My Black History Month
My Black History Month
For Black History Month, Migrant Voice are running a series of Black migrants in the UK talking about the people and places in their history – whether personal or global - that have inspired them. Today Selbin Kabote considers black academics.
While thinking about what to write for Black History Month, the recurring question in my mind came from a panel discussion at University College London some years ago – “Why isn’t my professor black?”
Britain is a multicultural society with a rich migration history. Yet of the 18,500 professors in the UK only 85 professors are black, and just 17 are black women.
In his address at the event, Dr Nathaniel Adam Tobias Coleman, who organised the event, mentioned that historically, there has been a failure to recognise black scholars as philosophers and this still continues. He also said that the achievements of black academics are usually attributed to “outside help” rather than hard work.
As I reflect on the significance of Black History Month in the UK, I recall an essay by former Sussex student Luqman Onikosi who draws on Lentin’s argument that “as Black people have been historically discriminated against on racial grounds, it makes sense that ‘Blackness’ as a ‘collective social identity’ has been built on ‘racial’ grounds”. Lentin in turn cites the great African American sociologist, W.E.B Du Bois - “race is a badge worn by those who share a long history of discrimination and insult”. Racial collective identification has been a rallying point. It’s a source of strength and resistance for black people to have spaces like Black History Month to debate common struggles – such as racial inequality in the university.
It is not just professors. Recent reports have made clear Oxbridge is failing to improve its levels of diversity when it comes to student intake. Students from the top two social classes getting places at Oxbridge rose from 79% in 2010 to 81% in 2015, and in that year 16 colleges didn't offer a single place to black students. The two universities are still seen as being too white, too southern and too wealthy, and have struggled to shake that reputation.
The short answer to the question “Why isn’t my professor black” could simply be Britain’s persisting institutional racism. But questions must be asked about why this kind of institutional racism is continuing to exist in this day and age, and what should be done to address it.
Black Labour MP David Lammy has written to the vice-chancellors of Oxford and Cambridge on the diversity question, and has posed the question directly: "There are young people in Sunderland, in Hartlepool, in Knowsley, in Rochdale not going at all and many of them are getting straight A's and beyond at A-Level. So why aren't they getting in?" His intervention has raised yet again the need for an urgent conversation among the powers-that-be as we mark Black History Month.
Among those black academics that have made it into academia, they have punched above their weight with enormous contributions to their fields. In terms of people who inspire me during Black History Month, I’d like to pay tribute to just a few that spring to mind: Dr Nathaniel Adam Tobias Coleman, Dr Kehinde Andrews, Deborah Gabriel, Lisa Palmer, Dr Shirley Tate, Patricia Hill Collins, Kimberlé Crenshaw, Gus John, Hazel Garby, Barnor Hesse and Joan Anim-Addo.
Birmingham City University has just established a BA (Hons) in Black Studies which is the first of its kind in Europe. It is a remarkable milestone in the history of Black Studies in the UK and will enable students who enrol for it to recognise and appreciate the achievements, experiences and movements formed from black scholars, activists and communities. The more conscious engagement we can have with black history in academia – not just in October – the better our universities will be.
Note: Dr Nathaniel Coleman crosses out his surname to highlight that the surname was given to his ancestors by slave owners