In a powerful gathering at the ESRC Centre for Society and Mental Health Festival in 2022, I talked about the transformative vision for Black-led research we were developing in the Black Thrive Research Institute and Observatory. I underscored the urgency of community-driven initiatives to tackle racial inequalities in academia, where Black professors are still massively underrepresented.
The need for an independent Black-led research institute is still urgent; we need many independent Black research organisations if we are going to make a sustained and meaningful impact on what may be one of the most pernicious forms of racial oppression facing Black people in Britain today- Epistemic Oppression. For now, I am simply resharing this blog I wrote for Kings College London, but over the next weeks and months I want to begin to sketch out some related issues (and solutions)
The struggle continues...