“Can you speak about forced marriages in the Asian community?” Someone asked.
“Can you talk about shame and honour based violence?” Another one asked.
These are a couple of examples of when media representatives have approached me in the past. As a woman of colour, I’ve never felt comfortable when asked to speak after what I refer to as “trigger events” – something major has happened locally, nationally or globally and an emotional ripple is pulsating across the community causing tensions to peak.
Representation is crucial. I grew up not seeing enough people like me on screen, on my favourite programmes or dreamily flicking through fashion magazines. Growing up in the era without internet at your fingertips, meant I couldn’t just go and google ‘black and brown women who changed the world’ (like my little girl did last week). It also meant that it was even more important growing up to see people like me represented in professions of all kinds – to resonate with, to persuade, to engage and most importantly to aspire to. In fact, I can’t even remember seeing any permanent ethnic minority teachers at my high school – not one. As a child, it’s hard enough to grapple fitting in without adding to the ever swirling melting pot – identity, culture, heritage and ethnicity issues. What I really needed was that video of #TheSquad (the women of colour group of socialist democrat representative in the US) or Kamila Harris!
But here we are…
Many of the community sessions I have facilitated in the past with women of colour have bought up issues around misogyny, racism, Islamophobia and domestic abuse. Yet as women of colour, our lived experiences, our voices, are often missing in mainstream media. Stories are often about us, sometimes sensationalist, sometimes lining us up in neatly arranged boxes; and other times throwing us out those boxes, often as clickbait. If we’re missing from the debate, we’re often missing in creating the change and solutions that are needed.
But representation and visibility alone are not enough. It can’t be tropes of good, bad and reactionary. When we speak of representation, we mean more than a voice on trigger events or race related debates; as crucial as they are, but also everything in between such as parenting, education and across all policy issues.
As humans, we are hardwired to listen and connect through stories. Never be mistaken, that as Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic people, we are ‘hard to reach’ or that we don’t have a voice. We certainly do, but we need a racism-free and nurturing space to amplify them. The more we occupy this space, the louder our voice becomes, and the narrative subsequently belongs to us; as underrepresented groups.
This is why Pass The Mic is transformative – a group of bold and brilliant women made up of parents, carers, academics, professionals, and creatives. Not only do we need more diverse stories to represent the mosaic of our society, we need them to be told on our terms and in our words.
#WatchThisSpace