Powerful short film highlights effects of racism on the mental health of Black learners

Still courtesy of The Spit Game UK

HELP! I THINK MY TEACHER IS RACIST is a powerful short film created by The Spit Game UK – a collective of musicians, actors, models and producers that champions London’s freshest young Black talent.

Commissioned by and filmed on location at Science Gallery London, the film draws on research and personal experience to highlight issues in the education system and their impact on the mental health of Black learners.

It’s one of a number of short films featured in MY KIND OF BLACK, an exhibition that marks the culmination of their year-long residency at Science Gallery London. We spoke to Benjamin Turner, a former teacher who leads the collective, about the film, the collective, and how rap can be used as a research tool.

How did the collective form, and what drives it?

The Spit Game has been a collective since autumn 2021, but the project actually started in 2016 when I started teaching at my first school. There I started a Rap Club project – going from after-school club to performing at Wembley Arena. By the time we created The Spit Game brand, we already had young creatives from across London in the community. The Spit Game launched us into industry and massively grew our audience. The collective is driven by authenticity, community and excellence, championing the vibrant potential of young Black talent and cultures.

Tell us about the films you’ve made, and the research the collective has been doing in local secondary schools.

All of our film projects focus on highlighting excellence and/or issues that reflect our community of young Black creatives. This has been enhanced by our residency at Science Gallery London, where we have been given a space to work creatively, including writing sessions, rehearsals, and using the workshop as the setting for one of our films.

Alongside this, we worked with researchers from King’s to develop our own understanding of issues affecting young Black people – specifi cally within education – and developed a framework for research. We then used this framework in local secondary schools to engage more youth voice and ensure the topics covered in our short fi lm were supported by research.

What change do you think needs to happen in the education system in London?

Despite being a profession with a lot of compassion, there are a wide range of systemic issues within the education system that need addressing, including making curriculums more reflective of the needs and aspirations of young people. For our project, the focus was on the clash between school culture and Black cultures. We found that young Black learners often have to leave their culture at the school gates to survive a day of learning without being punished. Even in schools that claim to embrace diversity, it is Black faces that are celebrated whilst Black cultures are often chastised. There needs to be a recognition that excluding things from schools – be it youth cultures (positive or negative) or Black identities – does not exclude it from their lives and risks making young people feel unsafe or unwelcome. Instead, embracing the cultures and identities of learners, supporting them to achieve excellence within and beyond these, and trusting young people with more leadership (including allowing failures) will elevate the impact of education.

You have collaborated with a number of big institutions including King’s. What are the benefits and challenges that you’ve encountered?

The Spit Game collective set up allows significant flexibility when it comes to how we work and what we do. Larger institutions have more restrictions, but this can, at times, be useful for channelling creativity. Another key benefit has been resources, especially spaces for us to use and adapt to our needs. Whilst this hasn’t been the case with all institutions we have worked with, King’s has given us significant trust in approaching our work in our own way.

The biggest limitation of collaborating with institutions however has been systems which refl ect the way the institutions work but not necessarily the world outside of this – especially that of young Black creatives. However, Science Gallery London has been really accommodating in working with us to adapt to our needs.

You’ll be putting on an exhibition at Science Gallery London in the summer. What can visitors expect, and what would you like them to take away from the experience?

This will be a refreshing exhibition experience - curated by young Black creatives and based around their creative work. Visitors will be able to experience the films we create, explore the research and processes behind them, and get an insight into the lives, perspectives and ways-of- working of our collective. A key goal is to show that learning creatively – not just facilitated in classrooms and/or institutions – can have its own value.

MY KIND OF BLACK is on display from 17 July – 12 October 2024