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Report transcript in: Experiences of Black History Month
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Experiences of Black History Month
Please Report the Errrors?
Um,
I wondered what
Black History,
what your thoughts are about Black History Month in general and
what its meaning might be to you personally.
Well,
I was born and raised in a black country in Nairobi,
Kenya.
I'm Ugandan originally
or ethnically.
I'm ethnically Ugandan,
but my family,
my Ugandan family was
Gave birth to me and raised me in Kenya.
And um,
so there's no Black History Month in Kenya or in Uganda.
Um,
but I,
at the age of 18,
I moved to the United States
for 10 years.
When I was there,
Black History Month was February.
Pretty sure.
Um,
I,
I believe it was February.
And,
um,
that's when I started to
sort of understand or see
that it could be this time to
bring consciousness
to
the lives and experiences of black people,
um,
and
I moved to the UK 6 years ago
and I hadn't really
sort of engaged or experienced anything with Black History Month,
but now I have a daughter who's 7 years old
and she's in school.
And so this October
at the beginning of the month,
she came to me and she said,
Mommy,
she's biracial herself.
Mommy,
this is your month.
I'm going to buy you a present because it's Black History Month.
I was like,
Oh this is so interesting
how she's,
what,
what she's learning and experiencing about.
Black history because of course so much of black history is so painful
and I was so curious how her school
would
transmit this information to her
but it seemed to be about joy and presence but just this morning incidentally
and my partner is
white
our daughter said to us,
you know,
I'm mommy,
my partner's mama.
Mama.
Your people used to be really mean to mommy,
and we were both like,
this is,
um,
this is so interesting.
Tell,
tell us more.
What did you know?
What do you know about this?
And in what way was mama,
mama's people mean to mommy?
And she said,
well,
for example,
you never used to be able to sit.
On the seat on a bus next to people until someone,
and I said,
Do you know who?
She was like,
Yes,
Rosa Parks.
I was like,
that's so interesting.
Is your school telling you just about America then?
And she was like,
Yep.
And I was like,
OK,
that's cool.
I said,
incidentally,
in England there was also a lot of meanness,
so it's just,
it's,
it's sort of sweet to
To think about and
sort of
wrestle with how we
How we
teach history,
what is history,
and how we come to a shared understanding,
especially in 2026
when
facts
are so elusive,
everything seems debatable,
you know,
and in places where I used to live,
like in the United States,
the erasure.
Of
standard education that would mention even things like slavery,
the facts of colonialism,
anything that makes people feel uncomfortable,
that means that more and more people
are being raised without this shared knowledge of
just
the
The immensity of the grief that has been black history for so long
and,
and,
and what
where we are now isn't representative of where we've always been.
Um,
I wondered if there was
any last thought that,
uh,
you had things that you wanted people to reflect on,
or,
or just.
Um,
Last thoughts to reflect on,
I think that.
Yeah,
I hope that Black History Month
serves as
sort of
A
a start
and not something that is packed away
November 1st,
and,
and I think that
And I hope that the same
sort of
questioning or enjoyment of
Uh,
black cultural
outputs and creativity
that
Is a focus in October
that that is also inspiration
to
see other
cultures and other ethnic minorities,
cultural outputs.
I think sometimes what happens is
October can be a chance to
realise.
So many of maybe the musicians or the talent
that goes overlooked the rest of the time,
but that same momentum,
that same curiosity
around black culture,
I hope that it expands,
um,
and,
and can
sort of
have this.
A momentum that,
you know,
creates,
like you said,
plurality,
right,
or some kind of plurality,
yeah.
Up-big
