Who am I?

Identity is a concept I've been thinking a lot about recently.  I recently attended an event at my university's ACS (Afro-Caribbean society) where the topic of identity was brought up. One of the speakers as part of a 'provocation' stated that none of us (the audience) were British because our skin was not white.

Whilst this was a comment made purely to start a conversation, it definitely struck a chord with me. Personally I identify as being British first because this is where I was born and where everything I have ever known is. However, I also strongly identify as being black and I don't believe that the two are mutually exclusive.

I definitely think that identity is unique to individuals and that it is not up to anyone else to tell you who or what you are. A few weeks ago somebody told me that I wasn't 'black', instead he'd decided that I simply had brown skin as if I'd just been sat out in the sun for too long. It momentarily offended me that I obviously wasn't coming across as black enough, until I realised that the opinion of such an ignorant person was not relevant to me.

I know that I relate to parts of both British and black culture in a way that suits me. Though I am reminded that not everyone thinks the same way as me when I feel people staring at me, luckily this is not something I have experienced a lot of as I have lived in the very multicultural cities of Leicester and London.

I know that I am proud of my heritage and I love hearing my Grandma's stories about her childhood in Nevis before she boarded a ship to England aged 19, the same age as I am now. I know the sacrifices and hardships that both sets of my Grandparents went through to be accepted by the people of this country and I am forever grateful to them.

12 years in the waiting

Yesterday the news that we had been waiting for, for the last 12 years was finally confirmed. British Vogue FINALLY broke their, frankly disgusting, spell of no solo black cover models with Jourdan Dunn on their February 2015 cover.























How ridiculous is it that it has been TWELVE WHOLE YEARS since Naomi Campbell was the last solo black model to appear on the cover in August 2002? 

I remember reading an article about the lack of diversity on British Vogue covers last year on The Guardian's website which can be read here. The mentioned article links the lack of cover diversity to a lack of diversity in fashion or a lack of universal support for models regardless of their success which , in turn, is covert racism. 

It is wrong that it is no surprise that even though Jourdan has been in the industry longer than Cara Delevigne, is just as successful as her and earned more money in 2014 ($4m over $3.5m) Cara has already had three British Vogue solo covers (March '13, Jan '14 and Sept '14). 

If Vogue's editorial policy regarding models is based on success or suitability there is no question that Jourdan should have appeared solo much sooner than now, her last appearance on the cover was at the beginning of her career back in November 2008 when she was only 18 years old, the cover also featured two white models. 

Whilst it is a great thing worth celebrating that Jourdan finally has her solo cover, that her hard work for the last 6 years has finally paid off, thanking British Vogue for coming to their senses feels like praising someone for doing something that they shouldn't deserve praise for. Like thanking someone for not stealing your phone from you, or for not sitting in the seat that you reserved on the train. It just feels like extreme, misplaced politeness that is not necessary and makes you look a bit weird.

British Vogue should not receive praise for featuring a successful black model on their cover as it is something that they should have been doing for the last 12 years anyway. In any case they should be lucky that models like Jourdan still want to appear on their cover despite their incessant racism.

Let's just hope that we won't have to wait until 2027 to see another solo black model on the cover.

What are your thoughts on this cover? Do you think that both Jourdan and Vogue deserve praise for the cover? 

Let me know in the comments.

Why the way that black people are represented on Reality TV needs to stop.

I love watching reality TV shows like The Apprentice, Goggle Box and Big Brother. However one thing that gripes me year on year is that these programmes repeatedly insist on putting black people into one of two boxes. We are all either ‘difficult’ or there purely for comedic value. Let’s take Stephen on the latest series of the Apprentice for example, he is one of only two black people on the apprentice and, three episodes in, has already been portrayed as the ‘argumentative’ one. Whilst it is clear that he must be well qualified to have made it to the final stages of the show, his professional successes being overshadowed by an unfair edit.

Whilst I can only assume that The Apprentice has thousands of applicants from all ethnic backgrounds there must have been hundreds of other rational black people who are equally well qualified who were not chosen by the producers to compete on the show. It is bad enough that the amount of black people shown on reality TV is already limited without producers feeding into these damaging stereotypes. It is offensive that whilst there are also white contestants that are shown to be argumentative; the sheer amount of them on the show doesn’t do as much damage to the representation of their ethnicity.

Goggle Box is also an offender of this stereotyping of a whole ethnicity. Let’s take a quick look at Sandy and Sandra; they are a pair of black women who feature on the show amongst a number of other families from a range of ethnicities. Whilst I am aware that the premise of Goggle box is that it is comical, I feel that Sandy and Sandra stand out as the people for everyone to laugh at instead of with. Due to their eccentric characters and the only two black people featured which again makes it easy for the public to assume that all black people are like that.

Again, year on year on year on year Big Brother fail to recognise that black people aren’t ready to fight nonstop or there to look like idiots. I remember watching the first show of every series every year and my mum saying look ‘they’ve put another stupid black person in there’. For as long I can remember there has only ever been one or two black people on the show and they’ve fallen into these categories, I’m thinking of Brian Belo, Makosi Musambasi and Victor Ebuwa to name a few. It's as if black people can’t be shown to be rational human beings.

I am aware that as of 2011 only 3% of the population of GB was black, therefore there is a massive possibility that a lot of people in this country would have never come across a black person in real life, therefore their only opinion of us will be formed via interaction with the media, and when the media only has one intention when it comes to representing us, it becomes very easy for people to generalise that all black people fall into one of the above mentioned categories. Even as a third generation immigrant I have firsthand experience the ignorance of some people. When I was 15 years old and walking home from school in my uniform a white male of about 30 years old rolled down his car window and shouted ‘coon’ at me. I also once walked into a McDonald’s only 20 minutes from my multicultural home town of Leicester to be confronted with confused stares and a child turning to her parents to ask why our skin colour was different.

Don’t get me wrong, this isn’t me hating on white people, or people of any other ethnicity. This is just me airing my frustrations about the way my ethnicity is always portrayed on reality TV and why I think something needs to change, and quickly.