Celebrate and elevate Black women

It's Black History Month. At the University has decided to organise an evening event to celebrate and elevate Black women. And I thought it sounded interesting. I registered! There would be talks and music and a panel discussion and food, and it would be in a lecture theatre in Pontio and the adjacent café.

That afternoon we had a Board of Studies meeting. And there was something going on with academic integrity that required a small discussion by some members of staff. We decided to just stay behind at the end of the meeting and discuss that. And when we had sorted that out, I decided there were a few emails I urgently needed to send. All that meant I wasn't going to make it to the start of the event in Pontio. I quickly looked if there was something like a timetable for when the various things happened, but I didn't find anything. I figured it may be something you could dip in and out of. I went.

I was wrong. When I got there, people were tidying up the remains of a buffet, and the lecture room was closed. I sneaked in while a talk was going on. It was very interesting! But I was also hungry. This event would last until 20:30, and then I wouldn't be home yet. I wasn't going to do a hectic week like this without food.

After the talk a panel discussion started. Main questions were: what is Black History Month? What does Black History Month mean for you personally? What does or should Black History Month mean to Academic institutions? And the main point that came out was that it shouldn't be tokenism. Nothing really should be tokenism. You can decolonise your curriculum, but if the institute itself remains racist, that's not worth much. Celebrating people for a month and ignoring them for 11 months is not good enough. There was also talk of diversity. Black lives are not homogeneous! Just as much as white lives aren’t. So the ladies in the panel figured they needed to know their own personal history, but also needed to know Welsh history. And Welsh history inherently also includes Black history. And that should be acknowledged and appreciated by the Welsh of any colour.

I was limiting my access to this wider source of Black Welsh culture. At the end of the panel discussion, I bailed! And got home to get some food. I felt a bit guilty. I had also seen the Dean of the college in the audience. She had probably made it on time. Why hadn’t I been able to? I suppose I served a useful role as a prime example of some white person who engages in cultural appropriation and is full of good intentions but doesn't make the effort to step beyond that. Oops! Maybe I should plan better next year…