Last Saturday two things happened:
- I met with a group of twenty school friends, most of whom I hadn’t seen for the last 45 years, and
- A book called “The Burden of One: Driving systemic change for women of colour in public services” dropped through my letterbox with a clatter.
The Burden of One book
The book is written by two inspiring colleagues, Sam Alexander and Sandra Smith (along with Suzanne Simmons-Lewis weaving her literary magic). Liz and I have worked alongside them for the last five years. Part memoir, part social commentary and part guidebook, it provides a blueprint for collective empowerment and change for women of colour. It is worth reading for the blueprint alone.
But what really pulled me up short were the stories of the four women shared in this volume. In some ways, of course, they were similar stories to many women I have been alongside and listened to. Invisible labour, failure, hardship, exclusion from the group, ill-health, resilience and determination, family.
Growing up as women of colour
Yet nothing prepared me for the stark contrast between the experience of these four black women and my own; it felt almost worlds apart being a young person, setting out in life. At my school reunion, I listened to the life stories of the 19 other women there. They shared reminiscences of school days and their subsequent life journeys.
How different these were to the stories in “The Burden of One.”
No-one had ever asked me or my school friends, “Can I lick your skin; Do you taste like chocolate?”. None of us had been given the nickname “Rooster” because we had to run for our lives from a group of National Front members. No-one in our families talked, horrified, about Enoch Powell’s “River’s of Blood” speech. There was no profound impact for our relatives and restrictions on our lives in our communities. There wasn’t anyone who feared that the police would find spurious reasons to arrest us or our siblings because of our skin colour.
I could go on recounting these stories from the book.
As twenty compatriots, we had never faced the same burdens, the same weight, the same encumbrances.
Then I looked around the room. At my old school friends.
Each and every woman round the table was white. There were no women of colour.
Why the burden of one?
This is why this book, “The Burden of One” is so important.
Reading it has allowed me to step out of the shoes that me and my school friends have worn for the last 45 year; and into the shoes of these four women, even if only whilst turning the pages of the book.
As Jules Henderson, who wrote the foreword says, “Yes it holds pain, but it also holds power. It holds clarity, community, resistance and hope; threaded through its pages are moments of humour, love, and unwavering sisterhood. It is these roots of truth and humanity that make this work enduring.”
Join the movement for women of colour
It is also why the work of WoCiP and leaders like Sam and Sandra are still vital. They are creating a movement to drive systemic change, raising the issues, recruiting allies to walk alongside each other and equipping women with the tools to change their life through programmes such a Becoming Career Ready.
So I encourage you to open the pages of “The Burden of One” so that you too can join the movement.
