Black History Month is over, so what's next?



  


By Jamel McFarlane 


Throughout black history month back in October, I looked at how many different organisations, charities and individuals that celebrated black history. It was really good to see the wide range of different ways people used social media to educate their followers and hopefully themselves. 


One thing that bothers me is the fact now it's over, what are these organisations, charities and individuals doing next? 


It so easy to celebrate black history month for the 31 days in the October then forget it for the next 334 days of the year. 


In my opinion black history is only the tip of the iceberg. For real change to happen, you need to assess everything and sometimes even start all over again. Or change the way you do things. 


Each of these organisations, charities and individuals are like a house. You know you need to improve the whole house but every year you just keep just replacing everything in bathroom. Yeah it makes the house look better but you still have so much work to do. What about the front room? Or even the kitchen? 


You see from this analogy, doing black history month and nothing else does make a small amount of change but more needs to be done. People within these organisations need to have those uncomfortable conversations. Some people in these organisations are so wrapped up in being comfortable they cannot see they are hindering the growth of their organisations. On the other hand there are organisations that use key words or phrase like we are anti - racist, or we fight against any form of discrimination. This is good if you can have the action behind the scenes to back it up. How can you be anti racist when people within the organisation don’t understand/ think its important to change their way of thinking. 


On one of my first days as the SU Vice President, Moyin (President at the time) said to me, campaigns are great but you want to pick a few of them, and make them a year long project rather than a day or a month. 

Sometimes it's doing stuff behind the scenes that students might never see or praise you for. This is because for real change to happen its not an overnight thing, it's a long term project. 


Hopefully when I advocate in my personal life and through this blog, I hope and wish I do not come across like these organisations. I try my best to have those uncomfortable conversations so that I become a better ally.  


My challenge to you - 


  • Hold your workplace accountable - what I mean by this is make sure they are doing Black History Month, LGBTQ+ month and any other month that celebrates minorities. 
  • Make sure the policies are up to date - e.g reporting any form of discrimination, some form of EDI group. 
  • Encourage colleagues to do some form of white privilege/ Equality, diversity and Inclusion training. 
  • Do not leave all the EDI work to someone of colour. It can be a burden. There are people/ organisations you can get in to help assist you in the change. 
  • Do not use key buzz words just to make the organisation look good, people will see right through it. 


My last point is


Make meaningful and long term change (for the better) 

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