With the recent tragic death of George Floyd, an innocent man who was brutally murdered due to the colour of his skin, it is more imperative than ever that we make changes to help combat the systemic racism in the UK, one way of which is to modify our history curriculum immediately. 

It is undeniable that in British history all people of colour, especially black people, have been discriminated against and oppressed. Whilst we cannot change history, we have a responsibility to modify our curriculum as we see fit. Please sign this petition if the change you as a student, parent or citizen would like to see in our formal education, is a more diverse history curriculum which also actively condemns the actions of the British Empire and brings awareness to the systemic racism it is responsible for, that is still prevalent to this day .

When learning about the women’s suffrage movement in Britain, I am eager to learn about the women such as Emily Pankhurst who fought for women’s voting rights, but not at the expense of the likes of Sophia Duleep Singh, a suffragette who not only faced discrimination for being a woman, but also due to the colour of her skin. As a society who take pride in having such a diverse population with a plethora of different ethnic backgrounds, we have to understand the how essential it is for students, to see representation of ourselves in our history books. The erasure of people of colour from our textbooks can also be seen in our World War I and II curriculums. When learning about WWI, I am disappointed to say that my formal education has deprived me of learning about the contribution of the millions of African citizens who faced devastating military loss as well as civilian deaths. The contribution of many other British colonies such India, who suffered the loss of over 74,000 soldiers has also been neglected. The war would not have been won without the sacrificed lives of the colonial soldiers, and it is time that this fact is taught in more depth. 

The addition to the curriculum about the role of women of colour in the women’s suffrage movement, the role of the colonies in WW1 and WW2, are simply a couple of examples of a change that should be made. Another, is the education of the British Empire. I strongly believe the British Empire needs to be taught with the same levels of criticism as Nazi Germany. I am glad to say that when learning about Nazi Germany, we do not celebrate the fact that Nazi’s created the freeway system, anti-smoking campaigns, animal rights campaigns or any of their ‘good contributions’, due to the fact that these minor actions are incomparable to the cruelty and pain the Nazi’s afflicted.

My question as a student, who like innumerable others in our community, only has to trace as far back as her grandparents to find someone who witnessed the brutality caused by the British Empire first hand, is why not the same levels of criticism for the British Empire?

A YouGov survey that took place in 2014 found that among the British public, 59% of the population felt the British Empire was something to be proud of and 23% “didn’t know”. Another statistic by the same survey revealed that 34% of the British people “say they would like it if Britain still has an empire” and 20%, “don’t know”. From these two facts alone, we can see that we should be educating our students of the severity of the British Empire, rather than teaching it in a manner which has the potential to glorify it. We fail to acknowledge the concentration camps the British Empire set up to kill and torture tribes such as the Kikuyu tribe, the millions of direct deaths that the Empire caused as well as the indirect deaths it led to. Furthermore, it is not only a necessity to be educated about the impact the British Empire had, but the systematic racism it built which has led to many tragedies even today.

The racism that was born from the British Empire is evident by George Floyd’s death and is also extremely prevalent even in the UK. If we want to make a larger impact we need to strongly and actively condemn the previously colonial mindset and bring to light the contributions made by people of colour to the British society.