Media
30 October 2024
"Chattel slavery and colonialism were devastating and morally abhorrent chapters in human history. But the best path forward is to treat individuals from all backgrounds as equals, free of the reductive labels of historical victimhood and unburdened by grievance."
Equiano project director Inaya Folarin Iman writes for spiked about reparations
25 October 2024
'To reduce the story of black Britons to one of unrelenting victimhood is not only a distortion of history but also a disservice to the many individuals who achieved great things in the face of adversity.'
Equiano project director Inaya Folarin Iman wrote in The Telegraph about the recent discovery of John London, a middle-class black pub landlord who voted in a British election in 1749 and how he and other black historical figures complicate our binary 'good versus evil' understanding of Britain's past.
22 October 2024
Equiano project director Inaya Folarin Iman discussed whether Britain should pay reparations for slavery and colonialism with Prof Kehinde Andrews on BBC Politics Live.
20 September 2024
Coconuts, race and hate speech - BBC Radio 4
Is it racist for a person of colour to call someone a coconut? Should it be a crime?
Equiano Project director Inaya Folarin Iman debates the term ‘coconut’ with commentator Nels Abbey on Antisocial.
4 September 2024
Culture Not Skin Color
Head of Content Ada Akpala appears on the Free Black Thought podcast to discuss immigration and British identity (or its loss).
8 August 2024
How multiculturalism breeds racial resentment
Equiano Project director Inaya Folarin Iman writes in spiked! magazine about how racial groups are divided and pitted against each other in a battle for resources.
7 August 2024
'It's a difficult conversation to have but... this is a big issue for a lot of people in society'
Equiano Project director, Inaya Folarin Iman tells Sky News a 'level-headed, serious conversation' is needed to heal divisions in the wake of the UK riots
6 August 2024
Equiano Project director Inaya Folarin Iman discusses the recent unrest in the UK on The Spectator podcast with Freddy Gray and Paul Embery.
22 June 2024
‘Decolonisation’ is destroying our museums
Inaya Folarin Iman in spiked!
17 May 2024
“Terms like ‘coconut’, ‘coon’ and ‘Uncle Tom’ clearly are – and always have been – racist, so if you support hate-speech laws, then you should surely expect them to be applied to these slurs, no matter who the perpetrator might be.”
Equiano Project director Inaya Folarin Iman writes in spiked! magazine about the use of hate speech laws against ethnic minorities
12 March 2024
"What is so disturbing about the advance of the sectarian and racially charged creed of EDI is how it has happened without any mandate from the public"
Equiano Project director Inaya Folarin Iman takes a deep dive into EDI spending in cash-strapped councils
8 March 2024
"The whole point of anti-racism was to transcend racial categories, today we see a complete inversion"
Equiano Project director Inaya Folarin Iman debated the necessity of black-only audiences for theatre performances for Radio 4's AntiSocial programme.
29 February 2024
'Harris may erroneously believe that society hasn’t advanced since slavery - but I’m afraid its behaviour like his that’s dragging us back in time.'
Equiano Project director writes in the Daily Mail on restricting theatre performances to ‘black-identifying’ audiences
1 February 2024
Drill rappers boast about real-life murders, stabbings and gang wars. So why do Labour MPs claim it's 'racist' to use their lyrics as evidence in court?
Equiano Project director Inaya Folarin Iman for the Daily Mail
12 January 2024
"Tackling racism is a noble aim. But Labour are blindly pursuing the increasingly discredited ideology of the Black Lives Matter movement"
Equiano Project director Inaya Folarin Iman took a deep dive into some of the ideas touted for Labour's new Race Equality Act for the Daily Mail
23 December 2023
The documentary that dares question everything you think you know about the police killing of a black man that convulsed the world
Equiano Project director Inaya Folarin Iman for the Daily Mail
13 December 2023
”Rigid, arbitrary racial classifications fail to capture the richness of our diverse backgrounds and experiences. Tyla shows us that there is another way beyond the trap of racial identity politics.”
Why should Tyla have to define herself as ‘black’?
Equiano Project’s Inaya Folarin Iman writes in Spiked.
25 November 2023
”Perhaps this lack of evidence for racism in earlier research spurred the researchers to dig deeper in the hope of finding some.”
How on earth can the Black Death prove Britain was racist in the 14th century? That's the incendiary claim from the Museum of London after it examined just a few dozen skeletons in a cemetery
Equiano Project Inaya Folarin Iman writes in the Daily Mail
“The challenge for critics of identity politics is not just to critique, but to explain and genuinely understand the questions being asked. It is all well and good to say that racial disparities don’t necessarily equate to racism. Then what does explain racial disparities? It is fine to say we shouldn’t have racial quotas. Then how do we guarantee opportunity for all, regardless of race? Both This is Not America and It’s Not About Whiteness, It’s About Wealth form part of the urgent and long-awaited intellectual work needed to create a genuinely fair and socially just society, one that doesn’t depend on treating ethnic minority people like children.”
Equiano Project director Inaya Folarin Iman reviews Tomiwa Owolade’s This Is Not America: Why Black Lives in Britain Matter and Remi Adekoya’s It’s Not About Whiteness, It’s About Wealth for The Critic
02/07/23
“Far from addressing long-standing structural inequalities, affirmative action institutionalised the deeply racist idea that black people were incapable of attaining positions of excellence and high achievement on merit alone.” Equiano Project Director Inaya Folarin Iman for The Sunday Telegraph
Affirmative Action betrayed black America. It was not true equality
21/05/23
Inaya Folarin Iman speaks to campaigner and author Louise Perry about The Equiano Project, free speech and more.
03/03/23
A discussion with Inaya Folarin Iman: Why I'm an optimist (on the Equiano Project for Matt Goodwin’s podcast)
27/02/23
Racism is not to blame for deaths in police custody - Inaya Folarin Iman
27/02/23
Equiano Project director Inaya Folarin Iman speaks about the work of the project on BBC Politics Live (From 31:58)
15/02/23
What Idris Elba gets right about race - Inaya Folarin Iman
04/02/23
Equiano project director @InayaFolarin discusses the differences between the US and UK race discourse with leading American critic @coldxman on the Conversations with Coleman podcast
Race & Inequality Across the Pond with Inaya Folarin Iman
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All the press coverage from the Towards the Common Good: Rethinking Race in the 21st Century can be found here.
15/12/23
“Over two days, primarily ethnic minority thinkers from both sides of the Atlantic explained the dangers of identity politics. Prof John McWhorter, author of Woke Racism, spoke about the way a tiny minority of activists in his university classes intimidate the majority – with two or three vocal individuals dominating any discussion on racism. The rest of his students remain silent for fear of being “called out” on social media.”
The UN’s race ‘experts’ should learn from Britain
Equiano Project director Inaya Folarin Iman writes in The Telegraph about TTCG 2023
13/01/23
“If we are to find answers to one of the biggest debates of our time, we must begin with a genuinely open debate and a shared premise – there is not one way to be an anti-racist.”
There’s more than one way to be an anti-racist
Equiano Project director Inaya Folarin Iman writes for PoliticsHome about TTCG 2023
14/12/22
“It was these values that won out in the 1960s civil rights movement. Martin Luther King, like Frederick Douglass before him, argued for our common humanity – so as to render racism absurd from a political standpoint.”
Equiano Project director Inaya Folarin Iman was interviewed by the online magazine The Free Thinker.
02/12/22
Equiano Project director Inaya Folarin Iman appeared on BBC Radio London with Eddie Nestor to argue for good faith and generosity in the controversy about an ethnic minority woman being asked 'where are you from?' by a member of the Royal Family. (From 40mins)
Listen here.
21/11/22
“One thing we must not do, however, is hand the young men caught up in youth violence an excuse – a narrative about deprivation or racism that can be used to excuse or explain away their behaviour.” writes Inaya Folarin Iman
Racism cannot explain away youth violence
15/09/22
Chris Kaba and the dangers of racialising everything
Knee-jerk accusations of racism do nothing to serve justice writes Inaya Folarin Iman
03/09/22
Don’t let the culture war bring down Notting Hill Carnival writes Inaya Folarin Iman
20/07/22
”This ugly obsession with race is bad news for the beautiful game.” writes Inaya Folarin Iman
So what if the Lionesses are white?
17/07/22
”Yes, we should be sceptical of the use and expansion of indiscriminate police powers such as stop-and-search, but we should also be sceptical of those who want to reduce complex problems of crime and policing to questions of ‘institutional racism’.” writes Inaya Folarin Iman
Anti-racist activists don’t speak for ethnic-minority Britons
27/06/22
“There is a growing chorus of voices demanding greater transparency in education when it comes to what school pupils are being taught about politically contentious subjects” reports Equiano project director Inaya Folarin Iman
Parents should have the right to know what their children are being taught, argues life peer
01/06/22
Possible politicised teaching in primary schools: Equiano project director Inaya Folarin Iman investigates
26/04/22
"Maybe we should be pleased with the thought that racial equality has progressed to such an extent that activists are left grasping at straws"
17/04/22
Equiano project Director Inaya Folarin Iman writes in the Mail on Sunday about how the National Education Union is institutionalising racial identity politics and losing the true moral purpose of education.
7/04/22
"Austen’s works are just the latest to fall foul of an effort to universalise the American racial narrative. The irony of this seems to have been lost on British activists and academics who claim to be challenging so-called “hegemonic Western knowledge systems”." by Inaya Folarin Iman
Jane Austen has fallen foul of hyper-Americanisation
20/03/22
“Agency, individual and community responsibility, and equality of opportunity are the principles that Sewell has championed for decades…He has been unafraid to challenge the now dominant narrative that blames racism, and racism alone, for the challenges faced by some black people, and he has transformed lives as a result…”
08/03/22
Inaya Folarin Iman: Parents have a right to prevent the moral re-engineering of their children
18/02/22
The Equiano Project is mentioned and praised in an article in The Telegraph Oni Oviri
“That is a vacuum that needs to be filled with an infrastructure of resources, based on the input of the wider community, and which captures the views of those black people who are less radical than race scholars. They exist, believe me, and deserve a much greater voice.
Some organisations, such as the Equiano Project, are attempting to do just that, but they will need money and support from the Government to have a major impact. This is a slower but more strategic course of action.”
Teachers alone cannot address the complexities of race
15/02/22
Tax-payer funded diversity officers are in the top 1% of earners in the UK
31/01/22
Race in schools: Race training says children aren't 'racially innocent'
20/12/21
Racist exams: Harvard scrap entrance exams after being deemed racially insensitive
15/12/21
'Race in Britain has become politicised' Inaya Folarin Iman explores race in Britain on GB News
09/12/21
The Equiano Project Director Inaya Folarin Iman writes about many mainstream British broadcasters agreeing to avoid the use of the acronym BAME for The Telegraph.
Banning BAME from the BBC is really only a partial victory
06/09/21
Inaya Folarin Iman: 'What matters is our common humanity, our character, not the colour of our skin’
30/08/21
Equiano Project Director speaks to GB News about removing depictions of historical figures who held views and did things we now regard as being unacceptable.
31/07/21
Equiano Project Director speaks to GB News about representation in the British police force.
02/07/21
Equiano Project Director and GB News presenter Inaya Folarin Iman welcomes Macron for his criticism of identity politics.
30/06/21
Equiano Project Director and GB News presenter Inaya Folarin Iman discusses Oxfam statement on ‘Whiteness’.
22/06/21
Equiano Project Director and GB News presenter Inaya Folarin Iman discusses the concept of ‘white privilege’.
