On 4th June, we posted a message in support of the Black Lives Matter movement, promising that we would be improving our work and behaviour in order to fight back against the systemic racism that affects Black people, and those from the BAME community.
Here is our plan. If you have any comments on this, please share them in the section below, or on our social media posts.
“The beauty of anti-racism is that you don’t have to pretend to be free of racism to be an anti-racist. Anti-racism is the commitment to fight racism wherever you find it, including in yourself. And it’s the only way forward.” Ijeoma Oluo
As we said in our earlier post – we’re listening. And hopefully, this will have a positive effect on our small corner of the internet…
How will The Crown Chronicles do better?
1) We will include more diverse stories
A large part of what we do is write about the news of the Royal Family and their work. When this includes anti-racism work (for example, Kick It Out, championing anti-racism within the British Premiere League) we will endeavour to write about the related organisations, their background and aims, in depth, to promote the causes and shine a light on the problem.
The other side of The Crown Chronicles is our history posts. This is where we believe we can have the most impact.
We will actively include more BAME histories on the site, from biographies of prominent Black figures and people of colour, to events involving these communities in the past. We will not shy away from uncomfortable themes, such as imperialism and slavery, which can often bring up topics of violence and racism.
We will also offer links through to high-quality resources that deal with these topics, to help our readers explore further.
We will also endeavour to post more about BAME history on our social media channels, for example, our #OTD posts marking the lives of important historic figures, or events.
2) We will donate to racial equality charities
Through our store, we will create products promoting the Black Lives Matter movement and equality, and donate profits from these to an organisation committed to supporting racial equality.
We are currently planning for the charity to be SARI (stand against racism and inequality), which mostly supports victims of hate crimes, or Black Lives Matter UK; please let us know your thoughts on this, or is there is an even better organisation in the same vein that could use our support.
3) We will make our team more diverse
Currently, the TCC team is comprised of mostly women. We want to be representative of the kinds of history we discuss, so we are really keen to hear from anyone from a BAME background who has a passion for history (or the Royals) and would like to write about it.
Please email me (Victoria) to learn more about joining TCC on editor@chloeh6.sg-host.com
4) We will monitor our social channels
Monarchy tends to appeal to those with more conservative views. But increasingly, this is teamed with intolerance or the defence of outdated or even offensive ideas, the kind that reinforce oppression and inequality. While freedom of speech must be protected, it should not harm others, so we will report comments and accounts that do such things, ban them from our page(s) and challenge their ideas.
If you see something we have missed that you think is inappropriate, you are also able to report comments on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube, and we encourage you to do so.
