100 Voices #AllAgainstRacism: Aisha Bolaji - "We’re at a stage in Ireland where there’s a lot of pressure on Black people to be exceptional, rather than to just be"

Aisha Bolaji
Co-Founder of the GalPal Collective/Head of Jury Her International Film Festival

Talking about racism in Ireland is interesting, because obviously it’s got a different relationship to race, compared to other countries – because of colonialism, or other country’s relationships with slavery, or different laws they would have had in place. In Ireland, a lot of people don’t see there is a history that does involve racism, and that Black people and people of colour have visited and contributed here for a lot longer than people would think.

We’re at a stage in Ireland where there’s a lot of pressure on Black people to be exceptional, rather than to just be. It is an awful lot of pressure, and I think, for myself, navigating the media industry, or the film world, you’re almost scared to not portray a model minority. You constantly want to be on your A-game, because you don’t want to give your whole race a bad name! That’s why it’s really important to get myself into spaces, where I can just create freely and do what I want in life, and not have the constant pressure of having to be the golden child or poster child for all Black people as well.

That’s why me and my friend Ashley Chadamoyo Makombe set up the Gal Pal Collective, as a space for women and people of colour, and queer people, to create whatever they want to create. This is why representation is super important to us, because we want not to be put into such small boxes.

There’s also intersectionality when it comes to racism: as a queer black woman, those things are all intertwined and affect how the world sees me and how the world is to people like me. I feel like people don’t want to talk about how race will affect sexism, or how it will affect queerphobia or homophobia, and how race will affect ableism and classism. A lot of the time, people want to look at them as separate issues – but that’s not always the case.

Read Part 2 of 100 Voices: #AllAgainstRacism in Hot Press:

Special thanks to the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission for their support in this project.