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Student writing / BLM EX HUMILIBUS 2020/21
Interview with Afua Hirsch: by Alice Politi
BLM and Beyond Unconquered Peaks Editor and Wimbledon High student Alice Politi spoke with alumna Afua Hirsch (Class of 1999) about her memories of Wimbledon High School and how her time at school shaped her and her work.
What is your earliest memory of WHS?
What started your interest in law and journalism?
I came to WHS telling everyone my name was Caroline. I thought I could finally have a name that everyone could pronounce, but because it was not in the register they reverted to my real name. In hindsight, I feel quite sad about it as I think it shows how conscious I was of my ‘otherness’ and how much I just wanted to assimilate and not be different.
When I was at WHS, I did feel as though I didn’t have a peer group of other Black girls, because it just wasn’t a very diverse school, and I really craved having friends who shared my heritage, so I started working for The Voice newspaper in Brixton, which is the oldest Black newspaper in Britain and I discovered that I loved journalism. That sowed a seed early on for me, and I discovered I have this huge curiosity and an interest in people and their lives, I want to tell their stories.
Where did you go to study after school and what did you study and why? I studied Philosophy, Politics and Economics at Oxford. I was really struggling to narrow down my degree choice, I wasn’t ready to choose a single subject and PPE at Oxford seemed like a great choice given my interests. I wrote a thesis on the role of women and feminism in African independence, and I also did a lot of political theory and philosophy, which I loved.
Law was something that came to me later; after Oxford, I went to work in development in West Africa and I found that I wanted to advocate more professionally. I wanted to be able to litigate and hold people to account for their leadership decisions and structures.
What are your favourite and least favourite things about the work you do? I was a reporter for a long time for the Guardian and then for Sky which was hard because you have to be balanced and it is difficult to stay neutral about something you’re really passionate about. As a lawyer I practised legal aid law, so I was representing people who couldn’t afford their own legal representation. It is really difficult work to do because of how important it is and the conditions everyone is working under. We pride ourselves on being a society that functions according to the rule of law and principles of fairness, but it’s hard to see those values when you look at our current Legal Aid system.
