Interview with Afua Hirsch, BLM and beyond

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? 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.

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. What started your interest in law and journalism? 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. 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.

What is the greatest achievement of your life so far? I’m really proud of my book because I wrote it when I was Social Affairs Editor at Sky News and was working incredibly long hours. My daughter was two years old and so I sat up late at night writing my book, because I just knew it was a story I had to tell, and it was a narrative I felt we as a society needed. I look back and I’m actually not sure how I did that!

What did you find hardest and most rewarding about writing your book ‘Brit(ish): On Race, Identity and Belonging?’ Digging into my own personal life experience. As a reporter, you tell other people’s stories, not your own, so it was really counterintuitive for me to reveal such personal things. I wanted to make it easier for a young woman who’s growing up now navigating the same things that I struggled with to have an example of someone who has come through them and has the language to talk about them and does so with confidence.

Many WHS students have been deeply affected by the Black Lives Matter movement and want to make changes in our lives and communities, what would your advice be to students at WHS who want to make their voices heard and lead through their actions? I think the first is knowledge. We’ve got to accept that we live in a society that has not equipped us to navigate the terrain of understanding the structure of racism, the history, the way it manifests itself and how it affects people - things like whiteness and white privilege and how race has been constructed to affect us differently. This is not to blame individual people or teachers or schools or even political leaders, but none of us have been equipped with those skills or that knowledge. We all need to learn; so read, listen and engage. Once you have acquired that knowledge it is about asking how you can position yourself in a useful way and listening to the people who have been doing this work their whole lives. Sometimes there is a tendency for everyone to want to insert themselves and make it about them and what they want to do and how they feel, but I think we all need to take a step back, and ask, what is the long game, what are we fighting for, who do we listen to, how can we humble ourselves and be led by the people who are really in this space already? I think this is the best advice for everyone. Who are your heroes? My parents. I think if it were not for them, I wouldn’t be equipped with any of the confidence and energy that I have now. My ancestors on both sides of my family have fled oppression and racism. My paternal grandfather was a Jewish refugee from Nazi Berlin in 1938. My maternal grandmother lived through imperial oppression and came and raised her children in the UK. She still lives in Wimbledon and is an incredible woman.

How would you define success and what is its secret? I reject the idea that there is one idea of success, and that you can measure success according to any objective criteria. For me, success is being authentic to what I know, and living a life that makes it easier for other people to achieve progress and justice. What advice would you give someone starting secondary school (apart from staying true to their name)? Yes, don’t give up your name! Be kind to yourself, you will make mistakes, you won’t always live up to your expectations, and that’s all part of how you learn and grow. You have to learn to fail well.

That’s terribly Wimbledonian of you! What about someone leaving school after A levels? I think there is so much pressure on your generation to have everything planned out and there’s so much financial burden attached to studying now. I think it’s really important to have a plan – but also know that that’s going to change, and if you can build that into your thinking then you’ll be more resilient when it comes to rearranging things. Have you got a birthday message for the school? Happy Birthday! The school should be really proud of how many girls and women it has educated over the years but I think it’s important when you congratulate yourself and take stock of success to also embrace new challenges. There is scope for Wimbledon High to become a more diverse school that embraces more people from different backgrounds, whether that’s socio-economic background or racial and ethnic background. It is important for that to be part of the Wimbledon High School identity, that it is diverse in every facet of diversity. There’s scope to grow, and I hope that in another 140 years, they will be able to look back and see that has happened. I also hope it won’t take that many years!

Our student magazine, Unconquered Peaks, in hard copy and as an online blog - allows our students to express their opinions on a range of issues. Take a look at whs-blogs.co.uk/unconquered/ for the Afua Hirsch interview in full, for articles on racism, gender, culture and more with a fair smattering of Wimbledonian humour thrown in.