A Note from the Lead

‘I tell my students: ‘When you get these jobs that you have been so brilliantly trained for, just remember that your real job is that if you are free, you need to free someone else. If you have some power then your job is to empower someone else’. - Toni Morrison

I am a black woman and like many, through my painful journey within education and academia, I have had limited safe spaces. Where did I begin my Journey? It started with me working at Shades of Noir in the first phase1 in 2011 as part of its first-ever cohort of the Shades of Noir student team. I feel this makes my viewpoint one that has a tenured perspective of growth, which is also loaded with love, tenacity and sheer determination to make an everlasting impact for those who will pave this journey with and after me. Shades is where I met a team that is made up of staff and students who are predominately of colour which I now call my family. This environment offered me refuge and space within a critical environment. I felt valued and part of a community of people who had shared values and experiences. What was powerful was meeting individuals who had similar lived experiences and educational journeys to me but who used these to harness and help provide meaningful education, At the time I was unaware that this would become an integral part of who I am today, what I fight for and what I aim to embody.

I am now in a very privileged position, arguably one which I feel I was always destined to enter...the world of academia. Now in my position of lead on the Teaching Within programme and education development at Shades of Noir and my journey has really been a sustainable one. Having completed the Inclusive Practice unit this was a key factor in shaping my critical teaching practice, utilising my lived experiences to help provide scaffolding for others. This unit has allowed my peers and I to consider why this was the case and research the bias of recruitment and progression of academics of colour as well assess as the opportunities academics of colour and social justice advocates brought to creative higher education.

I know I am in a very privileged position in my current role, to be teaching at one of the elite universities in the world, participated in this unique meaningful unit and to be one of the few black females academics supporting others,

I have the scope to support, evolve thinking and embed a social justice pedagogy contributing to cultural change. This is a work in progress informed by my peers, engaging with research and developing reflective as well as reflexive practices to evolve my practice.

The Inclusive Practice Unit has been able to help me contextualise my lived experience and to teach my students about embedding critical pedagogy into their teaching practice and challenging teaching from a white canon.

Most importantly it has helped equip me with the relevant language to articulate my life, my thoughts and my opinions with purpose, a sense of empathy and critical perspective. It was in this unit that I was first introduced to terms like white fragility and white supremacy. It was as if all my life the oppression and racism I had felt for many years had been accounted for and validated! I often felt I was always racialised and marginalised but this showed how people intentionally benefited from these social structures and I was not going mad. This is so important.

The inclusive practice unit has transformed both my professional and personal perspectives and provided me with the spectacles with an enhanced focus, Honesty and tangible theory to critique and challenge the systematic oppressive institutionalised racism which controls so much not only in education but be beyond.

I was able through the unit to confidently, openly and honestly critique my thoughts and fellow students' work in a safe space with academics who offered me relevant theory, critique and empathy supported by an experienced teaching team of social justice pedagogists.

The unit has given me the confidence to enter spaces where I once felt unsafe, ill-equipped or did not have a sense of belonging. I know I am not alone and part of such a kind thoughtful community that strives for anti-racism, equality and social justice for all. Thank you Aisha Richards for providing me with the wings I needed to fly to freedom!

To now be leading on areas of Shades of Noir work is truly an honour but again displays how Aisha Richards vision is not only sustainable, meaningful and powerful but as she always says the quote by Margret Mead “ it only takes a few thoughtful citizens to change the world” and my this very true. So here is to the legacy of the inclusive practice unit and many more years to come and cheers to everlasting magic!