The Mishcon Academy Digital Sessions. Conversations on the legal topics affecting businesses and individuals today.
Bethia Green, Trainee Solicitor, Mishcon de Reya
Hello, I’m Bethia Green, a trainee at Mishcon de Reya and welcome to this special Black History Month podcast episode, in partnership with organisations Football Beyond Borders and their sister organisation, Youth Beyond Borders. This episode will holistically discuss the theme of this year’s Black History Month, Sharing Journeys. We will be discussing issues that persistently affect young Black people and explore how these issues have changed from those faced by older generations within the Black community. In particular, we will be talking about the environmental factors that have helped today’s guests flourish and what changes could be made to improve the experiences of young Black people in Britain in 2022.
For those of you who are unfamiliar with Football Beyond Borders, FBB are an education and social inclusion charity that use football as a gateway to mentor and support young people between the ages of eleven and sixteen. Whist they work with young people of all ethnicities, today we are joined by three FBB graduates of Afro-Caribbean descent to talk a bit more about their journeys as part of this collaborative, Black History Month podcast special. FBB have recently established Youth Beyond Borders (YBB), a representative, creative agency that provides career opportunities to FBB graduates and young people interested in working within the creative industries.
Our guests today – Gui, Hannah and Isaiah – are FBB graduates who are now part of the YBB agency and will be sharing their journeys with us today. Before we get going, we’ll start with a brief introduction from our guests.
Hannah Mills, Youth Beyond Borders
Hi. So, my name is Hannah. I’m sixteen and I study music and I have a passion to become a singer-songwriter in the near future.
Isaiah Gordon, Youth Beyond Borders
Hi. My name’s Isaiah. I’m studying theatre at the Brits and I really want to become an actor when I’m older.
Gui Fernandes, Youth Beyond Borders
Hello. My name’s Gui. I’m sixteen years old and I’m studying a BTech course in Engineering and I hope to one day become a presenter or a actor.
Bethia Green, Trainee Solicitor, Mishcon de Reya
Thank you. So, this year’s theme of Sharing Journeys is an opportunity for us to look not only at the past and people in history’s experiences but also to see how that transcends generations. I think often the experiences and the behaviours that are passed down from our relatives, our families and our friends and those above us, we forget and are unaware of the histories and legacies that they’re rooted in and hopefully, today is an opportunity for us to see and reflect on ways that some of those experiences have passed down potentially into the experiences and beliefs that you all hold. But before we delve too deeply into some of the other topics, let’s discuss and start by talking about Black History Month more generally. So, Hannah, can you tell me a bit more about what Black History Month means to you.
Hannah Mills, Youth Beyond Borders
So, just going back to like the culture and where everybody originates and as Black people, I think it should be like cherish every single day to be honest and we should be appreciated from where we originate and our roots and our background and your melanin and it shouldn’t just be like a prioritised day but I believe that Black History Month, it should be acknowledged in general.
Bethia Green, Trainee Solicitor, Mishcon de Reya
Yeah. I think often with Black History Month there is an emphasis on education and it can be a real opportunity for schools to teach everybody about points in Black history that are otherwise forgotten. Isaiah, what are some of the ways in which kind of you’ve enjoyed Black History Month or things that you like about it?
Isaiah Gordon, Youth Beyond Borders
Things that I enjoy or like about Black History Month is just how in touch with other Black people I feel and like even with just my family, from the things they’ve taught me during Black History Month to just things that I’ve learnt like during Black History Month with FBB and how it’s not built a community because I think it’s something that should be a part of history, like, it’s not Black history, well it is Black history but it is history, like, I don’t see why it has to be separated from history.
Bethia Green, Trainee Solicitor, Mishcon de Reya
What have your family taught you?
Gui Fernandes, Youth Beyond Borders
They’ve taught me things like with my hair, how partings used to be used in slavery to be maps for where slaves can escape and just things like that.
Bethia Green, Trainee Solicitor, Mishcon de Reya
And what you done within FBB?
Gui Fernandes, Youth Beyond Borders
Within FBB, I’ve learnt things like about Black Romans and how… before FBB, I didn’t even know there were Black Romans, like, I remember finding that out and just feeling really angry, happy, confused, just a lot of conflicting emotions, like, damn it’s taken me fifteen years to learn there are Black Romans but I was definitely happy to find that out but it hit me deep, like, rah.
Bethia Green, Trainee Solicitor, Mishcon de Reya
Yeah, I think often one of the important strands of Black History Month is we can feel like we’re immigrants, even if our families have been here for generations, we still feel like other or we still feel like we don’t belong because we look different to what the narrative often is set as being and having been historically but actually, as you’ve commented on, we know that there were Black Romans, we know that there have been Black people in Britain for hundreds of years, going back far beyond Medieval times, it’s just been for a variety of reasons, including racism, that they’ve often not been portrayed and therefore for many of us, we’re completely unaware of them and Black History Month does give us a fantastic opportunity to remember those people.
Gui, Hannah, Isaiah commented on how he feels like there’s a degree of community in celebrating Black History Month that’s created by his presence and existence in FBB. Do you feel that? Do you feel like there’s an opportunity to share with other people who understand or celebrate it in a way that you otherwise don’t?
Gui Fernandes, Youth Beyond Borders
I feel like it’s a mixture of both because in school, we don’t really… we speak about it maybe like one, two, three lessons but I don’t feel like it’s spoken about too much but also another thing is, at home, obviously my parents both exceeded in all things that they wanted to do so, I feel like that’s the way to not only celebrate the history but also celebrate your family, celebrating people around you that have really succeeded that maybe inspire you as well.
Bethia Green, Trainee Solicitor, Mishcon de Reya
And maybe just touching on some of the aspects of Black History Month that before sometime poorly managed. I know one can be that it feels like it is just a month and then it’s forgotten. I think it can feel tokenistic. Isaiah, are there ways in which you feel Black History Month could be celebrated in a more impactful way?
Isaiah Gordon, Youth Beyond Borders
Yeah, definitely, like going through secondary school, I remember when it would come up to Black History Month, I’m just think like oh I’m going to go into a history lesson and learn about slavery and I feel like it’s not only me that started to correlate Black History Month with slavery and not actually Black history because it seems like a lot of the time, schools are just trying to portray that Black history is slavery and that’s not what it is but that’s all we’re being taught and we’re taking in and a lot of people are just taking that in and not doing their own research and it’s having an impact on how they think and how they see things so, I think if schools are able to portray Black history in a better way, it will change the way a lot of people are able to communicate and just be together in a community.
Bethia Green, Trainee Solicitor, Mishcon de Reya
Yeah, I think education’s really important. Obviously, we’ve got much better control of the curriculum and what we teach people in a way that some other aspects of society like media and film are more difficult to influence. However, that being said, I wonder if you feel films such as Black Panther and The Woman King, which centre the Black experience, create a space for media and the Arts to reset narratives in a way which makes people rethink the discourses that they have been previously told about slavery and the Black experience? What are the materials, other materials beyond speaking to your family, beyond school, that have taught you are about Black history and people’s experiences?
Isaiah Gordon, Youth Beyond Borders
I would say like, a lot of the time I’ve been out and I’ve just seen Black people wearing like clothes native to their culture. I’ll just, I’ll ask them questions about their clothing, trying to gain more about understanding with myself, like with a lot of the things that they’ve gone through or reasons why they’re wearing that, why they’re certain colours or certain patterns and I’ve definitely learnt a lot from doing that or even with the movie, Woman is King, like I want to go and see that because it just looks really good but with Black Panther, for example, when that movie came out, I remember going into the cinema on my friend’s birthday and just seeing like loads of people who look like me going to watch a movie and I was like, yeah man, like this feels nice, like it’s a nice environment but at the same time, I don’t feel like it should be left up to the media or theatres to educate people, I feel like that’s something they can definitely do but that’s what the education system is for, I don’t feel like it’s something that they should have to do, not to say it’s not their job but it is definitely someone else’s job and they’re failing at it.
Bethia Green, Trainee Solicitor, Mishcon de Reya
Yeah, I think it’s, I think it’s everyone’s responsibility. Whatever your heritage or your ethnicity, we all have I believe some level of obligation to learn about each other and understand each other’s cultures and have an appreciation for why we celebrate things in the way we do to help reduce animosity. One thing that I wanted to discuss and, Hannah, I know you are interested in music and that’s one of your passions and I’m sure some of the rest of you will have seen this, it’s the recent Stormzy video, the video that he drops.
Hannah Mills, Youth Beyond Borders
Yeah, I’ve seen a little clip of it, yeah.
Gui Fernandes, Youth Beyond Borders
It’s cold. I’m sorry, I had to say that. It’s absolutely cold.
Bethia Green, Trainee Solicitor, Mishcon de Reya
And what was it for you, Gui, that made you, like, that makes you say that and react in that way? Because that’s a powerful response.
Gui Fernandes, Youth Beyond Borders
I don’t really know what it was. Actually, it was the end. It was the end. You see a bunch of Black excellence. Absolutely amazing. You see Ian Wright…
Bethia Green, Trainee Solicitor, Mishcon de Reya
Malorie Blackman.
Gui Fernandes, Youth Beyond Borders
Yeah, all of it, Headie One. And it shows, it goes from old school to new school, old generation to new generation and it’s still being passed on and I don’t know what it was but I knew there had better be a nice project coming along with that song. For the song to be ten minutes long and for it to bound like that, it must have took some time and there must be something cold planned to have gone ahead with it.
Bethia Green, Trainee Solicitor, Mishcon de Reya
Like portraying a story, kind of thing.
Gui Fernandes, Youth Beyond Borders
Yeah, it needs to be because I’m still waiting. I’m waiting in this spot to come.
Bethia Green, Trainee Solicitor, Mishcon de Reya
And I think that’s it, that’s part of it is, it’s that ability to share stories. I think a big part of that music video and whilst I think we can be frustrated at education and frustrated sometimes at workplaces and Government for ways in which change is slow, in the way that we have the ability to express ourselves through film, through media, through music and videos like Stormzy’s I think show and celebrate so many people who do represent Black excellence, be that authors or musicians, footballers, people who are appreciated by the youth and far older generations, I know there’ll be plenty of listeners and there’s plenty of people across Mishcon who will adore Ian Wright and remember many goals that he would have scored at the Emirates and Highbury before it was Emirates and I think there’s an important ability to share those journeys in culture that sometimes is more difficult in education because often education is gatekept so, there’s tiers to it, there’s university or there’s you know college systems, you’ve got to get certain grades to get to certain points to be able to engage in certain decisions or be in certain rooms, whereas there’s not those same barriers in art and in sport and in media so sometimes we get the opportunity to see Black excellence more commonly and that’s not to say that’s not a problem but being able to then share those journeys can sometimes influence our own inspirations and where we want to go and what we want to do with our lives and I recognise that all of you have an interest in kind of that sector in media, in, Hannah for you, music, Isaiah, acting, and then Gui, presenting and content creating and I think there’s a universal similarity there in spreading a message and I’m interested in hearing a little bit about some of the individuals that have inspired each of you so, whatever order or whoever sort of wants to go first.
Hannah Mills, Youth Beyond Borders
I would say who’s like a strong Black woman who has inspired me along my creative industry pathway, getting into the music industry, would be Zendaya because I love how she just goes for everything, she’s not limiting herself to different avenues. She’s been modelling, she’s done acting and been in classics like Zapped and all these other things and different avenues and she’s been singing so, as an upcoming artist myself, it’s inspiring as well as a Black individual who’s persistent in her career path and she also portrays like a positive outlook as well, she’s not a negative individual who goes on social media and portrays a negative outlook and yeah, I feel like she’s an inspiration to me as well.
Bethia Green, Trainee Solicitor, Mishcon de Reya
That’s a fantastic answer. Do you see your journey, like you would hope for your journey to mirror hers and to look to explore similar kind of like a multimedia type of career?
Hannah Mills, Youth Beyond Borders
I would say not exactly mirror because I could never have like, you can never have the same lives and stuff but, because everyone has a different career path or destined life planned out in the future but I would say the fact that she’s like, as a Black individual as well, like she’s able to do so much different things, it just shows that if I keep consistent with the mindset I have now at such a young age, I should be able to reach my goals as well and be able to hopefully do big things in life, modelling, acting and all these other things and not just limit myself into like a tiny little box.
Bethia Green, Trainee Solicitor, Mishcon de Reya
Do you feel like when you were younger, so before Zendaya because I think she’s still fairly recent, that was something that you doubted? Do you feel like there was an absence of kind of Black role models that you could look up to or…?
Hannah Mills, Youth Beyond Borders
Yeah definitely. I feel like it’s really good to see more Black individuals, influencers, supermodels, coming more out into the limelight and just to portray good aspects of how they got into their career path and just show you don’t have to limit yourself. As long as you just have a persistent, consistent mindset or like knowing what you want to aim for in life, you should be able to achieve what you want.
Bethia Green, Trainee Solicitor, Mishcon de Reya
Thank you. And Isaiah, I feel like you were gonna jump in and say something.
Isaiah Gordon, Youth Beyond Borders
With who inspires me, I’ve always said to myself that my only inspiration is my future self but the only people I can really look at for inspiration is like my older brother and my older sister because in my eyes, I’ve just watched them both push so many mountains to achieve everything that they’ve wanted and where they are now that it’s definitely a big drive for me, like to just watch them grow consistently and keep achieving makes me really proud and just inspires me a lot.
Bethia Green, Trainee Solicitor, Mishcon de Reya
Are they a lot older than you?
Isaiah Gordon, Youth Beyond Borders
Yeah. My brother’s 21, turning 22 and my sister’s in her thirties.
Bethia Green, Trainee Solicitor, Mishcon de Reya
And what do they both do?
Isaiah Gordon, Youth Beyond Borders
My brother’s currently studying Law at university and my sister’s making her own business in locks because she’s the one who taught me about my hair…
Bethia Green, Trainee Solicitor, Mishcon de Reya
Hairlocks.
Isaiah Gordon, Youth Beyond Borders
Yeah. So, she does my hair like, whenever I’m getting my hair done, I can sit down and speak to her. I’ve just like watched her do other people’s hair and like she’s built relationships with all of her clients because it’s just something she loves to do and like I really like that.
Bethia Green, Trainee Solicitor, Mishcon de Reya
It’s a really interesting topic and I think it intersects well into the theme. I’m aware that people are listening, they can’t see you. Isaiah has fantastic locks that he’s growing out that are probably, I don’t I know, four to five inches long, there must be about forty or fifty of them on his head and I’m also aware, and I think this is an important conversation is that some listeners probably won’t know necessarily what locks are but will have though a locks business, like a locksmith. So locks are just a common term for dreads or dreadlocks as they’re often known, which are very important and one thing that is quite common and is that I think hair salons, barber shops, hairdressers are often places where, well depending on who your barber is, you should feel safe and you can have quite interesting conversations, you hear interesting conversations, you see all different sorts of people and hair’s important to Black people, it’s a real point of discussion, I think locks especially, for a long time, were quite policed and seen as quite a messy and dirty hairstyle which anyone who I think has respect for their locks, especially within the Black community, that’s not the case and a lot of time goes into maintenance which I am sure, Isaiah, you look after your locks well and I think there’s that crossing of cultures so often, for some time, locks, dreads, were quite popular in the British Punk community for quite different reasons but being anti-establishment, in a way that actually was quite supportive and they were very much often allies of the Black community and the Civil Rights Movement but something got missed in seeing that as being like a messy, dirty thing because often that’s what their image was about and almost unintentionally, they appropriated a really important part of Black culture which then has had impacts and for a lot of young and old Black people, as they have tried to kind of assimilate into British community and I know there’s a lot of older, Rastas, Rastafarians and people from across the diaspora who’ve just had to either cut their locks off or have short, like a short trim because otherwise they’re not going to be able to get a job or they’re not going to be able to keep the job that they get and I think, in recent years, there’s been a real push to move away from that and I hope, Isaiah, that you feel like being at The BRIT School, I’d be interested to hear this. Now, it’s almost, I think in a lot of ways it’s a political statement and it’s, it’s something that’s important to see but I don’t know how you feel like your hair’s influences you or if you’ve felt pressure at all to ever change it.
Isaiah Gordon, Youth Beyond Borders
No, I 100% agree with everything you are saying, like, when I first made the decision like yeah, I’m gonna get locks, I remember telling people in school when like even other Black people like, I get they’re just miseducated but they’re saying like, “Oh but ain’t that like kind of a dirty hairstyle, like you just leave your hair and then you don’t wash it” and then I’m having to explain it to them and then they’re arguing with me like I don’t know what I’m speaking about. So, that’s definitely true but like I remember speaking to some of my friends and we’re just talking about our hair because a lot of me and my friends have quite long hair so, we’re just like oh, we’re getting older now, like don’t you think we should cut our hair and then I was just like bro, like your hair shouldn’t stop you from getting a job and I know I’ve said that but I remember summer holiday that I went to fifteen different job interviews, twelve different trial shifts, all through summer, and I got one job like, yeah I’m happy with that but why has it taken me fifteen attempts, like every job I’ve asked for a little bit of feedback, like why didn’t I get the job just so I can build myself and do better on the next trial and they all more or less giving the same answer, which is there’s no specific reason and I’m like, yeah man, if you say so but we both kind of know what the reason is and it’s really upsetting to still see that today but I know within myself that that’s never going to change who I am, like, I love my hair and I love everything about it and just because someone sees it as something dirty or something aggressive maybe, that shouldn’t change how you feel about your hair so, if there is anyone listening now who wants to grow out their hair and get locks, like, do it man, it’s definitely gonna suit you and if not, you can always change it.
Bethia Green, Trainee Solicitor, Mishcon de Reya
Yeah. I think that’s a really fantastic answer. I think there’s, there’s community, I think there’s a lot of people that do have locks where they’re important, it’s a real part of who you are and, like you said, it doesn’t make things easy and often that judgement that’s seen as something dirty, is misled and misunderstood and is a result of an absence of conversation about the sort of things that are really important in UK History Month and are actually a reflection of journeys that are shared because they really reflect an important part of our culture beyond being in the UK and our heritage and I’m disappointed and it upsets me to hear the experience that you’ve had with jobs and with rejections but I think what you say reminds me of a really important message that I’ve always carried with me as I’ve kind of climbed into the corporate sphere from a very socially mobile, working class background, which is there’s no one who’s going to be better at being you than you. So when you say your inspiration is your future self, I completely identify with that. For me, it was Serena Williams, like, I may have shed tears when she retired this summer but that idea of being authentically you, is I think your most valuable asset and it’s something that you can always carry with you and use as like a real unique selling point and your knowledge and belief in what you want to do, what you want to… like contribute and why your identity, including your locks, are important to you, will really set you apart in the places and spaces and people who are deserving of your time and energy, will completely get that and they won’t reject you for something as fickle as how you style your hair because even if it was dirty, in so many ways, it’s meaningless. What’s important is who you are and any opportunity that’s lost for reasons like that, isn’t an opportunity that you want anyway, it’s a blessing.
Okay, so one thing that I do want to discuss. I feel like we’ve touched on a few things and we’ve gone through kind of the history of what Black History Month is about, what it means to us and the good things, the bad things, things that inspire us, people that have inspired us and also some of the challenges that come from our identity and our Blackness. It’s not easy and I don’t think that’s something that we can underestimate or need to understate in a space like this but I think it’s important that we speak about some actions, things that we’d like to see, ways we think that things can continue to improve. So, I think a good starting point that we can all discuss and you guys can relate to is FBB. So, when we spoke a few weeks back, we discussed a few of the ways that that’s a safe place for you. Things that FBB do that make you feel like you can express yourself, be yourself and feel safe as a Black person, without being judged in ways that are often stereotypes and are racists. Gui, can you, I know you’ve been at FBB for a while, you’re a veteran. Talk about some of the fantastic things that Football Beyond Borders do.
Gui Fernandes, Youth Beyond Borders
That’s… I can’t just pick one because there’s just, there’s a lot that they done to help us to be safe you know and helping us to be comfortable in general, even with classroom sessions when we had them, obviously everyone was respecting each other, don’t get just the violations were still there, yeah man, a couple got violated but at the end of the day, we all knew it was a brotherhood and that’s something that I specifically I feel like the guys, we really emphasise… actually, no, in general, we all emphasised a brotherhood and a sisterhood that the girls had and I feel like Hannah, did the girls, for you in FBB have like a sisterhood.
Hannah Mills, Youth Beyond Borders
Yeah, I would say because I wasn’t part of FBB for a very long time but getting to know everybody like, it was a nice experience as well and like to keep continuing on. I didn’t feel like everybody, because they said prayers before, it was just like a mix of personalities and everyone was just like feeding in different ideas and everything and everyone was very welcoming, it felt very safe, I just felt like FFB is very nice to pursue like having all these different ideas collaborate together and come together as one is really cool and everything so, yeah.
Bethia Green, Trainee Solicitor, Mishcon de Reya
Gui, can you give a bit of context on just what FBB is? The people who FBB, Football Beyond Borders work for, just telling, you know, you know.
Gui Fernandes, Youth Beyond Borders
So, Football Beyond Borders first of all, I need to break it down, it’s like, it’s a football programme, it’s pretty much a football programme for helping children who have maybe problems at school or problems in general. They help the school to understand why some things happen and they help us to improve our behaviour or stuff like that and they also, for example, I wouldn’t be here for like FBB right now, they help us when either we experience something or either like, in general, they know all of us have our own talents and that’s why each and every one, especially working at YBB now, everyone they really saw that that hunger, they saw that I really want this, like this is what I want for my life and that’s why, to be honest, the majority of us are here right now because they all saw the hunger through FBB which passed onto YBB and pretty much as FBB is just like, I don’t know what it is, it just, whenever you go to the thing, I call it the HQ, yeah I call it the HQ of FBB, and whenever you go down there just, you see them as you see in the movie, you see like such a bond, that’s what you see there. You go on the pitch there, people don’t know you’re part of FBB, don’t know you, don’t know your name and even know how and it’s generally just right like…
Bethia Green, Trainee Solicitor, Mishcon de Reya
A family.
Gui Fernandes, Youth Beyond Borders
That’s it, family and plus they always fed us pizza, you know. Every time you go down to Brixton, by ready you know, they feed you pizza.
Bethia Green, Trainee Solicitor, Mishcon de Reya
So I understand, whilst it’s a football programme, the overall idea is that of kind of mentoring and personal development and just using football as a tool for that but working, as you kind alluded to, with young people who are at risk of exclusion or being challenged.
Gui Fernandes, Youth Beyond Borders
Yeah, it’s not, it’s not with just football though. They generally do a lot, for example, Isaiah, you’re more into basketball than football.
Isaiah Gordon, Youth Beyond Borders
Yeah, definite.
Gui Fernandes, Youth Beyond Borders
You see, even through like they still find a way to break through to help children, like, don’t know how they do it but they still find a way to help, so yeah.
Hannah Mills, Youth Beyond Borders
I would say it also like accessing like different creative pathways because they know like a lot of professionals in the industry and giving us access as well, it’s like a great experience and just so like broaden your networking skills as well, which is really cool.
Bethia Green, Trainee Solicitor, Mishcon de Reya
And all of you here today have some form of like Afro-Caribbean descent, I’m right in saying but FBB does not only work with young people of Afro-Caribbean descent, it works with all young people from ages of eleven to now eighteen, I think and through YBB as well.
Gui Fernandes, Hannah Mills, Isaiah Gordon, Youth Beyond Borders
Yeah.
Bethia Green, Trainee Solicitor
Mishcon de Reya
And beyond, I assume? I don’t think they ever let you go, do they? They just then employ you.
Gui Fernandes, Youth Beyond Borders
Once you are in the family, you are in the family.
Bethia Green, Trainee Solicitor, Mishcon de Reya
You’re in the family.
Gui Fernandes, Youth Beyond Borders
They don’t leave us though. I was going on a trip a few days ago with college and I saw two FBB people like and I just said hi to them like it was me like seeing like my aunty or my cousin on road like, it was just really nice to know where I am like, we’re connected and that’s not something that’s going to go.
Bethia Green, Trainee Solicitor, Mishcon de Reya
But is it quite a diverse space?
Gui Fernandes, Youth Beyond Borders
Do you mean in general?
Bethia Green, Trainee Solicitor, Mishcon de Reya
Yeah.
Gui Fernandes, Youth Beyond Borders
Yeah, a hundred percent. You will see English people, you see Romanian people, you see people from everywhere and you see them everywhere like, like you just said, I live in north, how about seeing one of the coaches there, like you see even on TikTok you’ll be see oh that’s FBB so you see. You see every FBB is, I’m not just going to say that it’s specifically for Black people because [30.03] No, FBB’s for everyone that has been part of the brotherhood, so yeah or the sisterhood as well.
Bethia Green, Trainee Solicitor, Mishcon de Reya
There’s something important, there’s something important in that because I think often we have conversations about inclusion and safe spaces and what that is and how we create those and I’m not saying that it’s not important to have spaces where there’s only Black people where you feel like you can have conversations exclusively but often the most inclusive environments are those where everyone’s allowed and everyone’s welcome and it sounds to me like Football Beyond Borders really fosters an environment where that exists and you can completely be yourself. You have a laugh, you have a joke, it’s a family, you have residentials, it goes on for several years and you learn a lot. I think it’s education but in a different, you know it’s not here’s your history, here’s your geography, it's a much more holistic way of learning and I’m interested in just what you think it is that makes that space work.
Isaiah Gordon, Youth Beyond Borders
I would say FBB’s helped me personally find myself and not to say that’s not a journey that I’m still on but they’ve definitely helped me find myself on the right path because I’ve had times where I’m in school and there’s things going on and I don’t want to talk to anyone and that’s making me act out in school and teachers are just seeing at as you are a bad student, it’s this, it’s that. FBB’s looking deeper into it and helping me find what that is cos I wouldn’t say I knew what it was that was making me act out and they definitely helped me find that and once I had found that, I excelled in a lot of different things like, with public speaking, education, sports, just staying fit, all of it and I think that’s something that we should all be more keen to do, like just help people, just help people like, I don’t see why I’m going outside and having people screw me and you don’t know me or giving me dirty looks because of a stereotype you’ve heard about someone who looks like me. You don’t know me and I don’t know you and that’s fine but if it stays like that then it’s just gonna stay like that, you’re gonna stay hating people who look like me and I’m gonna stay not liking people that screw me because they don’t know me or we can get to know each other, build a community and make things better and that’s how it should be and that’s what FBB’s doing and that’s what they’ve been doing, they’re gonna keep doing, they’re family.
Bethia Green, Trainee Solicitor, Mishcon de Reya
Yeah, and I think having been to the showcases and I know a few individuals that have worked at FBB for a long time and it’s grown significantly and I think it’s, you can really feel the coming together of people who have been on so many journeys and you speak about, they listen, they listen to what you are saying and what you have been through and they don’t see things as black and white, they don’t just look at stereotypes, they don’t just assume that, you know, you’re an angry Black man or you’re an angry Black woman and that’s why you’re struggling, you’re just another kind of young person. I know for me, it was like you’re just a young person from an underrepresented background, who comes from a single parent household, of course you are acting up in school. There’s not that conversation of actually what’s going on and sometimes, when you don’t feel listened to, you then, you just, it gets worse, it exacerbates the problems and that’s when we see, you know, issues with young people, especially from our communities, getting excluded at disproportionate rates, unfairly, which is what FBB are managing to stem and a large reason for that is that ability to listen because when you feel heard and I’m interested like we’re coming to the end but you can share a bit on this, how feeling heard makes you feel and how that makes you feel safer expressing yourself within the FBB family, like do you all feel heard there?
Gui Fernandes, Youth Beyond Borders
I feel like a 100% you always get heard because obviously in a classroom with a teacher, a lot of the time, the teacher, they will not care what you’ve got to say, they don’t care where you got, come from and I feel like FBB obviously even help the teachers and even realise what they’re messing up with, you know, but 100% we are definitely heard because even a lot of the times what they done with my school was a couple of people were about to get excluded but with them they went into the meetings with the actual people I think and the parents to sort out this thing, well they spoke to the head teacher about this person and why did you this and what have they actually done and pretty much where they come from and I feel like it kind of gives us a voice, you know, because as you know, young people, especially of our colour, we don’t really, we don’t always get a voice, we don’t always get a turn or pretty much a chance to open up about how we feel about certain situations, especially with teachers, I feel like you hear the word teacher or hear the name teacher and you think yeah, you have to listen to them because if not, I’m going to get a detention, I’m going to be excluded, I’m going to get sent out, so, yeah, FBB gives us a voice and opinion.
Isaiah Gordon, Youth Beyond Borders
I would say FBB giving us a voice and listening to us makes us feel wanted because going into an environment where you are not heard, you are spoken down to, you are just treated like nothing, doesn’t make you feel like you want to be there and not feeling like you want to be somewhere, you’re kind of just trying to get out. When I go to FBB or when I went to FBB, I felt heard, I felt wanted, like I can speak to anyone and know I’m comfy, like, you’ve got me, I’ve got you, it wasn’t like that in school, on the road, and just knowing that there’s a safe place to be made it feel nice, like to be heard.
Bethia Green, Trainee Solicitor, Mishcon de Reya
I think it’s having someone who will stick up for you, so often for me, like my mum worked full-time so, she couldn’t always come to school if there was a problem and speak, she just didn’t have the time. It doesn’t mean that there’s not anyone that cares, it just means that other people have their own lives and their own problems and often if you or your family dynamic is complicated, which it is for many of us regardless, that just makes everything more difficult and the thing with privilege is that you don’t realise it if you have it and I think an important takeaway from, for those of you who are listening, and thank you for having listened all the way through, is realising that sometimes just having had someone, be that at school, be that at home, who is able to listen to you, support you or stand up for you, is significant and not just being judged immediately because of how you look or how you present, really makes a difference because that’s not something all of us get and there’s a reason why young Black people are disproportionately excluded and have to be supported by programmes and organisations like Football Beyond Borders and it’s not because those kids, kids like I once was, are any different to young white kids. There’s issues in how schools are managing and listening and what they’re seeing and those, the reasons for those beliefs and the reasons why teachers have some of those beliefs, are systemic issues, systemic racism, they are stereotypes, they are the same reasons why you are getting dirty looks when you go places or you are on row from people who don’t know you and they’re making assumptions and breaking those narratives is important, that starts in education, that starts with all of us, that starts with ourselves because the reality is that we all carry implicit biases, were all prejudice in some way, like even those of us who are from the community ourself often like need to hold ourselves to account and there’s nothing wrong with doing that and with, with reflecting and then looking at ways within our own spheres that we can have conversations that often are difficult and in doing so, we create spaces where young people like yourselves and hopefully future generations for your children, your children’s children and you know, your nieces, your nephew’s family, they feel slightly different to how you’re feeling now because I think things have improved, I think if you look back or if you speak, I don’t know to your parents or to your grandparents if they are around, what their experiences were like, it was worse.
Gui Fernandes, Youth Beyond Borders
100%. Like I said, I’m very lucky to come from the family I come from, very well succeeded but there’s still a lot of challenges that we face that our parents don’t like the same time. For me, personally, before I even moved in, I went to a racist school. I think I was one out of two people that were Black, so it was, it was a bit weird and it did get to me sometimes but at the same time, you look at our parents, they still had to go through a lot because if you think of it, some of our parents maybe they were not born here or some of our parents had to go through other struggles that we haven’t so, yeah.
Hannah Mills, Youth Beyond Borders
Yeah, I know, I definitely say like your parents will always be like oh you’re very privileged to what you have access now and it just shows like generation after generation is improving slowly but surely and it just makes you realise like how grateful you have to be as well and hopefully in the future, like when you have your own kids and like people that you meet along the way, you are able to figure out what battles that people face as well and come together as one to be honest.
Bethia Green, Trainee Solicitor, Mishcon de Reya
It’s that balance between being grateful for the fact that certain things that you see are but also not being complacent in recognising that things can continue to get better, and a lot better, and I think that’s what we’ve really been able to touch on today and I’m really grateful for all of your honesty because these aren’t easy things to talk about and they’re not easy things to share, they’re personal and they’re real and it’s much easier to keep these things to yourself, it’s a lot easier to not be vulnerable, it’s a lot easier to often just to look angry, to let people make judgements about you than to actually speak about the things that you’re going, you’re going through and the problems that you face and feeling like you’ve been discriminated against. Isaiah, like talking about your experience with interviews, often we, we’re reluctant to say these things because people tell us, they discredit what we’re saying, it’s like oh no it wasn’t that or maybe it was this, maybe it was what you were wearing, maybe it was you know how you presented yourself, how you spoke, when really, you’re feeling and your emotions are incredibly valid like, you should trust your gut and often as professionals, as people who work with young people, as young people ourselves, as friends, it’s important that we not only like trust our guts but that we listen to the experience of others. If someone who is marginalised comes and speaks to you and opens up or says they’ve experienced something, maybe the reason that you don’t see it, is because you’re privileged means you’ve never had to experience it, as opposed to it not existing or it not being real and in discrediting someone, you are only making them less likely to speak to you in the future and you are only making a space feel unsafe for them and I think that transcends race, that goes to all of us, to all groups of minorities as something that we can all internalise and apply.
Gui, Hannah, Isaiah, thank you so much for all of your contributions, they’ve been so honest and it has been so touching to hear your experiences. I’m sure many of the listeners will feel the same. Thank you to everyone who’s been listening with us and staying with us to the end.
I’m Bethia Green and it’s been a pleasure. We hope you’ve enjoyed the podcast and will share it with your contacts and networks. We welcome any feedback and ask that you direct it to digitalsessions@mishcon.com. Thanks so much and a big thank you to Hannah, Gui and Isaiah again, who have been fantastic this evening.
Hannah Mills, Youth Beyond Borders
Thank you.
Isaiah Gordon, Youth Beyond Borders
Thank you.
Gui Fernandes, Youth Beyond Borders
Thank you.
The Mishcon Academy Digital Sessions. To access advice for businesses that is regularly updated, please visit Mishcon.com.