A guest blog by Senior Strategy Director and Routes2Success role-model and mentor, Greg Bonsu
What does Black History Month (BHM) mean? It’s a question I periodically ask myself and always intensifies as the celebration grows closer. If you search BHM on the internet, you get a wide variety of meanings and explanations – videos and articles about Black heritage, appreciation talks of past generations and their struggles, posts celebrating black achievements, and a list of BHM related topics. But what if I told you that BHM was missing a trick? What if I said to you that BHM could be, more positive, forward-looking and forward-thinking?
Just take a minute to think about it…
Now, let me explain.
Every year, I sit through a month of presentations, talks, and allyship webinars – we salute our sisters, we talk identity, we tell our history and stories in our own words, but what happens after?
Personally, I leave with less optimism about what we can be, reduced hope for what BHM could become beyond the month itself, increased concern for what the future could look like for children, and no insight into where the next generation of Black talent is coming from.”
We continually repeat the cycle, but what hope are we giving to young people? How do we get people of all races excited about the potential that Black people have to offer? How does cultivating Black history enrich all lives? And most importantly, what can this country become with more diverse representation across businesses and sectors?
Never have these challenges and questions been more represented or evident than in our current political climate. Today, we have a government that inherited a poor fiscal and financial situation, and consequently will have to make tough decisions; however, their rhetoric has been accused of being too focused on what they inherited, rather than what they are going to do to make things better.
Change takes time, and the government may not know what they want to do or even how to do it, but that doesn’t mean they can’t set out what the future could look like – after all, hope, belief, and vision are powerful when used effectively to mobilise and call people to action.
For me that hope is a world where you have as many Black as white people sitting in board rooms and at leadership tables; equal Black history being taught in schools as part of the national curriculum; Black leaders talking about business and operations at conferences rather than sharing the business case for inclusion at DE&I events; and a world where a young person’s first thought is to consider being in the public or private sector, rather than primarily wanting to be an influencer, sportsperson or musician.
If you scratch the surface, there are great examples of Black people leading the way and breaking down barriers in what has previously been seen as unattainable positions and industries, from Dr Bola Abisogun OBE – an early adopter and pioneer in the area of digital construction, former Moving on Up chair and the first ever Black man in the UK to receive an Honorary Doctorate in Surveying; Abena Oppong-Asare – one of the first female British Ghanian MPs, who has been a Shadow Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury, and Shadow Minister for Women’s Health & Mental Health respectively; and Darren Johnson – Global Chief Operating Officer at Impax Asset Management, who has history of driving operational transformation to support rapid growth in the wealth space. These are but to name a few, people who are leaders in their respective fields, with ability, strategy, vision, empathy, and authenticity.
BHM should be used as a foundation for shaping future. Too often, BHM comes and goes like a trending topic, without driving the sustainable change needed to steer us away from repetition. History is important because it forms part of who we are, but at the end of the day, we are people who are black rather than being black people, and therefore it is within our gift to be bold and create whatever narrative we want.
Real narrative is the power to inform the future, rather than it being the focal point that describes or defines the people. So, I ask the question: is it time to rethink, reform and redefine the narrative and conversations around Black and people of colour?
Greg Bonsu
Senior Strategy Director
