JULY, 2022 • ISSUE NO. 1932
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OUR RIGHTS UNDER THREAT C
AMPAIGNERS have urged the black community to stand up for our rights as the government moves to scrap a law used to challenge institutional racism. The Human Rights Act is facing the axe, which lawyers say is the last defence
against injustice perpetrated by the state. Race equality think tank the Runnymede Trust warned that black people faced “the most significant threat to civil rights in recent times.” Community leaders say tensions are at boiling point on the streets caused by police racism, disproportionately high unemployment and the cost of living crisis. Stafford Scott, pictured, said: “We don’t want a riot but things need to change.” Read more › pages 16-17
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24 | THE VOICE JULY 2022
News feature
Shedding slave names Record numbers of people are changing their names by deed poll. By Leah Mahon
W
HEN MILLIONS of the black diaspora were forced to start a new life from the shores of Africa and under the hands of slave owners, it left behind people that are still in search of the heritage and names that were taken from them. Jendayi Serwah, from Bristol, is of Jamaican descent and told The Voice that her old slave name was the Scottish name Allison. She decided to change it after hearing a calling from her ancestors who have “always guided” her.
JOURNEY
“I know my ancestors worked with me,” she said. “My journey into knowledge of self started before I reached double figures in age. So, it was part of a process of awareness. “I always say to people I’m thankful that I wasn’t brought up in a Christian home, because it allowed me to explore my culture, my identity, and the right music was in the house. “I wasn’t under those kinds of restrictions that some of my peers were under because they couldn’t play reggae music in the house, you couldn’t go certain places or mix with
I grew up on a diet of music that was telling me about myself, my ancestry, my homeland certain people because those people were deemed to be ‘inappropriate’. “So, I grew up on a diet of music that was telling me about myself, telling me about my ancestry, my homeland.” In 1994, Jendayi travelled to Ghana for a renaming ceremony and was renamed as Jendayi — meaning “give thanks” in the Zimbabwean language, Shona. Her surname, Serwah, has its roots in Ghana. The mother-ofthree made her new name official a year later through deed poll in 1995. It cost her just £15. A record 85,000 people changed their names by deed poll in 2015, according to the UK Deed Poll Service. While no data is readily available on the number of
GAINING FREEDOM: The Emancipation Statue in Barbados symbolises breaking the chains of slavery; inset right, slave names on a plaque in Mississippi (photos: Getty Images); inset below left, Jendayi Serwah black people with previous slave names who have undergone the change, the process remains just as popular and today costs as little as £18 to apply for a deed poll. For Kweisi Ausar, inset above left, he embarked upon a slightly different journey to ridding himself of his slave name while living in the US, but believes the path he took is a similar one to many others. He grew up as Anthony Gatlin, and it was on a trip to an old home in Gatesville in North Carolina with his great-grandfather and great-grandmother that he first encountered the bloody legacy of the slave trade. His
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great-grandfather worked as a sharecropper at the house and his grandfather was held as a slave. “When we drove up to the house in Gainesville, Carolina, the first thing I remember seeing was the mailbox with the name ‘Gatlin’ displayed,” he recalls, speaking publicly about his experience.
TRAUMA
“I was excited at that moment to witness this generation of history, quite naive and unaware of the trauma that I was about to experience. “So after sitting in the car for a few minutes and wondering, why are we going up and knocking on the door? “A white woman came out and looked into the mailbox and I asked, ‘Who is that?’ “And my great grandfather then began to explain the history of our name, how he worked as a child on this plantation, how he ran away at an early age and came up
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from the Deep South for a better life.” He said that a single moment in his childhood led him to “elude the search for his identity” all his life, but officially renamed himself as Kweisi, meaning ‘conquering sons of kings’ from the Ashanti tribe in Ghana. His surname comes from black, ancient system of Egyptian spirituality and describes his new identity as “empowering”. Linford Sweeney, inset right, a historian and genealogist, praised the movement of black people reclaiming their identities. “I think changing our names is moving us forward as a people. I believe that I’m helping people to rewrite history every single day,” he tells The Voice. “We were taken away from something that was indigenous to us. My great, great, great
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grandfather came on a ship to Jamaica in the early 1800s — that was just over 200 years ago. “When you look at it from that point-of-view, you end up wanting to connect to who you are.” Despite changing her name, Jendayi doesn’t believe the diaspora changing their slave names will move them forward collectively, but believes it has a greater meaning. “Influence goes on in the same way. You can’t change history, but you can change the future and I’m not suggesting that this [changing slave names] is significant in changing the future… “You tell people your name, they can tell you who your family are. “So it binds you to a place, it binds you to a people.”
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JULY, 2022
BIRMINGHAM GOING FOR GOLD Commonwealth Games special supplement • • •
The perfect setting for the Friendly Games
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Colonialism or unity?
Kare Adenegan looking to inspire ‘There’s a lot of teams that could get to the netball final’ Legacy of Games in the spotlight
50 | THE VOICE JULY 2022
Mental health
‘No decision about us without us’ FEELING ISOLATED: Having mental health issues as a black person can be tough, as they can fear the impact of institutional racism (photo: Getty Images. Posed by model); inset below, Ariel Breaux
Mental health experts demand to be heard as the government overhauls the law. By Vic Motune
A
S THE government introduces plans to tackle racial disparities in mental health ‘sectioning’, race equality campaigners say black communities must be heard. Black people are more than 10 times more likely to be subject to a community treatment order, and more than four times more likely to be detained under the Mental Health Act, according to recent data from NHS England. The latest Queen’s Speech included a promise to bring in a draft bill to address racial disparities in the use of compulsory powers, with a parliamentary committee set up to advise on new legislation.
However, mental health organisations say they should be given an input into how the law is reformed, in an effort to make it fairer for people from minority communities. The Voice spoke to Ariel Breaux, strategic delivery manager for race equity at Mind, about the key factors to reduce racial disparities. Ariel Breaux: One of the key things to focus on is how racism manifests and is reinforced through the use of the Act. It’s very important that the parliamentary committee doesn’t neglect that the mental health system is institutionally and systemically racist.
It’s only from this starting point that they can critically examine how the Act goes on to contribute to such inequitable
treatment of black people, and how the inequitable use of the Act can be linked to racist ideology, like beliefs of dangerousness, that sees black people more likely to be placed under various types of state sanctioned control. A prime example of this can be seen with Community Treatment Orders, which are a point in the Act where racism meets perception of risk, power and coercion. The Voice: Some say that what would help to create a better understanding of race inequality in healthcare is the involvement of more black people in patient and public boards within the NHS, Local Health and Wellbeing Boards, Clinical Commissioning Groups. Do you think this is important? AB: This is incredibly important. There’s a saying that goes, ‘no decision about us without us’. You cannot address the issues that face people of colour without considering our voices and experiences. Redistributing power is central to dismantling the systems that perpetuate these inequities. Additionally, we need to be led by people with mental health problems, making sure their voices are heard and acted upon. Involvement should not be transactional, rather, it must be understood that creating a better understanding of race inequality in healthcare cannot be done without those who experience it leading the way.
TV: Campaigners say that this understanding must reflect itself in the whole of the care pathway, from prevention, to assessment, to therapeutic intervention to sustained recovery. What would a whole care pathway that takes into account race equality look like? AB: From start to finish we need to be looking at the ways in which systemic and institutional racism manifests within health and care. For example, we know that many black people seek help for their mental health issues and are turned away, then don’t get help until they are much more unwell. So we need to be critical in our assessment of the current care pathway asking questions like ‘how are we relying on assessment practices and therapeutic interventions that were created without people of colour in mind and are not culturally appropriate? How does our view of sustained recovery ignore the nuances about what recovery means for people of colour?’ When thinking about prevention, are we considering how interpersonal, institutional, and systemic racism within the larger society underpin the poor mental health of people of colour?’ We have to look deeper into root causes and contributing factors to avoid solutions that don’t truly address the problem. TV: Should reform of mental
health legislation and service provision include things such as provide better access to talking therapies and culturally relevant interventions? AB: Overall, there needs to be better access to culturally appropriate interventions, and at an earlier stage, rather than taking a one size fits all approach. Culturally appropriate therapies are a must, but not all services are culturally appropriate despite being labelled “evidence-based” and providing more access to therapies that are not fit for purpose won’t solve anything either. Services should be codesigned and co-produced with those from the communities the services will be targeting. TV: Campaigners are also pushing for legislative reform to acknowledge the way wider determinants such as poor housing, insecure employment and living in areas where GP practices are more likely to be poorly rated can exacerbate mental health inequalities. AB: I completely agree with this. We cannot treat mental health issues in isolation as if other environmental factors do not have an impact on mental wellbeing. It is imperative we take an approach that centres social justice, and seeks to intervene at all levels. We need to make sure there’s multiple levels of intervention and avoid locating a problem in the individual when the problem actually resides in the social system. Neglecting to do so can result in inaccuracies in treatment and diagnosis, as well as causing harm.
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