Whoever Said: ‘Your Youth is Yours’ Was Clearly White: Young and Black in the UK

White Privilege is your parent giving you £10 when you’re 1 year old and telling you they’re giving it you because you’re white, and then giving you £10 every day over the course of your life. But by 25 you’ve forgotten the reason you get £10 and when people tell you it’s unfair that you…

Honestly Speaking: Disability in the Workplace

Two words people tend to be scared of putting in a sentence together. I want to be frank. Over the course of the few weeks I’ve faced several situations which I have overcome, purely because I had to, as a person with psychosis I am extremely susceptible to paranoia and loud noise around me, especially…

Honestly Speaking: Work>Life Balance

So these two weeks at Flatpack have somehow gone by in the blink of an eye, it somehow seems to be the case that the harder you work/the more you have to do, the faster the time goes. I’m still trying to weigh up if this is a good thing or a bad thing. I’m…

Subtext/Subterfuge

Today i learnt that ‘quiet area’ tends to mean ‘predominantly white area’ and can be used as an exclusive term for the more passive aggressive racist. For the last couple of months it’s been said around me often, not directly to me. ‘This is a quiet area’ a ‘lovely estate’ ‘not like those city estates’…

ICO FEDS: Week 1

The end of my first week and my body is burning, I’ve lost some of the ageing weight I’ve put on over the previous 2 years and I’m left with a sense of satisfaction that I haven’t known since I was 16 and working full time as an assistant hairdresser. But it hasn’t been with…

Taste & Liquor x 21 Milk St: No.21

If you ever find yourself in Digbeth on a Friday evening there’s only one place you should go. Taste and Liquor aren’t exactly new to Birmingham. Remember the almighty Pizza Festival here last year? Yep I bet you do. They’ve been bring delicious selections of street food to Birmingham for a while now. That said…

IKON 2017

Ikon is the very definition of a Birmingham success story. Starting from it’s humble beginnings as a glass-sided kiosk in the Bullring Shopping Centre, to the internationally acclaimed art gallery that currently resides inside a converted Victorian school building. Ikon is now synonymous with it’s name, establishing a worldwide reputation as one of the most…

Honestly Speaking: Racism in the 21st Century

I still find it crazy how some white people view black people. Like dark shadows that rely on white light to exist, when the truth is, the only shadows we harbour, we had to liberate ourselves from. As you cast us out of your sight to ease your own guilt, a guilt that comes from…

Honestly Speaking: Birmingham Council Housing

Council houses in the UK and especially in Birmingham are disgusting. We live in an age where nobody really has the money to buy a house and landlords are becoming more and more ruthless, breaking the law, knowing you don’t have money to take them to court. After spending 8 months in supported accommodation (after…

Holiday Dismay.

I have a habit of remembering lines from films, only the poignant ones though. This Christmas I was reminded of a line from ‘The Perks of Being a Wallflower’. The line ‘we accept the love we think we deserve’ has never been more real to me as it has been over the holiday period. Having…

The OA. The Festive Season’s Netflix Triumph

WARNING, THIS CONTAINS SPOILERS. The OA is one of the secret gems from Netflix this year. Bringing a little originality to the otherwise drug and crime-centric show and film scheduling. The shows basis is simple, Prarie, a blind 21 year old, goes missing, and comes back 7 years later, with her sight. The entire season…

Honestly Speaking: Growing Up Is A Decision

A lot of people think that their problems are the worst in existence; I harbor no such illusions, but recognize that my troubles are mine, so they have priority over anyone else’s. Because I have to live as me. I don’t get a choice So here’s the thing, I stopped taking drugs, for the first…