LEAVE MEGHAN ALONE! Navigating Black Britishness and the Monarchy

It's that time again... We've emerged from our extended hiatus to signal the end of hot girl summer and reunited on the airwaves to bring you our first instalment of season 3! We wanted to give you some lighthearted content as the days get darker (and shorter), so this week we'll be discussing pivotal moments, phases, and *cultural resets* that are meaningful to each of us to celebrate Black History Month! Before we get into it, we unpack a few events that have dominated the newsfeed and insta explore page this month, including; the unveiling of the statue commemorating the windrush generation, THAT blackfishing incident and the news of Matt Hancock's bizarre and fleeting job promotion.  Tune in to hear us get nostalgic about some key moments in Black culture...

This week we will speaking about race and reality TV! It’s that time of year when Britain showcases it’s newly developed top export, the Love Island series. We have some die hard reality tv show fans in this joint, and this week we’ll be exploring how we view and experience reality tv shows as Black women. Does the way reality tv producers interact with race and diverse or "un-diverse” casts determine how much we can enjoy our reality tv? How do these choices reflect wider patterns with racial socialisation and concepts of desirability in general? Is looking to interact with racial discourse in Love Island reviews a barrier to our hot girl summer? Or is it naive to think we can ignore blatant racial undertones in reality tv? Tune in to hear our thoughts!

In this week's episode, we'll be doing a little “newsround” format. We'll be discussing 3 topics in current news, and our thoughts and opinions on them largely relating to the theme of accountability. This week you can hear out thoughts on the Grenfell tragedy, In the Heights casting controversy, and the Twitter ban in Nigeria. Can minorities communities move forward without our oppressors taking accountability? We explore this question and how it relates to various facets of our lives, from what we read on social media, see on our tv screens and hear from our governments. This week was also our 1 year anniversary as a podcast! So a huge thank you to everyone who has listened, commented, followed and interacted with us!

This week we will be discussing a long awaited episode (well at least for us) all about HAIR! During this episode, we explore the subject of hair and what it means to us as Black women. How has our relationship with our hair changed over time? And what was that Blue Magic sh*t we used to grease our scalps with? We also dive into the Natural Hair Movement and the scars racism, slavery and, intergenerational trauma have left in our attitude towards our natural hair. Listen to us bare our hearts (and our scalps) as we pose questions to each other on the much-debated and spoken about topic of Black hair with key excerpts from Emma Dabiri’s “Don’t Touch My Hair”!

In this week’s episode we dissect, debate and dig into Leigh-Anne Pinnock’s documentary “Race, Pop & Power”. Did the Little Mix powerhouse do justice to topics such as, racism, colourism and, institutional racism in the music industry despite the initial backlash? Tune in to find out! As Leigh-Anne states herself…”Being Black is my power. And I want young Black girls around the world to see that.” PSA: At Diaspora Collective, we champion equality, liberty and justice for all. We stand with the #FreePalestine movement and anti-government protestors in Colombia demanding social change. No justice, no peace.

In this week's episode we continue our 2 part mini-series and discuss blackfishing. The term refers to individuals that use products to create and enhance features in order to intentionally appear Black or racially ambiguous. We explore the reasons why people may engage in blackfishing behaviours and how this act links to unsavoury historical legacies from the Jim Crow era and the way it is used to obtain social and cultural capital today. We also delve into how Black features have been commoditised in marketing campaigns and monitiesed by certain influencers on social media to generate personal income. Why are typically Afrocentric/Black features only appreciated when they appear on non-Black women? How does this adversely affect Black and racially minoritised women? Listen to find out.

Have you ever encountered someone who presented themselves as a liberal, anti-racist, intersectional feminist, oat milk drinking activist? But the more time you spent with them, the more you started to notice racist, misogynist and homophobic comments they make - whether it was justified as a joke, offhanded comment, or something that their friends tolerate. Well, we hate to say it but you may have been wokefished. In this week’s episode, we discuss the concept of “wokefishing”, a term originally coined by Serena Smith. We explore it’s origins, how it can play out in different social settings, such as work, dating and friendships, and how to catch them out.

In this episode we unpack the incredibly triggering, exhausting and nightmare-fuelled issues and events that have surfaced over the course of the past month. We were joined by Habiba, a representative from a Legal Observer organisation who was able to provide insight into the legal right to protest. We discuss the recent protests, state sanctioned violence and gendered sexual violence. We essentially reflect on the shifting narratives around vigils vs protest, the purpose and efficiency of the police force, the nuances between experiences of white, non-Black women of colour and Black women, and the role of legal observer organisations. If organisations like legal observers exist to “police” the police, has the institution failed?

In this week’s episode we couldn’t miss the opportunity to talk about the recent interview from Oprah with Meghan and Harry, the magnitude of the topics discussed and delving into the structure of the Commonwealth. We also talk about our current views on Reparations. What are they? Who are the benefactors? How have they typically been used in the past and are they are effective?

In this episode we speak about the recent announcements from the Duke and Duchess of Sussex and the media response. We’ll be framing this by exploring the relationship between the monarchy and race, and considering whether you can be pro-Black and pro monarchy. How can we navigate conflicting identities as a Black British individuals? Is supporting or aligning with the establishment a prerequisite to British identity? Is it possible for the monarchy lean itself towards Black liberation?