Some people say that hate is taught, not instinctive. Taught in the home, taught in the schools, taught in the workplace. The detrimental impact of colonialism has meant that Britain has enabled institutional racism to run rife for too long. How can this hate be unlearned, untaught, unperpetrated? How can we, as a country, as a people, as Great Britain, strive to become anti-racist? Shouldn’t we start with our schools, the vessels for the future – where social mobility begins. Through preaching anti-racist ideals in schools – the next generation will be armed with the tools to stand against racism.
The African Caribbean Education Network not only preaches anti-racism but aids black students and parents to prosper within education. On Friday 17th of November, the African Caribbean Education Network held their third annual anti-racism conference at the City of London School. The event had a focus on careers and education for black students to relieve anti-racism through uplifting and educating them.
The conference opened with the incredible talents of George the Poet. He performed a spoken word piece on stage about his experience growing up in the UK as a young, black student in primarily white institutions (PWI). I found this to be an exhilarating experience as his words were very touching and it was comforting to hear the story of his, mine and many other black people within the UK spoken in the emotion-provoking form of spoken word.
There was then a panel including: George the Poet, Kwesi Bimpong the co-founder of the Black Apprentice Network and a Degree Apprentice at Goldman Sachs; Sagan Daniels a youth, Inclusion and Community Programme Director and Co-Founder of the Rugby Black List; Abimbola Johnson a Human Rights Barrister and Chair of the Police Independent Scrutiny and Oversight Board and Lavinya Stennett, Founder and CEO of The Black Curriculum. Members of the Young People’s Advisory Group (YPAG), a group of young people 11-18 working with ACEN, also joined the panel and had collected some questions to ask the panellists. This talk proved incredibly informative as students gained an insight into the individual journey’s that these incredibly successful people went on to get into the place they are now in. The speakers also shared anecdotes and advice on experiencing racism and microaggressions in both school and the workplace.
The evening was incredibly uplifting from the informative talks, to the networking, the small careers fair and the food that was available. The ACEN anti-racist student conference was a brilliant event to attend and is highly recommended for BAME students in the UK.
