Thread by @POC4INDY

Our lives as welsh language speaking of colour differ hugely from the lives of non-POC who speak Welsh and and people of colour who don’t speak Welsh. A thread. 1/

There is an idea that only white people speak Welsh. This is plainly untrue. Many people of colour speak Welsh, and according to historian @Seimon_Brooks_, around 10% of #Cardiff docklands spoke Welsh during the heyday of shipping in South Cardiff 2/

On a theoretical level, these conversations are emblematic of the insider and outsider dynamic. Who is an “outsider” to the Welsh language? Who is an insider? What hierarchies, if any, emerge, and how are they exploited? 3/

Welsh language speaking people of colour are both yet neither, and there’s a whole host of racialised language and microaggressions in Welsh that are different from English, along with the overt lack of terminology to discuss race led by people of colour 4/

We’re best ignored, sometimes tokenized, but in an age of tick box approaches to race, the intellectual labour of the knowledge of our lived experience is absolutely priceless especially to beneficiaries of the racism we experience 5/

Let’s be honest: for many of us who have experienced racism in the workplace, whether or not we speak Welsh (and by definition, how “Welsh” we may be...) has been a reoccurring issue and factored into bullying we have experienced. 6/

We are tick boxes. Or existence is a threat to organisations who have cultivated an idea of welshness as whiteness in our lived experience of race and the welsh language, and our cultural competency combined with the cultural competency of Welsh language organisations dealing 7/

with Welsh language speaking people of colour. For orgs that deal with BAME people, there are stereotypes that BAME people do not speak Welsh. More than often, this goes hand in hand w/ microagressions about the Welsh language and a lack of cultural competency with Welsh Lang 8/

It’s time to platform and pay people of colour. Platforming beyond racism on the Telly or tokenism of one mixed race woman on a TV show. We need to hire and pay Welsh language speaking of colour and support those who speak out against bad practice. It’s that simple.