August 2024: Black Politicos turns one! 🎉
☀️ Last year, I spent my summer thinking about racial and socio-economic privilege in the world of policy and politics. I considered the recurring frustrations that many Black folks like me had experienced in our sector. I concluded that I had to make a choice: to either do something to change the situation or shut up and stop complaining about it.
📧 In the end, I chose action — and 12 months ago today, I pressed send on my very first Black Politicos email: an invitation to a private evening reception where I hoped to host every single Black policy wonk and public affairs operative in the UK that I could find, for the first time, together.
🥹 Some 6 weeks and a few introductory conversations later, 30 of you kindly joined me across the road from Parliament, in the basement Cabinet Room of the famed Red Lion pub. Until that Autumn evening, I had never seen a room of professionals anywhere in Westminster that looked or sounded remotely like us…I knew then, as still believe now, that I had begun living through one of the most meaningful privileges of my professional career: as the convener of this smart and intimate community.
👏🏾 In the several months since then, many more of you have reached out to join us in our unapologetic mission to scout, support and spotlight qualified Black talent in politics, public policy, public affairs and public administration in Westminster, Whitehall and across the UK.
🙏🏾 I am thankful for the wonderful growth of our community and for every single person who has been a sounding board from Day 1.
😒 At the very beginning of this journey, I spent weeks in research, scrolling (trawling?) through the websites and social media pages of think tanks and political communications agencies to find their Black team members. In summary: the state of racial and socio-economic diversity in our sector is abysmal. In some cases, it was actually quite funny to read the ‘equality, diversity and inclusion advisory offer’ from certain consultancies with close to 0% racial and socio-economic difference within their teams.
💪🏾 However, this summer, I’ve reflected on how far Black Politicos has come in just one year — and I am pretty pumped to share the current articulation of our mission to change the status quo: Black people are significantly underrepresented in public policymaking in the UK. This is because of a broken Black talent pipeline in British politics. We will fix it before the next general election.
🤗 I am already looking forward to my next update, to share more of our vision for the years ahead. But until then, may the final rays of your summer be golden wherever you are and good luck as we head into the new parliamentary term on Monday and party conference season shortly thereafter!
🤲🏾 Thank you again for coming aboard — and do check out our note at the very end of this newsletter on why and how to become a Member or stay on as a Supporter.
Matthew Otubu
Founder & Convener, Black Politicos
31 August 2024