Interview with Selena Carty, founder of Black Poppy Rose
By I. Biancacci
Selena Carty is a Cultural & Ancestral Historian/Consultant, Afro Centric Genealogist, Global ‘African’ ‘Black’ Military Historian & Founder of BlackPoppyRose & BlackRose of Remembrance. But, Selena is also a woman, a mother of two, a lot more than just the titles you will read in her bio.
“I have a love for history, for understanding myself, and I have a love for understanding people around me. I can’t grow alone, I learn from being inspired, by things I read, I see, I hear. I love to just sit and watch nature and feel a small part of something bigger. What drives me to be all those Selenas is to understand how I am connected to all kind of things, and how all things are connected to me”.
Selena is a first generation born in England. Her grandparents and parents are part of the Windrush generation. “I remember people used to tell me to go home, and I didn’t really understand why. My parents were born in Jamaica when it was still part of the British Empire, before the Independence, and I was born here. It took me few years to understand that people were telling me to go back to Africa. This helped me to dig into my family history, my culture, to understand where on the continent I am supposed to go back to”.
“When you are younger – continues Selena – you think that the world is good and everything is good. Growing older you actually realise that is not like this, not because things are not good, but because there is a perseption that has been navigated to be a certain way. People try to make feel people that they think they don’t belong, uncomfortable, and feel that they don’t matter, that their voices don’t matter.
I decided to become an historian to find an answer to this question “What am I? Who am I?”. Because other people keep telling who am I. Well I am black. When I was born, how did I knew that that matter? Did I need to be christian? Did I need to be black? Did I need to be a woman? People were labeling me, classifying me, but I had to figure out how all of this would have made sense for me”.
Selena grew up in Brixton, the epicentre of black culture in London. Although she went to a really good school, she was not taught about colonialism and the contributions of Black people of the British Empire to warfare. “I remember I started looking for history of where we belonged. We were in the 80s and door to door salesmen used to sell Encyclopedia. My mum bought it and I used to read it and look for black people, and when I would find them I used to copy all information on a paper and tell people “Did you know this black person…”. I was always reading about people that looked like me, what would they do, how they inspired themselves, what difficulties did they face?”.
Selena traveled the world before she started working on her family tree, researching for her roots. “I wanted to know my story, discover more about my ancestors. I wanted to know where I was coming from, so that in the future I could explain that to my children. I would ask myself “I am supposed to be African but I have never been to Africa, what does that mean? And if I have to buy a visa to go to Africa, I can’t be African, can I? That’s how I see it. And if I don’t speak the language, I don’t know the culture, how can I be African? So I had to make that make sense to me! I am British, but I am British with Jamaican ancestors from an African and European bloodline. Does that makes me any less black? It doesn’t! It just means that I have more narrative in my history to bring forward and talk about”.
In 2010 Selena launched BlackPoppyRose, following the realisation that in a country that many African, Black, West Indian, Caribbean, Pacific Islands & Indigenous communities people call home, the history that represents them has been displaced over the course of time.
“Growing up in the UK, most people are aware of the Red Poppy, which signifies British remembrance, as celebrated by The Royal British Legion. Black Poppy Rose fully supports the legacy of the red poppy, however, I felt that as a member of the African, Black, West Indian, Caribbean, Pacific Islands & Indigenous communities it was important to highlight our contribution to world history.
England has an excellent archive of the country’s historic achievements. These are documented and celebrated via monuments, statues and plaques, documentaries, books, articles and magazines. However, there is a severe lack of representation displaying the full picture of history, including all of its contributors. Throughout history, many of our generations have been displaced; our memories, our pain and our loss are universal. Whilst we do not wish to focus on negative aspects of history, we feel that it is important that our ancestors are recognised for their dues”.
Selena created the BlackPoppyRose to combat what she describes as “a universal miseducation on so many levels around people that look like me or are classified as Black, are classified as not belonging in a certain place in the world, because of how history is taught.” The Black Poppy Rose is here to encourage a collective education and to empower the future generations, “to be wanting to be part of this world, because without them there is no world”.
“Learn about yourself, because without you there is no world, no community, no stories. Find your voice and be confident about it, regardless of what other people might think or say, somebody will feel connected to your story”.
