About this Board

[Lovenliving]

Yesterday I discovered a bit about how this board came to be (Thanks @Patricksrum). That meant I also saw the pushback when it was created.

I would like to know from others if this was the first board for a religious or race based group on here? And whether those other boards for Jewish, Asian or other groups of women received the same sort of objection?

I think it's a bit of self fulfilling circular thing. The forum is dead so we don't check it and therefore it being on active reminds us. But then whenever anything of importance comes up it tends to get derailed by white fragility / racism / etc so therefore black women don't start threads on important things. Which means that the forum is dead.

As I recall, this Board was created during Covid, sometime after George Floyd’s murder. It was a time of heightened race sensitivity, with Black people being most impacted/affected. There were many many threads on MN justifying his murder.

I believe the other diverse Boards were created well before this, and not sort of in response to a world event, so perhaps didn’t receive as much pushback.

I hardly post my issues here as there are too many ploppers who attempt to explain away valid concerns. One that springs to mind was when my DC was at his first school, and one of only two Black boys, there was a specific TA who consistently reversed their names for months, which upset my boy greatly.

Non-Black posters were rationalising it with there being 30 DC in the class, yet the fact the TA had no issue recalling the names of the 12 or so blond/brown haired boys in the class bypassed them entirely.

i am glad I raised it with the teacher at the time, as it was dealt with very quickly. I subsequently found out that that TA has a Black husband, and suspect she was taking out her frustration with him on my DC. I was so happy to move back my lovely diverse area following a relationship breakdown, after that experience.

@Lovenliving The Muslim mumsnetters board came long after, and it was during the attacks on Gaza. The pushback was less (which isn't saying much), but the silence from MNHQ had people perplexed and disgusted. Here's the thread:

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/site_stuff/5042275-muslim-board?page=1

It's not moderated with the same vigour. Posts that are not in the spirit of respectful discussion are often allowed to remain in spite of reports. I think it depends who from MNHQ is on duty and what their understanding of Islamophobia is. But as a result the board has become dead. Threads derailed all the time and no one has the mental energy to engage. It also appears in active.

The Muslim board gets no special protection. A cursory google search tells me that Black people are 4.2% and Muslim people 6.5% in England and Wales. What you've said about Black people also applies to Muslim people, many of whom are Black and will have identified as both in the census. It's intersectionality not whataboutery.

This is Black Mumsnetters, whilst some discussions may touch on religion the focus should surely be the varied Black experience. Look at the threads in Black mumsnetters - How many of them are people just trying to find somewhere safe and inclusive to live and raise their families. That is just one truth of the Black lived experience the UK in 2025. Intersectionality matters, it add layers and complexity but it does not replace the core Black experience.

Using religion to detract from Black experiences on this board is whataboutery because there are dedicated boards for centering religion. As for comparing racism and religion, it does justice to neither unless it is in the context of how it treats members with different skin colours. That's not the discussion here.

Do you know which, if any other boards don't appear in active? I know the space for Jewish mumsnetters doesn't but I'm not sure which other ones don't.

No one is disagreeing with you as to the purpose of this board. But Lovenliving speculated about the religious boards in her OP so its perfectly appropriate to expand upon that in this thread.

@PrawnAgain I don't know, sorry.

That's not the discussion here

It's the discussion people are having on this thread. You don't have to join in but you don't get to dictate what everyone else talks about.

Loven is a bad actor.

With a vast swathe of white women I tend to find when they interact with us blacks
It's like you should treat them like the gospel whilst they look down with patronisation upon yourself

I agree. Unfortunately many Black people (especially the more visible/vocal ones) see it differently and anyone who doesn't isn't doing Blackness properly.

The shared culture is religion. Blackness itself doesn't have a shared culture because race isn't ethnicity.

I’m reminded of the hit film American Fiction and how a poster on the film thread couldn’t understand why the protagonist wanted to study the Greek tragedies rather than African American history/culture, totally missing the essence of the film.
Stay in your lane peeps!

It is a shame that the board has become boring and for this reason I only dip in and out now.

I’ve noticed that one poster, bless her, has recently revived and has been responding to threads last posted on 4/5 years ago!

I wouldn’t rely on active threads to visit the board if there were healthy discussions about a range of issues, not just where to live etc.

Bear in mind that a thread is likely to become active because of a pile on by the white women who can’t resist adding their tuppence. And this just becomes too tiresome and people stop engaging on the board, perhaps the ultimate objective of bad actors.

I think it would be good to hide the board, black women who want to engage will find the board and hopefully have some meaningful, respectful chats with other black women.

Otherwise, if we want to have a scrum we can resort to posting on the AIBU board.

I don't disagree.

More recently I think there have bern some questionable threads (Trans is most definitely not making into the 'talk') or posters (who are these 'Blacks' they keep reffering to, whilst claiming to be Black?) or just offensive threads from people who should know better. The colourism one. Rather than uplift each other and push back against colorism we should just continue to embed it in our children? Really?

If these were my first experience of Black MN I wouldn't come back.

This is why a healthy, engaging board allows us to discuss issues and to challenge each other.