NEVER HAVE we been in such a time where humanity has been challenged to reflect and respond simultaneously.

The dual impact of the COVID and racial pandemics which emerged upon witnessing the murder of George Floyd has caused us to reflect on transgressions and oppressions.

It has also caused us to react to create the society and change we want to see and experience.

I was raised in a council estate in east London (pre-gentrification), and although the racial divide and disparity of equality coinciding in that time was clear to me even as a child, there were also great themes of resilience, love, power, integrity and unity shown by my family, role models and small circle of friends.

Experiences

Growing up, when I looked around, I saw kids that looked like me who lived in tall tower block building, our parents had to work jobs with ridiculous hours or two or three jobs at the same time just to put a roof over our heads and send us to school.

For many who watched the George Floyd video it brought back past trauma of injustices we have witnessed for ourselves

Dayo Okewale

Their bosses and our teachers were predominantly white, and by overhearing my parents’ conversations of their experiences in the workplace and watching depictions on media outlets from a young age, there have always been displayed clear lines of power. My parents would actively make it a mission to educate me and my siblings on liberation and excellence in culture – whether it was the powerful messages in musical sounds of Bob Marley, Fela Kuti and King Sunny Ade or the words from my very first personla book by black author Malorie Blackman, Operation Gadgetman, which as a young child showed me the importance of vision and how visible representations of black people have the power to create.

Since I was young I have always been faced with the dual reality of society’s disenfranchisement and the strength needed to ensure and press forward. I experienced growing up first-hand police brutality, and stop and search was a regular routine for me as a teenager.

What was so poignant about the death of George Floyd was the fact that we witnessed a white police officer on the neck of George for eight minutes and 46 seconds until his body lay lifeless, and for many of us we have always felt the force of white supremacy on our necks for years.

For many of us who watched the whole video it brought back past trauma of injustices we’ve either watched or had firsthand experienced ourselves.

The explosion of the Black Lives Matter movement and the subsequent protests across the globe were an outcry that ‘enough is enough’. For many who grew up in a similar environment to me, this was not new territory but a reminder of a reality we have been living in for most our lives.

Humanised

The COVID pandemic, on one hand has humanised us all. By stopping live sports and most of the world’s activities it admittedly amplified the visibility of George Floyd’s tragedy as attention was not elsewhere, but what it has also amplified is that black people are at greater risk of catching and dying from COVID, mainly because of socio-economic factors which have always been present, actively protected and have always worked against the interest of our community.

I was fortunate enough to meet and have breakfast with former US president Barack Obama in 2015 and he shared a quote with me from one of his campaign speeches which still resonates today.

It says: “Change will not come if we wait for some other person or if we wait for some other time.

“We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.”

And never has the quote been more relevant than today! We are at a crucial point in history where we must change the narrative from our past experiences and create a world of equality and equity for our next generation, and the key is with education.

Amidst my many roles as an entrepreneur, working in government and in the community, I’ve recently started working with a charity called Think Equal, whose focus is on achieving a global system change in education, introducing social and emotional learning as a compulsory new subject on national curricula around the world.

We are at a crucial point in history where we must change the narrative from our past experiences

Dayo Okewale

The idea is to teach kids key important subjects such as emotional literacy, celebration of diversity and many more competencies which aid them in being global citizens.

Just as I reflected on my first book by Malorie Blackman and how it opened my eyes to a world of possibility, there must be earlier intervention. This empowers us and begins to shape our minds on how we can be effective contributors to society, and how we can positively shape and empower our community.

We need education – correct education on our history, not just the mainstream heroes who erupted from slavery and the civil rights movement, but the history of wealth before that, the black business owners, inventors and great minds who are responsible for a lot of commodities and technology we still use today and who help shape this society.

We need education – on how to build together, how to integrate and network, how to better love and support and raise our families in today’s society.

We are the ones we have been waiting for, we are the change we seek.