Adulting - #67 Systemic Racism In The UK with Adam Pugh & Africa Daley-Clarke

Episode Date: June 3, 2020

Hey Podulters, this episode was recorded live on the 10th February, however the sound quality wasn't very good so it never got released. In light of recents events I felt it needed to be shared more than ever so my fantastic producer Spike worked really hard to make it listenable! This episode is with Adam Pugh and Africa Daley-Clarke and it is about systemic racism in the UK. I hope you find it insightful and enlightening. I have included some resources below. O xxActions and resources to support #BlackLivesMatterhttps://docs.google.com/document/d/1AFnmIdUcMf2E5ywEj18yWXBfdGz4k25SRc82mqtKYkQ/mobilebasichttps://blacklivesmatters.carrd.co/Anti-racism resources for white people https://docs.google.com/document/d/1BRlF2_zhNe86SGgHa6-VlBO-QgirITwCTugSfKie5Fs/mobilebasicLink to Housemans Books instagramhttps://instagram.com/housmans_books?igshid=dlwd47ukgm41Link to Reni Eddo-Lodge initial blog; http://renieddolodge.co.uk/why-im-no-longer-talking-to-white-people-about-race/Survey to lobby for Britain’s colonial past to be taught in schoolshttps://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSc5AzoKpB904HmXAXlzJxKAt41YJ0cQ1zRlhMNe7PyfqEdxWA/viewformThe difference between equity and equality https://everydayfeminism.com/2014/09/equality-is-not-enough/Some people to follow on Instagram:@thevitamindproject@adampugh@renieddolodge@laylafsaad@stephanieyeboah@[e-mail]@kelechnekoff@candicebrathwaite @munroebergdorf@nowhitesaviors@slayinyourlane@galdemzine@askapoc@[e-mail]@officialmillennialblack @emmadabiri Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hi Podlters, I know this isn't normal upload day, but this episode was recorded on the 10th of February 2020 at the Moth Club and the title is When Will Britain Accept Its Systemic Racism? It was a live episode with Africa and Adam and it was amazing, but unfortunately the sound quality wasn't that great so I never got around to putting it up at the time. However, in relation to everything that's been going on and the heightened conversations around racism and the more engagement with the Black Lives Matter movement which is something that is needed heavily I thought now was the best time to try and get it up so my producer amazingly has managed to edit it so that

it is listenable which I'm really pleased because we weren't sure if it was salvageable. And I really hope that you enjoyed this episode and that you learned something from it. And I have also put loads of resources in the description box below. So if you're looking for further reading or further information on these topics, then I would suggest having a look in the drop box below thank you for listening as always goodbye hello can we have a big round of applause? Woo! Hi, everyone. Thank you so much for coming. I hope you didn't all get drenched. I've had to re-stylen my hair because I got rained on.

But anyway, on to the important stuff. So, welcome to Adulting Live. Today's episode is, when will Britain accept its systemic racism? Quite a hefty one. And and today I am joined by Adam and Africa. So I'm going to open up with letting my guest tell you a little bit about who they are and what they do and then we're going to go straight into the conversation. Adam, should we start with you? Sure, so my name is Adam, Adam Pugh. I am an ex-police officer. I spent four years in the Met as a volunteer police officer as a special constable and I'm now an ex-police officer I spent four years in the Met as a volunteer

police officer as a special constable and I'm now an anti-racism campaigner that's what I've been doing for the last four or five years yeah Africa I'm Africa and I've just had a bit of an awakening I'm on my second child

and I've got two girls under four and it's just brought back all that stuff of what I went through at a young age and so it's just like changed my focus of what I actually really need to speak up against now and yeah. Amazing well thank you so much for coming so I guess there's been so many things going on lately in the news what with Meghan Markle and Laurence Fox and Stormzy's conversation with the interview being like is Britain 100% racist so that we're going to come on to these specifics but the first thing I think we need to attack in case people aren't 100% sure is what really is systemic racism so I think we

understand what kind of active racism is but those things are a bit more insidious and I wanted to maybe start with Adam to explain maybe if you could explain it in a really specific way within the police in a way that we could then like work back from that to explain how it seeps into our day-to-day life so I think in the context of the police it's about um it's about outcomes and it's about the way that it manifests itself right so often we hear about um racism in the police and within the personal it's framed as it's just a few bad apples and it's really unhelpful to think about in that context because it's not about bad apples it's about a rotten apple cart and you can take bad apples out and put good apples in but if the if the

apple cart is broken all that happens is those apples just continue to rot and so it's it's understanding that actually, myself included, I don't separate myself from it, but good, well-intentioned people can still be a part of a system that perpetuates racist outcomes. And I think that would be how I would frame it in the context of the police, for sure. So I guess Adam and I are both looking in as white people

who are hopefully being allies white people who are hopefully being allies to people who are marginalized but Africa you're speaking from a personal experience and so I had to even say to Africa like when I asked him when I was I'm really sorry I make you do this because I'm basically making you relive a kind of trauma which is your day-to-day life of constantly feeling like you're being othered um but we you did say it was okay so I'm gonna ask about it um is there any way that you can try and explain that feeling for those of us who probably haven't been I mean I can see there's a lot of white women in the audience and we all understand what sexism feels like but we don't understand

necessarily what racism feels like is there a way that you could explain that feels applicable to everyone I don't know maybe with the sexism thing so I think we're all on board with that it's that constant denial as well so not only is it that thing that you go through every single day in every experience and also the not feeling safe aspect but it's that constant is it that bad are you sure do you think maybe it was because of this instead it's that on top of it so you're starting behind you're in a system already that doesn't favor you the second you leave your home your code switching you're very conscious of your body language your pronunciation what you're wearing and you just never really get to switch off and I think we were saying upstairs that having to do things like that that are so draining

that has an impact on your performance in every aspect of life your work you know you're working double time your relationships at home you're then you know how are you going back to your loved ones after a day of hardcore racism systemic racism microaggressions and and so yeah it is it's that constant denial but something that is just there bubbling away and wondering each day, how is it going to manifest itself today? Is it going to be an easy day of microaggressions that I kind of like know how to bat off? Or is it going to have to be something that I'm really going to have to fight? Yeah. So one of the biggest things that we were talking about upstairs, I think one of the biggest issues that Britain is facing is that we're just not accepting the fact that we're racist Stormzy might have answered that

is Britain racist and he said yes 100% meaning parts of it we are fundamentally 100% racist like we are built of racist foundations and we know that our institutions favour people who are white and we know that slavery was here in the UK really not that long ago and all of these things are kind of seeped into the way that we live our lives and we were talking about upstairs how as a white person you automatically profit off of institutionalized racism racism lots of things that happen basically even if you're not actively acting on those things if you're inactive and participating within society and not speaking up about anything you're still sort of profiting and I wanted to explain a little bit more I guess why or how especially as a white person from an ally's point of view

what kind of actions can you take because you actually left the police off the basis of it being racist right that was the reason why you stepped away yeah I mean to an extent although you know I was naive so I didn't leave specifically because of that. I always had that perspective before I went in. I think my view was if you want to make a difference, be the difference, go in and make a change from within. And I realised that that just wasn't going to be possible. But for me, in terms of that word allyship is a really,

it's a funny word, but a large part of that is just is listening you know that's not my lived experience and I've been fortunate enough I guess to be around it close enough to see it so for example I grew up in South London in Deptford on the Peeps estate really deprived estate, really quite diverse. And, you know, like my best friend growing up, we went to the same school. We dressed the same, listened to the same music. We're very culturally similar. The only difference is he's a black Nigerian man and I'm a white guy.

He's been stopping search more times in one week than I have in my entire life. I saw that. I couldn't deny the difference in experience that we had. So I think part of that is just being able to just listen to other people's experiences. And it's about... So allyship is about assisting. It's not about taking a lead. It's how can I serve? How can I show up and help you?

What is it that you're trying to do? And how can I help you to achieve that goal? So you talk about us all benefiting from our whiteness. Like, whiteness, we are inherited stakeholders in white supremacy and we all benefit from it whether you like it or not. You know, the reason why I'm invited to Spaces to Speak is because I am a white person saying it. I'm not saying anything different to what hundreds of other, you know,

black people and people of colour aren't saying, but because I'm white, suddenly it makes it a little bit more palatable. So it's understanding that and just kind of figuring out how do we use that to kind of, I guess, dismantle it and break it down. Well, one of the reasons I did ask you as well

was because when I was going through all of your Instagram, you had a whole point about how I've won this award and you're saying it's really unjust that I as a white man am being kind of like put up as this bastion of anti-racism when I'm certainly not the first to say it and that's really helpful and in this age of what I believe to be kind of like woke culture you would kind of hope that racism is dissipating a bit but after I'm sure you know that it's a really weird polarized time like what do you think is happening in terms of we seem to have like rising fascism and perhaps rising racism but on the other hand I'm sure you're probably a group full of quite woke from radicals people

like how what do you think how do you think the landscape is changing it's definitely seeming to be talking about racism more but whether or not we're actually doing anything about it I'm not sure we're talking about it more but we're also so much more defensive you know I'm guessing for you guys to be part of this audience even though you didn't know what this was about tonight I'm guessing that you think you're quite open people but sometimes it's those people that are the last ones that want to hear that they could have been racist and you might be the most offensive and I host a lot of conversations about this my social media and then my dms are then full of people saying yes but not me but why are you reaching out to me to tell me that how is that beneficial or you know like pointing out those small ways in which

what I said might have been wrong and what I say with allyship is that you have to be anti-racist you can't say I'm not racist I'd hope you're not but you have to be be anti-racist. You can't say I'm not racist, I'd hope you're not, but you have to be actively anti-racist. What did you do today? Because racism is everywhere and it's happening all the time and we see people being treated differently for their race, but what did you do today? Because it would be easier for you to do something

to stand up for someone than me, for example. And if we already know that a black woman is going to be seen to be more aggressive then why not come along with your lovely accent and your calm self and and step up for that person and say oh I overheard that you called the receptionist aggressive I just wanted to write on file if that's helpful at all that I actually thought she was really professional and she handled that really well you know it can make such a difference but being an ally is not a social media thing and that's why sometimes when I have these conversations

I turn my replies off because people are so quick to just prove to you what they've done in the past just please go home and continue these conversations it's not for a badge of honor as you said these are real life things don't apply it to social media I really hope you're doing that at as well. I really hope you're doing that at school because those are the people that will benefit. I know my best friends are not anti-racist and it breaks my heart, but they're not. They are people who, like yourself, grew up in exactly the same setting as me, absolutely could never be racist as they wanted to. But because of that, unfortunately, they don't if they wanted to but because of that unfortunately they don't think they have to be anti-racist and so when I send them a petition to sign because black women are five times more likely to die after childbirth and I want something to be done and for some

reason that campaign hasn't got to parliament yet my friends can't be bothered to listen to the podcast but you're a mum so you should care because you're a mum and I'm a mum and I nearly died of my first childbirth and that should be important to you so it's allyship is listening but also it's the action as well as listening and not having to be prompted the reason why I met Anoni was at a panel talk and somebody said something heuristic in the audience and I was on stage and I just looked out and her eyes were like, I'm so sorry.

And I didn't even know who you were and we spoke afterwards and I just thought that to me was allyship. You didn't actually need to say anything. But I knew I wasn't going crazy at that point in time because I caught a stranger's eye who looked nothing like me and you let me know that what was said was wrong. Yeah. It's funny because I caught a stranger's eye who looked nothing like me and you let me know that what was said was wrong. Yeah. It's funny because I definitely, and we were talking about this before,

I definitely was brought up in a way, not actively, but in a way that I had racist ideas or, again, I would never have known that I was acting in a way, but I might walk a bit quicker when I was going home if there was a black man behind me more than I might if there was a white man. And that's kind of learned racism and learned prejudice. We have to be doing this work, which is why it's helpful that this is a room full of white people.

Adam, you were just telling me about how you were invited to do a talk. Can I talk about this? You were paid to do a talk to explain to people about white privilege. You basically were saying how it's really interesting. There was someone that popped up, a white man, that was basically charging people to explain to them how to deal with white privilege or how to not be racist so race has kind of become like a fashionable um or at least a little bit more of an acceptable conversation right and and there's there's money to be made from talking about it um

i'm thinking like in my experience you know that conversations around race and a lot of this work and a lot of activism around this area has been done for many years by black women, predominantly queer black women, in my experience. Often there's a labour of love. And, yeah, and they get burnt out and they're doing it for free. And now what we're seeing is we're seeing people come along and kind of hopping on this sort of new band, this new wave of, you know, woke culture

and making a profit from it. The event that you're speaking about, so I was invited to this event because this guy that nobody had heard, I mean, I've, you know, I've been doing this work for sort of four or five years and it's quite small so everyone knows each other or names come up and nobody had ever heard of this guy and he was charging £375 was like the starter sort of base price and that went up

in tiers depending on how much you earn. And when I went and when I spoke to him and said, you know, so how did you decide to do this or how did this come about, what reading have you done, it basically was he'd read Reni Edelody's book and decided, yeah, cool, I need to start having this conversation and then started charging people for it. A quote from the book that I think that he was kind of hanging on was that when he says that you know that if there are white people that consider themselves to not be racist or to be progressive that we need to start having these conversations and we need to start doing the work which is true I think there's a separate conversation to be had about whether

it's okay to profit off of it but those conversations happen in the workplace in your home your family on the bus public transport like all of those spaces are spaces where you can have that conversation and do that work um I think there's a it's a huge leap to to take it from there to like well I'm now gonna come and do whole workshops and classes where I'm gonna educate you on your on your whiteness totally so when that book came out for you Africa what did you feel about that was that something that you were like this is really helpful did you read it you're laughing I was just gonna say I didn't read it because you don't need to read it no not because I didn't need to read it I've met her she's amazing but yeah when I saw

the title I know what this is going to be about I know why black people don't talk to white people about race. So I probably should read it. And I'm sure it's brilliant. But no, it's like, you know when they see us? That was on Netflix. And everybody was saying, you must watch it. I don't need to watch that. That's the most triggering piece of,

it's not even an entertainment for me. It's not teaching me anything new. You know, something is going to be painful to watch, but it's going to teach you something new absolutely I'm open to watching it but it was kind of like that thing I I do I get triggered very easily about race I really do nothing tonight I'll be spoken about but it's a denial of it that I find really triggering to be honest um and so that was really why I didn't read it but it needed to be written and if off the back of that so many people are much more open to speaking about things that's an amazing thing and it's interesting because we've been calling it work which it is and I think emotional labor has come into our lexicon as a term that we kind of understand now but when it comes to things that

you literally have to like tonight this is work like you're not getting paid you're not just doing this for free but on your Instagram you're saying that you turn off your DMs and you can't talk about it it took me ages to understand something we spoke about earlier as well about how like it's not for me just because sometimes as a white woman I used to do this you would feel proud of yourself for asking the right question so it wasn't really doing it to be like want to know the answer I wanted to have asked this question that made me look really woke which is not a cool thing to do but I think understanding the deepness and the nuance of race like it's not just a fun and trendy thing to understand when you really get like into the nitty-gritty of it it's like life-changing and also why do you need to ask a black woman a question I don't understand that I really don't you don't ask

a sexual assault victim how did that feel or you know could you go into more detail if you want to approach that subject and learn more about it you respect that that's not the place to go for the answers and sometimes I get backlash to say you know like you want to teach people first of all I really don't I really really don't you know you want to teach people and then your DMs are off you haven't responded to my thing I I had this whole thing where I spoke about um why it's so wrong to touch a black woman's hair but actually it came from my daughter my four-year-old has got the most beautiful afro really really long hair and if we go out and it's in an afro it is every weekend we plait it for school maybe six seven eight times a day people will grab it because they cannot bear

to let that go past without touching it to me that's the epitome of a colonialist mindset to be honest it's that's something different I've never seen it before I want to touch it I'm going to touch it forget consent forget it's a child Forget all the things that I'm trying to teach her that you've just undone. And then also forget the fact that my only instinct that I can do makes me the aggressive black woman. But I also have to teach my child that that was so wrong. So we have to react in this way. And we had this whole thing. And actually, the majority of people writing in, because I always share anonymously what people have written, were white mums of mixed race children who were shocked that this happened, but it happens to their child now. They had no idea.

But you must acknowledge that part of you being so desperate to have a mixed race child because a lot of them spoke with this language of, you know, I couldn't wait to see what a baby was going to look like and what the hair was going to be. But nobody else can touch it. But you've played into that. You've massively played into that. And now you're just shocked at the volume of it happening. And nobody likes to be told that you might have participated in that in some way, shape or form. When you were dating your black partner, what kind of questions did you ask? What were you shocked about?

What did you want to know? you perpetuated that as well I don't want any part of that but especially not for my child and a lot of what came off that was you know I've just got this very specific question I know you spent a week talking about why it's so wrong to touch afro hair but I'm a teacher in that instance because I pet everyone's her how do you feel or I've got some mixed race nurses and some white nurses and I play with the white nurses hair so surely it can't be wrong why are you looking for the one way in which you can be the exception I've just told you how I feel I can't speak for anyone else I've told you I spent a week going into all the nuances all the detail of why it's so wrong and why you should consider it.

My best friend said to me, we were on holiday in Spain and she could see it with her own eyes for the first time, but it doesn't just happen on holiday, it happens more here. And she said, you know what, Africa, it's really bad because my dad would be that person, but he'd do it to everyone. And I said, I appreciate that. But what you should do if you're an ally is go home and say, Dad, you're never going to believe it. Africa's just spent this time telling me how it made her feel. And even though that comes naturally to you, I really don't think you should ever do it, particularly if it's Afro hair.

Why can't you say that? Why is it so intrinsic for you to say, but I'm a teacher, but I have nieces and nephews of other races, but this is my work environment, but this is how I show affection. That's the not listening part. That's the side of this woke culture that also is so defensive

that I sometimes battle with. Adam, I wanted to ask you specifically about, you were saying previously that you think, I was saying how historically we haven't learned much about like Britain and its racist history and slavery in the uk and we hear about police brutality in the us and you know racial profiling in the us but actually thought it might be slightly more insidious in the uk and we we really don't know the names of victims and we don't hear the stories of people i wondered if you could speak on that a little bit yeah and then that that kind

of speaks to the way that white supremacy functions and has functioned in Britain historically because even if we talk about slavery or the transatlantic slave trade that was something that happened over there it didn't happen on our shores whereas in America they have a very different relationship with with race and slavery to what we have here. So what we're really great at is saying, you know, well we're not as bad as they are in America, you know, look at what's happening over there. And actually in many ways I think it's, in many ways it's worse here or in many ways it's more brutal and more violent. So for example we've had since 1990 there have been almost 1800 people that have either died in police custody or following police contact

and whilst not all of those are black people or people of color disproportionately and overwhelmingly they are um can anyone guess how many police officers have ever been prosecuted in this country? Not one. And at least in America they have, right? And here we don't have the same gun culture, we don't have routinely armed police here. So for me, my opinion would be, it doesn't take a particularly strong or brave person to stand and pull a trigger at a distance. But here, those 1800 people that we,800 people that we're talking about, we're talking about having the life snuffed out of you.

You know, my cousin was killed in 2011, in Shenley Lewis, by 11 police officers that literally choked him to death. So there were many ways. And from the top of my head, I think there have been, there's only been 12 cases since 1990 that have been ruled as unlawful killings. But there have been unlawful killing verdicts.

And even then, not one police officer has ever been prosecuted. So, yeah, everybody can name the Tamir Rice and the Eric Garner. But with the exception of Mark Duggan, not many people know Kevin Clark that was killed last year in Lucian by the police or many of those cases here. So there's a lot of work to be done but we're quite proud and we're prim and proper and that's not something that we do here, that's over there. And we have to reckon with that and we have to we have to you know accept it and acknowledge it and part of that is is uncomfortable but it's it's necessary it's so devastating to hear about your cousin and all the other people that have been wrongfully killed at the hands of a racist

culture but I think why it's so important to hear those stories is because when we do read in the newspaper about Meghan Markle and Piers Morgan's on another one as tirades because he's weirdly obsessed with her that's actually dangerous because I think what we don't do sometimes is recognize that that what we see on the surface is bubbling up from much much darker roots and much scarier things and if we don't tackle like the Lawrence Fox interview which I've actually completely forgotten what happened I think so I've like blocked it out such a T-U-N-T um that that actually really scared me because I don't really follow much obtusely racist like rhetoric so when when you see that kind of being in the zeitgeist people just talking so openly and everyone going here

here this doesn't exist like it might seem like this is happening in celeb culture and it's all kind of oh well it's happening over there but all it does is it reinforces these ideas in different areas and the reason why like having these conversations I think is so important is because once we accept that this is happening and that Meghan Markle know it's not just an accident that there's like 50 articles about her ruining everything and then everything about Kate Middleton is she's amazing and these things aren't just by accident they are racially motivated then we can get down to the awful things that happen within like police structures and things and in Africa one of the biggest things you're saying the hardest thing to get through is the fact that people just won't accept that you have had racial discrimination

could you talk about that? No I was saying so noni you know even silly little things forget actual racism that happened let's just say for example everybody eating a certain type of food that you don't identify with every single day for lunch everybody's celebrating specific cultural customs that you don't resonate with at home you not being able to get christmas or easter off even though they're your lived traditions and customs and religious beliefs. You coming in with your natural hair, I assume how everybody's hair is today, some form of natural, and being touched and pulled. And how do you get it like that? Do you wash it? Is it possible to brush it when you're at your desk and you're actually just trying to work? So even though you just got your hair done, you book your desk and you're actually just trying to work so even though you

just got your hair done you book another appointment and you get it done in a way that it's going to look like your colleagues even though that means that you start with a chemical burn in your scalp for four hours like you know it's all these things I said to this woman you must understand that it's a huge privilege for you to not notice these things but they've impacted my work significantly you know it is it's that again it's the whole denial thing isn't it it's then it's really really difficult and the first thing you can't even get past is whether or not racism even exists and having to prove constantly in your mind what part of that constitutes racism in Africa, you know?

That's so powerful. One thing I probably should have outlined at the beginning is the difference between racism and prejudice, because racism is privilege plus power. So you can have a prejudice against someone, but if you're not in a more powerful position than them, then it can never be racist. And one thing I think we should perhaps touch on is this idea of reverse

racism because it's something which I know is getting a lot of airtime and people think it's a good means of kind of twisting the arguments that we don't really have to face up what's what's going on I don't know if either of you would be feel like you're better well versed in explaining why this isn't a thing or what people think it is I mean reverse racism the myth of reverse racism you know when when when people usually say that right so that so this was the whole um what's his name Lawrence Lawrence Fox this was his whole argument that he was actually being discriminated against and was being racist against him for for having his privilege pointed out um and whilst there are times where that might make us feel uncomfortable or people might dislike us because of our race or whatever the case may be

like it it doesn't change anything in terms of my lived experience like you can hate me for being a white man but i'm still 12 times more likely to to get job. I'm still eight times less likely to be prosecuted than a black man for the same crime. There are all of these different facets of the way that it functions. That prejudice and that act doesn't actually have any bearing or any impact on my life. So it's just a really reductive way

of just trying to derail and dismiss the conversation. That's all it is. Itctive way of just trying to derail and dismiss the conversation. That's all it is. It's literally just about trying to derail it and take it elsewhere. Yeah. Did you have something to add? You know what we were talking about. What's her name?

Heidi Klum. Yeah, yeah. Since when was it wrong to say white? It's like so offensive now, but you've been calling me black all my life you cannot say a story without saying and then this big black guy came over hold on a second what part of the end of this story has to do with him being black I've always said it to my friends I've always stopped them why did you just tell me he was black why did you just say that it was Somali and women like you're trying to coerce my view of the end of

this story you want me to know if a if a headline doesn't say a race it's a white person it's a fact it will never be a white person even when it's a white terrorist and that's such a key important fact to um make sure there isn't any like hate crimes for example it's omitted and a photo won't be released straight away you know so why is it so offensive to say white when I thought we was just describing people oh don't take any offense it was just to add to the story I just wanted you to know what they look like but that you must understand shows that you have a superior view of yourself because you are the default and you believe that white is the default and you should never have to explain why and you should never have to you know

you could be white with Irish roots or you could be white and even your grandparents just at that level might be from Scandinavia you're never going to be asked where you're really from because your accent is let's say neutral and your skin is white. It's really, really dangerous to hold yourself in such high regard that you are the base point for everything. And, you know, when you speak about, when you said about our history of, we have a different relationship where we speak about slavery, it's so insulting to me that we even reference slavery all the time. That's the only part of my history

you're willing to even mention at school. So you're teaching my four-year-olds who I'm teaching, you're kind, you're smart, you're important, all these things. She goes to school and comes back and says, oh, we were slaves. No, we weren't slaves. I read something yesterday that was so poignant. We were doctors, we were teachers, we were scientists, we were parentsignant we were doctors we were teachers we were scientists we were parents we were stolen and made slaves but before that we were all of these things and so when you say actually we are going to share a tiny bit of your history but we're going to say the worst part not only are you perpetuating a racist view to white people you're also upholding this really low self-esteem to black people that you are below that you don't challenge

the ideology then when you're at school and you're at work that you are subpar because you've been told it from the absolute beginning yeah thank you for pointing out that's such important reference to think about when when we speak about these things and I also wanted to go back to the point about white terrorism because it's such a good example of um systemic racism when you look at newspaper headings what would be like father of two accidentally kills 70 people but then the other article will be like hijabi terrorist almost kills one like the language in that that's the best example of how to see the way that these stories because it is media as well that help to perpetuate these ideas and subconsciously like if you read the daily mail which my mum doesn't really stresses me out because

it will just make you racist you just have to stop reading it you can look at the pictures but that's it um it is so imbued and if you actually step back and look at it like genuinely take a look at what's going on it is everywhere and so it's there's no wonder it slips into our lexicon but I do think that we are responsible I try to reverse myself as often as possible as a white woman because it is if we're going to use those descriptors and we might as well get them in in every count as you say and I think language is something which maybe stops people talking about race because we never know like at the minute I say woman of color but I know that certain people might not like that term and I think one thing we have to do as white people is be like fuck it maybe I'm going to say

the wrong thing but at least I'm trying to make this conversation more inclusive I'm sure that you would rather feel like people are actually listening and interested than just being like oh I don't want to I don't want to say the wrong thing do you is that how you'd feel? Yeah 100% I used to say woman of color all the time until i realized that actually lots of people who weren't black were using it to argue with me and challenge me on my views about why something wasn't racist so then you must say that that's from your perspective for example as an asian woman because you've lived life very differently to me so maybe we shouldn't say woman of color maybe you can talk about your experience as a mixed race woman. But by saying woman of colour, I've found that usually

it's either from non-blacks who aren't white to say, well, my experience wasn't that bad, or from white people to say, I spoke to another woman of colour, but who was she? Where's she from? What's her experience? You know, it's people of color is surely 80 percent of the world right so how can you how can you start any conversation by talking to people of color I don't find it offensive it's not something that I'd ever get my back up against but it doesn't describe me at all I'm a black woman I'm actually a mixed race woman but her skin is black so I could never even identify as mixed race if I wanted to which I don't but that's how much it comes down to face value in today's world it's how you look that's how society will treat you so woman of colour

and certain terms I just always think what is your intention of using it if it's an honest intention and it's you know to be inclusive or to talk about an issue, that's fine. But I've found more and more recently it's used in quite a dangerous way, often to just disprove something that you can't identify with, but another race did. I guess also what we're talking about here ties into your work with Black Lives Matter, because we know that people love to be like, all lives matter. And I wonder if you could explain why like that kind of isn't helpful like why we need to let people have their space to celebrate something which they aren't often afforded is that a really badly worded question no i mean i'm not

sure that i'm the best person to ask that question to, but I think just jumping back a section in terms of language and how dangerous it can be and unhelpful it can be, kind of tying into the all lives matter thing is that whole conversation around terrorism, right? And about how white people are generally not labelled as terrorists. Personally, I do think we have to be quite careful with that as well

because what ends up happening is we have these cries for using that language, for having white people referred to as terrorists. When that's what's happened, this is an act of terrorism, but actually that is still a part of that harmful problem because what happens is you see that used to increase terrorism powers, increase policing and militarisation and all of these things that ultimately it still isn't white people that are affected most by that. So I think we have to be quite

careful about the way that we navigate this conversation zone what it is that we're actually asking for um in terms of like safe spaces and having those spaces i guess it's like the the violence of whiteness and one of the things that allows it to continue is its invisibility because it is just the norm because it is just the default because we are never we're rarely ever racialised and we're rarely ever made to sit down and reckon with our whiteness or our race. So when we are, or when it's pointed out and we are racialised and we're told or we're referred to as white,

there's a level of discomfort because it's not something that we're used to. So, you know, I didn't walk into this room today and be like oh shit I'm not on the one out or I didn't have that I didn't have that feeling right um so it is really important to have those spaces where people can generally like black people and people of color can have those conversations and feel safe and not not have to be confronted with I confronted with the microaggressions and all of the other things that happen with perfectly good, well-intentioned people. I remember being at an event.

It was called Decolonizing Love. And I was there with a friend of mine who is a dark-skinned Sierra Leonean black woman. Just a friend. And I was with my son, who's a mixed race child. And this white woman came over to us in front of my friend and said, oh my God, you know, he's got the perfect complexion and, you know, he's got perfect hair. And it was so offensive, you know,

like for all this person knew that could have been his mum, it wasn't, but it's just things like that happen all of the time, right um like the whole hair touching and everything else so yeah I think it is really important to to have those spaces and for us not to feel you know okay well we're being discriminated against because we're not allowed in like we don't need those spaces we've we've got those spaces you're so right you just reminded me that a few years ago there was a tweet where someone was like it's black girls book club like tweet if you want to join blah blah and jodie marsh was like i'm so offended i want to join blah blah and i'm not black and someone was like jodie

every day is white girls book club and it's so true like every space is open to white room so it's just so ironic when you feel like suddenly maybe take that feeling if you do feel something that i've been excluded which i'm sure i felt in the plot I was still working towards you know but like a perfect ally whatever but um recognizing that feeling and being like oh this is what it feels like like that's that's that's it's only othering to you because it's not your day-to-day it's like when we talk about it so much with sexism but like when women are the only women in the room imagine being like the only woman and the only woman of color in the room like it's that extra extension on your feminism if we're talking about intersectional feminism which is kind of like how

I got here to talking about this kind of thing like you learn about feminism you learn about it from the default white and everything comes from that same place and when you extend it further you realize that this goes so much deeper I mean I want to talk about race the whole time and I was saying this upstairs, it's really weird but the minute I started to understand it I literally couldn't find a conversation that I was having where I didn't want to talk about race because I couldn't believe that no one had told me.

It was like someone had lifted the curtain and I was like oh my fucking god we're just walking around as if this is okay. And it's weird and I find it absolutely mind-boggling that at the minute, especially in the media, that we're still going, is this racist? It's like, that's just not the question. Let's say it's a girl club, yeah?

And something really topical comes up. Because we're all girls, we're not afraid of not being feminists. So we can say whatever we think. We can comment on that thing that happened and say, well, actually, no, I thought the dad was right to do that. Or, you know, we can all sit, say, let's say there's 50 girls. We can have a difference of opinion. If you're invited to a work group the next day to talk about the same thing, you're talking on behalf of women. You

just are. You have to, because you're the only woman in the room and you know you're the only viewpoint that's going to factor in X, Y, Z, you know? And that's what happens when you don't allow safe spaces for black women. I want to talk about just me. I want to go on a podcast and talk about interior design. I want to go on a podcast and talk about being a mum with my style of parenting. It won't happen anytime soon because, you know, these things are much more important, by the way. I'll have you back on to talk about that next time.

Thank you. No, but these things are much more important to address, but you don't get to because you're so busy defending the main point. And so if you don't allow safe spaces, when can you ever have an authentic conversation? You absolutely can't because you're so busy being the spokesperson and also you can never be the spokesperson when you spoke about black lives matter it made me think I'm sure most of us if you've got a casual work uniform could wear a top with a feminist slogan I'm sure you could you might get a little bit of stick a bit of jokes you could never wear a black lives matter t-shirt. You could never. Any race, you could never.

Everybody would be so offended that you would wear something so political. Why is that statement in itself political? It's insane. You can wear a t-shirt that say girls rule, women's rule, you know know like all this stuff that you know girl boss things like that even though you've got a boss's man you could wear that no one would say anything if you wore a t-shirt that said black lives matter it's like oh who are you dating who are you you know there's such a wiser thing that it prompts my husband was working when it was a black lives matter rally we only had one haven't we the big one that went all through central london yeah yeah so my husband was working and i wasn't i went with my daughter maybe i was talking about

different ones it's like three and a half years ago i've just missed a load okay clearly i only remember one anyway so um my husband was at work. And so I went. I went with Israel. She was tiny. I had her in the sling. I was like, oh my gosh, she's so important. I want to be able to say to my kids I was here. I want to be able to say that she was there.

And my husband's messaging me like all day, like, stay safe. Hope it's going well. So proud of you. Somebody says to my husband at work, I'm absolutely disgusted that they're allowed to do that. And my husband's so professional, like at home, he gives me all the gossip, but he's so professional. So he was just like, you know, they have to have, he's talking they, like he's not a black man, but he had to do that, had to put himself into that person. What do you think would have happened if my husband said to his female colleagues, I'm going on the Women's Day march. He would be lauded for being

a feminist. How amazing of you to think that men and women should be equal. Not that women are better than men. How amazing that you think that women and men should be equal. That's what the term Black Lives Matter means. It means we know that you don't think we matter, but we really think we should be equal it's pointless to say all lives matter that's what black lives matter means it means we all matter you've been ignoring us you've not been doing trials like you should have you've not been holding people accountable for how they've been treating us for countless years that's all it means but if the term is so offensive to you maybe you should just sit and think.

Because in 50 years' time, and your grandkids are saying to you things like, you don't want to be that person that didn't want to accept feminism back in the day. And that's where we are now. It's so sad and so, it's really bewildering to me, if I'm honest. But that's where we are, isn't it? Yeah, it's really shocking. And I think what's scary about it is that it's like, this conversation shouldn't be news, because you kind of forget, but it's so true. Like, imagine Black Lives Matter is a political statement. Isn't that absolutely insane? Like, it feels like we should have gone beyond it. And I think this is why we're in such a

confusing time. Because on the one hand, I do feel like some of us feel like we are doing the work, and we're moving towards a better future, and everything's getting a bit better. And maybe in certain pockets of certain parts of London, things might have improved the smidgiest bit but the reality is that the vast majority of the world still won't even accept the fact that this racism is happening and that it's in everything and you do kind of have to dig deep and I think the work you need to do as a white person we need to do as white people is to actually attack our own way that we look at things like we were talking about earlier how when I was saying about how um Adam was in the police force how when I lived in Brixton I got on the bus every time I went on the bus I'd be looking out the window and there'll be some black person

getting arrested so I was like this is so awful every single time on the bus I'm like this can't be this can't be um what's the word a coincidence this is like evidently there's something going on here this is adding into your subconscious you don't know that this is systemic racism why black people are routinely being stopped but that is feeding into your subconscious that black people are dangerous i trust the police force and every single time i go to work i'm being fed this image not even on tv in real life in front of me that's why you're right the anti-terrorism laws, they just like open up stop and search laws. And that isn't even to combat terrorists, it's to stop black people from doing what? You know, my husband used to wear a suit to

work every day in his old job, still stop and search. What are you hoping to find? What are you hoping to find? He's now late for work. He's like, you know, just all of that. And then he has to take off his suit and get to work and just be calm and polite and put up with your rubbish comments about a Black Lives Matter march, you know? It's so offensive and carrying your day as normal. So it does, it's intrinsic that you could be the most neutral person ever and want to be educated and want to learn more if you're continuously you know that's what propaganda is isn't it if you're continuously being fed that all terrorists look like this and if you're continuously being fed that everybody who's been stopped by the police looks like that

you don't have to be non-smart to think well there must be a reason behind this but that's why you must appreciate that it's systemic racism and that those people in power they also have the unconscious bias and sometimes unconscious bias is used to be like well I'm not racist it's just unconscious bias the outcome is the same to me all you're saying is I didn't it. I don't actually outwardly believe I'm better than you, but subconsciously I do. The outcome's the same. If somebody dies at the end of it,

or, you know, if somebody loses their job at the end of it, or somebody doesn't get an interview at the end of it, the outcome is the same for that person. So unconscious or, you know, like overt racism, it's got no real bearings on me it's the same outcome yeah which is which is why it's so important that we aren't just thinking oh well I don't do anything wrong like I'm not out there doing something you have to actively be fighting against it um and like speaking up might seem scary but I actually think that because so it's

really annoying that I can sit here and talk about race and that some people might be like oh my god it's really cool that she talks about race when it's like obviously you do that on the daily and like there's so many different things to do with privilege which make the argument really skewed and like Adam's got a platform to talk about race and it shouldn't really be this way but if you are a person of privilege use that privilege because that I spoke about this on a different podcast but someone was like how do you deal with that feeling of like white guilt and Renny talks about this as well but there's no point feeling guilty just leverage your privilege to make other people come up with you it's not about

feeling like oh why it's so bad that I'm white because that doesn't do anything for anyone and you're still going to reap the rewards so you've got to try and make a way that if you've got that privilege you can harness it so that other people might and we're all learning it's just really frustrating that like I wish the conversations were more around like okay so what should we do how can we invite people in but we're constantly just battling with is this racist is this racist if you have to ask is it racist it's probably racist like that's that's the fundamental bottom line really isn't it you know I think the thing about privilege is that it's often bland into people that have it um you know like one of the things I had to come to terms with maybe like as recent as three years

ago I remember being at an event and I realized that as an able-bodied person I navigate life every day without ever needing to think about how am I going to get there like is there step-free access to get into that building is it downstairs you know like just there's so many things that are just a complete blind spot to me because I never have to think about it unless it is pointed out um and that's not to say that you know if you're white that you don't struggle in other areas of your life or the German life isn't difficult. Sometimes it is. So I think that sometimes that conversation around privilege and how to use it can be quite unproductive.

What was your question? Sorry, after that bit. I can't remember. No, you're completely right. You're just making me think about how with privilege, I think sometimes the systemic part of it, maybe I should have outlined this more at the beginning but it's the idea that if someone says like oh my god you're privileged because you're white it

doesn't mean that you like just because i'm a white middle class cisgendered heterosexual able-bodied neurotypical privately educated woman daily male readers it doesn't mean that i've never cried or that like i haven't got stuff going on i haven't been through bad shit it just means that systemically my lot is really fucking good like i'm the closest to a white man you can get pretty much just because someone says to me to you you're a white man they're not saying you're an arsehole you very well might be the likelihood is probably higher but I'm not saying that you definitely are and I think we have to separate that and be like okay so privilege is the world that's the cards have been dealt anything can happen within that scope anyone and anything can happen but your lot is

already a bit better just by virtue of where you were born what color your skin was who your parents are where in the world you were born that's what it is it's not it's not you personally haven't done something wrong for being born white do you know does that add to what you're saying yeah do you know i feel like just what you're saying yeah do you know i feel like just in life generally not just about race but if there's something that makes you feel uncomfortable then it's worth analyzing what it is that's making you feel uncomfortable and why and things like race and things like privilege have become you know negative words and things that we see badly but it's it's really helpful to even if you don't agree right even if

you're saying anything well you're already just chatting rubbish like this is you know this is Africa's like lived experience right so it's like if you just listen and try and understand okay I don't necessarily agree but why like how how have we reached that viewpoint how have we reached understanding you know because in policing one of the things that I realized when I joined was I was one of five police officers so I worked in Southwark right so that's Peckham, I was one of five that lived in the borough everybody else lives in Kent, Surrey, Essex, Gravesend highly populated white areas they commute in it's a really antisocial shift pattern that they work they date within the job they socialize within the job this is their whole identity their whole

bubble and like you might not be overtly racist you might be a great person but if the only interaction you ever have with somebody from a different race or religion or whatever the case may be is always within a negative context of crime. It's very easy to see how over a period of time you begin to connect those dots together and become prejudiced, become racist. And I think it's easy for us to lean on, we're quite comfortable to an extent talking about systemic racism

and actually that that absolves us of you know our personal responsibilities in terms of talking about our own you know very personal racism that we have to reckon with. Afua can I ask you a question about something I've been thinking about lately to privilege which as I was speaking about that then I felt like yeah I was saying the right thing and then the more I think about it it's kind of like what you're saying going back to the idea of like we are doctors and we are I sometimes wonder if talking about privilege also can devalue women of color to be like I'm so privileged no one thinks I am do you know what I mean I yeah I think being able to articulate my feelings is a huge privilege you know I can

absolutely somebody asked me to get on stage without questions beforehand and says can you talk about your feelings about race I can do it that's a privilege some people would shrivel up and actually do such a bad job that it's then so counterproductive for 100 people in the audience for example I think that's a privilege I went to a good school it was a free school but it's a good school you know it was a really good school in the area when people couldn't afford private school anymore they used to come to my school that's a fact it'd be like year 10 and year 11 we'd get a load of girls come over but yeah no I went to a good school my husband went to university didn't really get to do anything with it after that because of all the other things that come

with it but you know I count my privileges as lots of things um I have a really beautiful home it's social housing but it's a beautiful home I've got secure tenancy because it's social housing, which I see as a huge privilege because who has security in their home nowadays? It's allowed me to put down roots, you know? So I do, I try to have these conversations and then also look introspectively as well. I have so many privileges behind me, but that's why I acknowledge that I must talk about this because I have lots of privileges. So when I see people with so much more privilege than me who can't be bothered to address any injustices, I just think it's such a shame. It's a real shame. You know, you've got all this time and also people would listen to you.

So it would be really great if you decided to talk about different things you know when my friends who won't sign my petition send me one about the amazon i'm a bit like well i do care about the environment but i really wanted you to care about people first you know but that's them using their privilege in a way that they see fit and i have to respect that i think the word privileged the word white like they've just made us all shrivel up and stop listening um and so I don't say white privilege ever if you do follow me I'll never speak about white privilege because that stops anybody non-white from taking responsibility for their actions or not actions that they're not doing sorry um but yeah it's just acknowledging your privilege and using it in the spaces that you can you know maybe nobody else would get to talk to your parents nobody else would ever have that access

apart from you so what a huge privilege that you could go home and correct them in a way that they would never find offensive or pull them out on things and somebody gave a brilliant example someone wrote into me and said that we focus on I'm going to get it the wrong way around we focus on the tailwinds sorry we focus on the headwinds that hold us back instead of the tailwinds that push us forward so we say well I didn't get this in life and I didn't get that. But what about all the things that pushed you forward and helped you get where you get? You know, lots of people say to me, I went to uni and I had a job and I, you know, I had to work an unpaid internship. Well, guess what? If you weren't privileged privileged you would not be able to work

unpaid somebody paid your rent somebody bought you food every single week if you weren't privileged you wouldn't be able to do an unpaid internship so what happens like with my husband when you do something that's creative at uni is that when you start out all these things are competitive it's who you know most of the things start out un. If you're from an underprivileged background, you can't do this anymore. It was a lovely dream. You got to do it. You've got loads of debt now. And you have to go and find a job that pays. That's the way it goes. So, you know, we like to say, I didn't get this, and, you know, this held me me back but we should always absolutely acknowledge the things that help perpetuate us forward you just take a moment to think about all the things they

are it's probably quite a lot even being able to move back home after uni I know people that can move back home when they're married I live home at 16 if I knocked on my mum's door on my 17th birthday can I um can I move back it would be a swift no you know and I think it's just important to acknowledge because otherwise what we think is well if only that person worked harder they could have what I have and so this whole race of people are quite bitter when in actual fact it's not about working hard at all and I would encourage you all to if you don't know sorry to be patronizing but look at the difference between equality and equity because equity is hugely important if we're going to strive for any kind of fair society I love all of that I was wondering if you guys had any questions and we will take some questions for any of us hi um I just wanted to ask um maybe

if you could just talk about historically I've learned about the objectification of the black female body specifically um if you could just yeah talk about that that would be very interesting yeah it just goes to exoticizing or fetishizing anything doesn't it it's afro hair as well it's also the male black body as well if you are dated If you're white and you're dating a black guy, what's the first thing someone's going to ask? It's that, isn't it? And for races that are so apparently terrible,

and so, you know, like, so many derogatory things that are said about us, it is a shame that the only thing that's objectified is our body. Still to a point of, for example, so tonight was a big night for me I cut all my hair off in April I'd relaxed it since I was 14 I'm 29 and it was literally bald because I wanted all the chemicals to come out and so this is my natural hair it's the first time I've ever

worn it out I've been wearing braids since forever I thought if I can't wear it tonight I'm never gonna wear it so just do it and but every place I've ever worked apart from my most recent workplace it's been written into the dress code that you can't have afro hairstyles or camero or braids or flats I work for lots of places and senior manager it's always been said if a colleague of mine came in with two braids a white colleague would be fine because that is seen as a high fashion hairstyle now because certain white famous people have adopted it so that goes to the objectification um you know things have been teased for having stereotypical black features let's say bigger lips or a bigger bum those are things that

are now in the media seen to be beautiful but still black women are seen as the least desirable in the UK the least desirable you don't have to watch silly things like Love Island to know that if there's not a black guy there a black girl's not getting picked she shouldn't have gone on it it's one of those things like it's that kind of thing so the objectification you could take it as a compliment but can you really if it's only afforded to people who don't actually look like you. Does that make sense? That's a great question. We'll see your hair looks fab. Thank you.

Hi. I just wondered if you could discuss the concept of, like, dating apps being inherently racist. So I remember there was a thing about... There's a dating app called Hinge. And I think Hinge is, like, one of the only ones... I'm not on them but there's like you you can actually filter people by racial preference on hinge whereas on other ones you can't it's more it's more broad um yeah I mean I don't know um it'll be difficult for me to kind of speak to it's not that's not my experience but I think. But I think that we live in a racialized world and it impacts everything.

Do you know what I mean? And it just infiltrates everything, including tech. And there are so many privileges that are just deeply ingrained into us. And when you're on a dating app, I think it's super easy, right? Because everything is so fast. It's just swipe swipe swipe swipe swipe and we're all you know we're all products of our environment we're all conditioned the beauty standards that we have in this country would be completely different if

we were born somewhere else um yeah I don't know if that really I don't know if you have anything to add to that I don't do dating apps, unfortunately. I did before I was married, but yeah. It's really hard because it is so desirable to date a black guy now. It's really, really desirable. But black women still not, like absolutely not as well. If I had a pound for every time I was told, you're really pretty for a black girl, or I'd never date a black girl but I find you quite attractive whereas for black guys it's very different and I think my experience has been even my husband's

friends who are majority black and mixed race none of them date black girls either by the way I'm the only black wife girlfriend in the friendship group and for me even the fact that they don't acknowledge their own prejudice um which I think comes from not wanting their tough childhood repeating itself with their child I really do whereas for me I wanted the child that looked like me so I could do it right if that made sense um and I think that dating apps they allow you to almost play into those um fetishes don't they you know if you are a non-white woman and somebody does reach out to you it's very likely that your race will be mentioned in the message whether it's seen as a good thing or not um another thing about love

island which i know is quite petty but i had switched off last season i'm into it again this season i switched off last season because the first one, all these girls kept saying, so whenever there was a black or mixed race guy, come on, all these girls kept saying, yeah, I love a bad boy type. What the heck is a bad boy type? And why are you only using it to describe black and mixed race men? It is that whole very weird,

I always say it wrong, but fetishism or schism, I don't know. But yeah, I think datingaps help us to access that a lot easier because it is the visual isn't it that is really true uh i can imagine raising children in a kind of racist system is kind of a precarious road but um what is the what is the point you try and hammer home so you're not scaring them but you you want them to understand because you know kids kids they just they don't they don't see it do they it's a really good question my dad did all of that but scared us as well and my dad is an idol raster very like long long dreadlocks idol just refers to more of like an orthodox way of living so he's like an

idol raster and um it's a really hard balance because i had that in the back of my mind so everything that i want to achieve i just don't ever mention that she's black and i find that to be a really good balance so i focus on all the attributes that i want her to be sure of and confident of and um allow her to know you know that we're big on consent so you don't have consent. So you don't have to hug relatives. You don't have to kiss relatives. If you want to, absolutely. But we don't ever mention her race. And sometimes she says, oh, I'm the white girl on TV.

And I try to not pick up on it. Because the next time she's the black girl on TV. And children should be able to do that. My dad would have hammered home, you are the black girl. I didn't want to be scary spice all the time, you know? That can have like an opposite effect on you. So yeah, I really do. My husband and I are very aligned.

We're very conscious of how we want to raise her to be smart, confident, kind, as I said. Kindness is something that a lot of parents who are fighting racism, you forget because you're on the defense all the time. And I think it's imperative that my four-year-old is kind. lot of parents who are fighting racism you forget because you're on the defense all the time and I think it's imperative that my four-year-old is kind I want her to be remembered in the classroom for being the kind person so all of that I just try to never not yet anyway focus on the fact

that she's black. Adam I feel like you could potentially speak to this as well. So I think for me, it's really tough. For me, it's been about trying to create an environment and a space where that aspect of my son's identity is normalised. It's been like, I think for me, that's probably been the biggest challenge that I've had is how I do that. Because what you don't want to do is you don't want to steal the joy of your child's childhood and their ability to just navigate through life, just being a carefree child

without being told you've got to work 10 times as hard or you've got to jump through these kind of hoops. So there's this constant kind of trying to protect them from that and shield them from that and it's interesting recently started to or today um and he's just recently started to I guess identify with race um and I think that was you know like when they watch cartoons it's like you know the yellow one and the red one and we were out and he and he referred to somebody as as a black man and I was like oh wow okay that's that's interesting this is this is new um so I guess yeah similar to what you were saying it's just really trying to create a create an environment in the space where that's not how he sees the world and it's not how he sees himself um and it's

it's just not a big deal like it's just normal I remember um you know you made a reference to Stormzy I remember like seeing Stormzy um on Gl I remember seeing Stormzy on Glastonbury, headlining Glastonbury, and seeing my son Ezra standing in front of the TV. That's my daughter's name. And this is why I chose you guys. But that was really beautiful, to see that happen. And for that to be normalised is really important. I try to make sure that the people that he's around,

like godparents, we don't raise our children in isolation, right? We raise them in communities. And shout out to another podcast called The Dough Black Dads. They're dope. Marvin. Yeah, Marvin Harrison. They're great and they do something called the village which is like an extended network which is just beyond black people and they've been great and

so having that environment and that space where he can be in and see other people that look like him and role models has been really helpful and really important for for me and for him that's really lovely should we do do you want to do one more question sorry for my voice before um you spoke about childbirth and black women I was hoping you could touch on that a bit more because I saw an article about it and then it kind of disappeared and I think you mentioned a petition so I know there's a lot we should be doing but because you mentioned it could you talk about that a bit more of course so there's a report called the Embrace Report. I'm not a medical professional, but basically that's from last year. And black women are five times more likely to die after childbirth or the weeks that come after that.

And I think Asian women are twice as likely to die. And nobody knows the reason. So even after that report was brought out, there wasn't anything substantive to say. So because we've addressed the reason, this is what we're going to do to combat it. And so the reason the petition is important is because we need action now. It's a really harrowing figure, isn't it? It's a really harrowing figure. And you know, I've listened to lots of different medical professionals and I won't quote them at all. But basically, a lot of the medical practices that we still use to this day

and medical professionals that we laud and hold in high regard, they tested without pain relief on black women and slaves, we're talking about in America, because they are believed to have a higher pain threshold and so that has translated to today and you're less likely to be offered pain relief if you're black you're less likely for your pain to be believed you're more likely for get childbirth to be sent home if it's something serious because it's proven that

you're believed to have a high pain threshold. And what that leads to is people saying something's wrong. I know it's wrong. And it's just not being taken seriously. I had a really lovely birth of my second daughter, Ezra. And it was really lovely. I actually, like, Ezra was 55-hour labor. Ezra was like three and a half.

It was great. And I got to the hospital I actually got the bus there it was that kind of chaotic got off the 390 went straight in and I said I need you to check how far I'm because I'm actually about to have this baby and she said you're eight centimeters took me two and a half days to get to eight centimeters with Israel and she said to me right so we're going upstairs I said I need gas and air she said if you can make it upstairs I'll give you some gas and air and I didn't know about this report then I just knew that my previous birth was horrific

and it wasn't till after because my husband didn't believe it either he listened to the podcast it was on BBC Women's Hour it's well worth listening to my husband cried his eyes out and he said to me they they robbed us of a good birth with Israel and they robbed you of a great birth with Ezra because no other woman would have been asked to walk up the stairs when they're eight centimeters dilated and I didn't have any pain relief I just had gas in there but I was denied that even because I wasn't crying my eyes out and sobbing but I was in hypnobirthing so I've you know I'd kind of like tried to like breathe through his pain and wasn't calling my eyes out and sobbing but I was in hypnobirthing so I was you know I'd kind of like tried to like breathe through the pain and wasn't calling it contractions and things like that so

that's why unconscious bias is so terrible that's why I don't believe that it's not serious because people will die if you don't take them seriously you know and NHS is known for being systemically racist as it is so I even had a black doctor I don't think that necessarily makes a difference but if the people that you're trusting have written down practices in textbooks that you have to study to get your recent qualification you can understand why the stats are so horrifying um I suppose this is open to all of you um I'm trying to widen my reading at the moment is there any authors any books you could recommend that um kind of give a point of view of a of someone that's not like myself I'm really bad I've got ADHD so I struggle with reading but also widen your social media as well to real life people that live in similar areas to you but maybe they just wouldn't be your friends that's fine um but diversify your feed as well diversify the hashtags that you follow

because anything that you follow will also be a default of white if you search pregnancy you'll only see white women it's a fact if you search bride you'll only see white women and so that's why there are so many niche hashtags people always say to me if you don't want people to talk about your daughter's hair how come you've written all these hashtags it's about finding the community as well and directing people to you so you know if you come across something interesting see who they follow see what hashtags they put underneath you can follow hashtags and it means you don't need to follow the person but they'll regularly show in your feed and because that becomes your newspaper as well, doesn't it?

It becomes your daily. If, like me, you struggle reading, you should read. But also doing it with your feed as well is really important. Yeah, so I guess it kind of depends on what topics you kind of want to read around or what it is you're looking to learn. I think intersectional black feminist literature is great and it covers such a wide variety. There's so many amazing books, Robin DiAngelo, White Fragility. I love Angela Davis,

that Angela Davis's literature is just phenomenal, that has been huge for me um there's a collective called um abolitionist futures and they've just started a reading club which i think started that last week um i think they're reading through that one book a month but there'll be like a whole reading list that you can go on there um and that will have like so many different different topics but um yeah or like follow me on goodreads like there's heaps of like just books that i've been reading through that have been helpful for me it might be helpful for you but yeah i had one it's not out yet but kandi's breath weight has got a book coming out called i'm not your baby mother and it's about her own experience but also she's drawing from the experiences of other black women and just the how does she paraphrase it I guess just fighting the stereotypical black pregnant mum which is a

baby mother more often than not it's not a wife it's not someone who plans to have their children or you know and and I've been following as she's been doing her research it looks like it's set to be a great book. That's amazing. I completely agree about diversifying your feed, by the way. Do you know Houseman's? So Houseman's is a bookshop. It's in Kings Cross.

There's another one called Bookmarks, which is near Tunnel Court Road, but Houseman's. Hello. Bookmarks is... No, but is Houseman's next to a drink shop, do you? I think so. I pass it all the time and just see it in my subconscious. That's crazy. So it's classed as a radical bookshop um but if you go in there there's yeah

it's my favorite place in the world um and there's like all different sections of like feminist literature or gender studies or economics and you'll be able to find something in there for sure will you give me the do they have a website and I'll put it in the show notes? Yeah. Amazing. I want to give that, that sounds fab. Importantly,

more importantly, if you want to find you guys, obviously don't stalk them, but if you want to find them online or follow them or follow their work, find out more, where can we find you? I'm the vitamin D project

at the vitamin D project. I had a blog, but then I realized i'd only written three posts i got rid of it it's still up there somewhere but yeah i'm mainly just on instagram all right you're my socials are all the same so adam pu a-d-a-m-p-u-g-h instagram to all that good stuff amazing thank you so much for coming guys i hope you enjoyed this conversation and i can't thank you both enough for sharing with me i know it's a tricky topic but I hope that we've answered some questions or maybe open some more questions up for you so thanks so much for coming I will come down

to the bar to say hi in a minute um if you want to stick around say hey Thank you.