Since 1987, during the month of October, the UK celebrates Black History Month (BHM). (The United States marks a similar occasion in February every year, though it is sometimes called African American History Month.) In general, the stated purpose of activities organised during October is to recognise, celebrate, and remember the major achievements and contributions of Black people to British society. In this essay, I reflect on the ways that UK Higher Education engages with BHM. I suggest that in practice, universities treat it largely as a symbolic gesture, failing to concretely address the structural conditions that continue to produce harm for Black people inside and outside of universities, and marginalise ways of thinking and being we all need. BHM is not but should be better utilised to explore and build possibilities for more meaningful forms of community, belonging, and transformation beyond the limitations of institutional “celebration”.

On the 14^th of September 2026, the Critical Legal Pedagogies of Race and Empire Network (CLPRE) held its launch event at the University of Bristol and online. CLPRE was established as a collaborative initiative dedicated to advancing conversation, research, and teaching on race, empire, colonialism, and global justice within legal education. To do this, the network brings together academics, researchers, practitioners, and students. One of the main aims is to explore how law schools engage with the histories, legacies, and ongoing impacts of race and empire, while fostering the development of more inclusive and critically engaged legal curricula. I wrote about the network in a previous blog post or two.

This is a rejoinder/addition to an old post that I wrote a couple of years ago. I revisited that old post when I realised that it was the 10th anniversary of the debate that served as the inception of World Afro Day in 2017. World Afro Day is celebrated annually on 15 September. It is a global day dedicated to celebrating Afro hair and raising awareness of its significance for culture, identity, and self-expression. Founded in 2017 by Michelle De Leon, World Afro Day seeks to challenge stereotypes, promote inclusion, and help end discrimination based on natural Afro-textured hair. Since then, World Afro Day has become an international movement that encourages education, empowerment, and greater understanding of the cultural and social importance of Afro hair.

How do law schools teach the histories and legacies of race and empire? If they do at all? What pedagogical approaches are emerging to address colonialism, racialisation and global inequalities within legal education? Where are they emerging? What challenges and opportunities do educators encounter in undertaking this work? These questions sit at the heart of the launch event for the Critical Legal Pedagogies of Race and Empire Network, a new collaborative initiative dedicated to fostering dialogue, innovation and community around the teaching of race and empire within legal education. Registration is free, and participation is available both in person and online. Register here: Launching the Critical Legal Pedagogies of Race and Empire Network

The launch event will take place on 14 September 2026 at the University of Bristol, bringing together academics, researchers, practitioners and students from across disciplines and jurisdictions. It represents an important milestone in the development of a growing international conversation about how legal education can engage more meaningfully with the histories, structures and contemporary realities of empire, colonialism and racialisation.

Many years ago, I decided to study international law. I was impelled by a desire to find a pathway within the law to respond to the plight of those whom Frantz Fanon describes as the Wretched of the Earth (more accurately, the damned of the earth; see Switzer, 2021, for more on this point). What I found by the end of my PhD was that international law and the international community have mostly been futilely spoken of as sources of hope for the wretched. The last couple of years in particular have demonstrated how both of these institutions (if we can call them that) are significantly responsible for making the wretched of the earth rather than saving them. Those who are persecuted, in despair, abandoned, oppressed and derelict cry out in vain to international law for help. Over and over again.

In the summer of 2024, in response to horrific attacks on and killing of nursery school children in Southport on 29 July, approximately 29 riots broke out across the United Kingdom. Those riots were ultimately triggered by false claims that the Southport attacker had been a Muslim asylum seeker. The truth was that he was born in Cardiff to Christian parents. These riots targeted racialised people as well as immigration centres, asylum hotels, mosques, businesses owned by racialised people, and refugee support offices; people were subject to physical attacks, and buildings were damaged.

In a previous blog post, I wrote a summary of the life of Patrice Émery Lumumba, who was a Congolese politician and also the first prime minister of the First Congolese Republic. Lumumba was known as a fierce nationalist who wanted Congo’s resources to be controlled by the people of Congo. He also refused to play a diplomatic game with Belgium and instead called out the sheer brutality of their colonial rule. The possibly apocryphal statement “Nous ne sommes plus vos singes” credited to Lumumba and directed at King Baudouin of Belgium summarises his legacy in this regard. The death toll under Leopold’s Congo is estimated to be over 10 million people, so Lumumba was unapologetic in wanting to free Congo of such brutal control. However, the substantial deposits of uranium and other resources under the Congolese earth made the Congo pivotal in the Cold War and made a mockery of any “granting of independence”. This post is a reflection on the documentary Soundtrack to a Coup d’État (2024), which explores this context and what led to the assassination of Lumumba. The documentary is both harrowing and exceedingly important to watch.

Early in 2026, I agreed to write an essay on decolonisation and AI for the Bristol Institute for Learning and Teaching (BILT). The original article was published on the 23rd of March and can be found here. I have added many thoughts to the original text in the essay below, in which I question the possibility of “decolonising AI”. My grounds for this include the fact that decolonisation and the push to adopt GenAI in everything have diametrically opposed logics, means and aims. A caveat: I am writing specifically about the adoption of GenAI in the context within which I work.

I have been thinking for quite some time about what unsettles me about the phrase, “He was no angel.” Variations of this phrase have been used to essentially justify (mostly but not only) killings of often people of colour or people who stand for racial justice. George Floyd is a notable recent instance. After he was killed by Chauvin, Candace Owens said, “George Floyd is being uplifted as an amazing human being … Everyone is pretending that this man lived a heroic lifestyle when he didn’t.” Basically, we are only allowed to mourn perfect people. But this type of justifying speech has a very long and much broader history. For example, in the 1960s, media and politicians in the West, in light of Patrice Lumumba’s belief in the right of the Congolese to political, social and economic self-determination, characterised him as insane, arrogant, overly ambitious, and even satanic. He was assassinated against the backdrop of this description of his character. And many thought that that was justified. Ultimately, he was no angel, and then he was no longer with us.