Gassing with the Galdem: Protect our Black men (by Girl Gang Leeds + others)

MON 7TH SEPT: PROTECT OUR BLACK MEN

Facilitated by Chloe Daniels

This week’s Gassing with the Galdem will look at the injustices faced by black men- our brothers, lovers, teachers, fathers and friends. We’ll be covering a range of topics from the criminal justice system and policing to education, aspiration and mental health.

Gassing with the Galdem is a weekly social space for women of colour & people of marginalised genders to speak freely without having to self moderate for a white presence. Co-presented between @girlgangmcr @girlgangsheffield and @girlgangleeds This is a self led discussion space that can be as radical, relaxed, fun or fierce and it wants or needs to be.

Further details about this weeks session here:

Criminal Justice System and Policing

• Discrimination and Stop & Search policies.
• The fact men of colour are statistically given longer prison sentences and more at risk of repeat offending.
• How all of this is shaped by socio-economic inequality and a lack of community support services, (#defundthepolice).

Education

• How young negative stereotyping can begin for BAME boys including descrimination and classroom attitudes from educational institutions.
• Young black men being pushed down an athletic route from an early age rather than encouraged to pursue an academic focus, (with additional assumptions being made about physical ability.)
• A dismissal of concerns raised by both students and parens from teaching staff.
• The lack of support to find diverse University localities and lecturers contributing to driving young men of colour away from higher education.
• A lack of focus on identity within the curriculum contributing to a feeling of alienation.

Health and Mental Health

• 50% of those sectioned under Mental Health Act are from are people of colour.
• Mental health is often still considered a taboo subject within our communities
• It takes longer for people of colour to be given clear diagnosis and pain levels are frequently dismissed.
• Once in care many patients are victims of institutional racism during treatment.

We’d love to have your voice to help shape the space, so if that’s how you identify please come along! Free to attend with optional donations to charity and/or to pay our facilitators. Tell ya friends! Xxx

This event is free to attend with the option to donate to support Girl Gang overheads and/or raise money for racial justice charities each week.

This month’s charity is The Black LGBTQIA+ Therapy Fund, a UK based GoFundMe Page committed to funding 1 to 1 therapy sessions for black LGBTQIA+ people. Currently able to provide therapy for a year and working to register as a charity to continue this on a more permanent basis.

https://uk.gofundme.com/f/black-lgbtqia-therapy-fund

This space is catered towards women and people of marginalised genders.

We would love to have you in our circle and help shape this space together xx

UPCOMING SESSIONS INCLUDE….

MON 21ST SEPT: Back to School (Education) facilitated by Sheri

MON 5TH OCT: Protect Our Black Women facilitated by Simone Yasmin

MON 19TH OCT: Self Care Sundays facilitated by Anna Jobarteh

We love to know who’s in our gang! When people book tickets with us we ask some identity related questions  so we can see who is attending our events.  Knowing about all our differences and similarities helps us feel more informed when striving to create events and content which is more relevant to our audience. Collecting data serves a few functions for us: 

1: We can keep an eye on who’s in the room to brief facilitators if anyone has additional requirements or to ensure the session they are planning is relevant.

2: So we can be aware of underrepresentation and try to counter balance this where possible, (resources dependent as we are volunteer led.)

3: We can potentially use the data for future funding bids, which are some times catered to specific area’s and/or audiences

This data is only stored on Tickettailor which is password protected and only used by one of our team. If you do not feel comfortable sharing this information with us, please simply write N/A in the boxes.