Part of the ‘My Story’ series of reflections by Student Success Diversity Mark Officers.
By Katherine Olo Wa Pango.
I was born in Canterbury but have been lucky enough to spend most of my childhood living overseas. My dad works with United Nations and has been posted across many different countries. At 6 months old I was living in Chad, went to nursery in the Dominican Republic and spent 3 years in Primary school in Jamaica. Being mixed race in Jamaica was a relatively normal experience. However returning to the UK was not. Once I returned to Canterbury, I was exposed to racial discrimination for the first time. This was in the form of what I can now identify as microaggressions, specifically around my hair. This made studying very uncomfortable, and I really had to wrestle with understanding my sense of self at a young age. Navigating school in these years was awkward/delicate.
I looked forward to moving to secondary school. Due to my dad’s work moving a lot, I went to boarding school and I loved it for the first few years. With learning being placed at the centre of the school experience, it was much easier to dive into studies. Then getting older and being asked to think more critically, big questions started being asked by others. People started to look towards the few BAME students for guidance. My experience with this was made more uncomfortable by students singling me out as the ‘friendly’ black student to help. This meant two things: not only was I isolated from my black peers whilst they were often belittled near me, but the other students felt able to take advantage of my willingness to inform with deliberately uncomfortable questions.
Having grown up around a range of people, I have always found joy in the basic human connector of conversation. Being able to educate people around race has been part of that, but it sometimes made school a difficult place. At times it could be hostile. I did often have people invade my personal space in regard to my hair. But other times it was very rewarding such as helping the senior management at school navigate BLM. I got books added to the library, the school made pledges for curriculum change and more BAME staff.
The Diversity Mark role initially caught my eye because it allowed me to continue the work that I have done previously. This was an incredible opportunity as studying sociology encouraged me to interrogate sources of knowledge, becoming a DMO has allowed me to put that aspect of my degree into practice. I look forward to working and helping promote inclusion at the university.