Almost 400 people attended the third Anti Racist Cumbria Summit.
A series of panel discussions, workshops and speakers explored various themes linked to racism at the event, at Keswick’s Theatre by the Lake.
Janett Walker, CEO and co-founder of Anti Racist Cumbria, said: “With the support of our event partner, Cumberland Council, we set out to create an inspiring space for connections, taking action, healing, continuing people’s education and moving the conversation and anti-racism forward.
“We are all on a journey of learning, and that was certainly highlighted when we all took a deep breath at the end of David Olusoga’s keynote speech, as we started to absorb some of the insights he had shared and the significance of them.”
Olusoga, the author of seven books including Black and British: A Forgotten History, covered a diverse range of subject matter as he highlighted elements of history that have been erased from the school curriculum.
He cited the Industrial Revolution as an example, noting there was a huge focus on the explosion of the cotton industry and the connected socio-economic impacts of it. However, the curriculum fails to mention its intrinsic links to the human cost of the slave trade.
The ‘airbrushing’ of history is something which Olusoga believes today’s young people are challenging. He said: “We are still teaching children the story of the Industrial Revolution without its connection to the two million African Americans who lived and died and suffered to produce the raw cotton that arrived in Liverpool in its billions of bales.
“This was at the heart of the Industrial Revolution. We would not think for a second about teaching the history of the Industrial Revolution without talking about another raw material; coal.
“We would not think it was a comprehensive and honest telling of the Industrial Revolution if we did not talk about the miners of the North East, of Nottinghamshire, of South Wales. About the culture, and the lives, and the suffering and the accidents in those mining communities.
“That would be seen as an inexcusable omission and yet those two million people suffering, working, trying to build a culture while commoditised as human property in the Mississippi Valley; that is deemed to be an understandable legitimate omission.
“It is a broken history, a half-truth, a failed lie that we keep teaching generation after generation. This ability to airbrush aspects of our history, to create a history that is full of half-truths is a deeply ingrained habit.”
Olusoga argued racism continues to influence attitudes and ideals in today’s society, suggesting it is the unconscious norm in many cases.
But he suggested today’s young people are forcing a change in the conversation and narrative: “Powered by huge generational attitudinal change, we are being forced into a conversation that is decades, in some cases centuries, overdue.
“Younger people have access to history that was once hidden. They are inspired by the past rather than challenged by the past. They don’t see history as something that is there to be comforting; they also understand it can, should and must at times be uncomfortable.
“Decades in some cases centuries of denial and selective amnesia are being challenged. Millions of people have come to understand that our history is not rewritten by activists but that it arrives in our lives already selectively rewritten.”
The summit also welcomed expert-led workshops from the UK’s largest independent race equality think tank The Runnymede Trust, human rights charity brap and activist and content creator Danny F***ing Price.
There was an inspirational and reflective exhibition marking the 75th anniversary of Windrush along with boat trips on Derwentwater to promote mindfulness.
Walaa’s Syrian Kitchen, run by Walaa Asfar who came to Cumbria when she, her husband and children were offered refuge in the UK, provided delicious food for delegates as part of a kitchen partnership takeover of the theatre’s Lakeside Café.
