Anti-racism has slipped out of fashion. In classrooms, conversations about race are smoothed over to avoid discomfort. On social media, calling out injustice earns you an eye-roll, a “woke” tag, or silence. In politics, populism and racial liberalism work hand in hand: one paints anti-racists as extremists, the other insists Britain is already fair. Together, they create the illusion that racism is a solved problem, and that insisting otherwise is unnecessary – even impolite.
This Black History Month’s theme, Standing Firm in Power and Pride, could not be more urgent. It is not a slogan for celebration alone; it is a reminder that Black resistance has always thrived in hostile conditions, when solidarity was unfashionable, inconvenient, or dangerous.
Power and Pride Beyond Slogans
Power is not simply about representation; it is the capacity to disrupt silence. Pride is not only about cultural celebration; it is the refusal to be shamed into invisibility. Both are born from history.
We know Britain loves to tell itself that it abolished slavery; but as Sudhir Hazareesingh and others have shown, abolition was not a benevolent gift from Parliament. It was wrestled into being by enslaved people who revolted, resisted, and refused erasure. If we forget that, we forget that power is seized, not given.
Populism, Racial Liberalism, and the Chill Factor
The political climate today discourages dissent. Populism has made it fashionable to mock “wokeness,” casting any serious conversation about racism as elite obsession. Racial liberalism does something subtler: it insists that Britain is already fair, that neutrality is justice. Between the sneer and the shrug, anti-racism is pushed off the agenda.
Students feel this most keenly. Where once seminars buzzed with debates about decolonisation, there is now hesitation. Speaking up risks being painted as over-sensitive or disruptive. Reading lists remain overwhelmingly white but challenging them is treated as a distraction rather than a duty.
Yet history shows us that when anti-racism becomes unfashionable, the need to stand firm is even greater.
Seeing Through a Mixed Lens
As someone who is mixed-race, I am constantly reminded how race operates in Britain. At times, whiteness shields me; at others, Blackness is the first thing seen. That vantage point makes it impossible to pretend the “post-racial” story is true. Statistics cut through the myth: Black women in the UK are still more than twice as likely to die in childbirth as white women. Black families are still disproportionately homeless. Black men are still disproportionately criminalised.
These are not abstract numbers; they are structural patterns. To say Britain has “moved on” is to deny lived reality
Standing Firm in the Classroom
This year’s theme challenges us to make anti-racism unignorable again, particularly in education. Scholar Heidi Safia Mirza has argued that schools and universities are frontline spaces where myths can either be dismantled or reinforced. Students have always been at the forefront: from the Bristol bus boycott in 1963 to the Rhodes Must Fall movement, young people have refused to accept the curriculum as it stands.
To stand firm in power and pride means not waiting for institutions to catch up. It means pushing for histories that show Black agency, rebellion, and leadership. It means reminding our educators that neutrality is not objectivity. It is complicity.
Resistance is Never Popular
The truth is simple: resistance is rarely fashionable. Enslaved people who fought for freedom were not applauded by the establishment. The Bristol bus boycotters were not celebrated until decades later. Even the protests of 2020, now sanitised in hindsight, were dismissed in the moment as disorderly.
If anti-racism feels unfashionable in 2025, we should see that not as defeat but as confirmation: we are speaking into the teeth of power. And that is where history has always been made.
Claiming the Theme
This Black History Month, I choose to take the theme literally. Standing Firm in Power and Pride is not just about celebrating heritage; it is about refusing erasure when the national mood prefers silence.
We do not need anti-racism to be trendy. We need it to be unrelenting. Because history was never changed by those who stayed quiet when the noise died down.