so education which Lee is it education
has always been a massive passion of
mine
I’ve always loved learning about these
things thinking critically and
challenging the world around me
however formal education could often
curb that love and enthusiasm that we
see in so many young people and for me
it definitely did as a young black kid
growing up in South East London I
attended one of the worst schools in my
area and so as you can imagine my early
education was probably a sector Soren’s
but not necessarily in the ways that you
may assume it was for many of the same
reasons that my friends who attended
some of the most privileged institutions
in the country also had to endure it was
the coupling of low expectations for
students of color with an
unrepresentative curriculum which had
its base in the pain of colonialism what
I mean is that even though I went to a
bad school I was one of those students
that were still achieving quite well yet
teachers still put up this ceiling of
achievement for me I have learning
difficulties I’ve got dyslexia and
dyspraxia however every time I tried to
broach this conversation with any of the
teachers at my school they would just
brush it under the carpet and tell me
not to worry about it and I didn’t have
it I mean I don’t know what made them
educational psychologists overnight but
as a young person you’re taught to
listen to your teachers accept what they
have to say and just leave at that so I
did but upon reflection I can see that
that was that ceiling of achievement
that they had in store for me that
because I was already exceeding the
expectations that they had set for me
they couldn’t conceptualize anything
else as holding me back from that so is
that what we call unconscious bias I
always think this term unconscious bias
is quite funny actually
I feel like using the word unconscious
is a way of absorbing our source of any
guilt because due to the prejudices that
so many people are complicit in which
are in fact racist sexist homophobic a
blisters
and so forth but we use the word our
conscience because that means that we
don’t have to actually confront the
structural inequalities that exist in
our society and that’s so many of us
take part in and we don’t have to
confront how many teachers and academics
look at their students of color with a
perception of less hope and less ability
however contrary to popular opinion
we’re intelligent as hell even though we
look like this we speak like this we are
like this it just means that we’re
dangerous and so it’s because of these
biases that we see so many students of
color underachieving
nationally the statistic stands at about
16 percent that’s 16 percent of students
of color are less likely to achieve what
is known as a good degree at university
then their white counterparts despite
entering university with the same a
level exit grades I’ll put this down to
institutional racism however I don’t
want to get too bogged down in having to
use facts and figures to exemplify why
we need to change our education system
and why it’s unequal because I do
believe that we could get to a position
that there tainment gap no longer
existed but that does not mean for one
moment that inequality has ceased to
exist in our education system
it rather means that so many students of
color have had to develop coping
mechanisms coping mechanisms that no
student should have to build so if back
to that question what is education
I always think people take education to
be one constitute concept and that is
learning and we often manage to omit the
thinking aspects of education and I do
believe that education takes just as
much if not more thinking and critical
challenging than it does learning and
consuming knowledge I feel that in this
country we almost fear young people
genuinely thinking thinking outside of
the box thinking critically thinking
outside of Western
thinking in a way that may disrupt white
supremacy and I think that this is
problematic
you see colonialism wasn’t just a
physical brutality and theft of Lanna
resource it was also the intellectual
colonialism’s of the minds of the
colonial subjects it was the project to
make an ash ante King the vulnerable and
obedient subjects of whiteness the Sun
has not set on the British Empire and
one of that one of the places that that
is most pronounced is within our
education system education crafts the
people that lead our society socially
politically industrially economically
and so on and so forth however what
often goes unchallenged is that ideals
the beliefs and the histories that
underpin this education system
let’s take Kent for example Immanuel
Kant as a philosophy student or if
there’s any philosophy students in here
you probably know who Cantus Kant is
known as one of the fathers of modern
morality and when the founders of the
concept of universal human rights well
what if I told you that this same man
was a racist and saw black people as
less than human the general liberal
argument to that would be to say that
okay yes can’t believe this however most
people did at that time so it doesn’t
really matter that much and we can just
extend his arguments to mean everybody
that we now take on to the notion of
humanity however I don’t believe that
that answer is doing some deeply pivotal
things it’s not questioning how somebody
who was racist who conceived of
universal human rights it asked us
questions such as how deeply is racism
actually institutionalized within our
country and how much we don’t understand
about philosophy so we also need to
Burke into a question the way that we
look at art let me ask you a question
what is the difference between
Shakespeare and storm Z in my opinion
there’s not much
hopefully have one assistant but there’s
no reason that we shouldn’t be able to
learn dorms ease intricate important
powerful work in the lecture theaters
across this campus in the same way that
we learn Shakespeare’s poetry those that
don’t know storm Z is a UK Graham artist
and a rapper however I believe it is a
colonial bias that stops this from
happening
it’s the colonial bias that means that
some forms of arts are more valued than
others I recently wrote a paper for my
Master’s looking at intersectional
feminism and I took it a little bit
left-field I argued that young black
British men in this country have been
using intersectional feminism for a long
time through UK Graham and rap to speak
about black British motherhood a topic
that is hardly ever broached so tonight
I really want to challenge the way that
you see education and do a little
something I want to be part of the
revolution never the institution when I
spit bars on my teens they be loosened
it’s a true thing that I’m a product of
my environment and Namur see it’s treat
that my environment is violence but not
just violence in the conventional kind
of way more than fist pumps in a
conventional kind of places because we
do learn knowledge and that convicting a
kind of way and that’s the flippin
violence colonize my mind people who
look like me in silence the Rays from
your history books saying send
technology and please oh god don’t get
me started on philosophy Plato Aristotle
even Socrates who came to black people
to learn what they preached but white
men were given all the credit histories
be manipulated with edits all in the
name of white supremacy I hope you get
it so check it roads must fall by the
bankers door rule they gave us free
acres of outlaw new slavery slavery is
over ever taught black in Britain is
never given a for they teach our
teachers in touching me and feed us lads
of this system that’s just their means
are some questioning young black Brits
to accept the situation and never
challenge it liberal democracies a man
made miss borders nations for whole lot
of it they came into our homes wreaked
killing pillaged yet we’re the ones they
don’t want in Britain Empire Empire so
bloody great we gave you education and
don’t forget latrines we civilized you
bored in a chalk knife and a fork but
don’t want to talk but I’m sorting me
lost who just products to their British
Empire where the Sun never sets those
foot to inspire but they’d humanized
everybody with a shame so doc why do you
think people of color have it so damn
hard they all still benefit of the
heinous trends of the British Empire
thank you so decolonize your minds and
you no longer would have just heard it’s
car from South East London trying to
spit some words at TEDx book you will
have heard poetry you will have heard
deep critical inquiry you will have
heard the results of years or critical
reading you will have heard concepts as
important and changing as homo
nationalism and neocolonialism you will
have heard intricate references to
Rousseau in social contract theory you
win a fight philosophy you will have
heard wordplay you will have heard
somebody who is armed with a deeply
critical mind you will have heard
somebody who is pleased with a diasporic
sense of lost you will have heard a
vehicle towards changing our education
system so the Enlightenment period was a
massive turning point in history but
just look around the world today
progress in the liberal sense of the
term just simply isn’t coming about I
truly believe that we need to begin
allowing young people to think as
broadly as they can because I think we
can see something even more socially
changing and Malak magnificent as the
Enlightenment period we must all work
together towards a free and liberated
education system one that is decolonized
and no longer centers knowledge solely
produced in the West we must transform education
has always been a massive passion of
mine
I’ve always loved learning about these
things thinking critically and
challenging the world around me
however formal education could often
curb that love and enthusiasm that we
see in so many young people and for me
it definitely did as a young black kid
growing up in South East London I
attended one of the worst schools in my
area and so as you can imagine my early
education was probably a sector Soren’s
but not necessarily in the ways that you
may assume it was for many of the same
reasons that my friends who attended
some of the most privileged institutions
in the country also had to endure it was
the coupling of low expectations for
students of color with an
unrepresentative curriculum which had
its base in the pain of colonialism what
I mean is that even though I went to a
bad school I was one of those students
that were still achieving quite well yet
teachers still put up this ceiling of
achievement for me I have learning
difficulties I’ve got dyslexia and
dyspraxia however every time I tried to
broach this conversation with any of the
teachers at my school they would just
brush it under the carpet and tell me
not to worry about it and I didn’t have
it I mean I don’t know what made them
educational psychologists overnight but
as a young person you’re taught to
listen to your teachers accept what they
have to say and just leave at that so I
did but upon reflection I can see that
that was that ceiling of achievement
that they had in store for me that
because I was already exceeding the
expectations that they had set for me
they couldn’t conceptualize anything
else as holding me back from that so is
that what we call unconscious bias I
always think this term unconscious bias
is quite funny actually
I feel like using the word unconscious
is a way of absorbing our source of any
guilt because due to the prejudices that
so many people are complicit in which
are in fact racist sexist homophobic a
blisters
and so forth but we use the word our
conscience because that means that we
don’t have to actually confront the
structural inequalities that exist in
our society and that’s so many of us
take part in and we don’t have to
confront how many teachers and academics
look at their students of color with a
perception of less hope and less ability
however contrary to popular opinion
we’re intelligent as hell even though we
look like this we speak like this we are
like this it just means that we’re
dangerous and so it’s because of these
biases that we see so many students of
color underachieving
nationally the statistic stands at about
16 percent that’s 16 percent of students
of color are less likely to achieve what
is known as a good degree at university
then their white counterparts despite
entering university with the same a
level exit grades I’ll put this down to
institutional racism however I don’t
want to get too bogged down in having to
use facts and figures to exemplify why
we need to change our education system
and why it’s unequal because I do
believe that we could get to a position
that there tainment gap no longer
existed but that does not mean for one
moment that inequality has ceased to
exist in our education system
it rather means that so many students of
color have had to develop coping
mechanisms coping mechanisms that no
student should have to build so if back
to that question what is education
I always think people take education to
be one constitute concept and that is
learning and we often manage to omit the
thinking aspects of education and I do
believe that education takes just as
much if not more thinking and critical
challenging than it does learning and
consuming knowledge I feel that in this
country we almost fear young people
genuinely thinking thinking outside of
the box thinking critically thinking
outside of Western
thinking in a way that may disrupt white
supremacy and I think that this is
problematic
you see colonialism wasn’t just a
physical brutality and theft of Lanna
resource it was also the intellectual
colonialism’s of the minds of the
colonial subjects it was the project to
make an ash ante King the vulnerable and
obedient subjects of whiteness the Sun
has not set on the British Empire and
one of that one of the places that that
is most pronounced is within our
education system education crafts the
people that lead our society socially
politically industrially economically
and so on and so forth however what
often goes unchallenged is that ideals
the beliefs and the histories that
underpin this education system
let’s take Kent for example Immanuel
Kant as a philosophy student or if
there’s any philosophy students in here
you probably know who Cantus Kant is
known as one of the fathers of modern
morality and when the founders of the
concept of universal human rights well
what if I told you that this same man
was a racist and saw black people as
less than human the general liberal
argument to that would be to say that
okay yes can’t believe this however most
people did at that time so it doesn’t
really matter that much and we can just
extend his arguments to mean everybody
that we now take on to the notion of
humanity however I don’t believe that
that answer is doing some deeply pivotal
things it’s not questioning how somebody
who was racist who conceived of
universal human rights it asked us
questions such as how deeply is racism
actually institutionalized within our
country and how much we don’t understand
about philosophy so we also need to
Burke into a question the way that we
look at art let me ask you a question
what is the difference between
Shakespeare and storm Z in my opinion
there’s not much
hopefully have one assistant but there’s
no reason that we shouldn’t be able to
learn dorms ease intricate important
powerful work in the lecture theaters
across this campus in the same way that
we learn Shakespeare’s poetry those that
don’t know storm Z is a UK Graham artist
and a rapper however I believe it is a
colonial bias that stops this from
happening
it’s the colonial bias that means that
some forms of arts are more valued than
others I recently wrote a paper for my
Master’s looking at intersectional
feminism and I took it a little bit
left-field I argued that young black
British men in this country have been
using intersectional feminism for a long
time through UK Graham and rap to speak
about black British motherhood a topic
that is hardly ever broached so tonight
I really want to challenge the way that
you see education and do a little
something I want to be part of the
revolution never the institution when I
spit bars on my teens they be loosened
it’s a true thing that I’m a product of
my environment and Namur see it’s treat
that my environment is violence but not
just violence in the conventional kind
of way more than fist pumps in a
conventional kind of places because we
do learn knowledge and that convicting a
kind of way and that’s the flippin
violence colonize my mind people who
look like me in silence the Rays from
your history books saying send
technology and please oh god don’t get
me started on philosophy Plato Aristotle
even Socrates who came to black people
to learn what they preached but white
men were given all the credit histories
be manipulated with edits all in the
name of white supremacy I hope you get
it so check it roads must fall by the
bankers door rule they gave us free
acres of outlaw new slavery slavery is
over ever taught black in Britain is
never given a for they teach our
teachers in touching me and feed us lads
of this system that’s just their means
are some questioning young black Brits
to accept the situation and never
challenge it liberal democracies a man
made miss borders nations for whole lot
of it they came into our homes wreaked
killing pillaged yet we’re the ones they
don’t want in Britain Empire Empire so
bloody great we gave you education and
don’t forget latrines we civilized you
bored in a chalk knife and a fork but
don’t want to talk but I’m sorting me
lost who just products to their British
Empire where the Sun never sets those
foot to inspire but they’d humanized
everybody with a shame so doc why do you
think people of color have it so damn
hard they all still benefit of the
heinous trends of the British Empire
thank you so decolonize your minds and
you no longer would have just heard it’s
car from South East London trying to
spit some words at TEDx book you will
have heard poetry you will have heard
deep critical inquiry you will have
heard the results of years or critical
reading you will have heard concepts as
important and changing as homo
nationalism and neocolonialism you will
have heard intricate references to
Rousseau in social contract theory you
win a fight philosophy you will have
heard wordplay you will have heard
somebody who is armed with a deeply
critical mind you will have heard
somebody who is pleased with a diasporic
sense of lost you will have heard a
vehicle towards changing our education
system so the Enlightenment period was a
massive turning point in history but
just look around the world today
progress in the liberal sense of the
term just simply isn’t coming about I
truly believe that we need to begin
allowing young people to think as
broadly as they can because I think we
can see something even more socially
changing and Malak magnificent as the
Enlightenment period we must all work
together towards a free and liberated
education system one that is decolonized
and no longer centers knowledge solely
produced in the West we must transform education
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