With Black Lives Matter protests continuing around the world, black BJTC alumni have been sharing their experiences. Kirk Asiedu is a former BA Journalism and Multimedia Journalism student from the University of Northampton, graduating in 2019. He currently works as a freelance news assistant and producer at the Associated Press and co-founded Reveal Footy, dedicated to African football. In 2019, he won the BJTC’s Steve Harris Award.
What has life been like for you since seeing the George Floyd video?
I couldn’t actually finish watching the video. I don’t think I need to. I’ve seen enough to know how brutal it was. Every black person who saw it saw their family and friends in that man at that moment. They saw everyone connected to them in that moment. Seeing him suffering like that reminds you of things you’ve been through and places you’ve been. It could have been me. It could have been anyone.
I’ve had trouble sleeping. I’ve been going to sleep much later, and feeling so much more uncomfortable when I do sleep. I didn’t know this man, but now I feel like I’ve lost someone close to me. I feel so uneasy when I go to bed. It weighs on my mind. I have thoughts of him constantly throughout the day. And not just him, the many others. A couple of months ago Breonna Taylor was killed in her sleep by police during a raid on her home. Ahmaud Arbery goes for a jog in his neighbourhood, and two white men shoot him.
For me and for everyone of black heritage it’s been infuriating. But it’s also been an eye-opener – that people are able to actually see and understand exactly what the black community means when we talk about racism. To see what some people experience each and every day of their lives. Everyone now knows the name of George Floyd. As black people, nobody is safe, and that’s the harsh truth. I don’t know of a single black man who can enter an altercation with the police and say ‘I feel safe’. It doesn’t exist.
White people get offended quite a lot when you use the word ‘racism’. They say ‘not everything is about race’. I think they can’t bear to think such a world exists. They can’t bear to think that someone is being oppressed to the point where they feel their life is threatened whenever they have an altercation with a policeman. But that world exists for every single black person right now. Me, being a Christan, I put everything I feel into prayer. It helps me a lot. I honestly don’t know how else I’d be dealing with this right now. It’s a very stressful time.
I’m sure that even at this point there are white people out there who are still refusing to understand that this was a modern day lynching right before our eyes and they still don’t want to see the aspects of police brutality and racism behind it. They refuse to understand that such a world exists because they’ve never lived it. They’ve never really understood it. So it doesn’t shock me, but at the same time it’s an eye opener, for me and it should be for everyone else.
Is there anything you’d like to share about your experience as a black journalist that you feel white people need to hear?
For the longest time journalism has been a white middle-aged dominated place and to a certain extent, even now, I don’t think there is a single black person out there who feels they can apply for a job and get the same treatment and opportunity as a white person. There has been a stereotype around black people not being serious. I feel that systematic and institutional racism is embedded in the fabric of western culture and it has to be removed. It has to be something that changes now. I think if white people can actually put themselves in a place of learning to see how much has actually been taken from black people they would understand the rage. Because the rage you are seeing around you, when you see young people acting out, it’s because they just don’t know what to do anymore. I see people who are just struggling because they honestly don’t know. They don’t feel safe in their own homes (Breonna Taylor), and if you can’t feel safe at home, where can you be safe? They don’t feel they are being listened to. They are acting out to show how much they are hurting. Because every single black person out there is hurting. I’m actually struggling to link it to journalism because I feel it’s everywhere.
I had a job in retail last year and I ended up having to quit because the money I was getting wasn’t worth the way I was being treated by fellow staff members. I hated going to work because I was spoken to as if I was stupid, as if everything I was doing was wrong. I was the only black person working there. When I vocalised my concerns about how I was being spoken to I was told it was just in my head, that I was imagining it. This is an example of how white people choose not to believe it because they just can’t bear to believe that something like that is real. And they choose to say it’s just in our heads. But oppression and slavery hasn’t just been in our heads for 400 years – we’ve lived it, and people need to understand how we live it every single day of our lives.
I think George Floyd will go down in history. It will be the straw that broke the camel’s back, to give us the conversations we need around police brutality. People seem to think it’s something that only exists in America. It exists here and I’ve seen it. But it’s not all doom and gloom. We are seeing all these protests with people of different colours and backgrounds, in different parts of the world. All different people rallying and trying to march for black people. I see it as everyone in the world against racism, not so much blacks marching for blacks. It’s everyone marching for equality and that’s the part that speaks out to me.
I think we’ve entered a place where people who are racist and people who believe in this system of racism don’t understand that they are dealing with a whole different group of black people now. Black people are now educated, black people now have a different set of morals, black people now have a culture that is so diverse, and we now have other people rallying behind us. We now understand what equality is, we now understand our worth. We won’t see another black man’s life taken and just sit down and be OK with it and say ‘that’s how the world is’ anymore.
Is there anything you feel the journalism industry could be doing to help in this process of moving to a more equal world?
I think the media reports what they want you to see. There are certain media outlets that don’t report the whole truth – and I think now is the time for education, and not to just show an incident. White people need to understand what black people go through on a day to day basis. I want people to imagine if it was them, actually waking up every day, going out and getting stopped by police and not knowing whether you are going to come out dead or alive. I’m pretty sure that most white people know that police are there to protect them, so based on this position, their life isn’t under threat. But for black people we can’t say the same. Sometimes there are more than six people against one black man. And they’re trying to show that this black man is a threat. But if there are six against one, and he is handcuffed, in what way is he a threat? It’s time that the media started reporting these things, and calling out some of these police. We have black footballers being stopped regularly because they are driving nice cars. Why can’t a black man have a nice car? That’s the story that needs to be on the news: “Why do the police keep stopping this man?”
So often the reason is because he “fits a description” of a crime that has taken place. Does he really fit the description of the person who committed the robbery, or does he fit your idea of what a thug looks like? There are times I go to the shop and I get followed straight away, because I’m young, black, dressed in a hoody and wearing a hat.
At school, I was called a ‘monkey’ by people who I considered my friends, who seemed to think it was a joke. But even I defended my friend who did it because I was scared and didn’t want him to get in trouble. I did the same thing that white people have been doing for years, denying what it actually was. Now that I’m older, I’ve come to a place where I know for sure that it was what it was.
When you are a kid you don’t see colour. These things get learnt over time. Parents and the system educate kids this way. It’s the same for black people. I’ve had that conversation with my parents where they tell you things are going to be harder for you because you’re black. As a child it’s hard to process that, but as you grow up you understand it more and more. You start seeing things around you. I’m fortunate. I’ve never been stopped by police. I’ve never been in a position where I’ve feared for my life. But I’ve seen it happen to friends – the nicest people you could ever meet – they get stopped because they “fit a description”.
I feel these things can’t be brushed over anymore. Things need to be reported for what they are. Because racism is a fact. When a police officer is brutally beating someone – this needs to be shown. There has been more than one George Floyd this year, more than one black person has been killed from not being able to breath, or being shot in the back. And the only thing I can say is thank goodness there was someone there recording George Floyd’s killing, because if there wasn’t, nobody would know about it. And those officers would still be walking the streets.
We’re not asking for special treatment. All we want to do is to live peacefully, equally, and have the same right to be protected by the police as a white person. We just want to live as peacefully as everyone else and feel as though we’re not in danger if we’re stopped by the police.
Right now – black people need white people who believe this is wrong to speak up, join the protests and sign the petitions. It’s unfair for a white person that believes this is wrong to stay silent because white people cannot expect black people to fix a problem that black people did not create. So white people please join the protests, make your voice and presence known on social media and together help us bring change that will bring equality for all.
You can follow Kirk on Twitter, and Reveal Footy on Instagram and YouTube. The views and experiences expressed in this article are Kirk’s own, and not those of the Associated Press.
The BJTC would encourage you to download our free e-book ‘Everybody In – A Journalist’s Guide to Inclusive Reporting for Journalism Students’ as a practical guide to assist with inclusive newsgathering.
The BJTC is committed to improving diversity in our newsrooms to ensure that black stories are told and black voices are heard, amongst all the other voices that make up our community.
