Guess what? Every month is Black History Month – or at least it should be. But behind closed doors, many question why we even need one month dedicated to celebrating our heritage.
I'll tell you why: By the time I was eight, I could tell you about all the kings and queens of England, about the battle of Hastings in 1066, and beyond. But I knew nothing about my own history, just whispers and folklore.
I’m half Nigerian and half Trinidadian. One side of my family is descended from enslaved peoples. My history – my people – wasn't deemed important enough to record. Like millions of others, I've been made invisible, and my ancestor's contribution to the world has been whitewashed.
Growing up, I never saw positive images of myself; people who looked like me were always disempowered victims. Dark-skinned Black women with my 4C coils in movies, stories and the media were painted as slaves, maids or junkies. I loved watching Gone with the Wind as a kid, and the image of ‘mammy’ stayed with me; she was a caricature but the only person who remotely looked like me. The actress Hattie McDaniel would go on to win the Oscar for her performance in 1940 and made history by being the first-ever African American to win, but she wasn’t allowed to attend the premiere of the film. Why? It was played at a whites-only theatre.
People need to know these stories and facts to understand the double standards and roots of racism. Growing up without positive role models chips away at your self-esteem and in 2023, I still live with the painful hangover of this portrayal of being perceived as powerless and pitied when I am the very opposite.
Many of us have heard of Martin Luther King, Rosa Parks and Maya Angelou, but do you know about Harriet Tubman, the runaway slave who returned to the Deep South 13 times to rescue and emancipate over 70 slaves, before becoming a spy for the union army, and lighting up the suffrage moment? Do you know about Madam C.J Walker, the first African American self-made female millionaire whose parents and older siblings were enslaved, and who created her wealth through hair care? What about Daniel Hale Williams, born in 1851, an African-American doctor and one of the first people to perform open heart surgery in the US? Can you imagine how learning about these people at school would have improved mine and other Black peoples' self-worth?
Here's to Black British literary babes.
A little closer to home in the UK, we have Charles Ignatius Sancho, born in West Africa; he was a British composer, actor and writer who voted in the 18th-century general election qualifying through property when millions of white men didn’t have the right to vote. If you don't know, ask yourself ‘Why?’
For a lasting legacy of social justice, we must learn about our past, not in an act of revenge, which I believe many people are afraid of, but in order to acknowledge and recognise where our unconscious bias comes from. It helps us understand why white police officers in America are so frightened; it explains why George Floyd had the life choked out of him; those officers saw him as the dangerous beast he has been painted to be in world history and not a man pleading for his mother, as he lay dying in the street.
We need to teach our children about slavery, why people discriminate, and why racism still manifests in modern society.
I know many will tut and say children shouldn’t be taught these things; I’ve been told this many times in my DM’s and private conversations. However, our kids learn about the Second World War, about the evacuation of children so that they wouldn’t be bombed and killed in their beds. Kids wave British flags and sell red poppies, lest we forget about the horrors of war. Last VE Day, I hung British flags on my door but also flags of Nigeria and Trinidad because all parts of my heritage were rationed, bled, and died for this country, but we never see the images of African soldiers in the trenches of the First World War and we never see the African soldiers shipped in from across the empire to fight in the Second World War. We have never been exposed to these images or stories, and if our children can handle the truth and chaos of the Second World War and the lessons it teaches us, then they can handle the truth about slavery and how it has shaped our society today.
“B**ch, you are my soulmate.”
It’s a sad fact that we still need to shout about Black History Month. But there is still so much covert racism that I encounter on a daily basis. The Black Lives Matter movement exploded four years ago and completely changed the world and my life.
Before then like millions of others I felt invisible and was made to feel grateful to be even in the room when it came to my job and industry. It’s not a coincidence my broadcasting career exploded in 2020. It was the first time producers and commissioners seriously considered me as a broadcaster. I knew the unspoken rules which held me back as my face, hair and body didn’t fit. I wasn’t a size six blonde-haired presenter from the home counties and was never considered for anything.
Four years later, like many others, I have a serious side eye, and I’m waiting for the swing back, where people and brands are waiting to see if the coast is clear and things can go back to business as usual. However, once you see injustice and micro-aggressions, you can’t go back, so I hope we keep pushing for more diversity in the workplace, in media, in marketing campaigns, in politics and from the decision-makers.
I had to wade through corporate misogynoir to launch my brand. I was asked, ‘Can Black consumers really afford to buy at a luxury price point?’, ‘Are Black people even interested in clean and natural ingredients?’ And ‘Who is actually going to run the company?’ as it surely couldn’t be me.
We're feeling so inspired RN.
For things to change, we need to flood industry and society with new role models and new gatekeepers who will fling the doors open for others to run through. With this in mind, I launched the Dr Ateh Jewel Education Foundation, raising £100K to support Black and mixed heritage students in higher education, giving rocket fuel to the next generation of thought leaders. I want to literally pump talent and diversity into the workplace and world is how we really tackle racism and create equality.
I’ve raised over £120K and, for the last three years, have supported and given rocket fuel to students at UAL, LCF, Oxford University, and Solent University with the cosmetic science course at LCF, as well as supporting future lawyers and mathematicians and other disciplines.
Last week I was on a press trip at Neal Yard Remedies when one of the new chemists Shivani showing us around the lab said she was one of my awardees and the fund had helped her relocate and move to Dorset to start her new career. This made me cry as I had spent years developing and launching my brand, Ateh Jewel Beauty, with lots of middle-aged chemists and men in white lab coats telling me my ideas and desires for pigment-popping shades couldn’t be developed. I launched my brand last year into Harrods and want to be the change I see in the world.
Black History Month isn’t just about me and my experiences, it's about my children and grandchildren – not to mention all their friends! What we do today will shape their future. We don’t live in a balanced world, where the Black experience, history and contribution to the world are valued, and we need to shout and shine lights and speak the truth until it is.
Ateh Jewel would love to thank her donors P&G, Stewart’s Foundation, Space NK, Aveda, Cantu, Space NK and Little Light PR. If any brands and businesses would like to get involved with Ateh's work, please contact her at atehjewel@gmail.com.
