Blackness is in vogue. All over the world people are raising their fists and singing along to Beyoncé’s Lemonade, Bristol just elected its first black mayor, and Malia Bouattia recently became the first black, Muslim woman to head up the National Union of Students. You would think things were looking up – except they’re not, because being in vogue doesn’t help the young black men still being incarcerated in their thousands and killed in their hundreds by police in America, the white-dominated media insisting that “black power seems to have gone to everyone’s heads”, or the fact that actually, Malia Bouattia isn’t really black.
You’d be forgiven for thinking so. Bouattia spent the past year working in the capacity of Black Students’ Officer for the NUS, identifies as Algerian, looks as though she could be mixed-black, and recently wrote an op-ed for the Guardian in which she stated: “This week I became the first black woman to be elected president of the National Union of Students, and the first Muslim who will hold this position too.” Seems pretty clear.
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