If you’re serious about anti-racism, you need to stop using the term ‘BAME’

Instead of using a word we didn’t choose for ourselves, ethnically diverse creatives across the UK are asking the government, media, and our allies to take on expressions of our choosing

I have perfect recall of the first time I heard someone use "Bame" as a word and not an acronym. No, not just because I love and take an active interest in language, but because it immediately made me shudder to my soul.

In 2012, working on a national diversity campaign in the creative industries, I gently suggested to the chief executive that the acronym, if used at all, was best used by naming each letter, rather than mushing together a group of hugely diverse peoples.

His reply was that he’d heard a senior MP say it, so he would take his lead from her, not me: the subtext was that if power and influence dictated that this was the nomenclature du jour, then who was I to object? What did my lived experience matter when it came to how I would be described by others?

No matter then that my friends and I groaned visibly when it was used. That we pointed out the obvious, unfortunate proximity to the words "bane" and "blame". That the "word" Bame erased what the acronym itself sought to highlight: people from diverse ethnic heritage who are under-represented in mainstream culture may share common cause (a desire for societal equity), but also have distinct cultures, experiences and perspectives.

Not only does Bame erase identity, the defining and use of "minority" when referring to the global majority, is deeply problematic. Language is power: if you call someone a "minority", then their interests, passions, ambitions and potential also become "minority interests".

To bring about systemic and lasting change, we need to be able to relate to the hopes, needs, desires of those requiring that change to happen. The simultaneous erasure of identity and "othering" that takes place when someone is called Bame does nothing to build a sense of common purpose – instead, it may potentially impede our progress in working towards an inclusive and equitable society.

As the UK responded to the Covid-19 crisis and closed down arts production, the UK’s top-flight Black, Asian and ethnically diverse arts leaders came together through ethnically diverse arts and cultural collective, Inc Arts UK. The aim? To lobby, advocate and unite behind a set of key principles to ensure that the sector survives with us included.

Many of us had not met before, but we were united in common cause to ensure that we retained the pockets of diversity that exist in the sector (hard-won, and still pitifully under-representative of the UK’s ethnic diversity). It was wonderful to see new arrivals to the growing zoom cohort blink in wonder when confronted by a sea of melanin-rich peers, like someone emerging from a cave into the sunlight.

Very soon, we looked at each other across art form, age, region, disability, sexual preference, gender and heritage, the richness of our diversity beaming across zoom meetings and asked not only "what is our collective action?" but also "what do we call ourselves to reject the term that doesn’t describe us?" Many of the UK’s leading arts producers and leaders have long ago dropped the use of "Bame" and "BME" in their places of work. It’s time for the rest of the UK to catch up.

BAMEOver is a campaign to eradicate the use of the term completely – for all the reasons above. "Bame" was not chosen by those it applies to. It is disempowering, belittling, and it denigrates our distinctiveness, threatening our agency in doing so. It's also lazy, dismissive, othering and reductive.

As such, Inc Arts UK has run a survey to determine what we want to be called.

Today, on Friday 4 September, we’re coming together in a live debate to talk it through and reach consensus. We’re talking about what happens to people of Chinese heritage when we use the term "Asian", the politics of "brown" and "black", why POC triggers some and why many argue for no term at all. Then we’re going to ask the government, media, our peers and our allies to take on the terms of our choosing. It’s going to be a very challenging conversation that’s vital to have.

The pandemic has highlighted huge disparities in our society, reaffirming that this lands hard on some – including those with black or brown skin. The more we can unite behind shared goals, values and purpose, the stronger we can support each other. To do so requires us having full agency of our narrative. This is a small but important step towards making sure that happens. Black Lives Matter has made visible the daily attrition of mental, economic and societal disadvantage that we, the global majority live with – and suffer. And worldwide, that global majority, the ethnically diverse people in all continents, continue the work of centuries of speaking out, on our own terms and in our own words, against the interactions that harm us. Shabby terminology is part of that. BLM has helped those not cognisant of their advantage to understand that everybody wants the right to direct and lead their own narrative. Agency, Access, and self-determination are critical tools in our joint and active anti-racist progress. Anyone who wants to be an ally in this journey towards change needs to put the perspectives and solutions proposed by those of lived experience front and centre

What’s been interesting in the process of exploring people’s views on the terminology is the degree of white privilege that I’ve witnessed as a result of creating diverse-only conversations. I’ve had white people take the survey (even though it clearly states that it’s for those who are included in the current terminology, for us to decide for ourselves); I’ve had white people phone me to lobby for the adoption of terminology that might include them, in recognition of their allyship. I’ve had others ask for special dispensation to attend meetings for ethnically diverse people only. I’ve had others join ethnically diverse only meetings with their cameras off, who when challenged have suggested that they’d like to stay in the meeting "as allies".

A quick word about allyship, then.

We – the people of lived experience of ethnic diversity, whether it is from a central, West, South or East Asian perspective, whether we are of African diaspora heritage, or whether we are the proud products of a fusion of heritages – welcome, love and appreciate your allyship, support and championing of the issues that matter to us.

We also welcome your understanding – and respect for us to have conversations that are solely of, by and with people who have lived experiences that look and feel like our own. Please, don’t use the word Bame. Don’t use the acronym and don’t lean into your privilege so hard that it crushes our own. Let us share with you what we decide. BAMEOver is a small but important step in putting lived experience front and centre of inclusive change. But it's about much more than the acronym, it’s about taking the next logical step in a collective acknowledgement that agency, access, and self-determination are vital tools in our joint and active anti-racist progress.

Amanda Parker is the founder of Inc Arts, a national body campaigning for increased inclusion in the arts sector workforce, and researching retention and recruitment solutions. For more information about the BAMEOver live debate at 12pm 4 September, click here