I recently came across this excellent spoken poem by Evey Gordon entitled, ‘Where do I draw the line?’. Evey tells us of her experiences growing up as a mixed race woman in Plymouth.

She wanted to speak out about the racism she has experienced, especially due to ‘everything going on in the world at the moment’.

In her poem she describes her experiences of racism at school where she says she was told by her teacher that she needs to ‘stop feeling so victimised’. So she asked, ‘where do you draw the line?’

‘There is no excuse for this abuse, so I will not be seated’.

She calls for action to be taken in education saying, ‘there is no excuse for the lack of racial awareness that is taught in our schools’. And concludes with asking for everyone to ‘stand with us forever. Not just today’.

This echoes growing calls for structural changes to be made to the national curriculum to increase diversity in literature and include histories of empire, colonialism and migration.

You can watch Evey’s story here.