We do have other stories

Yesterday, I posted on Twitter about my resignation from school governance. The outpour of support and offers was amazing.

However, very quickly my post was hijacked by the assumption, despite me never mentioning this, that my resignation was linked to race and racism- it wasn't.

Further, it was assumed that firstly, the board I sat on must be all white- it wasn't, far from it and that diversity and inclusion will somehow solve inequalities- nonsense. You can have 100% diversity with the same outcomes.

Firstly, a black person can make a decision, take action or hold a discussion without it being based on race or racism.

Secondly, stop this mythology that D&I is the cure-all for structural systematic inequalities. As mentioned in a couple of my posts this has come from seeing anyone who isn't white as part of some homogeneous group who sit around the campfire singing from the same songbook giving love to one another. We don't.

This is the type of woolly thinking that creates terms like BAME, BIPOC and so on.

Our stories and our voices are unique to each and every one of us. We are not a cookie-cutter

mass of people with the same narrative. By making baseless assumptions that everything we do or say has to be about race and racism is in itself a symptom of racism.