I have spent most of my life surrounded by white people. Growing up mixed-race, half Black in predominantly white communities, I became accustomed to being the exception. The only brown face in a photograph, the only person who might understand why a particular comment wasn't funny, the only one who had to think twice before joining certain conversations. It wasn't something I spent every waking moment thinking about. In fact, I think I became quite good at not thinking about it at all. When something has been your reality for long enough, you stop questioning whether it could be different; you learn to make yourself comfortable in rooms that weren't necessarily made with you in mind, and eventually you convince yourself that you're perfectly comfortable.
It wasn't until I found myself in a room full of other people of colour that I realised how much energy I'd been spending simply existing in those other rooms. There was no grand revelation, no dramatic moment of recognition; just the peculiar relief of being around people who understood certain things without needing an explanation. People whose experiences were different from mine, whose cultures and backgrounds were wonderfully varied, but who shared an understanding of what it means to grow up or live as a minority. I hadn't realised how much I'd missed that feeling, perhaps because I had never really experienced it before. It is difficult to recognise an absence when you've never known what was supposed to be there.
Of course, sharing a skin colour doesn't mean sharing a personality, a history, or even a worldview. There are as many ways to be Black as there are Black people, and being mixed-race comes with its own peculiar questions about identity and belonging; but there is something wonderful about entering a space where your difference is no longer the first thing people notice about you. Where you can disagree, laugh, complain, be a little ridiculous, and simply exist without feeling that you're somehow representing an entire community. For once, I wasn't particularly interesting because of where I came from or what I looked like; I was just another person in the room. I didn't expect that to feel quite so extraordinary.
Living in places where there aren't many of us can make finding community difficult. Sometimes there isn't an obvious place to go, or an established group to join. Sometimes the people who might become our closest friends are scattered across different towns, universities, or even countries. But I think there is something worth remembering, particularly during Black History Month: community doesn't always come ready-made; sometimes we must look for it, sometimes we have to build it, and sometimes it begins with something as simple as inviting someone else into a conversation. We can be that community for one another, even if there are only a handful of us.
For me, one of those spaces has been the Scottish BPOC Writers Network (SBWN), an organisation dedicated to supporting Black writers and writers of colour with connections to Scotland. As a writer, finding other people who understand both the strange business of putting words on paper and the experience of navigating predominantly white creative spaces has been invaluable. SBWN offers workshops, writing groups, professional development opportunities, literary events, and an online community where writers can share their work, make connections and support one another. There are opportunities to learn from established writers, meet people at similar stages in their creative journeys, or simply turn up to a writing session and spend an hour creating alongside others. You don't need to have published a book, won a prize, or even know what you're doing yet. You can just be someone who loves to write.
If you're a Black student or student of colour reading this, I'd encourage you to find your people, whether that's through a university society, a local community group, an online network, or an organisation like SBWN. And if the space you're looking for doesn't exist, perhaps you could be the person who starts it. There's a good chance somebody else has been wishing for exactly the same thing. I know now that I wasn't alone all those years, even when I felt like the only one. We were simply in different rooms, waiting to find one another.
This Black History Month, I hope we can celebrate not only the people who came before us, but also the communities we're creating for those who come next.
Deborah de Oliveira
Book recommendations:
If your bookshelf could talk, whose stories would it tell? And, perhaps more importantly, whose voices would be missing? Black History Month is an invitation for all of us to look beyond the stories we already know, to discover new voices, challenge our perspectives, and celebrate the extraordinary contributions of Black writers to literature. Whether you're hoping to see more of yourself in the books you read or to experience the world through someone else's eyes, there's plenty to discover. Of course, Black literature deserves our attention all year round, but October is as good a time as any to start making room for more of it. Here are a few books worth adding to your ever-growing TBR:
Girl, Woman, Other, Bernardine Evaristo
2019, Hamish Hamilton
Twelve interconnected lives exploring Black British womanhood, identity and the many ways we belong to one another.
The Black Flamingo, Dean Atta
2019, Hodder Children's Books
A coming-of-age novel about identity and the power of drag, written in verse, about a mixed-race queer teenager growing up in London.
Faebound, Saara El-Arifi
2024, HarperVoyager (UK)
For the fans of fantasy and romantasy, this first instalment of a high fantasy trilogy follows two sisters as they navigate the dangerous world of the fae.
Sister Outsider, Audre Lorde
1984, Crossing Press
A powerful collection of essays that will forever stay with the reader. This is a necessary read I will never cease to recommend.
The Taking of Jake Livingston, Ryan Douglass
2021, G.P. Putnam's Sons Books for Young Readers
For the fans of horror and spooky season, this paranormal YA novel is the perfect read this October. Jake can see ghosts, but he’s also dealing with growing up, being one of the only black students at his school and living under the shadow of his much more popular older brother.