You might have noticed it’s Black History Month. We have. Mainly because of the flurry of last minute (unpaid) enquiries asking us to speak about it or to be involved in events.
In our first few years as ARC, we engaged with Black History Month, despite having some misgivings. We have always felt torn. It’s so important that work is done to bring Black history back into the mainstream idea of what ‘history’ is but at the same time Black History Month is all too often one of the only times schools, organisations and institutions actively engage with this idea.
And that’s when it gets difficult and feels somewhat tick-boxy and exploitative. There’s no denying that despite being around for decades Black History Month has not succeeded in challenging the whitewashing of history throughout the rest of the year.
That’s why this year we are stepping back from it. We are turning down any requests for anything related to Black History Month. We also won’t be posting our usual Black History Month content on here.
Instead, we’ll be concentrating our efforts on the work that we do every day – supporting people and institutions to do the deeper work of anti-racism. That’s not to say we won’t share posts from people also working in this field, there’s some good stuff out there and we want to shout about it, but if you’re attending a Black History Month event or planning one yourself, we simply ask you to reflect on how anti-racist you or your organisation are for the rest of the year?
It is not anti-racist to do a Black History Month event, or to post a blog about Black History, if that’s where it ends.
Anti-racism is not something you can dip in and out of. It has to be embedded across everything and it has to be year round.
There’s loads of resources on our website that dig a bit deeper: whether you’re a school, business or just an individual looking to learn. We also have lots of different anti-racist training options for individuals and organisations!
