I am glad to announce that I have accepted a role at the Leeds based charity, Black Health Initiative under the MD Tashi Brown. Together we intend to provide healthy and innovative ways to improve the emotional, mental, physical and environmental health of our brothers and sisters in Chapeltown and the surrounding areas of Leeds and beyond.
As an outsider, I have been warmly welcomed and it has been a pleasure to meet so many new people in the community who are offering their time, services and good will to ensure we all rise together from the well documented injustices that have been levelled toward us for centuries. I have been learning the history of Chapletown and the foundations from which the community has grown. I am keen to see the regrouping of our once tight communities across the UK. Our strength ultimately lies in our unity, enhanced through the sharing of our combined skills, abilities and genuine interest in the welfare, and well-being of those around us.
I will check in with you here from time to time, to update you on our achievements as we complete projects and develop healthy relationships that empower, encourage growth, harmony and wellness throughout Chapeltown, the city of Leeds and beyond.
OneLove
Laura
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An Apology
On Tuesday 7th November we attended an event hosted at the Leeds City College, Printworks Campus on behalf of West Yorkshire Police. I listened attentively as the Chief Constable, John Robins apologised for the over policing and under protecting of ‘Black’ people in the past, present and no doubt the future. Outlined were the ways in which the police are taking steps to improve their service and relationships with the communities of West Yorkshire who are identified as ‘Black’.
Of course there is a long way to go. Many of our families have been deeply and severely hurt by the direct and indirect actions of the police, institutional racism and their abuse of privilege and power of the years, the ripple effects are still strong and there is just reason for distrust. Why, this same week we have been informed of the sacking of an officer from the same force who made vile remarks about Meghan Markle via a group chat. However promises have been made to improve attitudes; and actions are being taken to educate, confront and redress the behaviors and ignorance’s of those tasked to protect and serve.
I gifted two copies of Tapestries of Grief to the officers and look forward to seeing how I myself can actively assist the people who look like me as we navigate the proposed positive changes intended to foster better relations with the police on both sides of this very steep curve.
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TRIGGERED
Recently, whilst working for the charity, I have become more and more triggered about an incident in my life that happened 17 years ago.
As Tashi and I attempt to work diligently in our rather humbling office, we are often interrupted by people within the community who wish to speak with us about how they can better serve those in need of extra help and support. The conversations we have had have been so positive, productive and enlightening.
I am drawn ever more toward to cultural practice of SILENCE, we are silent about the abuse that takes place within the home and the community. We have been silent about the historic events that were said to have happened, or factually took place within families and individual members of the community. Such events often explain the behaviours from certain people who live relatively unscathed by their previous misdeeds or slightly unhinged due to transgressions carried out against them.
Such occurrences are affecting our children and will penetrate the lives of our descendants in negative and damaging ways. It can go either way, positive or negative cycles will only ever escalate. Unless we do the work of talking, and cleaning up our emotions around events that have happened in the past; we will continue on a downward trajectory.
This is not a local issue, not at all. This is a behaviour that has shaped the African Diaspora and indeed the lives of the Caribbean islanders. However, we all have murky shit in our histories, going back through the bloodlines, regardless of our colour, culture or creed. The reason why so many of us seem to be silently walking backward into oblivion is because these ancient and historic misdeeds, abuses and traumas are presenting in our current time for healing and we don’t have the capacity to adequately deal with them.
I speak from experience.
In 2006, whilst working for London Underground, I was raped by a manager. He was a ‘Black’ man. I spoke up, but I remained silent. I told my highest line manager about what had happened, literally, the title that he held was TOM – Trains Operations Manager. I told my TOM… but he was also a ‘Black’ man. I was not asked to put anything down on paper, I was not asked to submit a formal complaint and I was not asked if I needed, nor was I offered any care or support during my resulting pregnancy or termination.
To speak up would have been to talk to people outside of my trusted circle of friends, it would have involved me putting pen to paper and ultimately, it would have involved me grassing the ‘Black’ manager to my ‘White’ Massa…
To remain silent enabled me to breathe through gritted teeth as I raised my children aged 2 and 6 at the time. I myself was 26, I was a single mother, my father had died two years prior and I had a very dodgy mortgage hanging over my head.
I was deeply depressed, suicidal and isolated. I was still grieving the sudden loss of my father, the loss of my whole extended family, relationships and friends. Circumstantial Grief. I was battling with my religious beliefs and I gave in to outwardly violent and self destructive tendencies in the home, whilst engaging in masking and code switching mechanisms in public places. This was all I could do to survive.
and I am not alone.
Many men and women suffer in silence out of fear of rocking the boat and being rejected from cultural binds that have governed through the generations. When we examine the beliefs and behaviours we live by, we will see that they do not exist in the physical, they are not written down, many of them are outdated, operate on fear and need to be carefully dismantled.
Now is the time.