Month: December 2025

Closing Reflections on Anti-Racism in Education

For three articles, we have explored the urgency of anti-racism in education: racism as a safeguarding issue, the policy–practice disconnect, and the role of belonging and empathy in curriculum reform. Each piece has shared evidence, strategies, and practical steps for schools and teachers.

But sometimes data isn’t enough. Sometimes policy isn’t enough. Sometimes what we need is language that speaks not only to the head, but to the heart.

This final post in the series is not an essay. It is a poem. A truth-telling. A mirror held up to the contradictions of nationalism and the realities of Britain’s multicultural identity. It is a reminder of why anti-racism in the curriculum matters- not as an ‘add-on’, but as the honest story of who we are.

What are you actually fighting for?

(For the ones who carry the world in their veins – and make this island beat.)

What are you actually fighting for? 

I mean- 

have you stopped to taste the air you’re breathing? 

That air laced with the spices from the corner shop down the road, 

the samosa stand next to the bus stop, 

the Portuguese bakery with custard tarts that taste like heaven on a tired Tuesday. 

You yell about purity with a mouth that still carries 

last night’s tikka masala.

And the flags-

Oh, the flags! 

You wave them like swords, 

St George’s cross stitched bold on cotton, 

blood-red lines cutting through white. 

But you forgot, didn’t you? 

That St George wasn’t from here. 

That the saint you scream under 

was born somewhere foreign, 

his story carried by traders and travellers 

long before your postcode was drawn on a map. 

Your symbol is a migrant. 

Your flag is an immigrant. 

But you raise it like a shield 

against the very soil it grew from.

 

And the Union flag- 

a stitched-together puzzle of histories, 

threads from Scotland, Ireland, England, 

woven into a single declaration: 

We are many. 

We are mixed. 

We are made from meeting points, 

from ports and ships and stories that came crashing in with the tide. 

A union. 

A blend. 

A patchwork cloak. 

You’ve wrapped it tight, 

but you’re choking on the irony.

 

What are you actually fighting for? 

Because from here, it looks like fear 

dressed up in patriotism, 

looks like rage you can’t name, 

painted on banners you don’t understand. 

Your voice is loud, 

but your knowledge is quiet. 

History echoes, 

and you drown it out with chants 

that sound more like hollow drums 
than truth.

 

Meanwhile- 

your lunch is an onion bhaji, 

grease soaking through the paper bag, 

and when you stumble home tonight, 

you’ll flick through menus like passports: 

Chinese, Indian, Thai, 

a taste of somewhere else in every bite. 

Your belly says yes 

to the world you say no to.

 

It’s easy, isn’t it, 

to hate what you don’t know, 

but love it on a plate? 

To fear what you can’t pronounce, 

but crave it for dinner? 

Your fork is braver than your heart. 

Your stomach more open than your mind.

 

We see you, 

draped in cotton stitched overseas, 

trainers made in Vietnam, 

phone built from hands in factories 

that have never felt British soil, 

but hold your future tighter than you do. 

You call this pride. 

But we call it forgetting. 

Forgetting that this island 

is a mosaic of footsteps, 

a patchwork of prayers, 

a hand-me-down jacket 

from centuries of travellers. 

You wear history 

like a blindfold.

 

What are you actually fighting for? 

A myth? 

A memory that never belonged to you? 

An idea of “pure” 

that never existed? 

Even the soil beneath you 

was shaped by glaciers that wandered here 

from somewhere else.

 

We are a nation 

built by boats and borders crossed, 

by accents and spices, 

by stories sewn into every street sign. 

We are not a closed book. 

We are an anthology. 

And you’re standing in the middle of it 

with a marker, 

trying to black out pages 

that taught you how to read.

 

So, here’s my truth: 

No flag can save you from yourself. 

You can clutch it, wave it, 

let it snap and crack in the wind 

like an angry tongue, 

but it will not make you right. 

Because that red cross you worship 

was carried here by immigrants, 

and the jack you wear like armour 

is stitched together from difference, 

not division.

 

So we ask you again: 

What are you actually fighting for?

Because this island was never yours to guard- it was always ours to share. 

And no matter how high you raise that flag, 

it cannot erase the taste of curry on your breath, 

the Cantonese whispers in your takeaway, 

the Portuguese custard on your tongue, 

the Turkish barber shaping your hair, 

the Nigerian nurse who will hold your hand when you’re old and afraid.

 

This is Britain. 

Not the fantasy you’re screaming for, 

but the truth you’re standing on.

A country made rich by every hand that built it. 

A song of accents rising through city streets. 

An anthem of:

borrowed flavours- jerk chicken and jollof, shawarma, sushi, samosas and sourdough, pho, peri-peri, and pints of chai; 

borrowed words- bungalow, ketchup, robot, shampoo, khaki, curry, chocolate, chaos, pyjamas;

borrowed technologies- printing presses, steam engines, satellites, trains that run on rails laid by migrant hands;

borrowed clothing- saris and suits, turbans and trainers, jeans born in Italy, stitched in Bangladesh;

borrowed rhythms- jazz and jungle, bhangra beats and punk guitar, Afrobeats shaking London basements; 

borrowed stories – sagas, scriptures, epics, and myths ferried here on waves and winds;

borrowed inventions – recipes, languages stitched together like patchwork quilts, passports of possibility, hand-me-down hope, 

and second chances.

 

Lower your flag. 

Take a seat. 

Hear the harmony in your own history-

This isn’t a solo,

it is a symphony. 

And know this: 

the strongest nations are not guarded by gates, 

but opened by arms. 

—-

The poem above speaks directly to the myths we tell ourselves as a nation. It exposes the irony of waving a flag stitched together from migration, while demanding purity that never existed. It challenges us to look honestly at the mosaic of influences – food, music, language, technology, healthcare, labour – that make Britain what it is.

This isn’t just a political reflection. It’s an educational one. When schools shy away from teaching the truth, when they reduce Black history to a week in October, when they treat diversity as tokenism rather than truth- they do children a profound disservice. They deny them the tools of empathy, the skills of critical thinking, and the pride of belonging.

Anti-racism in the curriculum is not about ‘teaching politics’. It’s about teaching reality. It’s about ensuring that when children open a textbook, they see the world as it is: interconnected, complex, and beautiful in its diversity.

Final Messages 

• Curriculum is a mirror, a window, and a door. Children must see themselves reflected, see others clearly, and step into unfamiliar worlds with curiosity rather than fear.
• Representation is accuracy. Britain’s history is not monocultural. It is centuries of migration, invention, and exchange. To hide that truth is to teach falsehood.
• Empathy is not optional. It is a skill, and like literacy or numeracy, it must be taught, practised, and embedded.
• Belonging is safeguarding. A child who feels invisible, erased, or unsafe is not protected. Anti-racism is child protection.

Every chant in the street, every flag raised in anger, every online echo of hate is a reminder: education is where we break these cycles or allow them to continue. If we fail to tell the truth in classrooms, we leave children vulnerable to lies outside them.

 

This reminder is a call to remember that Britain has never been a closed island. It is, and always has been, a crossroads. A patchwork. A symphony. The curriculum must reflect that, not as a concession, but as the truth.