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For black women, this is exacerbated by the fact that we tend only to be shown a narrow range of possibilities for ourselves, and are bombarded with the idea that there are only certain roles for certain people. Heidi understands this all too well from her research: ‘There is so little representation of you, as a young black girl, in school, so you don’t see your image in a positive way in the textbooks, in the history. A student of mine, she did her PhD on black history, and she said that when she interviewed black kids, boys and girls, and their parents, they said, “We don’t want black history to be taught in schools because it’s always about slavery and the enslaved, and then we get teased.” She said it’s the way that it’s taught that is the problem. Not that it’s taught as part of the horrors of the colonial and imperial system, no. Or how it fuelled the industrial revolution, no. It’s taught as a separate thing, which is degrading, and so the only images that you do see are in chains, being lynched or something, and you’ll never see positive images.’
One of the things we hope to achieve with Slay In Your Lane is to show young black girls that there is no limit to the roles they can carve for themselves in the world.
Malorie Blackman OBE is an award-winning children’s author who held the position of Children’s Laureate from 2013 to 2015. She believes it’s incredibly important for black children to have these visible role models. ‘When I was a child, even though I loved reading and I loved writing, it didn’t occur to me that I could be a writer because I’d never seen any black writers, and in fact, the first time I read a book by a black author was The Color Purple, and that was when I was 21 or 22. Now, that’s a ridiculous age to get to before you actually read about black characters written by a black author, and it was only reading that that led me to the black bookshop in Islington, when it was there, and that’s where all my money went. I remember in one lesson, I said to my teacher, “How come you never talk about black achievers, and scientists, and inventors?” And she looked at me smugly and said, “’Cos there aren’t any.” And, I didn’t know any better, I had never been taught about them, so I felt there was a huge gap in my knowledge about my own history: never been taught it, never come across any books about my own history, so when I found a black bookshop, it was non-fiction books, it was mostly African-American writers, but I devoured them.’
Sharing Malorie’s views on the necessity of visible role models, Dr Maggie Aderin-Pocock has relentlessly pursued a schedule of school visits alongside her academic work: ‘This is quite a multi-pronged challenge. My goal is to get more, especially black, girls into STEM [Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths], because it’s the same across the board really, there are internal challenges and external challenges. Internally, I think many girls don’t consider STEM, especially black girls, but it’s the same with black boys really. When they see role models or black role models they see footballers, they see singers, they see people who are doing brilliant jobs, but they don’t see many scientists. They see maybe a few more medical doctors now, but sort of within a limited catchment. And so it’s trying to expose them to as many role models as possible in as many different disciplines as possible. It’s funny, when I go to schools, I talk about science and I talk about space but I do not necessarily want them to become space scientists like me, I just want them to know that they have amazing opportunities and there are amazing careers out there that might be suited to them. Some of the children might be great as space scientists, but some of them might want to do something totally different. But it’s showing them that as a black girl in a school, the sky’s the limit, you can do anything you set your mind to, but you’ve got to actually know what the opportunities are. It’s trying to get them exposure to opportunities. I think it doesn’t happen quite so often, but I think in some places they still try to limit people’s expectations. And that’s especially true for girls and I think especially true for black girls. So it’s sort of like the situation I was in – “Oh Maggie, don’t aim too high” – almost know your place in life, and I find that quite frustrating. So I like to show my story as an example, you know, I started off exactly where you are sitting and now I’m up here and I’m doing really exciting things and I love my work. So it’s showing them that there are amazing things that they can do, that they have the potential, and the thing is to believe in themselves. So it’s trying to tackle away the external barriers and the internal barriers.’
And positive changes are happening. Natasha Codiroli finds that female students of mixed ethnicity and Black Caribbean origin are more likely to study STEM A-levels than white female students.11 Indeed, black girls are the only ethnic group that outnumbers their male peers in STEM A-levels.12 STEM is important in driving innovation and is the fastest-growing sector in the UK. There’s never been a better time to encourage young girls into this industry. Role models like Dr Maggie Aderin-Pocock understand the need to be visible to school children, and outreach projects are becoming increasingly important in encouraging more black women into all sorts of industries.
Malorie agrees: ‘So, as far as representation is concerned, I think it is absolutely vital, because if I hadn’t read those books, it still wouldn’t be in my head that I could be a writer because I’d never seen any! I remember, for example, when I first started writing, and I wrote a book called Whizziwig, and it was on CITV (Children’s ITV) for a while. I remember going into a school – and this was really instructive to me in terms of representation, because I went into a school in Wandsworth – and I’d say about a third of the pupils were black, or children of colour, and two-thirds were white. I remember that I was talking about Whizziwig, and the idea, and it was on TV and a number of them had watched it, and a black boy put his hand up and he said, “Excuse me, so, Whizziwig was on the television and then you wrote it?” And I said, “No, I wrote it, and then it was on the television.” He said, “But, it was someone else who did it, and then you did it?” And I said, “No, it was my idea and then I wrote the book and then it was made into a TV programme.” And he asked me about five or six questions, all on the same theme, and I was like, “No, I wrote it.” I know exactly what you’re thinking, and I just thought, I loved it, because I was sitting with a sort of smile inside, thinking, I want you to look at me and think, hell, she ain’t all that, so if she can do it, I can do it! And that’s what it was, “You did it? You wrote it?” And I thought, that’s exactly the point! And so I just love that, and that’s why, especially to begin with, sometimes it was two or three school visits a week, and I got out there, oh my God, and I was up and down the country and I made sure I got out there to show, not just children of colour, but all children, that writers can be diverse, that I was a writer. Here I was as a black woman and a writer!’
Similarly, in 2017, Yomi and I were invited by London’s Southbank to mentor young girls between the ages of 11 and 16 for the International Day of the Girl festival. It took me back to my school years and the fear of not knowing what was ahead of me past GCSE results day. Unlike when I was growing up, these girls seemed more confident about what they wanted to do, and asked us interesting questions about our careers and why we made the decisions we did. They didn’t seem lost like I did at their age and that filled me with great hope that things seem to be slowly but surely improving.
In summary, we’ve spoken about the need for an increase in black teachers, the need to tackle the bias held in some pockets of teaching staff through training and accountability, and that parents also need to better understand the school system so they can best support their children in the face of these obstacles. The general feeling of being lost that I experienced throughout school, and especially over that summer as I waited for my GCSEs, came from a lack of confidence in myself that originated in the school system. Changes are slowly happening, but we need to do more to raise the self-esteem of young black girls, so that they know that the sky is indeed the limit, and to actively give them the tools to help them realise their ambitions.
Black Faces in White Spaces
YOMI
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‘Lol my sisters oyinbo flatmates threw her yam in the bin cause they thought it was a tree log’
@ToluDk
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When I learned I had got a place at Warwick University, I burst into tears. Not tears of joy, mind you: tears of fear. Aged 18, I had flat-out refused to apply to Oxford or Cambridge, my stomach churning at the stories of elitism, racism and all other kinds of ‘isms’ I wasn’t sure I would be able to handle on top of a dissertation. I thought I would much rather learn about those things in a history course than opt into being on the receiving end of them, thank you very much. So instead I applied to SOAS, a very good London-based uni (which even taught Yoruba) as well as Warwick, to please my league-table-obsessed parents. Once I was offered my place, I was ‘advised’ (read ‘ordered’) to go to Warwick by them; it was a decision for which I’m now thankful, but at the time it felt like a form of punishment. I was absolutely petrified I would end up being the only black girl within a 400-mile radius. Even the term ‘Russell Group’ was offputting: it sounded to me like a band of 60-plus cigar-smoking ‘Russells’ for whom fox hunting and racial ‘horseplay’ was an enjoyable pastime. It didn’t exactly scream ‘inclusion’. Of course, when I got there, I realised I wasn’t the only black girl. There weren’t many of us by any measure, but there were enough of us to warrant a populous and popular annual African-Caribbean Society (ACS) ball – and even its Nigerian equivalent.
University was one of the greatest times of my life, but it wasn’t without its challenges. If you are on your way to uni or are considering going there in the future, you will no doubt have already been given lots of advice from websites, teachers and those who have already graduated: don’t leave your dissertation to the last minute; label your food in the shared fridge; rinse the Freshers’ Fair for as many free highlighters and notebooks as you can; always accept the Domino’s vouchers – you will need them. But often one very important topic is left off this generic list of well-meaning wisdom, and that’s how to deal with racism. And when I say racism, I don’t just mean blackface Bob Marley costumes at every conceivable event (there will always be one). As I’ll come back to, statistics show that, like the police force, the health service and the workplace, university is a space where racism is embedded – beginning with the application process and continuing right up to graduation. From often alienating curricula to downright ignorance from flatmates, uni can be intimidating for any student, but this is especially so when you’re black and female.
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‘We’re not in Kansas anymore, Toto.’
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For many black students, university will be their first time living away from home and also often their first time living in a predominantly white area or environment. The beauty of university is that it often thrusts you into the midst of people who are vastly different from yourself, broadening your mind in the process. But this can also sometimes leave you feeling seriously homesick, isolated and generally disconnected.
Little recognition is given to the culture shock experienced by many students coming from predominantly ethnic areas. Maggi cubes become as rare as precious minerals, and weaves often stay on far longer than you’re used to, pretty much growing right off your head for want of a nearby hairdresser. People ask questions you may not be used to answering; for some students you’ll be the very first, real-life, 3D black person they’ve ever met and they will have endless questions about your apparently baffling existence – which has been taking place just two hours down the M40 for the past 18 years – questions which, by the way, you are under no obligation to answer.
When I went to university, my fear that I would be the only black kid on campus wasn’t quite realised, but on the other hand, Warwick wasn’t exactly Croydon in terms of diversity. It is normal for freshers to struggle initially with making friends, but by the end of week one, when one of my first conversations had been with someone who told me he believed there was ‘Me black’ and ‘Rihanna/Beyoncé black’, I had already decided I wouldn’t be spending much time at my halls or with my flatmates. Instead I found solace in the halls a stone’s throw away from me, which housed about half of the uni’s black female intake (again, this wasn’t much). But in those halls I soon found myself a best friend, a boyfriend and a community. Together we searched for hair shops and discovered the clubs that played black music (as much of a banger as The Killers’ ‘Mr Brightside’ was, we heard it more times during the entirety of our nights out than we did anything remotely ‘ethnic’). ‘Black music’ was relegated to a Thursday night and primarily consisted of Sean Paul’s discography.
We swapped eye-roll-worthy anecdotes on microaggressions and lamented the lack of available seasoning in our nearest supermarket. And the best friend I made? I could never have foreseen that eight years, several, several hours of phone calls and even more nights out later, we’d be co-writing a book together. Uni can really be the making of you, even if you don’t always realise it at the time.
Dr Nicola Rollock went to university many years before me and it’s interesting how similar her experience was:
‘I think there were quite a lot of things I took for granted growing up in South-West London, even though I went to this mainly white and very middle-class school. Going to find a black hairdresser’s or Black Caribbean food was normal. Brixton was down the road, Tooting … it was completely normal. I didn’t have to go out of my way to find these things, yet going to Liverpool in the early 90s – and remember this was before it was the European Capital of Culture – was a real challenge, and at 18 I didn’t actually know that I needed those things in my life. I didn’t know they were important to me because I’d really taken them for granted. Even going out was a challenge, in terms of the kind of music I was listening to as a young woman. I had to go out of my way to find venues that would play music I was interested in; there was something called “Wild Life” that happened once a month that played R&B, soul and hip hop – this was once a month at university. So we – me and the few other black girls – ended up befriending black local Liverpudlians and going to “blues”, as they were called, or “shebeens”,13 outside of the university context, because we were really hungry for and looking for places where our culture and identity was recognised and we could just relax.
‘I remember with “Wild Life” we went to enjoy the music, and it felt like some of our counterparts went to drink, and again this was something I wasn’t used to; I didn’t grow up in a house where our parents would say “Go and have a drink,” or, “Here’s some money, go down to the pub.” I didn’t step into a pub until university, and even then I remember saying, “But I’m not thirsty!” Which completely misses the point of going to the pub, as it’s not only about that, it’s about connecting and sitting down and a place to meet, but for me it was just outside of my cultural frame of reference. So I found, in terms of food, music, hair – because my hair was relaxed and straightened at the time – finding a space in which I could be myself and be with others was a deep, deep challenge, so I felt very, very isolated. Then there were the things that many students experience, such as not having any money. I ended up needing to work as well as study … I just found it incredibly difficult and isolating. I would get the train back from Lime Street to London and I would come via Brixton (this was before Brixton was gentrified) and I would walk up the steps at Brixton station and literally, quite literally, exhale, because foods were there, black hair shops were there, my culture and identity was all around me. It was as if I had arrived home.’
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‘Ah, the racially insensitive party. A mainstay of primarily white institutions since time immemorial.’
Dear White People
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For me and my group at uni, our friendship was a wonderful buffer between us and a lot of things that didn’t have nearly the effect on us as they might have done, had we not had each other. For instance, there was the time the cheerleading club decided to give its annual ‘slave auction’ (which in itself was a problem) a Django Unchained theme. Or when a Snapchat picture was uploaded to one of our university community pages on Facebook featuring a black man wrapped in a net with the caption, ‘I caught me a nigger!’ And let’s not even start on the Stockholm syndrome of other black students who would tell the predominantly black women who kicked up a fuss to ‘chill out’.
And the black face. My gosh, the black face.
Microaggressions (defined as a statement, action, or incident regarded as an instance of indirect, subtle or unintentional discrimination against members of a marginalised group) can range from a flatmate throwing out your plantain because they think they’re rotten bananas, all the way to outright flagrant slurs. And in recent years, the racism that was once only whispered about among students has become a talking point on and off campus. Universities put to bed the dangerous myth that racism is the preserve of the ‘uneducated’ and ‘ignorant’ – in fact, it is often those in power who are the ones perpetuating it. Universities are, at times, so racist that they make headlines. The country gasped at the story of a black first-year student at my old university who had found the words ‘monkey’ and ‘nigga’ written on a bunch of bananas she had stored in her shared kitchen. Many black students tutted and sighed, not in surprise but in recognition.
Sometimes the racism is more subtle and underhand, as Afua Hirsch, a barrister, award-winning journalist and author, experienced at Oxford:
‘People always asked for weed, especially when I was with my friends, especially my male friends. They would just assume that they were local drug dealers. And it was always those really posh boys. In their brain, the only function of black men is to buy drugs from. That was one of the most infuriating and offensive things. Or you’d arrive at a party and they’d just assume that you were the local dealers showing up to supply. I hated that, I really hated that.’
A more ‘in-your-black-face’ form of racism is, well, black face. It was a costume staple at parties when I was a student, but at Cardiff University it actually made its way into a play written by medical students in 2016. A student actor blacked up and wore an oversized dildo to make fun of a black lecturer at the university, which unsurprisingly caused a feeling of ‘segregation’ between groups of different ethnic backgrounds.14 Eight students of African heritage complained, and this, according to the independent report commissioned by the university as a result of the incident, led to a ‘major backlash’. Some of the complainants were told by their fellow students they were being ‘very and unduly sensitive’ and that they should accept it as ‘tradition’, as the play was an annual occurrence. The students who had raised the objections felt they had been ‘ostracised’ and some decided to leave Cardiff.
Three years before, a couple of hundred miles away in York, four male students donned black face, too.15 They were depicting the Jamaican bobsled team from the film Cool Runnings. Over in Edinburgh, law students painted their faces to dress as Somali pirates for an ‘around the world’ themed party.16 Meanwhile, at the University of London, a student was actually rewarded with a bottle of wine for their racial insensitivity when they won a fancy dress competition at a union event by donning black face.17 And in Loughborough last year, students organising freshers’ events had to issue an apology after planning a ‘slave auction’ and ‘slave night’ as part of the entertainment for the university’s new intake.18 It is important to note that this kind of flippant racism is as common among those educated in the most elite of institutions as it is anywhere else. These are not isolated incidents but part of the very foundation of British society. They are being perpetrated by the bankers, lawyers and doctors of tomorrow: people who will become the managers who throw out CVs because they can’t be bothered to pronounce ‘Akua’.
A recent report19 by race-equality think-tank the Runnymede Trust highlighted the feelings of exclusion and rejection felt by many black university students as they navigate alienating curricula, come up against lower expectations from professors, and experience brazen racism on campus. The report emphasised the importance of universities becoming ‘actively anti-racist institutions’ – something that, as bastions of ‘progressive thought’ and ‘talented minds’, shouldn’t be such a big ask.
But very few universities have taken appropriate measures to prevent or punish racism, and students are often forced to take matters into their own hands. It was racist incidents such as those outlined above that led to the creation in 2013 of the Anti-Racism Society at my old university, run voluntarily by a group of undergraduates. It offers students advice or someone to talk to about race-related issues, and puts on events such as sleepovers, movie nights and panels offering often cathartic discussions about race and racism. Many students feel more comfortable reporting incidents to their peers, as opposed to their institution’s reporting systems, but those who run societies like this are under the same pressures – in terms of racial tensions and university work – as those who come to them for help. The frequency of racial abuse on campus is something that universities, not students, should handle better, but even so, these spaces, groups and organisations are important. Anti-racist societies are different to an African-Caribbean Society, where the basis of meetings isn’t always necessarily political; these societies exist specifically for tackling racism. Don’t be afraid to be the person to create that space at your university if it doesn’t already exist.
Sometimes the microaggressions can occur at the hands of the universities themselves. Femi Nylander was a recent graduate of Oxford when he found himself racially profiled. He was visiting a friend’s office in Harris Manchester College and was locked out, so he went to the office’s kitchen to do some writing, chatted briefly with staff and students he knew and then left. Later that day, a CCTV image of Nylander walking around the college was emailed to all of its staff and students, along with a message warning them to ‘be vigilant’ and to ‘alert a member of staff […] or call Oxford security services’ if they saw him. His presence, it warned them, was a reminder that the college’s ‘wonderful and safe environment’ can be taken advantage of, adding that its security officers ‘do not know [his] intentions’. No one once asked Femi who he was or why he was there.
Afua remembers her visitors also being on the receiving end of similarly racist treatment at Oxford years before:
‘I had this boyfriend in London who was black and I coped by running away a lot on the weekends and hanging out with him, and then he’d come and visit me and that was a big issue because he was a dark-skinned black man. One time when he came to my college, they wouldn’t let him in and the porter rang me and said: “You should’ve warned us if you were expecting someone who looked like a criminal,” and I’ll never forget that. Even then, I was like, I cannot believe I’m having to put up with this. It was like there was no sense that … It was really bad and I was very conscious of being with him at Oxford because it kind of drew further attention to me as a black woman.’