Black History Month’s theme in the UK is Standing Firm in Power and Pride Paulette Hamilton, Labour MP for Birmingham Erdington writes: This year’s theme … is deeply personal to me, not just as Birmingham’s first Black MP, but as a woman who has dedicated her life to fighting for health equity in our communities. … Read More
Human Rights
Red Line for Gaza: why does the UK government still sell arms to Israel?
On Saturday 6 September a couple of friends and I marched in support of Red Line for Gaza. The march was organised by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (not to be confused with the UK government’s proscribed Palestine Action). This report suggests there were 300,000 of us; this one that there were 20,000. Certainly thousands marched … Read More
In Retrospect, Simon Armitage
In Retrospect The world asks a great deal of the poppies, insists they carry the wounds of war and shoulder the weight of remembrance. Such flimsy, wavering plants; we painted their flowers the colour of blood and punched dark holes in their heads as if bullets had passed through, then trimmed them with green sprigs … Read More
Hidden Histories with Nova Reid
Nova Reid, producer, author, truthseeker and all-round remarkable Black woman, has made a podcast with Audible about other remarkable and unsung Black women: women who not only survived enslavement and unimaginable racism, but who thrived. It’s called Hidden Histories and, as Nova says, it explores the lives of: Pioneers, journalists, and rule-breakers – remarkable figures … Read More
Our view of the world is distorted – so our worldview is distorted
A big thank you to Black History Studies and Mark Simpson, Director of Operations, for the title of this piece and for his insight into the ways different world maps have been put together and how they affect our view of the world. On the first evening of the Introduction to Black Studies course Mark … Read More
A Blessing for our times
Jan Richardson wrote this Blessing for her blog The Advent Door in 2014. It’s included in her book Circle of Grace published in 2015. Elsewhere Richardson talks about wild and stubborn hope. I love that phrase. A friend of mine sent Blessing when the World is Ending to me a few days ago. It feels … Read More
Black History Month; Black History Studies and Nova Reid’s Student Confession
October is Black History Month in the UK. But obviously Black History should be taught and celebrated every day of every year in history lessons in our schools, in everyday conversation, in stories, in music and song, in any way at all, everywhere in our lives. The theme this year is Reclaiming Narratives #reclaimingnarrativesbhm : … Read More
Tell Climate Change Stories
On last Tuesday’s The Life Scientific with Jim Al-Khalili, the guest scientist was Professor Peter Stott, a senior climate scientist at The Met Office’s Hadley Centre for Climate Science and Services. The biggest challenge in climate science today, Stott said, is whether we can adapt quickly enough to the increasingly dangerous effects of climate change … Read More
ORIGIN: Ava DuVernay and Isabel Wilkerson on CASTE
If you haven’t seen ORIGIN – Ava DuVernay’s film about Isabel Wilkerson’s life and why and how she came to write CASTE – I urge you to. If you have seen it, I’d love to know how it made you feel, what it made you think and, most importantly, what it made you do or … Read More
Language: how it means everything, and nothing
A couple of weeks ago some friends suggested we see ENGLISH, by Sanaz Toossi, at the Kiln Theatre. It’s finished its run now, but if you see it advertised anywhere, go. Toossi wrote the play after the travel ban, colloquially known as the Muslim Ban – ‘a licence to discriminate, disguised as a “national security … Read More
RMS Titanic: a perfect storm
At this time of year I often post about RMS Titanic. Last year’s post remembered the Welsh Able Seaman, Thomas Jones, who captained Lifeboat Number 8 – the lifeboat that carried my great-grandmother, Noël Rothes, and twenty-four others to safety on the terrifying night when Titanic sank. But when I was invited by Fred Olsen … Read More
Antiracism: Student Confessions Series, with Nova Reid
I took part in Nova Reid’s series of Student Confession Interviews after graduating from her deeply affecting, life-changing course: Becoming Antiracist with Nova Reid. The Course altered the way I live my life and transformed my attitudes and my core beliefs about racism. I discovered and dismantled so much both internally and externally, including the … Read More
I’m breaking up with my shame, on Valentine’s Day
There are studies that show what happens to couples on Valentine’s Day: the less attachment-avoidant among us fare better, as you might guess, and some of us break up. But what if the relationship is between a person and an emotion? My shame and I have been strongly-attached for decades. But now we’re breaking up. … Read More
Afrikan Reparations: a conference
On Saturday 21st and Sunday 22nd October, in London, a conference to discuss Afrikan Reparations and to address the legacy of the trafficking and enslavement of peoples of Afrikan descent, of colonisation and colonialism, was held. I went, at the suggestion of the leader of the White Allies Network. I was humbled, informed, heart-broken and … Read More
Black History Month, and David Olusoga
October is Black History Month in the UK, but David Olusoga, historian and broadcaster, and many many others, including me, think it’s well past time that British history included everyone who’s part of the UK’s history wherever it’s taught, read or written about. Our history is a shared history, a history that belongs to all … Read More
Independence Day: two dissenting points of view
Independence Day, celebrated in America on the fourth of July, commemorates the Declaration of Independence, ratified on the fourth of July 1776. It stated that the: Thirteen Colonies were no longer subject (and subordinate) to the British monarch, George III, and were now united, free, and independent states. Freedom from a colonial power and freedom … Read More
Windrush, 75 years on
Seventy-five years ago, on 22 June 1948, HMT (His Majesty’s Transport) Empire Windrush arrived at Tilbury Docks, on the River Thames. She was named, as many empire ships were, for a British river, in her case the River Windrush, a small Thames tributary. Windrush brought 492 passengers to Britain from several Caribbean islands including Jamaica … Read More
Let Love Grow Food this Valentine’s Day
Concern Worldwide is a charity that ‘goes to the ends of earth to deliver aid where it’s needed most’. They’re working in Turkey and Syria right now. And they’ve got a Valentine’s Day campaign that suggests buying a cow for a loved one: or planting an avocado tree for a loved one: or buying a … Read More
A Ukrainian Christmas
Business Ukraine Magazine reports that Kharkiv’s main Christmas tree has, this year, been put up in an underground station – to protect it from Russian air strikes. The magazine also retweeted the Washington Post’s report about Volodymyr Zelensky becoming Time’s Person of the Year: That a leader with no previous military experience chose to remain … Read More
Environmental Racism & COP27 Loss-and-Damage Discussions
Environmental Racism is the disproportionate impact of environmental hazards on people of colour. That’s Joycelyn Longdon’s succinct definition. Joycelyn Longdon is the founder of Climate in Colour, an online education platform that combines climate science with social justice. In her 2020 video, below, she talks about developing countries and their particular vulnerability to extreme events such … Read More
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