What Kwasi Kwarteng being called ‘superficially black’ actually meant An opinion piece from LeahMahon_
Labour MP Rupa Huq came under fire last week for her comments about Britain’s first Black Chancellor. But the uproar obscures an important debate about politics and Black identity argues Leah MahonWHEN Kwasi Kwarteng, the government’s first black Chancellor of the Exchequer, was labelled “superficially black” by one of his political peers last week it was no mystery to many of us in the black community what those words actually meant.
However, in the context of the wider Black British community Kwarteng’s trajectory is worlds away from a school system that sees Black, Asian and minority ethnic pupils experiencing some of the worst rates of school exclusions. Kwarteng’s right to be a Tory is his alone because yes, there are Black Conservatives out there. Some of us just have to look as far as to our parents and grandparents to see that there are views in our community that clash with more widely accepted notions of what constitute Black identity.
But, if he is to be a politician of the people, surely that means actually representing all of us? Particularly, as he rolled out a new budget plan last week amid a cost-of-living crisis that will see black people disproportionately affected. As mentioned, people from communities of colour knew exactly what Rupa meant when she made those comments. and if you got it she, in theory, was not wrong. That’s despite the backlash from white MPs and commentators who’ve probably never batted an eyelid about Black people’s experience of injustice until it was hammered into the news cycle, and most notably, goes against the idea of a black man basically being criticised because he is “acting white.
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