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“Welcome to Mutant High”: Neurodivergent Students at Xavier’s School for The Gifted || Tré Ventour-Griffiths, 2024

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“Welcome to Mutant High”: Neurodivergent Students at Xavier’s School for The Gifted || Tré Ventour-Griffiths, 2024

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“Welcome to Mutant High”: Neurodivergent Students at Xavier’s School for The Gifted

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This essay is the write-up in large of lectures I did of X-Men and neurodiversity for NeuroClastic, Brighton & Sussex Medical School, and others. These stories have always been advocating for the oppressed and this paper focuses on neurodivergence and disability. Enjoy.

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Get Out of Midsomer: How the Whiteness of Country Estates Should Go Bump in the Night || Tré Ventour-Griffiths (2023) 

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Get Out of Midsomer: How the Whiteness of Country Estates Should Go Bump in the Night || Tré Ventour-Griffiths (2023) 

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Get Out of Midsomer: How the Whiteness of Country Estates Should Go Bump in the Night

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In American filmmaking there has been a renaissance in horror that uses genre storytelling to commentate on racism. However, following…

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Under the Sea: Plantation Enslavement in The Little Mermaid || Tré Ventour-Griffiths (2024)

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Under the Sea: Plantation Enslavement in The Little Mermaid || Tré Ventour-Griffiths (2024)

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Plantation Enslavement and the Obscuring of Black Death in The Little Mermaid (Surrey, 2024)

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Linktree - https://linktr.ee/treventoured

Website - https://treventour.com/

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Why Are Period Dramas So White? || Tré Ventour-Griffiths (2022)

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Why Are Period Dramas So White? || Tré Ventour-Griffiths (2022)

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Lecture + Q&A: Why Are Period Dramas So White?

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International Women's Day Conference Talk || 2024

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International Women's Day Conference Talk || 2024

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Sole Survivors: Women, Dissent, and Northants, 1930-90 (IWD, 2025)

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Barrel Children: The Families Windrush Left Behind documentary trailer

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Northamptonshire and Tré's Family || Medium

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Northamptonshire and Tré's Family || Medium

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Black Lives in the Stix: Caribbean Northants and ‘Decentring Black London’ on Screen, 1948–85

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This article was prior published in Warwick District Council’s “British Local History and the Black Atlantic” — it comes attached to their…

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BBC Black Nurses The Women Who Saved the NHS

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Tré Ventour Ed | Twitter, Instagram, Facebook | Linktree

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View treventoured's Linktree. Listen to their music on YouTube, Spotify here.

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An examination of one of the biggest scandals in the history of British education.

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Northamptonshire Caribbean Saturday Schools || Kingston University, 2024

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Northamptonshire Caribbean Saturday Schools || Kingston University, 2024

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Caribbean Saturday Schools and Black Youth Clubs 1970s and 1980s in Northants (JUSWAC, 2024)

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National Trust in Jane Austen's Empires of Sugar || Women in the Arts 

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National Trust in Jane Austen's Empires of Sugar || Women in the Arts 

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Fun with Flags: The Empire Strikes Back || Substack 

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Fun with Flags: The Empire Strikes Back || Substack 

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Fun with Flags: The Empire Strikes Back?

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It’s hardly fun, but Britain’s recent ‘flag wars’ show how cultural revivalism we see in the arts, has pivoted to the nostalgic ‘good ole days’ that don’t really exist.

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Sense & Insensibility: Like Churchill for White Women

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For some time now, I have thought Jane Austen’s countryside is Churchill’s World War but for white women. It’s time we talked about white womanhood, racism and the right.

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Share your videos with friends, family, and the world

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The Black History You Don't Learn At School || Medium

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The Black History You Don't Learn At School || Medium

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Shondaland’s Bridgerton: The Black History You Don’t Learn at School

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Not wanting to get sucked into the recency bias that comes with new dramas, I waited three weeks to watch Bridgerton.

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Whiteness is the New Black: Alt London and the EDI Industrial Complex || Tré Ventour-Griffiths (2024)

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Whiteness is the New Black: Alt London and the EDI Industrial Complex || Tré Ventour-Griffiths (2024)

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https://mcfarlandbooks.com/product/adapting-bridgerton/

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Dr Rhianna Garrett is a Leverhulme Early Career fellow at Northumbria 2025-2028, on her project entitled (Self)categorisation as Resistance: The Refusal of Mixed Ethnic Categorisation, based in the department of Geography and Environmental Sciences.

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Documentary looking at the price of the abolition of slavery in Britain

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“I Am Kenough”: Guy DeBord, Barbie, and The Society of the Spectacle

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Like any regular person after a hotly anticipated blockbuster film — this time Barbie — I left the screening thinking about French…

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Plantation Enslavement and the Obscuring of Black Death in The Little Mermaid (Surrey, 2024)

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New York Times bestselling author Hilary Mantel, two-ti…

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Blockbuster and Physical Media || Substack

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Blockbuster and Physical Media || Substack

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Lost Futures: Make Blockbuster Great Again

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Among people my age group (I’m 30 in November), having a Home DVD Collection takes me back to a childhood that in today’s digital world, actually no longer exists.

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Hauntology, Lost Futures and 80s Nostalgia

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Mark Fisher : The Slow Cancellation Of The Future

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“They Live in Me”: Finding My Way in Disney Animation (DisNet, 2025)

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"Black British History happened everywhere..not just the cities" | Historian, Tré Ventour | BOFD #37

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When in Camelot || Tré Ventour-Griffiths, 2024

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When in Camelot || Tré Ventour-Griffiths, 2024

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When in Camelot: Space invaders, neurodiversity and popular culture - Tré Ventour-Griffiths, 2024

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This autobiographical reflection builds on Nirmal Puwar’s Space Invaders, where she frames women and people not racialised as white as `out of place’ and `out o…

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The 'Whites' Who Loved Me: Interracial Romance, Hollywood, and Bridgerton's "Post-Racial" Fantasies || Tré Ventour-Griffiths (2022)

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The 'Whites' Who Loved Me: Interracial Romance, Hollywood, and Bridgerton's "Post-Racial" Fantasies || Tré Ventour-Griffiths (2022)

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Problematic Texts (to varying degrees)

Bridgerton
Scandal
Grey's Anatomy
3000 Years of Longing
Good Luck to You Leo Grande
Empire of the Light

There are more!

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Premise

Seeing as we have now had two seasons of Bridgerton, I believe that is sufficient time to comment on how it follows in the footsteps of other Shondaland productions - including the ABC series as it is a textbook example of the white-centring interracial relationships on prime time television. Particularly the on-screen relationship between Fitz Grant and Olivia Pope revisits how whiteness continues to discipline Black people, in this case it's the 'disciplining' of Olivia Pope. Shondaland is no stranger to the centring of romance arcs around white feelings and emotions when producing interracial relationships, but it must be acknowledged that even in superficial diversity - the inclusion of Kate and Edwina Sharma in season two of Bridgerton validated many dark-skinned South Asian women (important).

That being said, Bridgerton is not an anomaly, but part of an American film and television complex in Hollywood where whiteness dictates who is worthy of love on screen. Such programmes include Master of None, Brooklyn Nine-Nine, Girlfriends, Dear White Peopleand Modern Family - which 'legitimise' the desire of Black and Brown people as only possible in proximity to a white person - accredited their 'human status' via affiliations with 'white others'.

Building on a previous essay which discusses whiteness more generally amid Bridgerton's families, this article considers the role of the whiteness of interracial relationships in the Netflix show and the wider industry. In the wider social context, I also saw Good Luck to You, Leo Grandewhich (un)arguably fetishises Black male bodies to accentuate white womanhood.

Jeanine Abraham writes:

"Writer Katy Brand basically treats Leo as Miss Nancy's human sex toy, glossing over her position of power as she exoticizes Leo. Why is it that the entertainment industry has completely normalized exoticizing men of color as an object of sexual pleasure for white women of all ages?"

Discussion

Following season one of Bridgerton, I was challenged at how it positioned the inclusion of Black characters as progress when in terms of numbers, they are still few. These were Black individuals moving through white spaces much in the same way Nirmal Puwar writes in her 2004 book Space Invaders - as there are no Black communities, but there are Black individuals left to navigate spaces that we have been historically and conceptually excluded from.

Moreover, from day one seeing Lady Danbury playing matchmaker for white families, I saw how the inclusion of Black debutantes is only accepted, should their 'desire' (for lack of a better term) be for a white person. Though, the inclusion of these characters may be a trojan horse for for more 'diverse' period dramas in the future - as the success of Bridgerton and possibly may be what gave us a 'diverse' Persuasion - we must ask how, even in a 'post-racial' fantasy, why is it still possible for white people to dominate?

In her book 'Good White People', Shannon Sullivan writes:

"As long as both white master and [B]lack slave observed the appropriate rules of address and gestural codes of behavior - etiquette is a code that binds both the dominant and subordinate, after all - then significant social distances could be maintained in the midst of intimate physical proximities."

Yet, the inclusion of Simon and Marina in season one (played by light-skinned Black actors) not only raised issues of colourism, but also as they eventually went on to get hitched to white people - raised issues of Black desirability accentuated only by its proximity to whiteness. This is compounded by the numbers of interracial relationships in other shows that are necessitated by white people. As Nylah Burton writes, "Media commonly makes the mistake of portraying interracial relationships with white people as shining examples of racial progress [and] assuming interracial relationships between people of color are devoid of any need for progress, or even learning."

Season two interrupts the Black-white binary and introduces audiences to Kate and Edwina Sharma. Nonetheless, under global colonial whiteness, Black and Asian people exist on different levels of the hierarchy, also considering other markers of difference including gender and caste. Kate ends up married to Anthony, with Bridgerton reinforcing the Great White Hope of interracial relationships on mainstream television.

In a Tik Tok video clinical psychologist Dr Han Ren discusses why attraction may not be accidental:

"It's just my preference" or is it?? We don't talk about this enough, but racialized s*xual capital and politics are very real, especially in multiracial societies. There's power and access on both sides of the pairing" - Dr Han Ren

Every time people praise Bridgerton for its 'diversity', I am reminded how the 'the diversity' ended up being married into white families and thus 'embodied property' - as Aileen Moreton Robinson discusses in her 2015 book The White Possessive. Though Bridgerton was hailed as a landmark show, I am uncertain if it does anything different to others that also position white-centred interracial relationships as progressive. If Bridgerton aimed to do anything provocative, it would have been more useful to have been a Wakanda-esque regency fantasy world with a token white character (heck, Black Panthereven has a token white man in Everett K. Ross played by Martin Freeman).

In the book Inequalities of Love, scholar Averil Clarke uses ethnographic interviews and data from national surveys to explore the challenges degree-educated Black women can have when seeking love, romance, and marriage in contrast to their white and Hispanic peers. Now, Bridgerton fans are swooning over Kate and Anthony as #Kanthony on Twitter -just months after Simon was sexually assaulted by his white wife before marrying her and fathering their child! Make this make sense. This still has not been resolved.

With the existence of race and coloniality in the Ton, and Simon (a Black man) sexually assaulted by Daphne (a white woman), he may represent what Dr Ren called "sexualised racial capital" where Simon is written as the symbol of capitalism - almost as an Austen-adjacent Darcy stand-in. At the same time, Marina was stigmatised from the get-go by Lady Featherington - being pregnant while Black, the microaggressions were evident. Lady Danbury was also constructed as the Mammy. And though the showrunners were criticised on elements of South Asian representation, what remains unclear is the future and if Bridgerton will have any Black leads. Further, to the presence of rampant anti-Blackness starting in season one and pervaded into season two.

For all its flaws, the first season of ITV's , however,did something Bridgerton has still failed to do - show Black love on screen with its lead characters (Will and Alice Mondrich are at the fringe). With Sanditon's Georgiana Lamb and Otis Molyneux, the show did something many period dramas peddling 'diversity' have not. The first season of The Spanish Princesson Starz is also a contender in its representation of Black Tudors in love in Early Modern England - and if the Bridgerton showrunners wanted to depict Desi women, where are the Desi men? Bridgerton is a show that has used the popularity of D&I to garner record viewing numbers and it has worked par excellence, while at the same it is a white show pretending to be a diverse.

In their article 'Decolonising Desire' academic Dalia Gebrial considers the "colonial scripts" that write people into and out of being lovable:

"Embedded within the constituent discourses of love - of desirability, emotional labour, support and commitment - are codes of social value assigned to certain bodies; of who is worthy of love's work. The labour of decolonising these representative paradigms is structural, and involves addressing their material histories."

With Bridgerton season three reportedly following Penelope and Colin, I wonder if a project that originally hooked people on the grounds of 'racial diversity' will eventually just become white. And with the ongoing assertion of whiteness as the rubric of being 'lovable' in American films and TV, Bridgerton has largely reproduced that effect - even if by through the inclusion of Black and Brown faces, showing how proximity to whiteness can do harm.

For us Black and Brown people that have grown up in Britain and the US, seeing characters that look like us loving each other on screen in all parts of their humanity - is a drop in the ocean of what it needs to be. Though, to varying degrees even as far as superficial visibility - the late 1980s up to the early to mid 2000s seemed to do more for me. While I am 1995 child, I grew up watching shows like That's So Ravenand The Proud Family.

While things like Black-ish do talk about 'Black issues', it still feels like a series tailored to the delicate sensibilities of the white people who do not have any Black friends!

In a British context, my parents' generation tell me about which was released in 1989 and can be watched on BritBox. HBO's is another example of depictions of Black intimacies. However, in a 2015 article, Kavita Bhanot writes that "The concept of diversity only exists if there is an assumed neutral point from which 'others' are 'diverse'." That default point is white. Yet, this may include language. Whilst I do grant that if us westerners broaden our horizons to things like Nollywood, Bollywood, and films and TV not in the English Language, the possibilities are limitless. Though it would be unfair to say all westerners (speaking about the US and UK) only view western media, a review of yearly film lists from UK and US sites is revealing!

These lists reveal what these big institutions view as important - largely UK and US films with an over-representation of white people in front and behind the camera. So, the colonial whiteness of media is revisited in the recentring of the English language as the norm.

Whiteness is necessitated in many ways. By the by, whether we like it or not, interracial relationships on screen continue to be almost exclusively upheld by a 'need' for a white person, asserting the role of whiteness in the possibility of love for Black and Brown individuals. Pertinently when Black and Brown love on-screen within white nations is lacking. Numerous films and television shows that get made in Britain and the United States are situated in what Ghassan Hage writes about as 'fantasies of a white nation'. This is what makes films such as If Beale Street Could Talkand (both by Barry Jenkins) so important - when leading white characters are absent from the story.

Moonlight - about the lives of Black gay men (additionally dark-skinned men) and Beale Street based on the James Baldwin novel featuring Black families being unapologetically Black - would we ever get that at blockbuster level, not on the independent screen? If we see how much diversity is contingent on profit and not 'because it's right', there will always be a business case for Diversity & Inclusion in media to be made. Netflix's Bridgerton is probably the closest a period drama has gotten to blockbuster status, and it shows.

In terms of thinking more critically about D&I, scholar Anne McClintock's Imperial Leathermay go some way in depicting how wider debates were useful in selling Bridgerton to non-period drama audiences, especially those who were not period drama fans - the many Black and Brown people who joined a fanbase that is overrepresented by cis white women. As far as season one, Black actors were used to sell Bridgerton (commodity). In effort to 'do diversity' with the introduction of Kate in season two - like Simon - was treated as an extra to white families. So endemic is "commodity racism" to media, I think Bridgerton was only criticised for it because it positioned itself as a post-racial - while at the same time discussing inheritance structures that are inherently built on capitalism, colonialism, and white supremacy.

Period dramas routinely have failed to include Black and Brown potential audiences due to our exclusion from these texts. Season one of Bridgerton was a first for many. However, there is history: season five of received racist backlash for its inclusion of historically accurate Black character Kitty Despard. Through characters like Jocasta Mackenzie, sub-sections of the fandom also caused trouble when the Outlander showrunners wrote in Scotland's role in racist colonial enslavement. Yet, if you go to Scotland you will see colonial statues and streets named for enslavers.

Also, the casting of actor Sophie Okenedo as Queen Margaret in season two of the BBC's The Hollow Crownin 2016received racist backlash. The scandal known as #PineappleGate in the Sanditon fandom is also worth a look, as well as criticisms of having Black characters in the Netflix adaptation of Jane Austen's novel Persuasion. Racism amid wider period drama discourse is not an anomaly, and conversations around race and Bridgerton do not come divorced from a wider social context within period drama fandom.

In her journal article 'Notes on a Scandal' on racism and social media in the Sanditon fandom, journalist Amanda-Rae Prescott writes

"Bridgerton's premiere ... on Christmas Day 2020 changed the media environment and also revealed new divisions in Austen and Austen-adjacent spaces. The promo photos of Regé-Jean Page as Simon, Golda Rousheuvel as Queen Charlotte, and the other Black supporting actors quickly resulted in the "historical accuracy means no BlPOC actors in traditionally white roles" racists rushing to trash the series. [...] Bridgerton's depictions of sex and the rejection of key aesthetics of previous Austen adaptations also made the show a target for white period drama traditionalists. Bridgerton fans in Austen and Austen-adjacent spaces were forced to either make separate spaces for discussion of the series or join existing Bridgerton fandom spaces."

These wider criticisms from period drama racists - in some cases they are out and out white supremacists - come separate from my criticisms and those of other people on the white-centring of interracial relationships in the Netflix programme and wider industry. Whilst it is important to depict interracial relationships on screen, why are they mostly white-centring? As I wonder Britain today, the country I know appears even more Mixed-Race than when I was a child. Now, I see more Black and Brown people from ethnic minority groups in my community and others with mixed families.

Further note:

The Blindian Project - which was constructed to build solidarity between Black and Brown communities, and normalise interracial Black and Brown relationships - is an indicator of what need to see more of on our TV screens.

With interracial relationships on television screens still necessitating the participation of a white person, it reminds us that as John Hartigan Jr writes in : "... white people are 'racially interested and motivated'." It tells us whiteness must be discussed always, even in the politics of love on and off screen. With the breadth of romance on screen still necessitating white people, there is a problem that in a dominant culture of white supremacy it says: 'Black and Brown people are incapable of love, unless when a white person is present, or if this text is a 'race show' or 'race film'.

The late scholar-feminist bell hooks in her 1994 book Outlaw Culturedescribed love "as a practice of freedom." In my 2021 journal article ' National Trust in Jane Austen's Empire of Sugar' , I discuss how the relationship between Sanditon's Georgiana Lambe and Otis Molyneux interrupts nineteenth century white patriarchal inheritance cultures known as primogeniture. For Bridgerton to 'include 'Black and Brown characters into this regency world without explicitly talking about race, is irresponsible - all while there are references to race and coloniality throughout.

Conclusions

Like in our critiques of white supremacy in other spaces- such as education and criminal justice - film, television, and media are other branches of this racist tree that holds sway on the ability for white people to see Black and Brown people as full humans. And white backlash to the last season of This is Usreminds us that many white people still do not see Black people as human - so not only do the stories we tell matter, but also how they are framed.

Adopted by white parents Jack and Rebecca Pearson, and growing up with his white siblings Kate and Kevin, and other white people - also going to a white private school - it would have been all too easy to have given Randall a white spouse. Meanwhile, Netflix series Lupin was criticised for its misogynoir via its exclusion of Black women. In its exclusion of leading Black women characters, Bridgerton, through its over-representation of white people and lack of leading Black women - is implicated in misogynoir.

By highlighting Bridgerton as part of an industry standard of white-centred romance, we can see how the possibility of being loved is not exempt from the race discussion. Few shows attract over 600m views in their first month, so it has a responsibility not to cause harm. Ultimately, it has recentred love-worthiness as white tied to a colonial script reproduced in Hollywood, and that is terrifying.

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The 'Whites' Who Loved Me: Interracial Romance, Hollywood, and Bridgerton's "Post-Racial" Fantasies

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Seeing as we have now had two seasons of Bridgerton, I believe that is sufficient time to comment on how it follows in the footsteps of other Shondaland productions - including the ABC series as it is a textbook example of the white-centring interracial relationships on prime time television.

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Tré Ventour-Griffiths is a neurodivergent practitioner-academic as both a Public Historian of Black British History and a creative writer. His work has been published in zines, edited books, and jo...

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Writer Tré Ventour asks Does Britain Really Have Historical Amnesia? as he reflects on his experience as a young black man educated in Britain. When you’re a member of a West Indian family and hav…

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What do young people’s stories tell us about who they are? || Nenequirer

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What do young people’s stories tell us about who they are? || Nenequirer

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What do young people’s stories tell us about who they are?

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Organisers were shocked by the scale of the response when they asked for thoughts about young adult narratives

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The amazing adventures of Walter Tull || Nenequirer

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The amazing adventures of Walter Tull || Nenequirer

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Tre Ventour examines the life and times of Water Tull...
Today, there are numerous black footballers being adored by fans and earning millions of pounds in the British Premier League. But when the game began, it was more or less exclusively white. Well, until one Black Briton had the courage and candour to cross the white line.

Nearly one hundred years ago, he was one of the first, black professional footballers. He was playing at the very highest level. You'd think that swimming among with the sharks would guarantee him his place in the history books. But he has been lost to history. Not only was he a sporting hero, he was the first black officer in the British Army - an institution that referred to black people as "woolly-headed niggers" on official correspondence.

Yet, he still fought and died for his country, this country. His name, Walter Tull.

Modern, British society has perpetuated the idea that Black British History begins and ends with slavery, and Windrush. But it isn't so. Walter Tull is proof of that. There are pioneers out there, many of whom have been lost to history.

In order to understand the story of Walter Tull, one must know where the Tulls came from.

Born in Barbados in 1856, his father Daniel Tull was the son of slaves Anna Lashley and William Tull. Daniel was a carpenter and he could read and write - a rare thing for a person of colour in Victorian times, times where education for non-whites was illegal. By 1876, Daniel had migrated to England, decades before the Windrush.

England was a magnet for colonists looking to make better lives for themselves. Whilst the Irish looked to the United States, the West Indians looked to England. There were as many as 20,000 black slaves in London in 1787. Immigration is as British as apple pie is to the United States.

In late-Victorian England, Daniel Tull would meet Alice Palmer at Grace Hill Wesleyan Chapel in Folkestone (Kent) - a white, English woman who wasn't in the least bit prejudice or racist. They married, and had six children: Bertha, William, Edward, Walter, Cecilia and Elsie. However, their happiness was short-lived, as Breast Cancer would kill Alice. The children needed a mother and Daniel married Clara, Alice's cousin. He would then die from heart disease on 10 th December 1897. Alice's parents were dead and her extended family were poor working-class people with families of their own.

With no money to feed the children, they were now devastated and destitute. Not even Charles Dickens could rival this. The workhouse clawed at their minds. They were prisons for the poor and a spectre that haunted working-class families. It stopped them rising above their position and kept them in their place. The British working-class population would do anything to avoid it.

But there was a light. Bonner Street Children's Home in Bethnal Green (London) would take Walter and Edward Tull. Here, there were three hundred and forty tough, city street kids.

It's dawn. The boys in their rooms rise from their beds and get dressed. Being the new kids, they start at the bottom, in the gutter. They cleaned the shoes and boots of the household. Not simply one pair but all the pairs of the orphanage, the sisters' especially. Having finished scrubbing fifteen pairs of shoes, an inspection by the sisters is enacted. If positive, they are put away in various lockers. Breakfast arrives like a happy release.

The Tull brothers were orphans and that connotes a lacking, of: joy, hope and happiness. Misery and disadvantage would follow them wherever they went. And being of mixed-race, they would be marginalised within society. In 1900, Edward Tull was adopted by a Glaswegian family. Walter was now alone.

Walter found a release in football. He was exceptional and at age twenty, he was playing for Clapton Orient. In 1909, he was spotted by Tottenham Hotspur F.C. He was their star player - young, handsome and the world was his oyster. He was in his prime at the height of football in Edwardian Britain and was one of the most high profile black men of the time, shamelessly nicknamed "Darkie Tull" because of his skin colour.

Racism to British society was as valuable as a battleship. These colonial values put white on a pedestal and people of colour in the gutter. It was done on the street level. It was done via organised religion. It was done via missionaries and popular culture. Racism was not illegal in Britain until 1965. The arguments against it were moral and ethical, not legal. These racist values said to Black Britons that "You may be born here but this is our patch and you are not going to come here and do well."

On 2 nd October 1909, Tottenham's bout with Bristol City would see the end of Walter Tull's career at Tottenham. It was over before it had barely started. A mob of 20,000 football fans abused him through ruthless racist chants and Spurs weren't prepared to stand up for their player. He was pushed from the first team and into the reserves. Simply, the club believed it was too much hassle. It wasn't good for business.

A report from the game stated:

"Let me tell these Bristol Hooligans that Tull is so clean in mind and method, as to be a model to all white men who play football. Tull was the best forward on the field."

Like many players since, Tull didn't react to the racist abuse. He rose above it and that truly showed the measure of the man. Despite everything, he persevered and soldiered on. He had great composure, courage and resolve, all qualities he'd take to the Western Front. He had to be brave, even at home where he fought a war every day.

The racism through these vessels was a metaphor for colonialism. It was upholding the British Empire at home as well as abroad. Walter was British but he was black. Bristol's colonial history runs deep. Deep like the scars of slavery that visible in the West Indies, even today. You can see the very same scars in England as well. Whether we're talking street names or stately homes, the British Slave Trade made its mark and Walter Tull is a product of that. Cities like Bristol were slave ports during the times of import and export of human cargo. And into the 1970s and 1980s, the Windrush Generation suffered. Black neighbourhoods were set ablaze, a fire that Walter would have seen on the football field.

1901 saw the death of Queen Victoria, a motif of imperialism that lasted decades. Her death did not bring an end to imperial rule. The Empire was still vast. It didn't have the tagline where the sun never set for no reason and Britain continued to rule with bureaucracy. Though, in the early 20 th century, football was leaving its private school origins. Its spectators were heavily made up of the working-class. And due to leaving those origins behind, men like Walter were given a chance. This was his chance to prove that he was more than a "woolly-headed nigger", as he (and others like him) were branded in the British Army.

And by 1911 he was playing at Northampton Town, a small industrial settlement in the East Midlands. It wasn't cosmopolitan like London. It was the sort of place, like Folkestone, where nobody would have seen any black people before. Nonetheless, at Northampton, Tull was on top of the world - scoring goals and thriving. And that was a form of protest against the white fear and prejudice that followed him.

After a tragic childhood, it looked like he was winning. He was doing what he loved, playing football. He was respected by his team mates. Then the war came and football was labelled as a distraction. Conscription was not mandatory in 1914 but Walter volunteered to fight. On 21 st December 1914 he went to London to present himself at the recruitment office. He was ready to fight for the nation that he was born in. The nation he was raised in - the same nation that had shown him contempt and disrespect in his footballing career. And the British Army showed much of the same.

The 1914 Edition of The Manual of Military Law states:

"Troops formed of coloured individuals belonging to savage tribes and barbarous races should not be employed in a war between civilised states. The enrolling, however, of individuals belonging to civilised coloured races and the employment of whole regiments of disciplined coloured soldiers is not forbidden."

The same Manual of Military Law states:

"Commissions in the special reserves of officers are given to qualified candidates who natural-born or naturalised British subjects of pure European descent."

These quotes speak volumes. Legally, he should not have succeeded, but Walter Tull was not an unknown black man in England. He was one of the most high profile black men of the time and a famous name in sports, up and down the country. He was physically fit and in the best condition he could be. The British Army could not turn him away like they did with lots of Black Britons (who were not of European descent). But this was Walter Tull. He got on with the job and put his head down.

He fought in battle after battle. He was respected by his peers and his superiors. He had the leadership qualities every officer should have. His only "disadvantage" was that he was "of non-European descent" (black). However, he was recommended for officer training in late 1916. How? Surely, it was illegal. Maybe it was mixture of luck, circumstance and skill that allowed Tull to be put forward. Among the 17 th and 23 rd Footballers' Battalions he was able to himself. The men were players who all knew each other. They could be men, footballers and soldiers.

On 25 th March 1918, a German soldier fired his gun at 2 nd Lieutenant Walter Daniel Tull. He was hit in the neck. He fell to the ground, face forced into the mud in Pas-de-Calais in France. He didn't get up. But he accomplished so much. He led white men into battle, something an "alien" officer isn't lawfully allowed to do. He broke the colour bar and the white line.

The story of Walter Tull is the sacrifice of a generation - a generation of men who should be remembered. Men from the colonies (and their descendants) who gave their lives have just as much right to be remembered as the white Europeans men who are remembered every year.

From slavery to football to the war, the Tulls had done well. 2 nd Lieutenant Walter Daniel Tull was good at his job. He was a friend, a brother, a soldier and above all, a down to earth human being. His life is an example of the extremities of tragedy and heroism. It's a lesson to those dishing out prejudice today, no matter if we are white, black, a president or a student.

No matter our colour or creed, it is possible to defy expectations. We remember Frederick Douglass and Dr Martin Luther King. I grew up reading about them but Black History is not just American history. It did not begin with Christopher Columbus in 1492. The roots are way deeper. We must look at the Arawaks and the Maroons. We must look at the black people who came with the Romans from North Africa. We must remember the Black Georgians like Francis Barber, and the Black Tudors like John Blank. And we must remember Walter Tull who is special to Northampton, a town rich with history and community. His story resonates with me because I am a Black Briton like him. His story could have been mine had I been born in the 1880s instead of the 1990s. And it truly shows that most of our ancestors did not wear crowns but were more simply working people, slaves and peasants.

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Tre Ventour examines the life and times of Water Tull... Today, there are numerous black footballers being adored by fans and earning millions of pounds in the British Premier League. But when the game began, it was more or less exclusively white. Well, until one Black Briton had the courage and candour to cross the...

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24 * Northampton * Writer and race equality activist

I remember when Mark Duggan was killed by police. It was my generation's Stephen Lawrence moment

An event that I had a first visceral connection to was the London riots of 2011, when Mark Duggan was killed by police. It was probably my generation's Stephen Lawrence moment. Black people in this country are given the talk. I was eight years old when my parents gave me that talk; that one day, I might be stopped by the police. I might not have done anything wrong, I just happen to be black in this country and that's a mandate for suspicion. I don't know a black person who hasn't been stopped by the police. The London riots had an impact because I sort of linked it to when my parents gave me the talk. Being stopped by the police can result in someone's death. There are many that have lost their lives in police custody. I encountered racism day in and day out, and some of it was from my teachers. People called me savage, asked if my family lived in huts in Africa. Being black at private schools was very difficult, but if I can deal with racism there, I can deal with it anywhere. Middle-class and upper-class people talk in a certain way, where they could be saying the most horrible things about you but because they say it in such a way, with their accent and their pronunciation of words, how they were taught to speak the Queen's English, that when they do stuff like that, it sort of pads it down a little bit. When Boris Johnson goes on about Muslim women being letterboxes or black people with watermelon smiles, because he says it in that vernacular that is tied to the English private school system, it comes across in such a way that is less threatening than Tommy Robinson. Nothing like this has ever happened in my lifetime. When we protest in Northampton, we're lucky to get 10 people to turn up and we had 1,000 people attend the first Black Lives Matter protest. Northampton is a famously white town. The protest was led by young people. If I didn't go, I would feel guilty. I don't think you can be black in this country and not support the protests. People say that British racism is very subtle and covert. But nothing about the Windrush scandal was covert; it was very open, very honest. Grenfell as well.

18 * Birmingham * Singer and student

If I have to fight every day for the rest of my life, I will

The UK is not innocent and never has been innocent. I remember walking in town with my friends when I was 12, and two white girls were fighting and the police started threatening and ragging up all the black kids that happened to be there, while the white girls continued to fight. We ran home because we knew we would get arrested, even though we weren't part of it. I was flabbergasted. I thought, why just us? To be black in the UK is beautiful, especially now with so many black entertainers. I want to become a music mentor, but first I need to become a performer. I don't really fit the look you see on TV. I'm thick-bodied, thick-lipped, I've got big nostrils and my hair is curly. I have friends who are musicians and they're all slimmer, they have straighter hair, they even act a certain way. But I will always just be myself. I'm not sad that I'm black and I won't pretend to be something I'm not. Casting agencies and judges tell me I don't really "fit the criteria" or they don't think I'd be able to do this part because of "the way you look". They would never say anything about my talent and I'd think, why aren't you judging me based on my talent? When I saw the hurt on my brother's face over George Floyd, or, as he put it "the world", I thought, I'm going to London [to protest]. This can't carry on, we can't not go: this is my fight. The next day, I went to one in Birmingham, then London the week after. We cannot stop - if I have to fight every day for the rest of my life, I will. The energy that day was fire; that day my mentality changed to: "No justice, no peace". I realised I was fighting for me, for my brothers, for my parents, for my ancestors. I want to be able to tell my children: "I fought for you, I fought for your children. I went for us".

21 * London * Student

Being black, especially a black woman, is a political statement in this country

School in the UK was really difficult. I've tried to suppress and put in the back of my mind the traumatic experiences that come down to racism. I was experiencing racism at the age of eight. I was aware that I was being treated differently to other people. It was the end of the day and I really needed to go to the toilet. There was about 10 or 15 minutes of me having my hand up and you could tell I was really distressed. I was crying like I really needed to get to the toilet and then I wet myself. It just makes me really upset that I had to go through such a traumatic experience at such a young age because a fully grown adult didn't like the colour of my skin. I would never want anyone to feel one-tenth of what I felt when I was going to school. You have so much self-hate and you just don't really know how to deal with it. Looking at myself now, I couldn't have imagined when I was younger that I would have turned into this person. We went to France when I was in year 9. The teacher didn't know I was in the lift, I was at the back, and she said: "Oh, my God, all these black people are so annoying". Everybody in the lift turned around and looked at me and I just didn't really know what I was supposed to do. No one defended me. No one said anything, and you know from a really early age that you're on your own. My life has changed drastically within the last six weeks, since Aima and I first put that tweet out and organised the protest in London with All Black Lives. I didn't expect it to change me in the way that it has. Now, I wake up every day and I have purpose and I have something to fight for, and something that I know I can put my full self into that's changing people's lives. Being black in this country, especially a black woman, is a political statement. You've seen just within the past six weeks, how much more confident black people have been, how much more outspoken - they realise their opinions are valid.

19 * Shetland Islands * Student

I remember hearing black people with Scottish accents for the first time and thinking I'm not the only one!

The very first political event I can remember was Obama being elected as the first black president. I was seven or eight at the time. We were in Cuba, so me and my Cuban family, who are all black, were sitting on the couch watching it happen. School was hard. I was bullied mercilessly in primary school and it took me years to realise that actually happened. Just young kids not knowing that people have different skin colours and that is an OK and normal thing. There was a lot of being picked on and being grouped together with other brown-skinned girls or boys when we weren't even the same race. I think we have 1% of ethnic minorities here in Shetland. In primary school, I remember being the only black or mixed-race person and there were three Asian kids. Because I didn't realise I was being bullied, I never thought to talk to my teachers about it. I never sought the support I needed. But when issues did come to light, for the most part I was supported by my teachers. The earliest experience I have, and the worst one probably, is being in the playground and me and a Pakistani boy from my class were pushed together. All the other kids were standing in a circle around us, pointing and laughing, and saying that we were boyfriend and girlfriend just because we had the same skin colour. I went to the protest because somebody has to be the voice for black people in Shetland. Because it's so white-populated, it's hard to find somebody who is going to have the strength and courage to stand up and be that voice. So I thought if I don't do it, who is going to do it? It was really incredible seeing the amount of support. It's the biggest turnout for protests that we've ever had. It was really amazing seeing just how many people came out to support the movement. It was heartening to see. Growing up as a black person in Shetland was hard but it's definitely strengthened my character as a young woman today. I don't really identify with the Scottish side of my family; I would consider myself British more than I would Scottish. And I definitely much more identify with the Cuban side of my family. So amalgamating my black and Scottish sides is something I've not quite done yet. But it's definitely interesting. I can remember hearing black people with Scottish accents for the first time and thinking I'm not the only one!

21 * London * Student

In year 6, my teacher told me, 'When you're older, please don't join a gang'

I would say the first event I was actually politically inclined and knowledgeable about would be over the death of Mark Duggan. It was the first one that hit home. The anger and frustration that was happening within the black community, and just how the media painted him out to be this barbaric guy, when really, he was a human being just like me, who looked like me and my friends. School in the UK was probably the worst experience I've had in my life. The school system didn't understand me or cater to my needs. I got sent to boarding school in Uganda for a few years to study there instead because I felt so out of place in Britain. In year 6, my main teacher approached me and my friend, who was black, and said: "When you're older, please don't join a gang". I replied: "We're not going to join a gang", but it wasn't until I started growing up that I began thinking to myself, what did she actually mean by that remark? Why would she select two black males and differentiate them from their peers? The protests are about the injustices that we face here as the black community, especially with deaths in custody. Black people are twice as likely to die in police custody than any other race in this country. When it comes to disparities in the criminal justice system, it is one of the reasons why I felt I also had to take a stand and move with my brothers and sisters to forge a movement here. I remember the first time I got stopped and searched. It was a section 60 in the Stoke Newington area of London and I was 18. I was walking and a police car pulled up. An officer asked where I was going and I said: 'I'm going to eat'. I put out my hand and he handcuffed me. It was very shocking and traumatising. It fragments people like me from society, it makes us feel like we're not British. Being black in the UK is trying to fit in areas that you know aren't really built in your favour. But when it comes to black culture, everyone wants to copy it and not call it black. I love my culture, I love my heritage, I love what my community has to bring to civil society.

25 * Edinburgh * Student

Teachers refused to test me for dyslexia and instead told my parents to stop speaking other languages at home

I'm dyslexic and I've only just found out at the age of 25, while I was at university struggling. When I was in school, I had the same struggles that I'm going through now with my work, but the teachers refused to test me and told my parents to stop speaking other languages at home. My parents told them there was not a language barrier. My school was very problematic. I remember I got into a fight because this girl hacked into my social media. She made everything about slavery, claiming my family were slaves and put all the pictures as slaves in shackles. I didn't even see it until I got to school, and I remember everyone being really weird to me. I got pulled aside by the headteacher and a police officer into this meeting room. They told me something's happened on your social media and we talked about it. Then they took my phone off me. Afterwards, I had a PE lesson with the girl who did it. I'd never been so angry in my life. I remember blacking out and I went for her and we had a fight. We got sent home and a couple of days later we returned with our parents for a big meeting about it. I remember sitting there with my mum and dad, who said to the teachers: "What are you guys going to do? This can't keep happening to our kids." They were trying to exclude me for being violent. And my parents were like, 'That's not fair. She's obviously at a point where she can't take it anymore. Someone was racist to her.' It was a bullshit conversation. They didn't know what they were doing, but they were trying to do their best. And then halfway through the conversation the girl's parents used the comparison of their daughter being bullied for being ginger as the equivalent to racism. My mum and dad got up and left. I was in a team of people that were organising the protest in Edinburgh. It was overwhelming. I've been in Edinburgh for almost 20 years now and I didn't know there were this many black people here. As bad as the experiences black people have had, I feel like we have a uniqueness that we can laugh so much and we can always find happiness and peace within, despite the damage that goes on. There are things to celebrate in being black and being British, because there are not all bad things about British culture. I like a cup of tea and dipping my biscuits in it. Yes, we are more commonly first-generation migrants but be proud of us for adapting.

21 * Bristol * Student

Blackness means innovation. It means resistance. It means persistence

There were a lot of black and brown people at my school, which was great. I was able to find a group of black girls that I felt that I could find comfort in, friendship and solidarity. But that didn't stop us from facing racism in school. I think one of the difficult things was seeing a lot of kids being put in isolation, being taken out of lessons, being harshly graded, and not being given the same patience as the white students. We do have systemic racism here, and the police are violent towards black bodies. We have a history here, especially in Bristol, of a deep involvement with the transatlantic slave trade. When people say the UK is not innocent, this is what we mean. It's about being stopped and searched, it's about how you feel like there's going to be some kind of altercation every time you leave your house. If you see a police van, even if you've done nothing wrong, you risk the violence of being shot with a Taser stun gun and the violence of being hit with batons. I think it's amazing that there's such a strong black British culture. I love that there's so much influence from the Caribbean community - from the music people listen to, to the slang people use. There's such a heavy influence of blackness across the UK, which can be frustrating when we see that we're not being respected. It gives me a sense of pride because I feel that black people, wherever we go, are so innovative. And especially here in Britain, I think blackness means innovation. It means resistance. It means persistence. I'm from South Sudan and everybody there is very dark-skinned. As a black person, being dark-skinned kind of comes with its own issues that's specific to communities of colour, specifically the black community. I think it will be an obstacle moving forward, and that's paired with being a woman as well. I think it sets up a lot of things against me. But at the same time, I really wouldn't want to be anything else. I feel like being a black woman is the best thing that's ever happened to me.

17 * London * Student

I realised it's not because you're annoying, it's not because you're ugly, it's because you don't look like them

I just remember hating myself because I've always been in school with only white people. It gave me body dysmorphia. I remember feeling ugly as a child. I look back at pictures of myself as a child and I wonder why I felt that way. I had teachers who were racist and I was bullied. Teachers used to belittle me. I never found groups of friends, because they were all white, that I felt that I could slot into. I never felt like I could fit in. It was a traumatic experience and it just leaves you feeling quite socially homeless. I used to get left out and I would wonder to myself, why is this happening? When I was in lockdown, more and more the pieces started to fit together. I'm one of the only ones like this. I'm one of the only ones that are around these people. So then I realised, it's not because you're annoying, it's not because you're ugly, it's not because of this or that, it's because you don't look like them. I think that racism in the UK is so dangerous, more dangerous than people realise. I think for America, if someone doesn't like you because you're black, they'll say it to your face or they'll do it in ways that make it easy to identify. But in the UK, it's so subtle. And it's still systemic. It was my first response to go to the protest to be part of the movement here. It was exhilarating. Seeing streets full of people that look like me and were there for the same reason as me, it made me feel so warm inside. When you go on the train and someone sees your sign and they do the fist, that was stuff I had never experienced before. It made me very emotional. Being black in the UK means you have a very close connection to the cultures that you come from. But it also means you have to go through struggles that people pretend not to see or understand and don't want to fix.

20 * Buckinghamshire * Student

Somebody would cross the road because of coronavirus, but that's an everyday thing for black people

I think my school was very micro-aggressive. People would be like, "Oh, can I touch your hair?" I got a detention once because somebody stuck a pencil in my hair. I had an afro and people thought it was interesting and wanted to run their hands through it, but I'm not an animal. I'm just normal, but because you're unfamiliar with the texture of my hair, you think it's interesting enough that you want to pet me. I look back and I think, wow, I actually tolerated that and allowed that to happen, but it's because I didn't understand what it was. People don't know what Britain has done because we don't get taught it. We've been taught about Henry VIII and his six wives. Who cares? I don't want to know how he manipulated the Christian church so that he could get away with divorce. That's got nothing to do with me. I want to know about what Britain's been up to colonising the whole world; imperialism and the effects of it. I think it's important that we protest. I think there are issues in the UK. It's so important that we also take on America as well. It's interesting that you have people like Boris Johnson, who will happily sit up and say, 'What's going on in America only concerns America', but then what have we been doing in the Middle East for all these years? Coronavirus has given an insight into racism in the UK because when you're walking down the street now, somebody will cross the road because they think you've got coronavirus. But if you're black in the UK that's an everyday thing. It's me walking to school and a white lady walking towards me, clutching her bag, and crossing the road because she's scared about what I'm going to do. I'm going to school! That happens two or three times a year. Being black in the UK gives you a sense of belonging. There's a level of respect the black community gives each other. When you're walking down the street, it's like a nod or a smile. It's so encouraging to see that from whatever generation, whether it's old or young. We all kind of have that caring nature towards each other because we need to have it.

20 * London and Oxford * Student

At secondary school, the world is screaming very loudly that you're not wanted

I think going to school in the UK is one of the hardest things. I was recently talking to my friends about it, because the George Floyd protests have made people begin to re-analyse experiences at school. I think every black woman has had an experience that's jarring, of feeling like you're not pretty. I used to get told, 'You're like so blick', which is slang for being very dark. It has a profound impact. As you grow up, you go through a phase of forcefully trying to love yourself. But in secondary school, the world is definitely screaming very loudly that you are being rejected and that you're not wanted. It was really hard. The UK constantly points the finger at America and there's a complete misconception that the UK isn't racist. At one protest I attended in Oxford, one American woman stood up and spoke about what was going on in America, but then she went on to say that her family were really happy that she moved to the UK because this isn't a racist country. Everyone was outraged. I think our lived experience as black people is overlooked in the UK. As a result, it means the government doesn't have to do anything. My mum migrated from Ghana to England and I'm the first generation of my family to be born here. If you ask people who have just migrated, they identify with the country they just moved from. I don't think my mum identifies as being black British as much as I do. I love Ghana and my Ghanian heritage, but I think I feel more of a sense of belonging here. They came here at a time when Britain was still so racist, where pubs had the sign 'No blacks, no Irish, no dogs', and that would make you want to hold on to your culture more. With our generations, being black British is a mix of your heritage and a mix of being British. We've created a whole new identity. Look at Stormzy, Burna Boy, and Kojo Funds. Artists like NSG have these beats that are like Ghana highlife, a type of music in Ghana, and grime energy mixed into one. Music is a perfect example of what being black British is like, regardless if you're first generation or if you're fourth generation. It's a beautiful mix and fusion of different identities.

20 * Monmouth * Student

I could sense this was perhaps the biggest moment I've felt for black people during my 20 years of life

I remember the 2008 US presidential campaign for Barack Obama. It was good to see a man of a similar colour running for one of the biggest jobs in the world. Although I was comfortable going to school with people who were predominantly white, it was still reassuring when another black boy joined in year 6, and we're still really good friends. Hair was a big thing for me. I didn't understand certain people constantly wanting to touch my hair. It's just one of those things I let happen for a while, but when this other black boy joined, he just wouldn't have it. So I thought I should just be saying no. I then wouldn't let people do it. I felt privileged as well as I got to go to a good private school here. I think when looking at the problems to do with race, we should also be looking at class as well, because a lot of the issues come hand in hand. I could sense this was perhaps the biggest moment I've felt for black people during my 20 years of life. I hadn't been to a protest before so I asked my mum, who lived in Zimbabwe when it was Rhodesia, what they could achieve. I thought it was quite important because I knew a lot of people in Monmouth. It's quite a small community. I think it's got a population of 10,000. I felt very privileged in the fact that I was lucky enough to speak and convey my message. I did get quite upset at one point. I thought If I were lucky enough to have grandchildren, I wouldn't want to have to have the same conversations that my mum is having to have with me. So that's one thing that I think would break my heart. My parents have always told me to be proud of who I am and where I come from and never to forget that. There's a sense of togetherness in the community a lot of the time. I love going to Zimbabwean functions because you know you're always guaranteed good food, lots of singing, lots of dancing. I remember when the Dave song Black came out. It just resonated with me. I think the song was for those who weren't in the black community to see what it can be like to be black and British.

18 * Sunderland * Student

Being black is to be strong. But it's not an option, you have to be

The north-east is typically not a very diverse place, so school was difficult for me. I've had racial abuse from peers and stuff like people touching my hair and calling me names. After school I went to college to do music and I just didn't really fit in with anybody. It sounds ridiculous but it's a bit intimidating walking into a room and no one looks like you or has the same history as you, and just automatically being different wherever you go. The history curriculum is kind of ridiculous. They just teach you, 'Oh well there was slavery for a little bit and it was really bad but then the slaves got freed and that was that'. Martin Luther King did a speech and racism was over. A lot of it is very whitewashed. They try to make people like Winston Churchill a hero when he's not. It's only from reading material by black authors that opened my eyes and made me realise how much of my own history I was shielded from. I heard about the protest in Newcastle but it got cancelled and moved online after a backlash because of the pandemic. I was pretty outraged by that, so I started my own. It was kind of my first opportunity to speak about my struggles and the struggles of black people in the UK. It was like a moment of relief for me because I thought people were finally doing something about it. It's hard to succeed when you don't have confidence in who you are. How am I supposed to have confidence in who I am when there are people who literally hate me and want to see me down and think they're more superior than me because of the colour of my skin? Being black in the UK means to be different. It means to be silenced. However, hopefully in future generations to come, being black in the UK will be something to be celebrated by everyone. In the meantime, I'm always going to celebrate where I come from. I think black people should be proud. As a race, they've come so far in life and had so much success, even though they've repeatedly been squashed and dragged down by oppressors. I think being black is to be strong. But it's not an option, you have to be.

18 * London * Student

I just did not feel comfortable speaking about race in my school

I was absolutely disgusted, angry, but not shocked by George Floyd's death. I've seen this happen so much ever since I was a little girl. I've been so desensitised to it that I'm not shocked when it happens anymore. It's just like a normal daily thing. I was talking to my friend Natasha, who helped organise the London protest with me, and said: "We need to do something. We can't just be silent". This doesn't only happen in America, but also happens here. We posted tweets about the London protests and it just skyrocketed everywhere. I was just in shock that so many people came out in support. I remember we were walking out of the US embassy and one of the police officers came up to us and said there were more than 9,000 people still there, and another 10,000 coming to join the march. The amount of systemic racism in the UK is disgusting; and how normalised racism is, in this country, is just terrible. The UK needs to take ownership for what it has done in the past. I never learned about colonisation in the UK. I remember so clearly in year 7, I was in hi

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Young, British & Black: the voices behind the UK's anti-racism protests

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I remember when Mark Duggan was killed by police. It was my generation's Stephen Lawrence moment An event that I had a first visceral connection to was the London riots of 2011, when Mark Duggan was killed by police. It was probably my generation's Stephen Lawrence moment.

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Student union appoints Tre Ventour to ‘tackle lack of representation of BME students’

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In a bid to tackle the lack of representation of black and ethnic minority (BME) students at Northampton University, the University of Northampton Students’ Union has appointed its first BME vice president.

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https://nenequirer.com/2022/06/09/tre-ventour-asks-if-you-can-support-black-lives-matter-and-the-monarchy-in-thought-provoking-essay/

https://nenequirer.com/2022/10/31/long-read-its-an-imperial-life-historian-talks-queens-legacy-in-thought-provoking-essay/

https://nenequirer.com/2023/06/27/obscured-by-quiche-and-coronation-chicken-this-must-be-tory-glasto/

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"We will not blame him for the crimes of his ancestors if he relinquishes the royal rights of his ancestors; but as long as he claims their rights, by virtue of descent, then, by virtue of descent, he must shoulder the responsibility for their crimes" - James Connolly, Visit of King George V (1910).

Introduction

In his play Twelfth Night, the bard Will Shakespeare wrote "Be not afraid of greatness. Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and others have greatness thrust upon them." The latter could not be more fitting to describe the role the late Queen was dropped into at the age of twenty-five. Whether I agree the title is "great" is another matter; it's about perception - as Alex Jennings' David Windsor says in "Who wants transparency when you can have magic?" ( S01E05 - 'Smoke and Mirrors'). The rituals and traditions are part of the magic of state mythmaking curating an ideal that is unattainable for us "mere mortals", where people apparently look to The Crown for a higher purpose.

Born Elizabeth Windsor, the late monarch was never expected to be the Queen as her father never expected to the King. As a younger brother, her father Albert Windsor AKA King George VI - I am sure - never expected to replace his elder brother. In 1936, his brother David abdicated the throne in name of something greater than love for country, marriage to the woman he loved - a divorcee (then, taboo) - American socialite Wallis Simpson. So, Albert took the reginal name George VI - he was the younger - and became king projecting his daughters Elizabeth and Margaret into a life they never expected.

As the late Queen Elizabeth assumed a role she was never expected to, and she carried it for seventy years - refined and statesperson-like, qualities the British believe make them who they are. In these years, she also lead the latest rendition of the British Empire. She lived longer than most and saw more than most. Ascending the throne at twenty-five, she was younger than I am now. In many ways it shows the ordinariness of my life, while I also expect she may have preferred a life free from the scrutiny of the public eye.

For many, she was the nation's sweetheart and her passing acted as a personal loss tied to love for country. Yet for others, her passing was unsentimental and held no such love for a country that has never loved them back. Doomscrolling hashtags across social media, 'mourning' was more than a political choice for lots of people, but rather like a piece of Britain's soul had been removed. This enchantment with the royal mythology is centuries in progress and really an admirable case study in marketing to the Nth degree.

Earlier in the year, Nenequirer editor Steve Scoles kindly published my previous article responding to the conversation around colonialism and the Queen's Jubilee. One thing we discussed prior to the publication of the first article was the potential Death of the Queen and likely backlash. The Queen has now died, and we saw the revived critiques of the monarchy and its role in colonial violence, no less than by academics in US academia including Prof Maya Jasanoff, Dr Mukoma Wa Ngugi and Prof Melissa Murray. And in Britain, there was challenge from Prof Kehinde Andrews as well as Prof Priyamvada Gopal. Yet instead of joining the immediacy - like my previous article I wanted to be meaningful rather than "first."

"Social media has been instrumental in spreading messages and information ... it was the first medium to break the news everywhere after the first announcement came from the Palace."
Sanji, Film Graduate

Staff at online zine Gal-Dem also tell us that "In modern Britain, 'respect' is only reserved for the wealthy - not for the most vulnerable in society" as apt critiques of the monarchy were tone-policed. While at the same time ushering a solidarity between peoples united in their trauma of the British Empire. We live in a Britain un-used to truthtelling, and for me this hits home in a hostile Northampton(shire) that celebrates King Charles II every year with Oak Apple Day, while overlooking his role as a coloniser. No less than his position as co-founder of the Royal African Company that trafficked Africans into miserable lives of enslavement.

I now question the intention of these charities and foodbanks who think closing for the funeral of someone who never lived ethically is OK? You're on the ground... you see the impact of homelessness and ill-health everyday and you came to this decision?
- Renée Landell (@Nay_Landell) September 16, 2022

In parallel, on the day of the Queen's funeral Britain was put on a semi-imposed lockdown to "remember" a wealthy white woman. Here, #MournHub was comically doing the rounds on Twitter no less than to describe BBC media coverage of proceedings. Additionally, The Funeral enforced the postponements of vital cancer treatments while societal lifelines like foodbanks closed and anti-oppression charities paid tribute to the Head of the British Empire.

The state-imposed mourning further moved alongside the many preventable COVID-19 deaths, high mortalities largely necessitated by violent government policymaking, in contrast to the Downing Street Parties as our loved ones died alone. In this article, I'll look at a legacy of The Queen, colonialism and the monarchy, and the colonial present. Sky News further misrepresented the Justice for Chris Kaba BLM Protests, as mourners of the Queen. And while four million children live in poverty in the UK and food banks outnumber McDonald's restaurants, people queued for hours to not only to see an icon, but mourn the end of an era contrasted in their 'love for country'.

For many Black and Brown people looking at the grief of many white people, this was a teachable case of white privilege. These tears depict the mourning of a time when my grandparents and many other "citizens" of the British Empire were "recruited" to build back Britain after the war, the story of this my parents and now my generation are still getting to grips with. Tao Leigh Goffe tell us that " family history is colonial history ", and that fragmented national continuity is something Britain (and those who are seen as British no question asked ... i.e many white British people) have experienced at the expense of Black and Brown people, both those of us that were born here and who came here.

The Discussion

For seventy years, the Queen was leader of the British Empire, but to make such a statement has been considered controversial by some and it really shouldn't be. She carried on the legacy of her father King George VI and many previous monarchs going back to the days of Queen Elizabeth I who in 1562 gave 'adventurer' (Sir) John Hawkins ships to traffick Black people from the West African coast to the Spanish Americas.

1. This Queen was an imperial monarch. Her coronation was an imperial event that evoked what some hoped would be a new Elizabethan age for what was still a very large Empire. As the head of that empire she symbolised its racial order of white supremacy.
- James Vernon (@James11Vernon) September 9, 2022

"This is imperial amnesia: our history has been taken out of context for the celebration of the Empire in textbooks, in classrooms and now on the news. From a young age, we have been told to fight for someone who will only kill us with their white supremacy whenever given the chance. South Asians in the UK need to start fighting for each other. Otherwise, we will continue to become our own oppressors."
Shadia Haq, activist

Following her appointment, her reign has been punctuated by royal colonial tours, the longest of which took place from November 1953 to May 1954. At a base minimum, these tours show the Queen was an imperial monarch, and a coloniser through benefiting, (socioculturally) investing in and upholding the system her predecessors made. In my last article, I wrote "The British Crown ... is a constitutional monarchy, so, the Queen holds little power as an individual ..." and I would like to redress this. What I said needs nuance.

Author-journalist Joe Glenton describes the monarchy as a "quiet tyranny ... that we can tolerate because it's wrapped in pageantry and this shroud of democracy." Furthermore, author Peter Oborne's Not the Chilcot Report, talks about this country as "... an unresolved contradiction between an essentially medieval system of government and Britain's democratic tradition over the last two hundred years." When you start thinking about things like the Privy Council, honours committees, and the existence of unelected bureaucrats in the House of Lords, you begin to see how the term 'constitutional' is quite open-ended.

For example, how the Queen reportedly gave Scottish ministers the tap on the shoulder, the wink, the nod - so The Crown could gain exemption from climate laws. Further, King Charles III's infamous black spider memos allegedly showing political lobbying. Meanwhile, the Epstein Scandal revealing links to Prince Andrew who was then reportedly wanted for questioning by the Federal Bureau of Investigation [FBI],also paying off accuser Virginia Giuffre. The Queen reportedly helped pay his £12m ($16m) sum, whether that was with taxpayers' money has not been confirmed but the question remains open! And earlier, the monarchy's private estate reportedly invested in offshore tax havens for the super-rich as named in the 2017 Scandal otherwise known as the Paradise Papers.

"Even though Prince Andrew has demonstrated a lack of morality, the biggest discussion that surrounds this entity is whether he should step down from his royal duties. It seems everyone forgets that he has shown a lack of compassion, he has been pictured with young girls who have accused him and Epstein of violating them. But being a prince trumps all these facts, as he is let off lightly."
Stephanie Richards, historical criminologist

Though there are Black and Brown royalists, the breadth of violence I saw and experienced was from white people, no less white "progressives." Seeing the many white liberals centering their grief, I was brought back to academic Shannon Sullivan's book Good White People. Here, she talks about how white liberalism and white supremacism "grow from the same tree of domination" where white liberal anti-racist practices, beliefs, and behaviours "are also rooted in and help nourish white racism."

No whitewashing Queen's legacy. You can't revere her as global leader & not acknowledge her as Coloniser Queen of British Empire & that she had no credibility on systemic racial inequality which she didn't stand against but benefited from. Commonwealth replaced Empire #TheReidOut https://t.co/TbDCqZ3BqT
- Dr Shola Mos-Shogbamimu (@SholaMos1) September 9, 2022

Simultaneously, organisations that had previously made anti-racist commitments while also socially and culturally investing in the Jubilee, took part in mourning. And despite people have every right to grieve how they like, imposed mourning is not democratic. No less than in schools where many children in my family and wider circles were subject to it without any choice. As schools place emphasis on safeguarding, they undermined their own messaging when they rolled out enforced remembrance without safeguarding the emotions of children whose rights have long been curtailed. Or as the late scholar-feminist Prof bell hooks writes in All About Love, "When we love children, we acknowledge by our every action that they are not property, that they have rights - that we respect and uphold their rights."

What I saw in the ten days of hero worship was a rewriting of the British mythology: a mythmaking that sought to tear the monarchy away - psychologically, socially, and culturally - from histories and contemporaries of colonialism, white supremacy, and genocide. The monarchy is not only an institution of violence, and was built through such mechanisms, but they also see themselves in God's image ... so only view themselves as answerable to divinity - God.

In an article for Time Magazine, historian Prof Priya Satia tells us seventeenth century dissenters who "rebelled against the king in the name of 'common liberties'" that we now assume as 'reasonable' democracy, constructed these ideas "partly out of faith that Christ's kingdom was about to come, striving to perfect human governance in line with the perfection of God's will."

"I think the monarchy plays a very important role in the ideology of maintaining a status quo ... perpetuating the myth of class (and genetic) superiority of the aristocracy that is "ordained by God" and also defines the place of people on a class/racial hierarchy ..."
Paul Crofts, local activist

Satia goes on to discuss that in the chaos of the time, a new Protestant constitutional monarch became "the only hallowed entity to which many Britons could turn." Moving into the eighteenth century, this was defended by continuous wars, she says, "that expanded Britain's empire and the slave trade and drove the industrial revolution." In Netflix's - a dramatisation of the Queen's reign - royal family members seeing themselves as only answerable to a higher power (God) is alluded to in many ways. Most aptly put by Winston Churchill (John Lithgow), he says "What is the purpose of The Crown? What is the purpose of the Monarchy? Does the Crown bend to the will of the people to be audited and accountable? Or should it remain above temporal matters?"

Later in this episode (Smoke & Mirrors), David Windsor AKA the former-king, Edward VIII, who abdicated (played by Alex Jennings) reminds us of state mythmaking. He claims that the reason why the public did not get to see the anointing of the Queen at her coronation is because "we are mortals." Talking to race and education academic Shabnam Anam, she further commented on the contrast between monarchy and republicanism stating "monarchy is about inherited governance / ruling, and republicanism is about being voted in. And while both are privileged / entitled, one is certainly the better."

"I wouldn't say there is an aspect of white British cultural identity that isn't somewhat colonial in nature. While a significant aspect of Irish culture is fighting for control of our futures and our land, the inverse of that in British culture is the fight to continue controlling others and profiting from theft."
Morgan Matthews, Irish Marxist

Cancel culture is Black women from the Global South targeted and singled out for abuse by a billionaire & right wing media for refusing to perform civility & respectability about the Queen's death while an entire Irish football stadium sings their delight that "Lizzy's in a box" https://t.co/leFjFx6y3J
- Panashe Chigumadzi (@PanasheChig) September 10, 2022

One only need see why#IrishTwitter came out in support of the criticisms against the monarchy when you also consider the way history has been written to gaslight Irish people as the authors of the 1845 Potato Famine. It was the British monarchy's genocide of the Irish - where Irish revolutionary Maud Gonne reportedly dubbed Queen Victoria as the "Famine Queen." The Irish Potato Famine also known as 'The Great Hunger' and Gorta Mór is one of the darkest parts of Irish history which saw over million killed, further to another million migrate into the United States as what today we would term as asylum seekers or refugees - fleeing violence, in this case that of the British Empire.

In her bookWhat White People Can Do Next: From Allyship to Coalition, academic and author Emma Dabiri talks about how despite Ireland's history as a British colony, it is also a country that "came to be racialized as "white" in the Americas, quite unlike the peoples of other subjugated territories."

"Geographical location is important once again. In order to access the privileges of white supremacy, the millions of Irish who flooded into the US from the 1840s onward distinguished themselves from the black people who had already been there for centuries."
Emma Dabiri, What White People Can Do Next

While at one time white Irish people may not have been seen as culturally white in 'dominant white culture', they did "become white" as discussed in Noel Ignatiev's 1995 book How the Irish Became White. The people who have been viewed as white changes across geography and history as we further saw recently with Ukraine debated earlier in the year - as discussed by political scientist Olena Lyubchenko. The acceptance of Ukraine into 'fortress Europe' reminds us that who is seen as white can change.

In the ten days following the Queen's death, #IrishTwitter stood in solidarity with other peoples of the world, who too had cause to criticise and critique the monarchy, including #BlackTwitter and #IndianTwitter. Figures like JEDWARD positively used their platform, whilst Black scholars as mentioned above were mobbed and abused for the same. There was a stark difference in the reactions to white Irish people educating others while Black and Brown people suffered incessant tone-policing. The largely accepted #IrishTwitter ( kinda) showed how white privilege is in play.

Additionally, I saw posts talking about the 1916 Easter Risings. Further to The Troubles otherwise known as the Northern Ireland Conflict. Irish academic Dermot O'Hara's book The Troubles is a worthy entry point. And, Only the Rivers Run Free: Northern Ireland - The Women's War by Eileen Fairweather, Roisin McDonough and Melanie McFadyean tells this story from the perspectives of women who lived it. Meanwhile, the 2021 film starring Jamie Dornan and Caitriona Balfe is a soft conscience-pricker. On top of the Channel 4 programme Derry Girls which just aired its final season, they may be good introductions into provoking further study of British settler colonialism in Ireland.

The television programme begins with a shot of an armoured vehicle containing British soldiers moving passed two children spray-painting the city sign covering out the 'London' of the city 'Londonderry'. Full of footnotes to settler colonialism, the Channel 4 series created by Lisa McGee is set in 1990s Derry enmeshed in political violence really as a thought-provoker to do our own reading and research.

My own entry into Irish history as far as nonfiction was Only the Rivers Run Free by Eileen Fairweather and colleagues, but Irish poetry as well has been useful for my own emotional connections. No less than ' Easter, 1916 ' by William Butler 'WB' Yeats. As a white nation, the history of Ireland shows that recent critiques of colonialism at the monarchy are not just about Black and Brown people, so there is space for solidarity and kinship.

History holds power, we are connected to our ancestors and the past, and that has an enduring legacy. So, when we consider the violence of the monarchy, the histories of England's bordering neighbours are part of that story. Black and Brown nations have eclipsed the discussion, but we must remember, how for example, England put in efforts to destroy the Welsh language thus identity and culture ... and the poor people of this country were victims of the Crown long before those of us whose heritage is in the Global South.

By the by, if we thought about 'colonisation' (specifically) as a social practice rather than a period locked to history, we may begin to see that colonialism is an ongoing action. In a TikTok video, social media influencer and anti-racism trainer Joris Lechene continues to say:

In 2011, the public were reportedly told that Britain invaded Libya to install stability (democracy) thus revisiting ideas of empire and what author Rudyard Kipling called "the white man's burden." And as poet-educator Suhaiymah Manzoor-Khan writes, "I wonder if when you buy bombs there's a clear difference between the deadly ones that kill and the heroic ones that scatter democracy?" Yet, a few years later people are fleeing these countries, drowning in the seas only for a British journalist to compare asylum seekers to cockroaches. When you compare humans to cockroaches, this is comparing humans to subhuman levels of existence. This is all underpinned by dehumanisation and colonial ideology, no less than how Black and Brown asylum seekers are discussed in the media.

'It hurts to see Chris Kaba's death overshadowed by cancelled social events and delayed sports announcements. The round-the-clock coverage of the elderly Queen's passing - while little attention is paid to Chris' killing - is an insult to the Black community.' https://t.co/dEVd4U84BX
- Adam Vasco (@VascoAdam) September 13, 2022

Seeing large portions of the media only showed one view - the graciousness of the Queen and monarchy - it was refreshing to see comradery and solidarity between peoples united in their trauma of the British Empire, a kinship I did not even see amid the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests. Meandering the landscape of my community, this moved alongside the local proclamation of King Charles III, verily under the statue of his ancestor Charles II atop All Saint's Church - an enslaver and co-founder of the Royal African Company.

As historian William Pettigrew writesin Freedom's Debt:

"The English monarchy's desire to expand and control the shipments of enslaved Africans to its colonies ... was founded on political concerns and methods as much as economic ones.

From the Restoration ... in 1660, Charles II wished to use a monopoly company to supplant the Dutch competition in the Atlantic trades, develop trade with the cash-rich Spanish Americas, and secure and expand English interests in Africa by establishing plantations there, thus supplying gold for the mother country as well as enslaved Africans for England's Caribbean plantations. [...]

In 1660, Charles founded the Company of Royal Adventurers Trading to Africa. This company was itself the latest in a long line of slave-trading initiatives supported by the English monarchy that began with Elizabeth I's endorsement of the slave-trading voyage of John Hawkins in 1562."
William Pettigrewis Professor of History at Lancaster University

Living and growing up in Northamptonshire, I have found local knowledge to be quite scarce on our connections to colonialism and enslavement, overshadowed by discourses to the First World War and the shoe and boot industry. Further eclipsed, by major enslaving cities like London, Bristol, Glasgow, and Liverpool. But author Jane Austen wrote about enslavement and Northamptonshire in Mansfield Park showing how absentee enslavers disassociated the violence on plantations, from the wealth that sustained them here in Britain. As Reni Eddo-Lodge further writes, "Although enslaved African people moved through British shores regularly, the plantations they toiled on were not in Britain but rather in Britain's colonies. The majority were in the Caribbean, so, unlike the situation in America, most British people saw the money without the blood."

In parts of the Caribbean, like the island of Barbados in the seventeenth century when early enslavers arrived in 1627, the life expectancy of an enslaved person could be less than ten years. For example, as historian and popular broadcaster Prof David Olusoga states in Britain's Forgotten Slaveowners: "Africans arriving here [Barbados] had a life expectancy of seven years." So, while on the plantation there is story about trauma and racism, the lifestyles of enslavers in the colonies - and absentee enslavers in Britain - was one of decadence and partying acting as a violent juxtaposition to today's street parties, the Jubilee celebrations, and the ten days of mourning.

As thousands lined up to see the coffin of a billionaire, I was thinking about this historic moment in the context of a staple of British culture - queueing foregrounded by modern and longer histories / contemporaries of colonialism and white supremacy. To the people saying the monarchy have no power, I think those ten days showed they have lots of power - cultural power - with numbers buying into those ideas of whiteness through state-manufactured mythmaking. They also hold economic power, including land.

Critical race scholar Prof Cheryl Harris' article ' Whiteness as Property' reminds us how ownership and whiteness come joined under the capitalist project: "Whiteness and property share a common premise - a conceptual nucleus - of a right to exclude" - including access to land and the "claiming" of ancestral jewels like the Koh-i-Noor. Within the lifetimes of many of our grand/parents, the reign of Queen Elizabeth II was punctuated by rebellion and dissent in many British colonies - from the Mau Mau Uprisings in Kenya (1952-1960) to Caribbean Black Power and pushes for independence across many Caribbean islands throughout the 1960s, 1970s, and even as late as 1983 with St Kitts and Nevis - but ... the ruling monarch stayed as Head of State represented locally by a Governor-General.

There is a British culture of manufactured ignorance. If those ten days showed us anything, it's the importance of social media as a public history platform - instrumentalising counter-storytelling to the state's coup de brainwashing. In my own experiences of those ten days, I was not surprised at how whiteness recentred itself through conscious ignorance. As academic Dr Jairo Fúnez tweeted "Coloniality depends on ... a 'cult of forgetfulness' ... depends on systematic evasion [and] self-deception. It negates others of personhood in order to justify, i.e., make more reasonable their exploitation, domination, [and] annihilation."

Moving through social justice spaces, it can feel we are preaching to the converted. And, in those ten days I came head-to-head with not only willfull ignorance but the proud ignorance, who cared more for their adoration of a wealthy white woman than they did for the exploitation of their neighbours. But, Britain is far from monolithic on this issue ( even amid us Black people), yet it was challenging to see numbers of pro-monarchy white 'progressives.' People do not like history upsetting good vibes. Or as the late philosopher Prof Charles Mills writes "White ignorance has been able to flourish ... because a white epistemology of ignorance has safeguarded it against the dangers of an illuminating blackness ... protecting those who ... have needed not to know."

Through those ten days, the public were reminded that The Queen "did her duty" and even during the Second World War 'had a job' ... as a mechanic driving an ambulance. Yet, don't many people work? We even have job roles called paramedics. It appears we have this culture of celebrating the wealthy for doing things that working-class people have done and continue to do all the time. And this is wrapped up in the royal myth where the things that us "mere mortals" do are framed as extraordinary if a wealthy person does it.

Simultaneously, media responded to the Death of The Queen as a life of duty and grace, rather than the overseeing of the empire project and acting out Englishness as a symbol of white supremacy - those of us challenging the whitewashing were criticised in an air of respectability. But colonialism is a fact existing within the lifetimes of many people.

From 1937, Aden (later part of South Yemen) was also 'owned' by the British Crown. When in 1958, its Trade Union Congress called for industrial action, The Crown brought punitive measures against the Aden Colony (including deporting Yemenis to the desert heartland) to suppress resistance. It wasn't until 1967 that the last British solider left, and Britain is still waging war in Yemen today, in coalition with the United States, and Saudi Arabia.

"When British schools are still positioning colonisation as a positive thing without teaching the past physical violence, and current structural violence and multitude of social harms resulting from colonialism, how can we change society if our children cannot connect the dots? How can we understand racism in the UK today, if we don't understand the underlying causes?"
Amy Cortvriend, Lecturer in Criminology and Activist

Increasingly, the cognitive dissonance between public memory of the monarchy and colonialism is frightening. Spread across seventy years, The Queen lived through and oversaw many conflicts that people either do not know about or do not associate with empire. In my last article I discussed the Mau Mau Uprisings (1952-1960) but did not expand on independence-era rebellions. This was followed by the invasions of many countries between 1952 and the present-day including Oman, Indonesia, Malaysia, Bosnia, Kosovo, Sierra Leone and more - where 'historical' conflicts are not that historical when Britain is consistently engaged in maintaining its footholds in the Global South.

In Time Magazine article ' The British Monarchy Helped Mortgage Our Collective Future', historian Prof Priya Satia discusses how "fossil fuels and industrial metals were relentlessly extracted from the earth in Britain and its colonies" insidiously thrusting us into a process of climate change transforming how humans relate to the natural world and other people.

"Industrialism accompanied the passage of thousands of enclosure acts that turned common lands into private property, while colonial settlers and administrators also conquered and privatized land all over the world."
Professor Priya Satia, Time Magazine

So, our current debates about ecological breakdown and climate are rooted in empire, where amid other corporate partnerships " that made up the eighteenth-century British state " - with others like influential aristocrats, large corporations (i.e the East India Company and the Royal African Company), and the Bank of England - the Crown "established, invested in, and protected slave trading and colonialism." And despite it being easy to lay exclusive critique at Buckingham Palace, Windsor Castle, and Sandringham Estate, we must also consider the role of successive governments (we elected).

In a TikTok video, anti-racism practitioner Joris Lechene talks about how it's easy for British people to lay criticism at the monarchy without also criticising governments because monarchs aren't elected by the public.

So, whilst The Crown is low-hanging fruit, it would be as beneficial to point at Downing Street and Westminster "and all of the oppressive policies that have been enacted for seventy years by successive parliaments and governments" elected by the UK public.

Conclusions

Northamptonshire's history - largely told through shoes, war, and monarchy - has been told over and over but there are stories ... of colonialism that make my voice shake as the violence that happened "over there" impacts the life chances of those who now live "over here." All the questions that meander through social justice - i.e patriarchy, white supremacy, cis-heteronormativity culture, colonialism, capitalism - at some point permeate the British Crown. And until we start asking critical questions of the institutions around us, deference will be the disease that maintains the rot.

The Queen's reign was one of acting in the role she was allocated and did so for seventy years, including chief coloniser. We must always critique the monarchy in context - literal embodiments of inequality who have long invited challenge, as history is accentuated by monarchies deposed by rebellions. There have been numbers of fake apologies including the " profound sorrow " expressed by Prince William. But until there is a conversation about reparations from Britain to many Global South nations, anything less is virtue signaling.

Juxtaposed to that image of her alone mourning Prince Philip, no such empathy from The Crown has ever gone to those harmed by colonialism - not the victims of genocide in Kenya or Nigeria; not the descendants of enslaved people; nor the many people of India, Pakistan and Bangladesh divided and harmed by conflicts and partitions; nor Indigenous Australia forced to tolerate Britain as a colonising power. Recently, Indigenous senator Lidia Thorpe was also pressured to redo her oath of allegiance after calling the late Queen a coloniser. This is not an exhaustive list, but this is to say anti-colonial sentiment has legs.

As Black people, we can experience trauma from racism we did not personally experience such as historical, vicarious, and intergenerational trauma. For those us at the recieving end of colonial violence which Black and Brown people live in at all times (i.e in the UK) - to travel this country and meet colonial statues; nationalist/patriotic symbols; police terrorism; racism at work and school; explicit and implicit racial assaults; pub cultures of (white) Britishness; racist friends and family members; hostile environment policies ... and more - this impacts how we move, act and be in our day-to-day lives.

And while sections of the local and national public continue to support this institution whilst claiming to be anti-racist and allies, this is racial gaslighting causing more harm to your Black and Brown friends and colleagues. The trauma is real, and cultural investiment in the monarchy does not help anybody. Britain's monarchy has been considered, critiqued and criticised going back many decades, but they're like Teflon - everything just rolls off them!

What could Britain look like without this mafia institution? I don't know and I do not see it leaving any time soon. There are large amounts of capital in play as well as a colonial legacy and present to maintain. To challenge - no less than here in Little England - is a lonley road. Growing up in Northampton(shire), the paradox lies in my examination of the institutions that have punctuated my life - while critique is viewed as criticism and help is interpreted as panic. We are not London or Birmingham; this is Northamptonshire, a place full of contradictions and the county of shoe and boot must tread its own path.

"The paradox of education is precisely this - that as one begins to become conscious, one begins to examine the society in which [one] is being educated." - James Baldwin (16th October, 1963)

Further Reading - https://padlet.com/treventour1995/4ntutm52qx7tkcda

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LONG-READ - It's an imperial life: historian talks Queen's legacy in thought-provoking essay

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Public historian and poet-essayist Tré Ventour makes a detailed analysis of the legacy of Queen Elizabeth II in long-essay.

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New scheme set up to support Northampton’s Windrush community