before we returned to school in the midst of all this COVID madness, my partner & I planned a weekend trip to the seaside. Because our foreign holiday was cancelled due to the current crisis, this getaway was the only chance we would see some sun (maybe), sand & just have time to relax.
When I woke up that Saturday morning, looking at my beaten-up iPhone, rubbing the sleep from my eyes, I checked my Whatsapp notifications & saw the first part of a message which said “This ain’t right… 2020 is too much.”
Curious, I opened up the message & saw the soulful face of Chadwick Boseman staring at me with a heartbreak emoji next to it.
King T’Challa was dead.
Our superhero was gone.
My chest felt like an invisible hand was pressing firmly against it, like a bouncer denying me entry into a club. That bouncer’s hand didn’t leave until later in the day. I felt like I lost a friend.
In the midst of getting my child ready, while she was determined to paint her face with her jam-on-toast & my partner forcefully cajoling me with the energy of Jurgen Klopp out the door, the news feeds drip-fed me more information about his passing.
As we know now, the 43-year-old actor was diagnosed with stage 3 colon-cancer BEFORE he took up his legendary role as King T’Challa and silently battled this scourge of a disease for 4 YEARS while filming numerous pictures – how on Earth did he manage that?
As we drove down to the seaside, I just couldn’t shake my sadness… I lightly admonished myself that I didn’t know him personally & I shouldn’t his death so much to heart, but that familiar but unwelcome character called Sadness wouldn’t allow me to drop it. Sadness stood patiently at the door of my heart, waiting for me to talk to him.
It’s time to break bread.
His Roles Gave Black People A Sense of Pride & Hope
If you have been knocking around my blog for a while, you will realise that:
- I am a Black man
- I am a fierce believer in Equality, Diversity & Inclusion for ALL people.
While this year has been an incredibly difficult year for all of us, ethnic minorities have taken extra blows to the face in this brawl. Where do we even start?
We could look at the murder of George Floyd & the subsequent Black Lives Matter protests that spread around the world in the wake of the baked-in institutional racism that blights the whole of modern society.
Images of black people being brutalised & harassed are never far off our television screens and it doesn’t seem to stop.
We could look at the recent A-Level results fiasco that saw a ‘mutant algorithm’ downgrade BAME & working-class students & until very recently, threatened to destroy the lives of our young people based on their gender, race and UK postcode. We can look at the rise of the Far-Right who in light of ‘Brexit’ have taken it on themselves to hunt the ‘foreigners’ & tell them to ‘leave Engerland alone because we are ful’ up.’
It’s knackering. It’s traumatic. And doesn’t stop.
The images of the Black community that are portrayed in the media are incredibly negative on the whole. We are commonly depicted as downtrodden, poor, aggressive, unintelligent and hypersexualised. Not the people that you want to be around.
Chadwick Boseman’s roles, especially that of King T’Challa was different.
In the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Boseman’s T’Challa leads the fictional African nation of Wakanda, a nation untouched by the claws of slavery & colonisation & the most technologically advanced country on the planet.
In King T’Challa, they had a leader who was soulful, noble, shrewd, brave & when ready, a fierce warrior who would be willing to do whatever it took to protect his people. T’Challa was also open to admitting his wrongs & actually at the end of Black Panther managed to reconcile the radical views of Erik Killmonger with his own, to create a progressive pathway to uplift all the black communities on the planet.
T’Challa, unlike Killmonger, did not hate other races. He was open to others & willing to learn. Wakanda was a progressive society as the second most powerful character in Wakanda, General Okoye was a woman who could fight with the best of the Avengers. Women were not depicted as mere damsels in distress but smart, intelligent and having agency.
T’Challa was not subservient to the Avengers, making it clear to Iron Man & Captain America that he was not a man to be trifled with & was determined to walk his own path.
In an era saturated with black masculine images of gangsters, pimps and hustlers, Boseman presented a black image that, especially our children, had never seen before.
The Black Panther film, no matter how fantastic, was an image of what Africa could be – it was a picture of the potential that we, the Black community, could become. It was a groundbreaking film in so many ways. It gave ethnic minority kids a superhero that looked & sounded like them, proudly and confidently.
Black Panther made being an African cool. I grew up at the height of Live Aid and Comic Relief, and their condescending images of Africa filled with poverty, malnourished children with flies feasting on their heads and crazy despots in military uniform.
I remember other kids I grew up with saying “shut-up you African” as an insult. But Chadwick & those that worked on Black Panther changed the zeitgeist bringing African colour, music & culture to billions on the planet.
Black Panther director Ryan Coogler recently confirmed that Boseman was a powerful force driving the film & even when the director had doubts about whether the film would work, Boseman’s positivity and confidence encouraged them to keep going, calling the film the Black community’s Star Wars. And that’s how it felt.
Despite being diagnosed with a debilitating and fatal illness, Boseman regularly contacted cancer-stricken kids and visited them in hospital, making them smile & was visibly shaken when they faltered. He knew how much this role inspired ALL children & saw it as a duty to use his image to uplift others. Having seen my own loved ones succumb to the grip of cancer, my mind boggles on how he kept going in the face of such unimaginable pain. That’s honestly superhuman & we can only applaud his strength.
‘We Reminisce Over You’
As I write this, I realise that I am not alone in my feelings. From the Twitter tribe, all the way up to former Presidents, sports giants and movers and shakers of society, Chadwick’s death has sparked mourning and introspection.
Reflecting on his impact on the world, Chadwick represented a possibility that the Black community never had. He helped to bring to life a world where people of colour are not limited by their skin and made us believe that somehow we had that same power within us too.
The drawing above was given to me by one of my year 12’s, a very talented young man called Yusef before he left to chase his dreams to become a comic book illustrator. He gave this to me as he knew from my lessons how passionate I was about how T’Challa should be depicted on-screen. This is now one of my most valued possessions.
We grieve for what he could of went on to achieve & how far he could have gone. Many saw him as our generation’s Denzel Washington or Sidney Poitier. We grieve because we wanted to see what more he could have done & what his artistry could have reflected about us. We all wanted to visit Wakanda with him one more time…
But it wasn’t to be.
Now, I look on that illustration with fondness, knowing that Chadwick Boseman, made this black-and-white image come alive on the big screen, giving joy to millions and still retaining his humility, grace and dignity until the very end.
Boseman is not a god – he was very much human with flaws and character quirks. But with his talent and belief, he made the world a slightly better place – and we need that energy now more than ever.
For all the teachers out there, children cannot be what they cannot see. They have to see heroes that live the virtues that we are trying to teach them. We may not be superheroes ourselves, but in our own little ways, we can shine a light of possibility into their worldviews. That’s a sacred trust that we must use wisely.
Representation matters. And Chadwick represented us to the fullest.
May GOD bless you & keep you Chadwick.
Rest in Power, King and thank you for your service.
Karl
Originally published on actionheroteacher.com on 31st August 2020.
https://www.actionheroteacher.com/post/thank-you-chadwick-boseman
Race & Equality – 5 Questions for Every Headteacher
Written by Viv Grant
Director of Integrity Coaching
Like many, following the death of George Floyd, I was swamped by almost daily waves of emotion. I heard someone the other day that their “mind was full and their heart heavy”. It was how I felt too. It was as though my whole nervous system experienced some kind of historical trauma.
The flagrant disregard for the life of a black person brought up many painful memories from my past, of times when I was made to feel “less than” simply because of the colour of my skin.
Swallowing the pain of racism
As a young black woman growing up in the 1970s and 1980s, incidents of racism were peppered throughout my life. When I was 15, I was told by my careers teacher that my aspiration of becoming a nursery nurse was too high and I should consider becoming a cashier in the local supermarket instead.
On another occasion, I was reprimanded for talking in class and told to “go outside and swing on the trees, like my friends and relatives the monkeys do”. Complaining or expressing my hurt was never an option, so I simply learned to swallow the pain.
Despite my school experiences, in 1988 I decided to train as a teacher.
In my first year, I was introduced to the work of Bernard Coard, and his research on “How the West-Indian Child is Made Educationally Sub-normal in the British School Education System.”
It was not the lecturer’s intention, but as the only black student in my year, I felt a deep shame and discomfort when she read excerpts from his book that matched so closely with my own experiences of the British education system. For the majority of the white trainee teachers, Coard’s work was simply an academic treatise. For me it was personal.
I come from a black, working-class family. Social and economic deprivation and racial inequality were the backdrop for my childhood years. No one in the lecture hall shared my story.
As the lecturer read how the structure and design of the British education system had led to many black children underachieving and living with a hidden, yet deep, sense of inferiority, it felt as though she was shining a light on my own hurt, leaving my bruised and conflicted inner world for all to see.
I wanted to get up and leave the lecture hall. I didn’t, but I spent four years at teacher training college wanting to escape. I was tired of being in the minority, tired of being on the outside, tired of fearing that I could never truly achieve in a system that had only ever seen black children as a problem.
Low expectations for black pupils
When I eventually qualified as a teacher, I taught at schools in Brixton and Stockwell. One of them was on the border of a road that had been a flashpoint for the Brixton riots in the late 1980s.
It was a time when, just as we have seen in recent weeks, black people protested against the level of police brutality exhibited towards them. And it was here, at this school, where I faced some of the worst levels of racism.
It was a one-form entry Church of England primary school, where the majority-white teachers believed they were there to save the black children. Expectations for them were incredibly low.
In the early days, children spoke down to me. Why? Because the only other black staff were cleaners, and, on a daily basis, pupils witnessed the derogatory ways their white teachers spoke to them (and to me) and so it perhaps seemed inconceivable that I could be there to teach them.
There were times when I cried in the staff toilets because teachers referred to black boys as “gorillas” and I found my own voice stifled by staffroom hostility when I tried to counter these abhorrent views.
Despite all of this, within six years I rose to the position of headteacher at this school. I used my position to bring about change and ensure that high expectations, a sense of pride and achievement were a reality for every black child at the school.
Quest for change
If ever there was a time for education leaders of all hues to seize the moment and do the same, it is now. Bernard Coard’s conclusions still reverberate around our education system today.
It has not been easy for me to process the emotional pain that has arisen as a result of recent events. But I am continuing to lean into the pain because I know that if I don’t, I limit my own capacity for change; not only for myself, but also for my children and my children’s children.
School leaders have to go on a similar quest. It is perhaps the most difficult quest a leader can take because it will require them to explore issues of identity and integrity and what they truly mean in the context of their own school settings.
It will require them to have difficult conversations and face uncomfortable truths about themselves and their schools. Yet it is these sorts of conversations that truly define leadership and are fundamental to growth and positive change.
Furthermore, it’s only by leaning into the uncomfortable spaces and finding help and support that something new, something better, can be brought to life.
This is what true moral and ethical leadership is about. And it is only by going on this journey that school leaders can effectively model what leadership for racial equality and social justice really look like.
In order to navigate this journey, perhaps for the first time, leaders will have to ask themselves:
- Am I willing to listen to the black communities’ stories of pain, discrimination and hurt?
- Am I prepared to let down my defences and look at my own unconscious biases?
- Am I willing to engage with the weighty feelings and emotions that are a necessary part of this terrain?
- Am I willing to shine a light on every single aspect of my school and our education system and call out all the policies and practices that have limited the progress of black children and black educational professionals?
- In this struggle for racial equality and social justice, what is mineto do?
In my 30-plus years in education, I have seen how an unwillingness to truthfully engage with these questions has hampered progress for all. However, this time I hope things will be different.
In the months and years ahead, black parents will be looking at their children’s schools and wondering whether school leaders have truly heard the deep, searing cry that has shot through the black community for racism to be eradicated.
They will be looking for evidence that their child’s experience of school will be different and that the dreams they hold dear for their children are also held by those who teach them.
We can do better and we must do better. This is a defining moment for our education system; for our black children and black teachers to see that their lives really do matter.
Not spoon-feeding: Teaching essay writing and helping students to plan their work is a decolonising practice
Written by Dr Anna Carlile
Head of the Department of Educational Studies at Goldsmiths, University of London.
This blog was the subject of a picket line teach-out during the UCU strike at Goldsmiths in March 2020 and was first published at https://inclusiveeducation652853906.wordpress.com/
Why should we embed essay writing and other academic skills into our university teaching?
If you are a student looking for guidance for yourself, or a lecturer seeking to embed academic skills into your own teaching, scroll down below the article for guidance on the following:
- Plan your work schedule
- Learn exam revision skills
- Learn exam strategy
- How to write a literature review
- What goes in a methods section?
- How to write a data-with-analysis/findings section
Teaching academic skills is a decolonising pedagogy
How did you learn how to write a literature review?
I have heard people say that by teaching academic skills in the university classroom, we are spoon-feeding our students. But this misunderstands the poor educational service many of our students have experienced before they come to university.
If we are looking at the BAME (albeit an inexact and problematic acronym) award gap in HE, for example, we can’t ignore the impact of institutional prejudice on some students’ educational histories. So what can we do about it, beyond decolonising our reading lists (Goldsmiths library is amazing on this)?
Students who go to elite schools are being prepared for university. They are taught how to write research essays and how to prepare for exams. Some state funded schools do this too, but many arrive with us from institutions which have not been seriously preparing them for university. These institutions have been preparing students for servitude. The education system is set up so that working class students are coached to leave school as working class adults, and middle class students are hot-housed to leave school as middle class adults. Anyone who is perceived to be ‘a risk’ to the project of neoliberalism- in other words, anyone unlikely to leave school a highly effective consumer- is liable to abjection and exclusion.
Academic skills are taught fabulously by library staff at Goldsmiths. Our Academic Skills Centre runs a programme on decolonising study skills. However, low waged students, parents, carers and others with complicated lives may not have the extra time to go to library sessions. And we need to make our academic skills teaching specific to our disciplines, courses, modules and assignments.
But this is where we can decolonise our pedagogies. Instead of assuming students have all had an elite form of education before coming to us, we need to recognise that we may need to rectify the disadvantage built into the system. This is not spoon-feeding. It’s decolonising. In Educational Studies, we recognise this and consistently embed academic skills into all of our teaching.
Below are some examples of decolonising study skills support, together with sample documents and narrated PowerPoints. Feel free to use them for yourself, if you’re a student, or to embed them, change, update and tweak them for your own teaching, if you’re a university tutor or lecturer:
A. Plan your work schedule
Students with busy, complicated lives may feel daunted by the number of essays they need to write. I’ve had students who are living in homeless hostels, who have severe anxiety disorders, who are working two jobs, raising five children alone, contending with domestic violence, or caring for grandparents. Those students need help to plan out their work. I often sit down with a student one-to-one to help with this. You can use this strategy with several months or just a couple of weeks to go before submission deadlines.
How to make a work plan:
- Work out how many months you have left
- Create a calendar grid with four weeks per month
- Add in the weekdays
- Add in all your activities. Include self care, relaxing and socialising.
- Identify the gaps where you will have time for assignment writing
- Make a list of your assignments, with deadlines. Add the deadlines to the calendar.
- Work out how many writing days you have for each assignment
- Decide if you want to do each assignment in a block or work on them all in rotation
- Assign an equal number of writing days to each assignment
- Include days at the end of your calendar for editing (see writing in red on the example)
- You could also break down each writing day into specific part of each essay (see writing in blue on the example)
- Stick to your plan, and reward yourself each day
Here is a Sample Work Plan
B. Learn exam revision skills
Many students have never been shown how to revise. Here is one way of doing it. I used this to stuff my head full of pages and pages of case law for my law degree (which I didn’t really use, but hey…)
- work out what you do and don’t need to revise by finding out how many topics might be on the exam
- read through your lecture notes, making a summary of them as you go
- turn each main point into a question and answer
- create a quiz out of your questions and answers
- Revise by answering your questions:
(i) in whole sentences (the first few times, feel free to look at the answers)
(ii) in shorthand
(iii) verbally, with a friend holding the answer sheet
- Identify the areas which are really hard to remember and create a special quiz for these
- Look at and practice old exam papers. Time yourself.
C. Learn exam strategy
I often invigilate exams and I am shocked how many students leave the room before the end. Don’t leave the room! Use all the time you are given. Here are some ideas for best practice in an exam situation:
- When you get in the room, read through the whole paper. You might find you have to answer more (or less) questions than you thought.
- Make a note of how long you have, and specify a timing for each question. Leave five minutes at the end to read through and edit your answers.
- Decide which questions you will answer and quickly jot down the key points you need to include (eg quotes, dates, references). This will allow space in your head to actually write without having to remember facts
- Stick to your timings and write as neatly as possible, leaving plenty of space for edits
- In the last five to ten minutes, read through everything you have written and edit for sentence structure, accuracy and clarity
- Never leave before the end. If you have time left over, read through, edit and add to your answers again
D. How to write a literature review
(PowerPoint here:How to write a literature review GENERIC_recorded (3)– click on ‘Slide Show- Play from start’ and you’ll hear my voice narrating the steps)
1.Start by identifying themes
Come up with three to five themes for your research (eg race/class/gender/parent’s views/teachers’ views/children’s views/policy/faith/food/hair etc).
Open a Word document and write down the themes as subheadings.
- Themes might be framed around the sub-questions that emerge out of your big question
- New themes might emerge from the literature
- Additional themes might emerge as a surprise from your data- you’ll need to come back to revisit your literature review if this is the case
- They are ideas which you hope to learn or have learned from your research
- One main theme may be an overarching idea you will use to think about your research: eg feminist theory, queer theory, or critical race theory
2. Library search
- Spend a good two hours doing a library search for three to five article or chapters for each theme. Try to stick to peer reviewed articles published within the last five years. Download them into folders labelled by theme on your desktop. You may not find articles relating exactly to what you are writing about, but find a ‘best fit’. Your job is to explain how they link to your project. Ask a librarian for help if you can’t find anything.
3. Build the lit review around quotes from the literature. This prevents you from polemicising, or making a point from memory and then searching around for some literature to back it up.
- Pull out a lovely quote from each of the three to five articles or chapters and write it down under the theme heading. Include year published and page number. Eg: ‘…institutional prejudice underpins some of the causes of permanent exclusion from school’ (Carlile 2012, p.178).
- Each theme heading should now have four or five quotes from the literature underneath it.
4. Add words to introduce each quote, or paraphrase it:
- Eg: Carlile (2012, p.178) explains that ‘…institutional prejudice underpins some of the causes of permanent exclusion from school’.
5. Add joining sentences
Eg: Another person who wrote about school exclusion is Kulz (2018), who point out the racial bias in the ways in which her students were pulled out of her classroom by senior management.
(Side note- Christy Kulz’s book Factories for Learning, about the neoliberal and exclusionary practices of a very disciplinarian secondary school, is one of the best ethnographies I’ve ever read).
6. Intro and conclusion
- Add an introduction to your lit review, reminding the reader about the main topic of the assignment, and then laying out the themes you will be addressing in the section
- Finish it off with a conclusion, pulling the main threads together
E. What goes in a methods section?
(Narrated PowerPoint here: How to write a methods section_recorded (2) Click on ‘Slide Show- Play from start’ and you’ll hear my voice narrating the steps).
1.Start with an introductory sentence referring back to your main research question and explain why the method is appropriate to the question
- My question is therefore…
- In order to answer this question I did this… (brief summary)
2. Add literature/references to your methods section
- Other people have written the following about my chosen method…
- This method is appropriate for my research focus because…
3. Say what you actually did
- I did my interviews/observations/focus group/text analysis in this context/with these people/on these websites…
- We met in a café/at university… because…
- These people/websites/locations were appropriate for this research because…
- Access issues included…
- I recorded the data on a voice recorder/in a notebook/using photography…
Nb don’t waste a whole page on explaining generic concepts like ‘qualitative research’ or ‘interviews’. Be specific to your own chosen approach.
4. Limitations (but don’t spend too long saying what you didn’t do)
- Limitations to my methodology were…
5. How did you analyse your data?
- I analysed my data by (eg arranging it into themes, which emerged from the literature/my initial question/the respondents themselves… coding it according to the main issues that arose…)
6. Ethics
- Ethics follow on from the methodology
- Ethical issues arising from the research included…
– Confidentiality
– Informed consent
– Sensitivity
- I dealt with these issues by…
– Interviewing in a neutral location
– Using open questions to allow the respondent to raise any sensitive issues
– Participatory methods
– Using an informed consent information sheet
F. How to write the main paragraphs of a data-with-analysis/findings section
(Narrated PowerPoint here: How to write a data section_recorded (3) click on ‘Slide Show- Play from start’ and you’ll hear my childlike voice narrating the steps)
Your findings section will need its own introduction and conclusion. Main body paragraphs can be built up as follows. If you follow this structure you will be ideally ticking all those evidence, reference, and analysis boxes you need to get a decent mark.
1.Writing a data-with-analysis paragraph
- Introduce the themes or ideas emerging from the data (these themes should ideally reflect those used in your lit review)
- Give an example of the theme or issue which is arising from your data
- Bring in an author (from the corresponding theme in your lit review) who talks about the theme or issue and quote or paraphrase them
- Reflect or comment on the author’s idea which you have just quoted or paraphrased
The second and third step could be repeated in the paragraph if you had a couple of good examples.
2. Sample text (from this book): a data-with-analysis paragraph:
It seemed from my observations that a permanent exclusion option must have a negative effect on pupils and professionals. For example, Cherry Tree School’s head teacher told me angrily, ‘Michael Johns: I have had enough of him!’ Because exclusion was an option, this head teacher could afford to ‘have enough’ of one of her learners. This shut down her ability to creatively think about other ways to support him. As Searle (1996) explains, ‘The abolition of corporal punishment gave teachers the opportunity to develop skills in … strategies of counselling and community liaison that they had not thought possible … An end to ‘permanent exclusion’ (except in the most dire and unavoidable circumstances) would have the same positive effect’ (p.41). In other words, the existence of permanent exclusion from school limits teachers’ behaviour management skills.
3. Let’s break it down a bit…
(a) Identify the themes or ideas which are emerging from your data. These might follow the theme headings you decided on when you structured the literature review. They might be new for you, emerging as a surprise from your data. They are ideas which you have learned from your research
Examples of emerging themes or ideas:
- Parents are a big influence on what children like to do outside…
- Musicians tend not to see informal learning taking place but consider what they do to be ‘work’…
- Dance classes are often marketed toward white middle class people, unless they are called ‘street’ or ‘urban’…
Adults who have been excluded from school as children often find themselves in the criminal justice system later on…
- What are some of your emerging themes or ideas?
- What do you predict might be some of your emerging themes or ideas?
Write them down using the sentence starters:
- The data suggests that…
- My findings point towards…
- One issue that emerged
(b) Give an example of the theme or issue which is arising from your data
- For example, in the first interview, Alice said that ‘…
- This was demonstrated during the first observation. Billy aged four ran across the room and…
- One of the websites showed this: the primary colours used suggested a focus on younger children…
What specific examples can you give regarding the themes or issues you see arising from your data?
(c) Bring in an author who talks about the theme or issue and quote or paraphrase them.
- Find a quote which relates to the theme or idea which emerges from your data
Write it down with the author’s last name, year published and page number: Eg…
- One theorist who discusses this is Jones (2012), who notes that…
- Smith (2014) addresses this issue, suggesting that…
- One idea Evans (2010) raises in relation to this is…
Reflect on the author’s idea which you have just quoted or paraphrased
- This suggests that…
- In other words…
- One conclusion that might be drawn from this is…
(d) What do you think of the quote or idea you just selected?
Don’t give someone else the last word. Finish the paragraph with your own summary sentence.
4. Another example:
Many permanent exclusions seemed to be about making an example out of the child. This was demonstrated in Alex’s case: although he had Tourette’s Syndrome and could not help himself, the school had still excluded him to demonstrate, as the head teacher explained, ‘zero tolerance to disrespectful language towards a teacher’. Osler and Vincent (2003) suggest that the government has an official ‘consequences’ discourse (34). The goal to reduce numbers of permanent exclusions had, they explain, ‘been replaced by a growing official concern about the need to address youth violence and criminal behaviour, in which exclusion from school was seen as an essential policy tool’ (34). One conclusion that can be drawn from this might be that children like Alex were being excluded from school to make a political point about being tough on crime.
5. Now you try
- Introduce the themes or ideas emerging from the data
- Give an example of the theme or issue which is arising from your data
- Bring in an author who talks about the theme or issue and quote or paraphrase them
- Reflect on the author’s idea which you have just quoted or paraphrased
6. Edit
Read the paragraph aloud
- …edit the paragraph
First published March 3, 2020
Black Lives Matter: Then, Now & Always
Written by Wayne Reid
Professional Officer & Social Worker
The murder of George Floyd is the latest in a long line of atrocities and brutalities endured by the global Black community. This has a long history. Longer than is sometimes convenient for honest acknowledgement. I notice some commentators are referring to George’s ‘death’, which is a dilution of what occurred. George was brutally murdered by a Police Officer and the world has seen the evidence.
The context to George’s murder is emotive and cumulative: the Amy Cooper ‘race grenade’; endless examples of police brutality cases in the US and UK; modern-day systems of oppression and the historic and ongoing the suppression of the effects of slavery and colonialism in mainstream education. These factors can accumulate and create an acute sense of anger and rage. These emotions can manifest into civil disorder and criminality. It has been evidenced that anarchic extremists are infiltrating protests to covertly fuel acts of looting and violence, which is then reported by the media in such ways to discredit the protesters. This detracts from the causal factors that have triggered the protests – and if we want to discuss looting, how about the longstanding looting of Africa’s natural resources?
As a Black British male social worker, I write this article on Black Lives Matter ‘wearing numerous hats’, as this issue affects me deeply both personally and professionally. Clearly, my opinion cannot and should not be understood as representing all Black and ethnic minority people/practitioners. We are not a homogenous group. It was important to me for my employer, the British Association of Social Workers (BASW), to publish our organisational position statements before I wrote this article, as I refuse to be the tokenistic ‘Black voice’ of BASW. I’m one of many Black voices in social work. It is my reality, that my role enables me to be heard more broadly than others.
I’m immensely proud of the authenticity and candour of BASW’s statements responding to George’s murder and in support of the fight against racialised discrimination.
Those who follow me on Twitter, or who are on my mailing list, will have observed my campaign to educate, empower and equip Black and ethnic minority people – and importantly our allies – with various information and resources.
On occasions, I have been outspoken about the delayed/weak position statements and responses from prominent social work leaders and organisations. Given that social work’s core values and ethics are deep-rooted in anti-oppressive practice and social justice, this eventuality has been particularly disappointing for me and many others within the profession. Sadly, these values and ethics appear sometimes to have been taken for granted, diluted or ignored in recent years/decades. Perhaps austerity has desensitised us? Overall, I’m sure Black and ethnic minority social workers and service-users will welcome the late (if weak) acknowledgements and platitudes from some of the social work elite. The statements will send a necessary message to employers and other stakeholders across the profession about the relevance of current world events to social work policy, practice and education. However, I think some of the statements could be strengthened by providing a clearer commitment to systemic reforms to eradicate all forms of racism through specific, measurable, achievable and realistic targets.
During the furore surrounding George’s murder, some individuals/organisations have recoiled at the suggestion they may be racist. “I’m not a racist!” is the common response. The accusations seemingly worse than the facts. I would argue that racism is not an absolute mindset, instead it’s a rather fluid one. There are degrees of racism. I imagine very few people reading this article would identify with extreme right-wing neo-Nazi racism, but many will have stereotypical views about certain ethnic groups which they project in everyday situations (if they are honest/self-aware). There is a structural and lazy acceptance, that ‘lower level’ prejudice and oppression are somehow separate – with the former being considered a less important issue. However, I believe if this changed it would engender a real decrease in the overt, violent forms of ‘race-related hate’.
In my view, the spectrums of white privilege and white supremacy are also broad – not absolute. This graphic here best describes my views. Fundamentally, there are a range of behaviours and oppressive systems that are socially acceptable, which we must address and redress to tackle racism effectively in all its ugly manifestations. For example, the statement ‘all lives matter’ is covert racism, as it ignores the history and current circumstances of Black people globally. Physical colonisation and slavery may no longer be acceptable or legal, but colonisation and slavery of the mind has been the norm since their abolition. Black lives matter applies then, now and always.
The recent misdemeanours of Dominic Cummings show us there are clear double standards; not just from a class perspective (which was perpetuated by the media) – but also through the lens of white privilege. I wonder how Raheem Sterling would have been portrayed flouting the lockdown rules.
Labels/terms such as Commonwealth, ‘hostile environment’, and ‘BAME’ need to be re-examined. BAME does not describe who I am. BAME is a clumsy, cluttered and incoherent acronym that is opportune for categorising people of colour as a homogenous group – when we quite clearly are not. Of course, I cannot speak for all people of colour. I understand that ‘BAME’ can be operationally helpful when exploring the overarching effects of all things racist. However, it misses so much nuance and subtlety, that it can be seized upon by those who wish to deny racism as a white problem. Routinely, I hear people comfortably stating that BAME people “can’t even agree amongst themselves”. This sloppy reductivism, leads to terms being invented such as ‘Black and Black’ crime. I have not heard about “White on White” crime – ever.
Some quarters consider having a small minority of people from Black and ethnic minority groups who reach positions of power (including within the current Cabinet), as progress, in and of itself. I respectfully disagree and would go so far as to say it is actually unhelpful in this case. I think a contingent of these people only seem to identify as being people of colour when it is expedient. Often, they have championed policies that in fact would have previously disadvantaged their own families – which is basically ‘pulling up the drawbridge’ and ‘morally bankrupt’. In some ways it is worse than having a ‘conventional racist’ at the helm. To quote Malcolm X: “I have more respect for a [person] who lets me know where [they stand], even if [they are] wrong, than the one who comes up like an angel and is nothing but a devil.” Politician’s have form for allowing their personal ambitions to override ethics and morality. Their denials can play beautifully into the hands of those who seek to maintain the existing order. As black and ethnic minority representation is disproportionately very low, these people do not necessarily use their power for good and structural inequalities remain unchanged.
At this current juncture in race relations, there has been much discussion about how ‘white allies’ can be ‘anti-racist’ and supportive to the cause. Of course, allies can be personal and/or professional. So, what is really behind those awkward smiles and sugary sympathy? Actions most definitely speak louder than words. It’s time for all well-intentioned platitudes and recycled rhetoric to be converted into meaningful activism and ‘root and branch’ reform. This weblink will provide allies with relevant resources on their journey.
‘Blackout Day’, on 07/07/20, is when Black and ethnic minority people (and their allies) will not spend any money (or if they must, only at Black businesses). This is so important, as it sends a strong message to the capitalist elite in the only language they understand – money. See this video for more information on ‘Blackout Day’. We must build on this impetus and momentum to be taken seriously.
It is imperative that social workers evaluate their roles and (moral and regulatory) responsibilities. Current race relations require social workers to be proactive and do our homework to stay contemporarily astute as allies to Black and ethnic minority colleagues and service-users. There are various opportunities through BASW to develop your expertise in this area with our Equality, Diversity & Inclusion Group, events, branch meetings and training programmes. Also, I will be leading a Black & Ethnic Professionals Symposium (BPS) for BASW members in the coming weeks, so do contact me at wayne.reid@basw.co.uk or @wayne_reid79 – if this is of interest.
We all know that organisations are at times avoidant of these issues, but as social workers we must recognise that silence on racism is complicity with the oppressors. BASW will not remain silent on this issue and we implore you to do the same.
‘One world, one race… the human race!’