Tuesday, 29 November 2011
Project Officer - Race On The Agenda
The project officer will lead and fully manage “Through the Generations” in partnership with the Tamil Community Centre (Hounslow) to conserve the multi-dimensional narratives of Tamil life and its impact in west London. The project manager will carry out an intergenerational oral history and research project which will involve the management of volunteers, data collection, social media and the production of a book. The project manager will undertake all duties and responsibilities within the context of ROTA's Equal opportunities policy.
Conference - Social exclusion in BME and migrant communities - How is the UK meeting its European obligations?
Black Voices Network steering group member is speaking at this event on 1 December in London. For more info, click here.
A studentship offer with Queen Mary Centre for Research in Equality and Diversity
This studentship offers an exciting opportunity for a suitably qualified candidate to work on a live equality and diversity project with Queen Mary's Planning Unit. Over the period 2012-2014 Queen Mary will be undertaking substantial Equality Impact analysis work as part of its preparations for the Research Excellence Framework (REF) 2014 exercise. The PhD will both investigate and contribute to this important project. Closing date for applications - 27 Jan 2012
Meeting with Department for Education about EYFS
On Friday 7th October 2011, Patrice Lawrence, Haki Kapasi, Anita Bey and Meryl Shepherd all Black Voice Network (BVN) steering group members met two representatives from the Department for Education (DFE) to contribute our views on the revised Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) consultation.
The meeting was scheduled to last one and a half-hours. From the BVN perspective one of our long-term aims was achieved in that the DFE requested a meeting with us in response to our written consultation comments and a previous meeting we had contributed to during the consultation period earlier in the summer. The meeting followed a DFE format with a prepared list of six questions that we were given in advance to comment upon. Our response was to answer these questions as fully as possible but our priority was the BVN agenda which differed somewhat.
Having asked why we were invited to the meeting, the response was that they were hoping for our perspectives on children with English as an additional language which is clearly where they felt our strengths lay. It was suggested to them that though we spoke as the BVN, we and all of our members were not only multidisciplinary in our work, but offer a wealth of personal and individual, professional expertise that included but did not limit us to, the concerns of children and families with EAL skills. We pointed out that until national, regional, meetings, conferences, committees and quangos visibly included and represented a range of people like us, very little was likely to change.
We also discussed BVN members reporting similar experiences across the country of usually being the sole, visible, person of colour at most events and suggested that the very meeting we were in was unusual in that it included people like us. This was a good model to take forward. We ensured that they understood that our strengths and skills were our network as well as our blackness and that within our membership there are many voices that needed to be heard.
The meeting was amicable and we felt that our voices and views were noted. Whether or not we will be called upon again, given the fact that we hijacked their agenda remains to be seen. We look forward to future agencies approaching us to gain a range of black voices perspectives so as to contribute to the ongoing debates that we know take place regularly and that we are so often sidelined in.
Meryl Shepherd. October 2011
'Race', adoption and child protection #2
How far do we accommodate different child-rearing practices? What is 'right' and what is 'wrong'?
A nurse has been jailed for three years for killing her baby by force-feeding her in the first case of its kind in Britain. She argued that she fed her child in the same that her mother fed her and her siblings in Ghana. It certainly seems highly unlikely that she intended the child harm.
The local authority's child protection responsibilities were questioned. It was noted that although the baby was taken to see doctors, she was not on the “at risk” register.
However, as noted by Dr Liz Davies, Reader in child protection, London Metropolitan University, Diamond, the baby, was born in mid-2009,more than a year after the child protection register had been abolished – so there was no register for her name to be on. After April 2008, vulnerable and abused children no longer gained the protection that was so effectively afforded by the specialist and high-status multi-agency protocol.
Davies says “Professor Eileen Munro, in her recent review of child protection, saw no need to recommend the introduction of a national “signposting” service. However, Waltham Forest Local Safeguarding Children Board, in the serious case review relating to the death of Diamond, quite rightly recommend that Munro should revisit child protection protocols and their impact on the quality of investigation and risk assessment. The return of the child protection register should have been a a clear priority of the Munro review. If Diamond’s name had been on the child protection register, professionals would have been working within a strict formal process tried and tested over many years, and this may well have saved her life.
Hopefully, that 'strict formal process' includes understanding different child-rearing practices and having the knowledge and confidence to discuss the impact on the children with the parents.
'Race', child protection and child adoption #1
Hi folks,
This is a follow-up from the post in early November about adoption and child protection. Savita de Souza is one of our National Black Voices Network steering group members and leads on policy for black and minority ethnic communities at the British Association of Adoption and Fostering (BAAF). Savita recently took part in a live debate on adoption, fostering and transcultural placements on OHTV. I'm hoping that they will stream the programme on their website - I'll let you know if they do.
Back to the earlier discussions about adoption. BAAF released a statement earlier this year, with the following view around ethnicity:-
The policy of matching children with adopters who can support and promote their ethnic, cultural and religious identity has largely been successful. However, there are serious current issues about both delay and children not being placed and these do need to be addressed. BAAF is preparing new practice guidance on ethnic matching and adoption. These issues lend themselves to strong views especially within a context of racism on the one hand and changes in perspectives on the meaning and significance of ethnicity, culture and religion on the other.
This is a follow-up from the post in early November about adoption and child protection. Savita de Souza is one of our National Black Voices Network steering group members and leads on policy for black and minority ethnic communities at the British Association of Adoption and Fostering (BAAF). Savita recently took part in a live debate on adoption, fostering and transcultural placements on OHTV. I'm hoping that they will stream the programme on their website - I'll let you know if they do.
Back to the earlier discussions about adoption. BAAF released a statement earlier this year, with the following view around ethnicity:-
The policy of matching children with adopters who can support and promote their ethnic, cultural and religious identity has largely been successful. However, there are serious current issues about both delay and children not being placed and these do need to be addressed. BAAF is preparing new practice guidance on ethnic matching and adoption. These issues lend themselves to strong views especially within a context of racism on the one hand and changes in perspectives on the meaning and significance of ethnicity, culture and religion on the other.
Savita also pointed me to this article in the Guardian, which, I think offers a an honest and considered view of issues impacting on adoption of black and other minority ethnic children and by black and other minority ethnic people.
An alternative, less nuanced view is offered by Ben Douglas of the Daily Mail.
Issues around adoption and ethnicity/culture were referred to in a House of Commons debate on adoption earlier this month. Unfortunately, personal anecdote passes for any sophisticated analysis or discussion on why culture and ethnicity are considered important. Lee jasper offers black perspective on the Operation Black Vote (OBV) website, but the comments beneath show how deep feelings run about issues of identity, 'race' and cultural identity.
Racism in the news
Well - if there was ever a time for issues of 'race' and racism to be discussed in staff rooms and by water coolers, now would be the time. These are the conversations young children are hearing - these are the conversations those that work with them are having.
Let's start with the populist. Dig around the reality fora and Misha B will pop out. Some argue that she is too 'black' to be popular - a certain amount of stereotyping, not helped by judges' comments and a feistiness not appreciated by the voting public. Even Operation Black Vote has waded in, encouraging readers to vote for her. (Past form suggests that she'd be better off not winning - it hasn't harmed JLS or One Direction, if you're into that sort of thing...) Perhaps Louis feels uncomfortable urging the 'black' vote, the same way he calls for the Irish one. And that from a man who displayed his unique sensitivity by comparing a black male singer to a 'young Lenny Henry'.
But, whatever those of us who guiltily succumb to the shallow pleasures of X-Factor think, it shows that we are not a 'post-racial' society; we still have great difficult articulating how skin colour and racial identity shapes our perception of each other and, reading the comments on the Guardian X-Factor blog (gosh, I never thought I'd ever write those words) anyone who tries to introduce a sensible discussion on racial stereotyping will be told they don't have a sense of humour.
Next up, Sepp Blatter. I'm surprised out telly didn't explode with the fizzing indignation and choice words directed at it after the 'let's just shake hands after a racist comment' debacle.
Interestingly, racism in football taught me that talking about 'race' is wrong. I once was having a great conversation with a guy on a high speed train from Newcastle, in the 90s. I was a Liverpool supporter and used to play in a local women's team (badly). I mentioned that I'd had to turn off a Man City v Newcastle match because of the abuse the Newcastle fans were giving the black player, Danny Wallace. The bloke stopped the conversation and refused to talk to me for the rest of the journey. I suppose I was saved the indignity of an awkward date, but still.
The positive side of the Sepp Blether fallout was the way that the English football community, black and white, responded. It has taken 30 years, or so, to create an environment that is abuse-free for black players AND black fans. People of all colours didn't want to lose that. It was a pity that other countries seemed less bothered.
Talking of abuse - currently doing the rounds is the video of a woman with a small child on her lap racially abusing passengers on a tram in south London. It has taken over as the Twitter video of choice after the dog chasing deer in Richmond park.
I haven't watched and won't. Like many black people, I've had the real thing. A friend once told me that she walked into the Newcastle metro (sorry, Newcastle, I'm really not picking on you) and the carriage burst into 'there ain't no black in the Union Jack'. Funnily enough, a 6-year-old kid sang the same refrain to me on a train from Brighton. His parents were most embarrassed.
Last year, I was coming home on a bus through Islington at about 5pm. I was sitting at the rear, facing the back window, deep in my book. I gradually became aware of a monologue containing some rather unpleasant words. An older white guy was directing a racist tirade at a young, Asian guy, who was sitting hunched into his headphones trying to ignore him.
It was shocking - not least because most of the passengers were black. The passengers alerted the driver, who simply stopped his bus at the next stop, turned off the engine and waited by the front door until the racist realised his journey was over.
It was one of those times, though, I really wished I had done 'something'. Should I have alerted the driver? Should I have said something supportive to the victim? I understand that some of the passengers in the tram incident did intervene.
When it happened to me in the 80s and 90s, nobody did - so I am optimistic for change!
Not sure where to start with the racism rows? Try Show Racism the Red Card.
Let's start with the populist. Dig around the reality fora and Misha B will pop out. Some argue that she is too 'black' to be popular - a certain amount of stereotyping, not helped by judges' comments and a feistiness not appreciated by the voting public. Even Operation Black Vote has waded in, encouraging readers to vote for her. (Past form suggests that she'd be better off not winning - it hasn't harmed JLS or One Direction, if you're into that sort of thing...) Perhaps Louis feels uncomfortable urging the 'black' vote, the same way he calls for the Irish one. And that from a man who displayed his unique sensitivity by comparing a black male singer to a 'young Lenny Henry'.
But, whatever those of us who guiltily succumb to the shallow pleasures of X-Factor think, it shows that we are not a 'post-racial' society; we still have great difficult articulating how skin colour and racial identity shapes our perception of each other and, reading the comments on the Guardian X-Factor blog (gosh, I never thought I'd ever write those words) anyone who tries to introduce a sensible discussion on racial stereotyping will be told they don't have a sense of humour.
Next up, Sepp Blatter. I'm surprised out telly didn't explode with the fizzing indignation and choice words directed at it after the 'let's just shake hands after a racist comment' debacle.
Interestingly, racism in football taught me that talking about 'race' is wrong. I once was having a great conversation with a guy on a high speed train from Newcastle, in the 90s. I was a Liverpool supporter and used to play in a local women's team (badly). I mentioned that I'd had to turn off a Man City v Newcastle match because of the abuse the Newcastle fans were giving the black player, Danny Wallace. The bloke stopped the conversation and refused to talk to me for the rest of the journey. I suppose I was saved the indignity of an awkward date, but still.
The positive side of the Sepp Blether fallout was the way that the English football community, black and white, responded. It has taken 30 years, or so, to create an environment that is abuse-free for black players AND black fans. People of all colours didn't want to lose that. It was a pity that other countries seemed less bothered.
Talking of abuse - currently doing the rounds is the video of a woman with a small child on her lap racially abusing passengers on a tram in south London. It has taken over as the Twitter video of choice after the dog chasing deer in Richmond park.
I haven't watched and won't. Like many black people, I've had the real thing. A friend once told me that she walked into the Newcastle metro (sorry, Newcastle, I'm really not picking on you) and the carriage burst into 'there ain't no black in the Union Jack'. Funnily enough, a 6-year-old kid sang the same refrain to me on a train from Brighton. His parents were most embarrassed.
Last year, I was coming home on a bus through Islington at about 5pm. I was sitting at the rear, facing the back window, deep in my book. I gradually became aware of a monologue containing some rather unpleasant words. An older white guy was directing a racist tirade at a young, Asian guy, who was sitting hunched into his headphones trying to ignore him.
It was shocking - not least because most of the passengers were black. The passengers alerted the driver, who simply stopped his bus at the next stop, turned off the engine and waited by the front door until the racist realised his journey was over.
It was one of those times, though, I really wished I had done 'something'. Should I have alerted the driver? Should I have said something supportive to the victim? I understand that some of the passengers in the tram incident did intervene.
When it happened to me in the 80s and 90s, nobody did - so I am optimistic for change!
Not sure where to start with the racism rows? Try Show Racism the Red Card.
Tuesday, 1 November 2011
A week at the 'races' + events, resources and more golliwogs
It has been one of those weeks, hasn't it?
Yesterday, I was listening to the debate about adoption on the 'Today' programme and was completely dispirited by the 'discussion' on matching children's ethnic identity to families.
I am not against cross-cultural placements - I spent the first four years of my life in what's now called a private fostering placement. The love and security from the family buoyed me along for many years.
However, I find it very frustrating when racial identity is treated as a mere inconvenience, something that local authorities would do best to ignore to meet their targets. The discussion on Radio 4, of course, did not include any looked after or adopted young people, any people who have experienced a cross-cultural placement or, indeed, anybody who wasn't white. It was really poor journalism.
On Sunday, I went to the Deaths in Custody march. I know this is a bit outside our remit here and certainly outside my comfort zone... I haven't come from a background of community activism - there wasn't much of that going on in Mid-Sussex in my youth other than the occasional anti-nuclear march around Molesworth.
The protest was about more than deaths in custody and included families of people who had died while being arrested or been shot by police. Although unexplained deaths in custody have often been highlighted by black activists, the families speaking at the protest came from all backgrounds including the family of Brazilian Charles de Menezes and of white Scottish-born Harry Stanley, who was shot dead in the street when the chair leg he was carrying in a bag was perceived to be a gun. It was a deeply emotional day. Hugh Muir wrote about it in yesterday's Guardian.
Hugh |Muir also delivered the annual NUJ's Claudia Jones Memorial Lecture, last Thursday. He highlighted the recent stand off outside the Sutton shop selling golliwogs. There's an interesting article about this on the Operation Black Vote website. Hannah Pool has also written about the contentious doll.
This is particularly interesting in the early years context. When I was delivering the 'Mummy's Black, Daddy's Yellow, I'm Orange' training course, we deliberately offered a chance to discuss golliwogs. They have been part of the cultural landscape for a very long time, but mainstream discussion about their offensiveness has been relatively recent. Unfortunately, many early years workers had not previously had a chance to talk about and understand why the seemingly benign toy of their youth caused so much ire.
In the Psychoville Hallowe'en special last night, the aesthetically-challenged antique toy expert slept with his beloved golliwog called 'Jamjar'. The toy expert met a sticky end. Was it immature of me to laugh?
Free Event - on 17 November, Roehampton University are hosting a free seminar (Not) Belonging in the Creative World: Challenging HE Exclusions.
Yesterday, I was listening to the debate about adoption on the 'Today' programme and was completely dispirited by the 'discussion' on matching children's ethnic identity to families.
I am not against cross-cultural placements - I spent the first four years of my life in what's now called a private fostering placement. The love and security from the family buoyed me along for many years.
However, I find it very frustrating when racial identity is treated as a mere inconvenience, something that local authorities would do best to ignore to meet their targets. The discussion on Radio 4, of course, did not include any looked after or adopted young people, any people who have experienced a cross-cultural placement or, indeed, anybody who wasn't white. It was really poor journalism.
On Sunday, I went to the Deaths in Custody march. I know this is a bit outside our remit here and certainly outside my comfort zone... I haven't come from a background of community activism - there wasn't much of that going on in Mid-Sussex in my youth other than the occasional anti-nuclear march around Molesworth.
The protest was about more than deaths in custody and included families of people who had died while being arrested or been shot by police. Although unexplained deaths in custody have often been highlighted by black activists, the families speaking at the protest came from all backgrounds including the family of Brazilian Charles de Menezes and of white Scottish-born Harry Stanley, who was shot dead in the street when the chair leg he was carrying in a bag was perceived to be a gun. It was a deeply emotional day. Hugh Muir wrote about it in yesterday's Guardian.
Hugh |Muir also delivered the annual NUJ's Claudia Jones Memorial Lecture, last Thursday. He highlighted the recent stand off outside the Sutton shop selling golliwogs. There's an interesting article about this on the Operation Black Vote website. Hannah Pool has also written about the contentious doll.
This is particularly interesting in the early years context. When I was delivering the 'Mummy's Black, Daddy's Yellow, I'm Orange' training course, we deliberately offered a chance to discuss golliwogs. They have been part of the cultural landscape for a very long time, but mainstream discussion about their offensiveness has been relatively recent. Unfortunately, many early years workers had not previously had a chance to talk about and understand why the seemingly benign toy of their youth caused so much ire.
In the Psychoville Hallowe'en special last night, the aesthetically-challenged antique toy expert slept with his beloved golliwog called 'Jamjar'. The toy expert met a sticky end. Was it immature of me to laugh?
Free Event - on 17 November, Roehampton University are hosting a free seminar (Not) Belonging in the Creative World: Challenging HE Exclusions.
Speakers:
Professor Jocey Quinn, Plymouth University and Dr Kim Allen,
Institute for Policy Studies in Education, London Metropolitan University:
‘The Silence of the Curriculum: equality as an intellectual absence
in Higher Education for arts and culture’
Professor Penny Jane Burke, Roehampton University and Jackie McManus,
University of the Arts, London
‘Art for a Few: Exclusions and Misrecognitions in HE Admissions’
Panellists:
Mark Miller, Tate Britain and Tate Modern
Christine Atha, Arnolfini Gallery, Bristol
Dr Mehri Honarbin-Holliday, artist and writer
Laura Woodroffe, D& AD
Fergal Kilroy, D& AD
Places are free but limited, so please book a place soon to avoid disappointment. To book a place, please email ;Ada Mau (a.mau@roehampton.ac.uk).
Free resource -Hft’s Family Carer Support Service (FCSS) was commissioned by the Valuing People Support Team to develop this resource, to provide a range of information about meeting the needs of families from black and other minority ethnic heritage and seldom heard communities. Access it here.
Thursday, 27 October 2011
The Colored Museum - Review
Last Sunday, I went to a performance of The Colored Museum at the Victoria and Albert Museum, in west London. Unusual for me, I had no expectations, having read no reviews and without actually having any idea what it was about. I also arrived slightly delirious; something to do with cycling from Hackney, and the combination of traffic fumes and terror, topped off with a high impact scone and jam.
As we queued to go into the theatre, I bumped into a friend who had already seen it. She described it as very funny, but also depressing. Not, I was hoping, a black Eastenders.
And it certainly wasn't. An hour and a half later, I couldn't really find my own words to describe it. And for me - that's rare.
The Colored Museum pulls out and pokes African-American stereotypes and archetypes. It is shocking, opening by welcoming us to celebrity slaveship, instructing us how to put on our shackles. We're forbidden from laughing at this stuff, aren't we? It was like hearing your grandmother swear in public - you gasp in shock, but also want to giggle. The hostess also reminds us to substitute 'de' for 'the' should we choose to sing along.
Amongst other 'exhibits', we meet a soldier, resurrected from the dead to put other 'coloured soldiers' out of their future pain. There is a diva reinventing herself to tragedy, the Topsy-like waif who has laid a giant egg and the warring hairpieces, afro-with-attitude versus dramatic and swishy. So yes, it is surreal, as well as shocking. There are moments of extreme sadness as well as moments that I just didn't get.
I was hindered by the fact that is was written in 1985 and focuses on African American experience. The writer, quite rightly, does not want the audience to have an easy time; we are bounced from humour to discomfort within minutes. Most particularly, we are invited to laugh at/with the ultra-camp Miss Roj, resplendent in skintight gold lame and shimmery eye shadow. He flirts with the waiter and jokes about shutting up homophobes, all the while knocking back drinks. Gradually he reveals his utter despair and, of course, we feel ashamed at laughing in the first place.
But time and distance meant I didn't always undertand the points of reference, so I didn't know what I should have been thinking. This was nothing to do with the actors who were superb.
I understood that the work was about a society trying to patch together its psyche after deep-rooted trauma. I also understood that some of this 'patching' was destroying people, through consumerism, alcohol, self-denial and self-hate.
I understood the sum of it - I suppose I just needed a bit more help with the different parts.
As we queued to go into the theatre, I bumped into a friend who had already seen it. She described it as very funny, but also depressing. Not, I was hoping, a black Eastenders.
And it certainly wasn't. An hour and a half later, I couldn't really find my own words to describe it. And for me - that's rare.
The Colored Museum pulls out and pokes African-American stereotypes and archetypes. It is shocking, opening by welcoming us to celebrity slaveship, instructing us how to put on our shackles. We're forbidden from laughing at this stuff, aren't we? It was like hearing your grandmother swear in public - you gasp in shock, but also want to giggle. The hostess also reminds us to substitute 'de' for 'the' should we choose to sing along.
Amongst other 'exhibits', we meet a soldier, resurrected from the dead to put other 'coloured soldiers' out of their future pain. There is a diva reinventing herself to tragedy, the Topsy-like waif who has laid a giant egg and the warring hairpieces, afro-with-attitude versus dramatic and swishy. So yes, it is surreal, as well as shocking. There are moments of extreme sadness as well as moments that I just didn't get.
I was hindered by the fact that is was written in 1985 and focuses on African American experience. The writer, quite rightly, does not want the audience to have an easy time; we are bounced from humour to discomfort within minutes. Most particularly, we are invited to laugh at/with the ultra-camp Miss Roj, resplendent in skintight gold lame and shimmery eye shadow. He flirts with the waiter and jokes about shutting up homophobes, all the while knocking back drinks. Gradually he reveals his utter despair and, of course, we feel ashamed at laughing in the first place.
But time and distance meant I didn't always undertand the points of reference, so I didn't know what I should have been thinking. This was nothing to do with the actors who were superb.
I understood that the work was about a society trying to patch together its psyche after deep-rooted trauma. I also understood that some of this 'patching' was destroying people, through consumerism, alcohol, self-denial and self-hate.
I understood the sum of it - I suppose I just needed a bit more help with the different parts.
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