Jeffrey Boakye visit with Y9 and 10

Two weeks ago, Year 10 was lucky enough to experience a talk from the incredibly interesting Jeffrey Boakye. He is an author, teacher, public speaker, radio presenter and music enthusiast. He discussed many topics, ranging from identity issues such as gender polarisation to privilege, and his experiences as a black man. He was an excellent speaker, and we really recommend researching his work and his message further, because it has the ability to impact us all in a positive light and change the way we view privilege.  

One of our main takeaways from the talk was the question, does ignoring our own privileges due to the discomfort that comes with confronting them perpetuate inequality in the world? Jeffrey argued that yes, it did, and we agree with him. We believe that the reason discomfort blocks progress sometimes within these areas is due to the misconception that shame has to go along with acknowledging privilege. We can progress by recognising that privilege is most often structural and not individual. It is unfortunately a reality of life that needs to be addressed, but embarrassment sometimes blocks this discussion.  

Privilege, for example class privilege, is often socially given or inherited, rather than chosen or delegated. However, simultaneously, privilege often invokes certain social behaviours which are chosen and can be revoked, and this is what needs to be addressed. When talking about privilege, the aim isn’t to pass guilt – rather, to make factual observations about societal conduct and how it needs to change. Specifically, in terms of race and racial inequality, white people can sometimes feel guilty when confronted with the facts of racism/racial injustice. This guilt prohibits important conversations and people acknowledging that even if they are not consciously promoting racial bias, it is structurally ingrained in our society, and the reversal of this cannot be achieved if embarrassment and discomfort are being used by white people as excuses to themselves to not take action.  

In his books, not only does he discuss racism/white privilege and his own experiences as a black man, but he also talks about masculinity and identity. Including what they mean to him and how they influence him. He captures the realities of race, gender, ethnicity, socioeconomics, etc perfectly – and he describes how these things all contribute to making our identity. Even if all our identity isn’t always visible from the outside – it is ultimately all of these things that make us who we are.   

He challenges masculinity, and questions it – what is masculinity? He combats the idea that masculinity needs to be ‘reclaimed’ and denies this idea of sexism and superiority to men. One thing that stood out to me from Boakye’s talk was his challenge to us; to put our identity into one sentence. This was challenging at first – so many things make up someone’s identity, and it is difficult to put it into one sentence, but that also made me think about what my identity means to me and made me question who I was.  

His latest books are generally aimed at children of about 10 years old and above. I thought this was inspiring as it is important to speak about such topics from an earlier age so that children can explore identity and can be aware of racial injustice sooner, which will greatly help combat embarrassment and discomfort which prevent (typically) white people from taking action.  

Boakye’s speech taught us to speak out about important topics that we felt needed to be addressed in society, whether that be inequality between race, gender or class, because raising awareness on these topics is incredibly important in a society that is constantly changing, modernising and developing. This idea linked to the overarching theme of year 10’s Grow Day of academic integrity and strength, which encouraged us to challenge and rethink our approaches and ideas, enriching our knowledge of the world around us and the things that we feel passionately about.  

- Sarah, Evie, Skye and Harriet, Y10