Dr Shirin Housee is a long-standing anti-racist, anti-sexist, and anti-colonial feminist activist. Over the past 40 years, she has been a member of numerous groups, including Birmingham Black Sisters, Women Together Group, Palestine Solidarity Group, and the Black Peoples Alliance.
Her activism began as a student at Walthamstow College. The murder of 13 young Black people in the New Cross Massacre of 1981 led her to attend her first Black-led political demonstration in London. Shirin recalls: “‘13 dead and nothing said’ was the main slogan, and it still rings loud in my head.” From that moment, her life changed.
At the University of Essex, she became a member of the Black Students Alliance, organising coaches to Bradford to support the Bradford 12, joining anti-Apartheid demonstrations and sit-ins, and leading campaigns through her women’s group — including Reclaim the Night marches, support for the miners’ strike, and other grassroots struggles.
Her political life continued to flourish in Birmingham, where she became an active member of Birmingham Black Sisters, campaigning against anti-immigration laws, domestic violence, police harassment, and other human rights issues.
Before her retirement, Dr Housee lectured in Sociology at the University of Wolverhampton. Politics was always central to her teaching. She developed her curriculum through anti-racist and anti-sexist approaches, with the decolonisation of the curriculum at its core. She was also engaged in anti-racist education research, focusing on classroom critical learning.
She has written widely, including her 2018 book Speaking Out Against Racism in the University Space.
When asked about her stance on anti-racism, Shirin says:
Anti-racism is actually at the core of my sense of being. I just feel that without being an anti-racist in a racist society, you’re fooling yourself.
