JUST Lincolnshire held our first Courageous Conversation on 27th August, and it was held in conjunction with Voluntary Centre Service. The conversation was exploring the impact on the Third Sector on recent global and local events. The conversation was extremely insightful and impactful with plenty for attendees to take away with them.
The link to the recording of the conversation can be found here.
There were 2 questions posed that there wasn’t time to address during the conversation: –
- Lincolnshire is not different. When I first came here unfortunately in care, not automatically accepted. I never experienced direct violence against me based on color until I moved to Lincoln, I was attacked in the street and another time two youth pulled a knife on me. Now Eastern European are getting similar treatment look at Boston. How do you think we can bridge that gap?
- Q for the panel at the end – there are some difficult and courageous conversations we need to have with ourselves and those around us on an individual basis continually but how do we challenge the media (social and otherwise) as I see that this can be a problematic area for racism and other discrimination as people can ‘hide’ behind media posts and the misinformation that the media appears to spread?
Hopefully, the following comments picked out from our panelists will help answer these questions.
- “at long last the whole world is experiencing a ‘racial awakening’ and is just about catching up to the experiences and narratives that BAME communities have been holding long before the unjustifiable and senseless death of George Floyd”.
- “Every one of every color needs to join this courageous and uncomfortable conversation to have lasting change”
- “education is the key in many respects. The Department for Education leaves approaches to race, ethnicity, and identity to the discretion of individual schools, this should not be discretionary! Structural racism has not dissipated but has rather become nuanced and action is needed to eradicate this and other similar structures thus eliminating totally “institutional racism.”
- Turning now to the question for the Panel, as to how we challenge the media. Perhaps work towards building/creating stories with newsworthy contents such as unsatisfactory responses from local MPs about racism adversely affecting one of his or her constituents. As a start approaches could made for items of interest to be published in Lincolnshire Echo, LCC County news and other Local authorities E Newsletters.
- “We all have to continue to be educated.”
- “It’s about systemic structures that prevent Black people thriving
recognizing your own privileges and acknowledging them
we all need to be active allies and share facts to overcome ignorance”
- “If you truly believe all lives matter you would be able to say black lives matter”
- “Recognize your own privilege and acknowledge “
- “This courageous conversation is a great first step and every effort must be made to sustain a continuing dialogue in all sections of society.”
- “Every one of every color needs to join this courageous and uncomfortable conversation to have lasting change!”
We need to: –
- “Find a way to talk about different cultures and challenges.”
- “Challenge and educate ourselves, put ourselves in other people shoes to understand better.”
- “Ask what is white privilege? Not related to financial privileged, the work around unpacking the word needs to continue.”
- “Be conscious of those privileges”
- “Acknowledge systemic racism is prevalent in this county”
Here are some useful links shared by Lizzie Jordan
Jane Elliott’s Brown Eyes and Blue Eyes experiment:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oGvoXeXCoUY
UNICEF UK ANTI-RACISM RESOURCE PACK https://www.nspcc.org.uk/globalassets/documents/race-and-racism/unicef-anti-racism-resource-pack.pdf
A platform for young people of color to explore race, identity and culture and challenge the everyday, institutionalized racism that shapes their lives https://kidsofcolour.com/
Show Racism the Red Card is the UK’s leading anti-racism educational charity:https://www.theredcard.org/
The minority stress perspective:
https://www.apa.org/pi/aids/resources/exchange/2012/04/minority-stress
This social enterprise do some interesting work about inclusion and employment selection methods: https://www.squarecircleagency.com/
Link to the recorded webinar:https://web.microsoftstream.com/video/6175cca7-a492-4bc6-98b2-290d221832ae
a huge thanks to :
Iggy Patel
Founder of Haloabletech and many years’ experience in equality & inclusion an consumer law
Caroline Killeavy
Caroline joined YMCA Lincolnshire as Chief Executive in 2018.
Lizzie Jordan
Lizzie is Founder and CEO of Think2Speak
Sidney McFarlane
Sidney is currently involved with other local voluntary organizations, including the University of Lincoln Court and trustee/director of International Bomber Command Centre.
link to the First in the series of events is here: