Blog

Black History Month

By Jumoke Ilevbabor

Something happened on my first day at work that made me to really think!
How does it feel when you are described as fiery because you dared to say no when someone is trying to ride over you, or trying to put you in ‘your place’ in the work place? I assume because you’re a black woman you are supposed to take it all in and put yourself on ‘mute’.
What does it feel like to be a black woman living in the UK in 2020? Sometimes you feel like you are always struggling – struggling to be heard, struggling for your hard work to be acknowledged, and struggling for opportunities. Opportunities will not randomly come your way; you may need to fight, and it’s a continuous kind of fighting.

Years ago, it was my first day on a new job. I was very smartly dressed and looking forward to starting at this organisation. While I was waiting at the reception, a staff member approached her senior and asked if I was the new cleaner they were expecting. “Jumoke is our new consultant”, the senior replied. I was lucky the other staff did not hand me the mop and bucket before confirming from her senior colleague. I had just been racially profiled.  I then realised that there was still a lot of work to be done to change people’s perceptions about black people and to increase opportunities for them.

What I still don’t understand is the simplistic logic behind some peoples’ reasoning – she’s black, so she’s got to be a cleaner, or a thief! “Or the black man behind the wheels of a posh car; he is definitely a drug dealer”. It’s as simple as that.

If you are black and you are a woman, you may suffer a double whammy. Here in the UK, women are still fighting for equal pay with their male counterparts; imagine what that means for a black woman. Black women’s’ struggles for equality cannot be fully appreciated without understanding intersectionality. Factors such as social status, disability and lack of education all contribute to preventing black women from accessing opportunities.

My black heroes and icons this year are all the black men and women who have lost their lives to police brutality and extra judicial killings, those that died in mental health hospitals while being incorrectly restrained, and those that died in police custody. These victims are gone forever, but we are still in Babylon

This year’s black history month is quite peculiar; it is a year of reckoning for those who have long ignored the issues of oppression and discrimination against black people. On 25th May 2020, George Floyd was killed in the most gruesome and cruel circumstances. Following the release of the video, the world did not expect the tsunami of protests and demonstrations that ensued. Led by Black Lives Matter, they started from the US and quickly snow balled to other parts of the world. This paved the way for stock taking, institutional reflections and positive conversations. Many attempts have now been made to right the wrongs of the past, and organisations now feel the need for a more diversified team.