Murder conviction overturned after 33-years, suprise triplets & other stories from Black, Asian an Arab communities in the UK you shouldn't have missed this week - curated by Melissa Sigodo.

"You have to find an inner strength to be who you are every single day because so many people have a fetish for tearing Black women down and are eagerly awaiting the opportunity" - This week's opinion

Good evening or maybe morning because yes, I’ve been burning the midnight oil as they say.

Thank you for your patience and I hope you are all keeping well.

I’m thinking of changing the newsletter schedule to a Saturday. What do you guys think? Also, what did you think of last week’s opinion piece on Grenfell? I’d love to hear your thoughts so leave me a comment or drop me a message.

Other than that, it has been a crazy week but there was somewhat of a silver lining in the form of a coconut.

Also, this week, you have me again with another opinion. You’ll soon hear from someone else, but remember, this is only made possible if you subscribe to a paid version of the newsletter. For £5 a month, your payment directly funds the work of writers of colour of which there are few in this industry, so it is money well spent.

Without further ado, here’s this week’s newsletter.

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The Longer Read

Editor of The Thread Newsletter

“It can often feel as if it’s a lose-lose situation no matter how Black women choose to show up in the world.”

Melissa Sigodo - Friday September 13, 2024 - The Thread

This week, I wrote an article about celebrities and campaigners calling for the Government to make Afro hair a protected characteristic and to end Afro hair discrimination. After writing this story, I made a TikTok about it which a relative of mine then commented on. To my dismay, my twenty-something-year-old cousin explained that she was dealing with a work situation involving her hair, which left me devastated and fuming.

We spoke over the phone later that day as she detailed in the most vulnerable terms how her retail colleague - a thirty-something south Asian woman - would regularly tug at her hair and laugh. But during the latest incident, this colleague had plotted to achieve maximum embarrassment by pulling her hair and shouting out, “it’s real!”

All for the fantasy of acting out a racist notion steeped in slavery, a grown woman’s pathetic mission to dehumanise a young Black woman was accomplished and a fresh-faced graduate was left feeling humiliated and degraded on the shop floor.