purple drum

Purple Drum is a movement of young women challenging misrepresentation and promoting equality in pop culture, and beyond! An project.

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Important debate hosted by Consented on the state of British media, and lack of representation in the industry.

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The film has been made by Imkaan and the EVAW Coalition, to shine a light on the impact sexual harassment has on the lives of young women. It features young black and minority ethnic women in the UK speaking powerfully about the touching, taunts and threats they are subjected to on a daily basis, the things they do to avoid these and the consequences of standing up to it.

Imkaan is a UK-based black feminist organisation and network of black women’s groups dedicated to addressing violence against women and girls.

www.imkaan.org.uk / @imkaan www.twitter.com/imkaan

The End Violence Against Women Coalition is the UK’s largest coalition of organisations working to eradicate violence against women and girls.

www.endviolenceagainstwomen.org.uk www.twitter.com/EVAWuk

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Call out to young BME women: raise awareness of the impacts of sexual harassment in public spaces

Purple Drum is an Imkaan project working with young black and minority ethnic (BME) women to challenge our experiences of multiple and intersecting inequalities in policy, practice and broader media spaces.

We have recently come together with the End Violence Against Women Coalition and Equally Ours to raise awareness of the impact of sexual harassment in public spaces.  

Through our work and our own experiences, we are present to the sheer everydayness of violence against young BME women, and the lack of space to talk about and address how such violence is racialised.

We want to ensure that young BME women’s voices are central to this conversation.  We are making a short film to highlight the everyday experiences of sexual harassment towards young BME women in public spaces, to raise awareness of the issue to everyone, including other young women and girls.

Each person interviewed will feature in a short film approximately 3 minutes long, and potentially a longer film up to 9 minutes long.   The film will be shared through our website, social media channels and broadcast media, with the aim to help people understand the impacts of sexual harassment and the actions we can take to influence change.

As we want to get the film out by International Women’s Day (8th March) we would like to film in London on 29th February and 1st March 2016.

If you are a young BME woman aged 18-25 and you have an experience of sexual harassment that you would be comfortable to share on film within this time-frame, please get in touch with us at [email protected] for more information.

Please also share this with other young BME women who may be interested in contributing.

Thank you.

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If black women's organisations are lost, lives will be lost #StateOfTheSector #NothingAboutUsWithoutUs #16days http://thndr.me/Dl9rJu

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Why I’m Absolutely an Angry Black Woman — THOSE PEOPLE

Photo by Femi Matti

“Because it’s not ending. Because they teach the children that it’s already ended. Because someone will assert their supremacy over me today. Because they’ll do it tomorrow. Because I want more. Because I deserve better.”

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The many problems with “I want mixed babies” - Franchesca Ramsey

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This week I was super proud of Neelam Gill for speaking out about her struggles against the racism and sexism she faces as a part of being the first South Asian model to be casted by a top fashion designers like Burberry. She’s been described by trolls as being “ugly”, “dark”, a “refugee” and that she doesn’t deserve to be paid more than male models. These responses reminded me of when Nina Davuluri won Miss America in 2014 and was described as being a“terrorist”, amongst other disgusting racist comments. So why is it that society doesn’t see South Asian women, or in fact women of colour, to be worthy of being ‘attractive’ and/or ‘successful’? These experiences are very real examples that many South Asian girls and women go through every day and have continuously struggled with. Growing up, racism and sexism has always been a part of my life, and now being a makeup artist I am more aware of how harmful beauty standards/ideals are normalized and entrenched in society. The amount of times I’ve been recommended to try lightening products and told to buy foundations that would make me “glow” but instead make me look dead - seriously wtf?! I constantly have an internal battle with myself - for me, makeup makes me feel empowered and free, but I also know it sits in very oppressive structures that feed on people’s self-hatred and insecurities. But Neelam is right, “there needs to be a change...” and one way to achieve equality is to keep challenging the norms and to keep holding our identity in spaces that aren’t made for us. #mybeautystandards

“I constantly have an internal battle with myself - for me, makeup makes me feel empowered and free, but I also know it sits in very oppressive structures that feed on people’s self-hatred and insecurities. But Neelam is right, “there needs to be a change...” and one way to achieve equality is to keep challenging the norms and to keep holding our identity in spaces that aren’t made for us. #mybeautystandards”

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I’m not a tropical bird, nor am I a rare fruit. I’m the product of the negative economic effects of colonialism and imperialism (namely the theft of capital and resources) on my Motherland and on its diaspora. I’m the product of my ancestors’ toil. I am enough as I am.

http://www.gal-dem.com/im-not-exotic/

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It wasn't our intention to protest the film itself, but we are by no means uncritical of it. While it's positive that the suffragette story is being told from the viewpoint of a working-class woman for once, the all-white cast erases the contribution and achievements of women of colour in the movement.

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/why-i-protested-with-sisters-uncut-at-the-premiere-of-suffragette-a6685686.html

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Mansplaining 101! Originally seen in a recent Huffpost Women article by Taylor Pittman.

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...that someone could actually think it’s no big deal to put those words on a shirt with a bunch of smiling White actresses promoting a film about a movement that was often times extremely racist and failed to center Black female voices...

http://www.ebony.com/news-views/why-those-suffragette-t-shirts-are-a-racial-slap#axzz3np75UyhD

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Hear the awesome Verna Myers talk about why we need to boldly confront our biases. #mustwatch

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My Thoughts on Cultural Appropriation

Whenever I have spoken up and out about issues that are important to me I have tried to do so in ways that illuminate the discussion, put it in historic and cultural perspective with love, empathy and understanding. I have never been interested in interpersonal attacks, feuds or ‘checking’ individuals publicly. Whether people perceive my work in that way or not, my intention is always to have conversations with love, empathy nuance and understanding.

When in answer to Andy Cohen’s question on “Watch What Happens Live” on July 12, “White girls and cornrows, yay or nay? "I said what I said in an attempt to not get involved in what I understood at the time to be an Instagram feud between someone with whom I was not familiar and Kylie Jenner on the topic of cultural appropriation. I have never been interested in getting involved in any celebrity feuds.

In that moment, I also felt that the topic of cultural appropriation needs way more than the 10 seconds or less I had to respond at the end of the show to fully unpack. I said as much to Andre Leon Tally after the cameras stopped rolling. So on camera with seconds left in a live broadcast I said, "Bo Derek” the first iconic example of a white woman wearing cornrows I could think of. To be clear I understood when I said, “Bo Derek” that her rocking of cornrows with beads in the 1979 film “10” and that look on her subsequently becoming a cultural phenomenon when the black folks who had been rocking cornrows for decades before her had not similarly become a sensation is an example of the ways in which what bell hooks calls imperialist, white supremacist, capitalist patriarchal systems privilege certain bodies’ performances of cultural traditions over others. This is when cultural appropriation can tend to erase the marginalized people from whom the culture emerges.

Many are taking me to task for not defending Amandla Stenberg who I now know is a 16 year old black actress known for her work in the “Hunger Games” who has spoken out quite eloquently on the topic of cultural appropriation. In researching Amandla’s work and words, I was very impressed with a video I saw from her on cultural appropriation where she chronicled a recent history of cultural appropriation and black hair specifically. (https://youtu.be/O1KJRRSB_XA)

I was most moved by the question she poses at the end of her video, a question I, too, have asked from lecture stages. “What would America be like if we loved black people as much as we love black culture?”

For me this is the question at the heart of the discussion about cultural appropriation. What of the people whose culture is being mined for the ingredients that can be used in mainstream contexts to spice up the otherwise familiar recipes?

Far too often culture is appropriated without an understanding of the history and hardships from which that culture emerges. How do we lovingly make people aware of that history and the potential affects of cultural appropriation that further marginalize and stigmatize those already the most adversely affected by systems that disadvantage certain experiences, bodies and identities over others? These are points Amandla makes beautifully in her video.

We live in a multi-cultural society where being influenced by cultures different from ours is inevitable. But when the traditions and practices of marginalized communities are used by those in power and the material conditions of those who are marginalized are not changed individually and systemically this is when cultural appropriation is deeply problematic and even potentially exploitative.

These are some of my brief thoughts on cultural appropriation, thoughts that I felt needed a context different from the 10 seconds I had on live TV on Sunday night.

I am writing this in the hopes of continuing a dialogue about this issue in a loving, empathetic way that is not about individual attacks but about individual accountability. I always hope we can celebrate cultural differences without erasing those from whom the culture originates.

bell hooks in her essay “Eating The Other” talks about this way better than I can. Read it here: http://genius.com/Bell-hooks-eating-the-other-desire-and-resistance-annotated

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why are we using white people to tell these universal stories? And what is that saying? I think it’s saying something really dangerous and the message it gives to people of color — and I can say this as a person of color who grew up watching these stories that I related to thematically and didn’t see reflections of myself in them — what it tells you is you don’t really have a place in this world. And this is your place.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/style-blog/wp/2015/07/10/meet-dylan-marron-the-actor-and-playwright-behind-those-every-single-word-spoken-by-a-person-of-color-youtube-videos/

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Does Britain have a problem with race when it comes to film distribution?

Accusations of institutional racism have long plagued the film industry. And despite steps to increase diversity in recent years, those charges aren’t about to stop. This month, they have reared their head again following the failure of two acclaimed US films featuring black leads to get proper distribution in UK cinemas.

Accusations of institutional racism have long plagued the film industry. And despite steps to increase diversity in recent years, those charges aren’t about to stop. This month, they have reared their head again following the failure of two acclaimed US films featuring black leads to get proper distribution in UK cinemas.

By Karen Attwood for The Independent.

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Today, the UN Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women (VAW) is in Geneva to present her report on the situation of VAW in the UK. 

Imkaan’s Young Women’s Team welcome the report and value Ms Manjoo’s attention to black and minority ethnic (BME) women’s experiences of violence.  We hope that the government takes forward the recommendations to ensure that specialist services are available, accessible and ring-fenced for BME, refugee and asylum-seeking women as well as for disabled and LGBTQI women.

Given that the Special Rapporteur’s brief is focused primarily on violence against adult women, we thank Ms Manjoo for inclusion of issues that relate specifically to young women and girls. As a project that campaigns for consistent media regulation and compulsory sex and relationships education in schools, we are pleased to see both of these issues reflected in the recommendations and encourage the government to implement these in order to address harmful attitudes around gender and violence.  

We recognise that the information provided to the Special Rapporteur on the protection of young women and girls who have experienced violence is likely to have been very limited; we therefore appreciate Ms Manjoo’s acknowledgement of the specific experiences of young women who are gang-associated and incarcerated.  

“The report matches the gaps we are aware of in practice, in terms of the women’s sector’s relationship with the ways that young women and girls are affected by violence by virtue of being young.  We urge both the government and the women’s sector to take action around the protection of girls and young women as victims and survivors of violence in their own right.” Imkaan Young Women’s Team

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On May 29, 2014, the issue of timemagazine magazine which proclaimed the “Transgender Tipping Point” was revealed with me on the cover. June 1, 2015 a year and 3 days later, Caitlyn Jenner’s vanityfair cover was revealed proclaiming #CallMeCaitlyn I am so moved by all the love and support Caitlyn is receiving. It feels like a new day, indeed, when a trans person can present her authentic self to the world for the first time and be celebrated for it so universally. Many have commented on how gorgeous Caitlyn looks in her photos, how she is “slaying for the Gods.” I must echo these comments in the vernacular, “Yasss Gawd! Werk Caitlyn! Get it!” But this has made me reflect critically on my own desires to ‘work a photo shoot’, to serve up various forms of glamour, power, sexiness, body affirming, racially empowering images of the various sides of my black, trans womanhood. I love working a photo shoot and creating inspiring images for my fans, for the world and above all for myself. But I also hope that it is my talent, my intelligence, my heart and spirit that most captivate, inspire, move and encourage folks to think more critically about the world around them. Yes, Caitlyn looks amazing and is beautiful but what I think is most beautiful about her is her heart and soul, the ways she has allowed the world into her vulnerabilities. The love and devotion she has for her family and that they have for her. Her courage to move past denial into her truth so publicly. These things are beyond beautiful to me. A year ago when my Time magazine cover came out I saw posts from many trans folks saying that I am “drop dead gorgeous” and that that doesn’t represent most trans people. (It was news to be that I am drop dead gorgeous but I’ll certainly take it). But what I think they meant is that in certain lighting, at certain angles I am able to embody certain cisnormative beauty standards. Now, there are many trans folks because of genetics and/or lack of material access who will never be able to embody these standards. More importantly many trans folks don’t want to embody them and we shouldn’t have to to be seen as ourselves and respected as ourselves . It is important to note that these standards are also infomed by race, class and ability among other intersections. I have always been aware that I can never represent all trans people. No one or two or three trans people can. This is why we need diverse media representstions of trans folks to multiply trans narratives in the media and depict our beautiful diversities. I started #TransIsBeautiful as a way to celebrate all those things that make trans folks uniquely trans, those things that don’t necessarily align with cisnormative beauty standards. For me it is necessary everyday to celebrate every aspect of myself especially those things about myself that don’t align with other people’s ideas about what is beautiful. #TransIsBeautiful is about, whether you’re trans or not, celebrating all those things that make us uniquely ourselves. Most trans folks don’t have the privileges Caitlyn and I have now have. It is those trans folks we must continue to lift up, get them access to healthcare, jobs, housing, safe streets, safe schools and homes for our young people. We must lift up the stories of those most at risk, statistically trans people of color who are poor and working class. I have hoped over the past few years that the incredible love I have received from the public can translate to the lives of all trans folks. Trans folks of all races, gender expressions, ability, sexual orientations, classes, immigration status, employment status, transition status, genital status etc.. I hope, as I know Caitlyn does, that the love she is receiving can translate into changing hearts and minds about who all trans people are as well as shifting public policies to fully support the lives and well being of all of us. The struggle continues…