Content Disclaimer.
Please note that some of the content within our publications, including the Key Term sections, are considered highly offensive to People of Colour (PoC) but we have included them to support difficult discussions around the subject of race and ethnicity to support understanding and evolve thinking with the aim of transformation.
Additionally, the terminology and use of language from the collaborators within this publication belong solely to those of each article’s author and do not necessarily represent the views or opinions of Shades of Noir. As such, any discrepancies found herein related to Key Terms and Micro Key Terms are not legally binding or enforceable and are open to interpretation and, in many cases, can be contested.
Mission Statement.
Shades of Noir undertake practice-based social justice within the creative sector context in partnership with international educational and cultural institutions, as well as creative practitioners and a broad spectrum of organisations.
Our aim is to evolve behaviour, practice and cultural value to support a variety of audiences through a broad range of discursive and proactive interventions. We seek to engage and support individuals who make up the sectors through a combination of activities, commissions and resources. We centre the histories, voices and experiences of marginalised communities as a catalyst for the transformation of people, processes and policies. This is all in support of our mission to:
- Centre the voices, experience and perspectives of marginalised
communities to evolve thinking - Create platforms to engage with intersectional experience, understanding
and perspectives - Support knowledge exchange within a social justice pedagogical context
- Transform behaviours through proactive interventions within a creative educational cannon
- Build social justice communities of change-makers across sectors and countries
Appendix – 2020
Public Statement in the Context of the Black Lives Matter Movement and COVID-19
Shades of Noir (SoN) stands with the global Black Lives Matter movement (including Black Lives Matter UK) to continue to do the ‘work’ to end systemic racist practices, systems, behaviours and ‘fight for freedom, liberation and justice’ for Black people, inclusive of the QTIBIPOC and all intersectional communities globally.
The filmed execution of George Floyd on 29 May 2020 and those before and after all around the world, shared on social media are unacceptable acts of violence and cannot be left unanswered. The blatant inequality of the lives of Black people comes as no surprise. This is not a new situation although we recognise the current impacts rippling around the world.
As demonstrations take place across the globe, building on the 2014/15 mobilisation of the movement, it reminds us of the many powerful and painful acts of resistance black people(s) have demonstrated as we continue to live, be educated and work in systems which reinforce the intersections of oppression. Despite the huge amount of pain and distrust from the black community however, there is strength and safety in numbers. We recognise, however, that this is not a time of celebration, as we too manage our pain, fears and anxieties.
There is no doubt that we, as a global community, have been severely affected in the pandemic of racial inequality, experiencing continued and/or exacerbated trauma and the huge loss of life resulting from the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic health inequalities and looming economic crisis. We recognise the complicity and inherent failure of institutions, organisations and individuals in acknowledging their colonial legacy and overt bias against Black people(s) who similarly remain disproportionately affected by the ongoing pandemic as ‘key workers’.
We too call for an enquiry into British BAME Covid-19 death rate following the news that minority groups were over-represented by as much as 27% in the overall COVID-19 death toll, and that, 63% of the first 106 health and social care staff known to have died from the virus were of black or Asian descent (Health Service Journal, 2020). This points to a growing racial sentiment as Black key workers continue to be abused and devalued whilst working on the frontline.
For too long, the emotional labour of black people(s) has been unduly expected and unfairly compensated in order to eliminate racism while ‘educating’ white people in the behaviours they themselves perpetuate.
It’s not enough to be ‘not racist’. We need to be ‘working hard’ towards becoming anti-racist. Anti-racism is an active word which means building policy and building a practice of opposing racism, resisting whites supremacy and anti-blackness in all its forms.
We must build collective understanding and improve practice in anti-racism through forging intersectional social justice (pedagogy).
We must recognise the need for intergenerational discussion, criticism, a space to practice safely self-care and to articulate self-determination in order to liberate ourselves from the struggles of oppressive structures, both in education and society.
We must continue to build purposeful, broad-reaching and multifaceted interventions through the acknowledgement of what came before in the transformation and the evolution of institutional culture(s), supported by anti-racist frameworks across sectors.
We continue to support all individuals impacted by the ongoing pandemic and endeavour to mobilise as a community, building upon the work of our predecessors.
We welcome contributors of anti-racist coalition and those that express ‘non-optical’ allyship in supporting the Black Lives Matter Movement and ‘key workers’.
Thank you to the Black Lives Matter, Black key workers, families and friends for your strength, honesty and continued commitment to ‘work’ through where we’ve been, where we are, and where we are going.
United we stand.