Honouring Our Community — Behind the Gloss
Written by Christine Kinnear, Founder & CEO of With Insight Education"We have to be careful working with organisations like yours."
I've heard versions of that sentence more than once in the last two years. Sometimes said kindly, apologetically almost, as if the person saying it wishes it weren't true. Sometimes said flatly, as a decision already made. Either way, it tells me something has shifted.
Pursuing race equity has become a dangerous pursuit, it seems! Not dangerous in the way that doing important work is supposed to feel- hard, slow and contested, but dangerous in a reputationally risky and politically inconvenient way.
What it says about people like me
Working in this area over these two years has been difficult. It has made me wonder what it says about people like me — about my importance and the security of my position. Are both of these things simply something to be laid to one side when it's no longer convenient, nor easy to let me take up space?
It's an uncomfortable question to sit with. It's an even more uncomfortable one to ask publicly. But I don't think I'm alone in asking it and I think the young people we work with deserve someone to ask it honestly.
Because it has also made me question something bigger than my own position: What world am I preparing our students to walk into? What has structurally changed to secure their futures, as opposed to temporary changes in tone, in appetite and in what's fashionable to fund?
Behind the gloss
This year's Black History Month theme is Honouring Our Community. I know that doing this is core to our daily existence at With Insight. And I know that the young people we work with go on to do the same for others.
Tathya is a perfect example of this. She engaged as a student mentor on our Insight2Uni programme four years in a row because she wanted to represent to her younger peers that, “There’s more to life than staying where you are and be the living proof that you can do more than what you currently know.”
This month is rightly a time for celebration, but what sits behind the gloss is a fragile kind of progress. Statistica research found that as of September 2026, 44% of people in Great Britain thought that racism was somewhat prevalent in the United Kingdom, with 37% believing that there was a great deal of racism in the UK.
Britain in 2026 feels like a more dangerous place for me than it did two years ago. I know I am not alone in feeling that.
So here is what I'd ask
Once Black History Month is over and the posts, panels and campaigns have wound down, keep checking in with your Black colleagues and your Black students.
Keep being mindful of the sometimes daily reminders, large and small, that we get that we are societally ‘less than.’
And keep being brave enough to stand up for us, and with us - even when it’s not easy or convenient.
That's what honouring our community actually means. The rest is gloss.
Sources:
Statista (9 September 2026), Opinion on racism in UK society 2019-2026. Data sourced from YouGov.