#BAMEOver - no more acronyms!
In solidarity with the #BAMEOver initiative of Inc Arts and in consultation with our arts industry peers, Chineke! Foundation will no longer use the acronym BME in its communications. Instead, we shall adopt the phrase Black and ethnically diverse from now on.
Five years ago, Chineke! set out on a mission to champion change and celebrate diversity within classical music. We have used BME in our communications and documentation since our organisation's inception as a way of identifying the primary beneficiaries of our charitable endeavours (though not to the exclusion of our fellow White musicians).
The acronyms BME (Black and Minority Ethnic) and BAME (Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic) were first conceived as a way of classifying people in contrast to the majority group of White British members of the UK population. They are used for the purposes of data collection, for recruitment forms, tick-boxes etc. but they are problematic.
An acronym, by its nature, is designed to curtail description, to be a shorthand. BME and BAME reduce individuals of diverse heritage into a single category, one which is the binary opposite to White. It limits curiosity and inquiry into identity and individual experiences. It collapses a whole concertina of different ethnicities and cultures into single letters. Acronyms are inadequate and outdated because you cannot describe people in that way.
Our change, which admittedly should have happened much sooner, comes after consultation with our peers in the arts sector and beyond. No single term could ever hope to encapsulate the full spectrum of ethnicities of our musicians and audiences. The world that we live in, a hopefully more enlightened one in the aftermath of the Black Lives Matter movement, demands that we recognise the rich diversity of the people who live in it.