Like everyone, when at work I get scared. I often get scared when writing for a new publication. I have a feeling of fear just before I send a piece of writing in because I want it to be perfect. I also get fearful about tackling a subject that I don't have up-close and personal experience with, because I don’t want to drown out someone else’s voice who has the lived experience and I want to be sure that I am making sense.
For the last week and a half, my husband and I have been talking about the viral video of Kelechi Okafor’s brother being arrested. It reminded me of when Bola and I started dating and he explained his most memorable encounter with the police was being falsely accused of running away from the scene of a robbery, when in fact he was running to the pharmacist to collect a prescription for his grandad. The encounter became even more tense when the policemen asked for his address and didn’t believe that a teenage black boy could live in that particular area of West London. So they decided to take him back home to see if he, a black teenager, really did live at his address and were stunned when a black woman (his mum) opened the door.