#bhm2015

I spun 13 fairy Negro tales that night. Weighed them on illogic scales that tipped the balance and formed an alliance with my version of the truth, I uprooted reality and substituted it for another that had more humanity; thinking that if I thought hard enough I’d make it real. Having so much belief in mind power I cowered beneath the defunct light and attempted to bend Saturn’s rings around my mind. I did this till the blinds let light in to wake me from that super sonic slumber. I swore I was under the influence of lightening that struck my brain and convinced me I could stain worlds at a time.

But I realised it was just beer and wine.

I found I could dine on the sun drink the milky-way let stars sticks to my tongue clasp Orion around my waist pluck Pluto, paste him to Mars and run before Zeus realised I had face-lifted his estate.

I found I could reverse 360 from the 3 point line and dunk Jupiter in a black hole. But this divine world existed only in my soul.

So I held my 13 Negro tales and made a back bone swapped it for my own stood to the wind and dared earth to spin me off it’s shoulders not knowing I had soldered my pen to its core and “ink”- planted a metaphor.

And perhaps this was just in my mind, but I’d envisioned my self as a poet, so let it be ’cause I write this not for you, just for me. I’m trying to make the world a lil’ better by building bridges out of letters trying to break the sound barrier and obliterate the colour lines, ’cause I was taught race was in the mind: You can unwrap the illusions and unwind to the sound of rainbow drops falling on all proletarian props.

I speak thus for I fell in love with an Iranian girl who complimented my soul. She had no colour; just a diamond backbone. I looked in her eyes and saw five stories for each tale I owned. Though we never dated, she sowed a seed in me and I reap the fruits regularly and mix the juice with ink, so when I write about love it tends to smell of her.

She is my virtue and my curse.

I guess I’m a fairy tale less now, guess I have to chill at bus stops and smoke sess now, guess I have to trail blaze and be like “yes now” to every soul who gazes at me trying to guess how I can talk to myself and care less about the effects of stress. It’s cause Spokenword is like sex, The more you listen, the better it gets.

That’s why on long bus rides, I close my eyes and try to hear drumbeats from Nigeria- the mother land calling. I be like “yes mum, I’m hearing ya” It’s like some ciphered world with armies of sounds and underground cultures with talon-less vultures trying to pierce my skin and place talking drums within.

But Hip Hop takes over and my head bobs to the beats of a different soldier and it’s gotten colder on this side of thought ’cause now, I hear dreams money bought.

Driven despondent by this I close my eyes tighter and think a little deeper. I see aquatic worlds ruled by Soulquarians, gods that remix bubbles with beats so we inhale music swap smiles for CD’s do voodoo just for the hell of it and there is no pressure if you choose to be celibate.

That’s another fairy tale gone. That’s another scenario I’d offered to the Sun to run on Monday mornings when workers are still torn between workdays and fun.

A world without guns when the only people running are kids chasing nuns for trying to convert them when their teeth were still gums.

But the sun shrugged his shoulders and shoved my idea where he couldn’t see. Telling me the cosmos didn’t agree, telling me humanity needed drama in order to be free. So I popped my middle finger for Martin Luther King, Seamus Heaney and Palestine’s plea, ’cause you shouldn’t need to suffer to be granted mercy, post-depression insurrection is not a way to be.

But this world exists between the purple evenings that serve as backdrops to my reasoning and nestle hopes of seasoning the world with constructive dope, to raise minds to that nexus in the sky distill the plexus and finally understand why Tupac, Biggie and Jim Morrison had to die.

I guess I’m more fairy tales less now guess it’s best if I tell you the rest now; like how roots are looped through violin strings and red mists faded yellow yell: “the last bohemian lives!”… like how Alice never loved in Never Land and The last Rebels rise to remix riffs…

But the last fairy story goes a bit like this: I sit on a mountain top with my Iranian scented ink trace words on winds sink to blue worlds drink nectar and think…

 and    think.

For those who are consciously woke then Black History Month is commemorated every 52 weeks, 365 days, 8765 hours and 525948 minutes as Google suggests.

In the UK, October is the official month that Black History is academically acknowledged, celebrated and recognised for its rich-diverse history alongside the achievements of many talented Black people. However, with the emergence of Stoptober (a campaign to stop those who choose to inhale toxic smoke in their lungs). International Walk to School Month, National No Bra Day and Halloween. The significance of this month for many Black British citizens is constantly being overshadowed and devalued, by the lack of media coverage and government funding to raise awareness about events on a local and national level.

As history has taught us, anything created by black people has been reduced to a mere footnote, omitted from history or cited by a white person. With that being said, this year I felt compelled to consciously make the effort to research, promote and support local events to help raise awareness. I believe that by becoming actively involved in Black History Month will not only create an abundance of knowledge to share, but more importantly, it will show the British government that we do care about this month, and that we are passionate about educating, informing and celebrating our successes.

This month is beautifully dedicated to our ancestors, which for me creates a sense of unity from our diaspora-shared experiences. It is a great time to connect with like-minded individuals, support black-owned businesses and to learn more about our culture and traditions. The saying goes: ‘if you don’t use it, then you lose it’, and in the foreseeable future the government will endeavor to erase this whole month completely.

Since I do not want to lose this month. I am challenging myself to attend a minimum of one event per week. The research of events that I have completed exclusively focus on the West Midlands, due to it being my local regional city. This list is not an exhausted reflection of what is happening across the UK, but it will point you in the right direction.

Now that I have done the research, feel free to go to one, three or all of the events I have mentioned and to add more to the list.

“To teach a child that their history begins with slavery is nothing less than a crime” - Runoko Rashidi.

Make your Black History Month beautiful and unforgettable for 2015!

Dominique

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Twitter: Uniquely_Dom

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Black History Month Events

Thursday 1st October 2015

Disapora Britain by Punch Records 18.30-20.30 (Millennium Point, Birmingham/Free Art and Spoken Word Event).

http://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/diaspora-britain-tickets-18585425508

One Many People David Austin Grey 19.30- 20.45 (The University of Birmingham/Free Reggae Fusion Concert). 

http://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/one-many-people-tickets-18345312323?aff=es2

Friday 2nd October 2015

Race 50 Exhibition 18.00-21.30 (The Drum, Birmingham/ Free Celebration of Black Achievement and Heritage).

http://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/birmingham-black-history-month-2015-launch-tickets-18205491114?aff=es2

Saturday 3rd October 2015

Natural November 11.00-17.00 (St Georges Community Hub, Birmingham/ Hair, Health, Beauty, Speakers & Vendors £10 Adults/Free Children).

http://www.naturalnovember.co.uk/about-us/

Brazilian Folk Dance and Art Workshop 11.00.-17.00 (University of Birmingham/Family Day Out £12 Adults/£8 Children). 

http://www.birmingham.ac.uk/events/black-history-month/2015/Lecturestalksandworkshops/index.aspx

Saturday Night Laugh Fever: Upfront Comedy 19.00 (The Drum, Birmingham/ Tickets £13.050/£11.00 Concessions/Free carer).

http://www.the-drum.org.uk/single-event/?id=USNL

Friday 9th October 2015

Anansi Life: Amerah Saleh and Beatfreeks 18.00-20.00 (Costa Coffee, University Centre, Birmingham)

http://www.birmingham.ac.uk/events/black-history-month/2015/Performance/index.aspx

Saturday 10th October 2015

Africa On The Square 12.00-18.00 (Trafalgar Square, London/Music, Food and Clothes Stalls/Free Family Day Out)

https://www.london.gov.uk/get-involved/events/africa-on-the-square-2015

Thursday 15th October 2015

Selma Film Screening 19.00 (The Drum, Birmingham/Tickets £4.00/£3.00 Concessions/Free carer).

https://uk.patronbase.com/_TheDrum/Productions/SEL/Performances

Maya: A Celebrated Life by Beverley Maynard 18.30-19.45 (The University of Birmingham/Celebrating Maya Angelou’s Poetry & Narratives)

http://www.birmingham.ac.uk/events/black-history-month/2015/Performance/index.aspx

Friday 16th October 2015

From Racism to Islamophobia and Beyond: The Changing Faces of Discrimination 17.30-18.30 (The University of Birmingham/Talk & Workshop/Free)

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/from-racism-to-islamophobia-beyond-the-changing-face-of-discrimination-tickets-18345210017

Saturday 17th October 2015

Black History Month: Kids collage workshop 11.00-12.00 (Winterbourne House and Gardens, Birmingham/Free Age 5-10)

A free collage workshop for children aged 5-10 years, using cultural patterns to create posters and pictures. Please contact Winterbourne for more details: 0121 414 3003, email: [email protected].

Wednesday 21st October 2015

Afro Mio 19.30-20.45 9 (The University of Birmingham, Bramall Concert Hall/Traditional African Performance Specialising in Rumba, Soukous, Kizomba and Salsa Sounds/Free)

http://www.birmingham.ac.uk/events/black-history-month/2015/Performance/index.aspx

Thursday 22nd October 2015

Black History Month Slogan Printing Workshop, 15.00-18.30 (Winterbourne House and Gardens, Birmingham/ Ticket £8/£5 Concessions

Tickets are available via the Winterborne House Shop on 0121 414 3003 to pay by card over the phone between the hours of 10.00-17.00 (or 11.00 -17.00 at the weekend), or via [email protected].

Sunday 25th-31st October 2015

Birmingham Black International Film festival (Music, Live Arts and Education)

http://visitbirmingham.com/what-to-do/festivals-events/stage-screen/black-international-film-festaival/

Thursday 29th October 2015

Vanely Burke: The Godfather of Black British Photography, 18.30-20.30 (The Barber Institute of Fine Arts, Free)

 https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/illustrated-talk-ikon-and-vanley-burke-tickets-18411564485

Friday 30th October 2015

The Danford Collection Exhibition, 9.00-16.00 (The university of Birmingham/West African Arts and Artefacts celebrating cultural tradition/ Free)

For more BHM events check out the links below:

The University of Birmingham: http://www.birmingham.ac.uk/events/black-history-month/index.aspx

The Drum: http://www.the-drum.org.uk/news/whats-on/

Liverpool: http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/whats-on/arts-culture-news/liverpool-events-planned-black-history-10165265

One thing can be guaranteed about Black History Month. Each year BHM will end with a call to ‘make every month Black History Month’. It’s a plea from the heart and one that captures our annual dilemma. In short, most of us will admit that, at the end of BHM, after having celebrated Claudia Jones or CLR James or the Indian Workers Association, there is a sense of academic life returning to business as usual. By business as usual I mean an academic world in which it’s taken as read that white intellectuals do the thinking and writing and people of colour feature, if at all, as bit players, as objects of sociological scrutiny.

For instance, a year or so ago, I attended a seminar given by graduating BME social science students. Reflecting on her intellectual experiences as an undergraduate, one speaker sighed, ‘It was Foucault, Foucault and more Foucault!’ Now we all love bald French transgressives but where in our students’ reading lists were Aimé Césaire, Manning Marable or Patricia Hill Collins? More to the point, beyond the grandees of the black Atlantic, how often do our reading lists and seminars engage with black British thinkers? Ask most moderately interested British academics to name a black intellectual and chances are the response will be an American or, just maybe, an African name. By contrast, black British thinkers are routinely marginalised. Yet the UK has its own robust and cantankerous tradition of black intellectual creation, rooted in dialogues with Marxism, feminism, anti-racism, post-colonialism and critical pedagogy. Towering figures include George Padmore, Una Marson, Ambalavaner Sivanandan, Stuart Hall, Hazel Carby and Paul Gilroy.  In my own field of educational studies there is the work of John La Rose, Bernard Coard, Gus John, Maureen Stone, Heidi Safia Mirza and many other thinkers and activists.

Too often it is assumed that black histories and communities are problems to be theorized only by white intellectuals. And Britain as a whole pays the cost of that neglect. In the 1980s and 1990s I spent a lot of time working with black publishers, bookshops and community educators. For me, it was a second university and it provided me with a seemingly boundless library. At that time there was a powerful momentum in reclaiming black British history and making available the work of its great teachers. Reading and re-reading the diverse work produced by black British thinkers is a key to moving beyond the problem-victim lens through which people of colour in Britain are still too often understood, and instead towards appreciating black communities as agents of social change. If there is a responsibility Britain’s universities have in relation to BHM it is to insist upon well-read understandings of black life. This means that if, as educators and researchers, we are willing routinely to use Gramsci, we must also be willing to draw on Fanon; if we routinely cite Bourdieu we should also use bell hooks. However, we must go beyond these touchstones and engage also with black thinkers who have wrestled with the particularities of Britain’s post-war context, both within and beyond academia: among them Ann Phoenix (psychology), David Dabydeen (literature), Kobena Mercer (cultural studies) and Gita Sahgal (women’s studies). I am not the first to point this out but, like BHM itself, it bears repeating.