Purple Book Club: My 2020 Reading Pledges
Every year, without fail, I pledge to read more books. I reminisce about the days when I was much younger and I used to polish off books quicker than I’d polish off any chocolate dessert I was given (ok, that’s hyperbole). I remember my mum buying me Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire the summer before I started Year 7. The book didn’t last me the summer as I read all 600+ pages in a day. But alas! I’m all grown up now and life routinely gets in the way of how much and how quickly I read. I don’t have time to sit and read all day without…
#GE2019: Anti-Semitism and the Erasure of Minority Voices
The General Election is this week. Despite the fact that there are plenty of candidates standing for other parties, the reality facing us is that the real competition is between Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party and the Conservatives, ‘led’ by Boris Johnson. This has been, in my opinion, one of the nastiest election campaigns in recent history, and as such I have actively tried to stay away from it as I knew where my vote was going the minute the election was called. But among the many, many aspects of this election campaign that have seriously disturbed me, there is one issue that has really done so more than others, and…
Giving Blood: Why More Black People Ought to Do It
A few months ago, I received a letter from the NHS informing me that I have the sickle cell trait. For those of you who are unfamiliar, sickle cell disease is a group of red blood cell disorders. Red blood cells contain haemoglobin, which carries oxygen around the body, and people who suffer from sickle cell produce abnormally shaped red blood cells. These ‘sickle’ shaped cells die prematurely or can get stuck in small blood vessels, blocking them and causing serious medical problems. Sickle cell anaemia is the most serious type of sickle cell disease, and those who have it are susceptible to life-threatening infections, loss of vision or stroke and…
Self-Doubt and the Importance of Remembering Your ‘Why’
WARNING: There’s going to be a lot of omphaloskepsis in this post. If you think you’re going to struggle with that, I suggest you look away now. For those of you who are staying with me, I also want to say I am no self-help guru or life expert. But life in recent months has had me mulling this over a lot, and I thought I’d share a bit of myself and one of my coping mechanisms with you. This will probably come as a surprise to those who know me personally or who have worked with me in the past, but I promise every word of what I’m about…
National Windrush Day has passed. Where do we go from here?
Saturday 22 June saw the arrival of the UK’s first official Windrush Day, a day commemorating the arrival of British citizens from the Caribbean on the Empire Windrush in 1948, and celebrating the immense contribution the Windrush generation has made to British society and economy for the last 70+ years. Windrush Day also brought with it the announcement of a memorial dedicated to the Windrush generation in Waterloo station, where many members of the Windrush generation first arrived in London. The announcement was met with a mixed reception, with members of the community questioning the choice of location, criticizing the lack of consultation and, quite rightly, wondering where was…
The Windrush Scandal Isn’t Over: CALL TO ACTION
Last year, the news of the Windrush scandal shot into mainstream political discourse and, rightfully, became a subject of national outrage. Members of the Windrush generation – Caribbean people and their children who were invited here as British citizens to help rebuild Britain and fill labour shortages after World War II – suddenly found themselves being deported, fired, losing access to their benefits or pensions, losing their homes, access to healthcare and even access to their bank accounts. Some, who had travelled abroad to see friends or family, found themselves unable to return to the UK, stranded in the countries they’d gone to visit. Why? Because Theresa May, our soon-to-be former Prime…
Rules of Engagement: Why We Need to Be Respectful of Minorities’ Time and Space
I had (what I’m now going to call) a rather insightful week last week, and I learned some valuable lessons. Lessons that I think life has been trying to teach me for some time now that I haven’t really been listening to, thinking that things are and will be fine and I can just keep going as I am because that’s just how I do things. Well it seems 2019 is here to tell me that’s not true, and it is doing so by slapping me in the face with what is true: I am only human, and every human being has their limits. 2019 has started really well…
#SurvivingAbuse: Three Reasons Black People Need to Stop Caping for Sexual Abusers
TW/CN: This post discusses sexual abuse. 2018 was hailed as the ‘Year of the Woman’, and there was much celebration of women’s achievements across the world. Notably 2018 saw the rise of women visibly speaking out about the injustices and evils they have and continue to face – particularly sexual abuse. The #MeToo movement, founded in 2006 by Tarana Burke – an African-American civil rights campaigner – gained greater traction in light of the Harvey Weinstein case and the sexual abuse of women became headline news. This continued with the conviction of Bill Cosby and Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation to the Supreme Court despite Dr. Christine Blasey Ford’s harrowing testimony…
Why Telling Black People They Are Aggressive IS Aggressive In Itself
Pretty much every Black person I know – myself included – can tell you of a time when they have been branded ‘aggressive’ or ‘intimidating’ by a white person. Get angry at someone who has done something wrong to you? Aggressive. Walking around in a group with your friends? Intimidating. Challenging any form of authority? Aggressive AND intimidating. Everywhere Black people go they have to navigate around this branding. White people constantly claim to feel threatened by us, even when we are doing normal, innocuous things. There are a whole raft of cases I could point to in the United States of Black people having the police called for…
Purple Book Club: Our First Book!
Thank you for joining Purple Book Club! Ready for our first read? Drumroll please…. Sooooo…in celebration of the launch of the blog and book club, I thought it apt that our first read should be the novel from whence the site takes its title. The Color Purple by Alice Walker Studying this novel for A Level introduced me to the concept of womanism, one that has greatly influenced me as an adult (see my post on this here). As we read it over the next four weeks I’ll be updating this page and our Instagram page to have a discussion on how we’re finding the novel. If you have a…
