In the immediate aftermath of the death of George Floyd and the protests that sprung up across the world, Amanda Ade's voice emerged as one of the boldest and inspirational this side of the Atlantic.
In a raw and impassioned video to her Instagram account, the college student shared her thoughts about the protests, but more importantly about the conversations they were sparking – both constructive and not so constructive – here in Ireland.
The 10-minute video quickly went viral, racking up more than 535,000 views.
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"What motivated the video, first of all, was just people's comments after the whole incident," she tells me over the phone. "I was seeing a lot of ignorance, whether it's intentional or not, around the whole subject matter of racism, and race relations. A lot of people were pretty much in denial about the existence of racism in Ireland."
"It was obviously met with people that would be very open to hearing their experiences and, you know, people that would be willing to to address it, face it, and actually change things. But then on the other side of that, there's always going to be people that just don't agree with what you're saying and will find a problem really, in anything."
Ade was born in South Africa to a Nigerian father and South African mother, but moved to Ireland when she was two, growing up in Kildare. As one of the four hosts of the Black and Irish podcast – along with Leon Diop, Boni Odoemene and Femi Bankole and spawned from the Black and Irish Instagram account – she's become one of the leading young voices on race and race relations.
And all of that while finishing college and starting a masters.
This new platform comes with many pluses, as you'd imagine, but for Ade it agitates a less-than-positive feeling she's spoken about before: the pressure of feeling you must always represent your race as a person of colour.
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"If anything, it's probably added a bit more pressure," she says. "More people know who I am. So you need to watch yourself a bit more. In terms of actually feeling like you're carrying your own race with you. That's that's something that I feel."
"There's always been perceptions that have been pushed of who black people are what people are like for hundreds of years. So it's going to take a bit longer than a couple of months to actually address this."
The Black and Irish Instagram account has grown enormously in recent months, its posts from black and mixed-race people in Ireland sharing their experiences of micro-aggressions, verbal abuse, and feelings of isolation bringing these issues to a wider audience.
"A lot of the wider Irish community haven't really been given an opportunity to even hear stories from other people," she says. "So they wouldn't have as many immigrant friends and there wouldn't be many in their area, whether it's intentional or not. The main thing that what we're trying to do here is just kind of break down barriers between people and actually get people talking and have a conversation."
"I want to say that it is changing," she adds. "I want to say that people are a bit more conscious of the fact that these biases are there now. And I do want to see that. But we're still at a very, very early stages."
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Ade is firm on the opinion that race in Ireland isn't the same as race in the United States, and that the tactics for addressing racism might not work as well here as over there.
"We're still a very, very young country [in this respect]. But then, on that note, that's a very, very good place for us to be because we can look to places like the US and the UK and see what they did wrong, essentially, and and make sure not to repeat those same patterns here."
The Black and Irish Podcast
In The Black and Irish Podcast, our four hosts - Leon Diop, Femi Bankole, Amanda Ade, and Boni Odoemene - talk to a variety of remarkable people about the lives of black people living in Ireland.
In today's episode, Amanda chats with writer, academic, and broadcaster Emma Dabiri about her renowned book 'Don't Touch My Hair', the importance of representation, and what it truly means to be Irish.
Listen back above or subscribe to The Black and Irish Podcast wherever you get your podcasts.
