Colette Williams: Still I Struggle

My struggle wasn't due to my inability to list and write on the women who work tirelessly in our communities and workplaces to bring about change. In fact I could write an A-to-Z list of the amazing women I know starting with Angela Lawrence, MBE; Founder and Director of Manchester Active Voices; my daughter, Parisce Francis; Chemical Analyst and Zita Holbourne; Founder and Co-Chair of Black Activists Against Cuts.

All of my drafts opened with acknowledging the achievements of women on an international stage. Women such as Jazmine Fenlator-Victorian and Carrie Russell and Seun Adigunm, Ngozi Onwumere and Akuoma Omeoga, respectively, Jamaica's and Nigeria's first women bobsled teams. The recognition of Tara Burke founder of ME TOO, and Ntsiki Biyela South Africa's first Black woman winemaker to launch her own brand also featured in my earlier drafts. I even boasted that I had been invited to organise and host an event for Patrisse Khan-Cullors, one of the founders of Black Lives Matter.

The young women in our communities such as Dionne Farrell-Condor;  winner of TechWoman of the year, Angeli Sweeney; Senior Project Youth Worker, Isabelle Cox; Developer of Black Lawyers Matter,  Barbara Ntumy, Naa Acquah, and Huda Elmi kicked butt during their reign at University, with Naa becoming the first NUS Black General Secretary at MMU, Chloe Cousins; organiser of Rainbow Noir  and Annalisa Toccara, Co-Founder of Our MelaninFest  to name but a few are the young women in our communities that are making a difference.  And no article would be worth its salt if it neglected to mention the formidability of woman even in the context of Shuri, Nakita, Okoye and the Dora Milaje.

But I struggled.

I struggled because...
our collective response to Grenfell was woeful.

I struggled because...
my sisters who work in the private and public sector, the cultural, voluntary and community sector and those that are academics and entrepreneurs, talk about how they are racially terrorized every day in work.

I struggled because...
our children are being systematically excluded from school and are being placed in Pupil Referral Units which are simply holding cells for children who have been abandoned by the education system.

I struggled because...
in the last 6 years homelessness within our communities has risen by 40% and the use of food banks is now common practice.

I struggled because...
one of the founding members of Black Lives Matter, the most significant political movement in our lifetime, is coming to Manchester and yet we see the Black community shuffled to the back of the queue in terms of priority.

I struggled because...
rather than uniting and fighting from a position of strength my community is drawing battle lines over sexuality and sexual orientation.

I struggled because...
if we challenge the meagre funding we receive our resources and assets are stripped from our community and so we stay silent.

I struggled because...
White cultural organisations are perpetuating racial stereotypes, also stating what and who are agencies of change should be, whilst further demonizing our children and men folk.

I struggled because....
White allies believe that it's enough for them to simply recognize their privilege.

I struggled because...
when Black organisations dare to talk truth to power funding is pulled resulting in our voice and our agency being pimped out to White organisations and institutions.

I struggled because...
our community is being stripped of its assets under the gaze of gentrification and the establishment of an underclass.

I struggled because...
our young men are being subjected to the rigours of the outdated law of joint enterprise and are being killed at the hands of the police.

I struggled because...
of Sarah Reed, Christopher Alder, Sean Rigg, Kingsley Burrell-Brown, Rashan Charles, Eston DaCosta and Nuno Cardoso.

I struggled because...
the rate in which Black men have been incarcerated has gone up by 400% in the last 8 years.

I struggled because...
we talk about Black power and the pride of being African yet we're silent on being kidnapped and enslaved.

I'm struggled because...
of the rise of domestic violence in our communities.

I struggled because...
of health inequalities, the disproportionate rates of death during birth, the refusal to amend the age in which Black women have mammograms, the overuse of violence, restraint and medication for those with mental health problems.

I struggled because...
we fail to take advantage of our economical and political power and use it to our advantage.

I struggled because...
it seems like we are to afraid to talk about the decline of the Black family unit.

I struggled because...
we are still working under the rule that in order to succeed we have to work as twice as hard only to get half of the reward.

I struggled because...
we are still talking about racism and the lack of opportunity and diversity in the workplace.

I struggled because...
of Brexit, mass deportations, the existence of immigration and refugee camps.

I struggled because...
of our International policies, the mass killing of our children and the destruction of lives through war. 

I struggled because...
of neo colonialism, the continued theft of our resources, sexual exploitation and the rise of Trump and the far right.

So at this time and in the year in which I should be wishing you a happy International Women’s Day and an amazing centenary anniversary of voting rights to women and at a time where  I have never felt so heightened by this struggle I will take my lead from Frederick Douglass who tells us that,

“If there is no struggle, there is no progress.
Power concedes nothing without a demand.
It never did and it never will.”

Photo:Shaheda Choudhury