Representation matters

Posted June 2024

Recently I attended the BAATN (Black, African, Asian Therapist Network) conference (www.baatn.org.uk). Despite being part of the global majority I have lived a life where I have always been in the minority. It is not an exaggeration to say that I have wholly existed in very white spaces outside of my family context. If I say I was born and brought up in Devon that would probably provide you with all the details you need to know. 

Academically and professionally this has always been the case too.  Professionally, as my career developed I was often the only woman as well as the only person of colour in the room.  It is something that I am so used to, that at a conscious level, I often do not notice. That said, at any given time if I were to be asked I could have probably told you how many people of colour or how many women were in the space I was in.

So to spend 2 days in a space where everyone was a person of colour was, and continues to be, very impactful for me. I am not sure I actually have the words to fully express what has changed and why it is as significant as I know it to be.  To see me reflected back at me in a room full of people has changed how I see and understand myself. For once I didn’t stand out because I was obviously different to everybody else I was in the room with. Whilst at the same time my difference, and our collective difference, was a cause for celebration, joy and empowerment. All of me was welcome.

If I had a summarise the weekend, it was spent listening to people share their stories and relearning the universal truth that is each person’s story is utterly unique and individual.  And that each person’s story is also shared and part of the human experience that we are all living. The unexpected and beautiful part of the weekend was making friends with a group of awesome female therapists of colour who can tear up a dance floor, be utterly supportive of each other in the difference contexts that we are doing our lives in and who made the weekend for me.

 

‘Don’t make yourself small for anyone.

Be the awkward, funny, intelligent, beautiful little weirdo that you are.

Don’t hold back.

Weird it out’

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