The Week Unboxed: Media & Culture Edition -

CHIOMA NNANDI TO SUCCEED EDWARD ENNINFUL AS EDITOR AT VOGUE

When Edward Enninful announced he was ascending further into the Conde Nast heavens, I didn’t give Vogue another thought. To be fair I’m not their target audience but bought a number of issues that I intend to give to an archive because of his momentous achievement as Vogue’s first Black editor replacing Alexandra Shulman (oooo the vitriol in those early days even apparent to a non-Voguer like me).

Anyway fast forward six years, and boom melanin continues to reign supreme as Chioma Nnadi becomes Enninful’s successor.

The first Black, female Editor of British Vogue, the Nigerian is continuing the trend of Africans commandeering this legendary institution from Chief Business Officer Vanessa Kingori (Kenya) to Enninful (Ghana) and now Chioma. Twiggy Jalloh already represents us Sierra Leoneans, however, if the powers wanna promote her too we’re all for it.

I did think Enniful’s announcement a *tiny* bit weird.

The publicist in me would have gotten shots of them together at Vogue World but he did a simple note which could be the fashion – no pun intended. Mr Enninful’s final edition will be in March 2024 though Ms Nnadi will start in October! Momentous moment!

UK NEWSPAPER ACCUSED OF ‘RACIAL LAUNDERING’

I always say that Black women are used as the footstool to the world’s progress and agenda and this story is no different. My first encounter with this story was through a Guardian opinion piece by author and writer Nels Abbey.

In it, he broadly describes the rise of Black and Brown people being used as the poster people for prejudicial narratives and how Black journalists or thought leaders were being approached by a UK publication to front deeply problematic and borderline racist rhetoric ghostwritten by white men. Interestingly, one of the people at the centre of this controversial practice is Dominique Samuels, a young woman I mentioned in the Silver is Gold edition of The Week Unboxed.

Dominique first appeared on my radar after featuring in the two-part series, We Are Black & British. In the series, she makes some somewhat problematic statements where she implies that race doesn’t play a factor in some of the challenges that Black people face. However, I dismissed some of her contributions because I realised that Dominique is just starting out in life. However, to see her at the centre of this piece was highly disturbing to me.

Dominique Samuels Copyright: Sean Bailey

I appreciate that not everyone in the Black community has the same life experience – it’s impossible for that to be the case – and where you are in the unspoken hierarchical structure of society also plays a massive influence. However, Dominique during the show seemed determined to misrepresent any of the practices put in place to support those Black people who had a different lived experience to her.

For example, in a central London school predominantly attended by Black children, she believes that a Black teacher tells her students that slang is synonymous with Black culture. That isn’t what the teacher said. What she had in fact said was that slang is a fact of life in Black culture – not the only type of language – and therefore in the same way we will accept and acknowledge dialects like cockney rhyming slang as legitimate even if not a primary language that slang should be seen as such whether that is by a group of secondary school students or the Prime Minister.

I respected Dominique’s position that she loves being Black and British, which makes absolute sense especially if her every day is steeped in British culture, a valid experience. However, to now learn that she is fronting articles that degenerate the very community she’s from or dismiss another lived experience is highly troubling.

Why do I say that Black women are being used as the footstool? From Nels’s original article, the examples are dominated by Black women. We are consistently put in the position of shielding others and then discarded when no longer useful as Dominque herself found once she refused to be associated with an article misrepresenting carnival. It’s exhausting and disheartening.

Unfortunately, she apparently tweeted that she thought it was standard practice for articles to be written for guest writers, a sad indication of a young person who doesn’t understand the traditional media industry and hungry to get ahead by any means necessary.

Whether it’s social kudos, a misguided strategy toward career progression or maybe the false idea that there will be safety in sharing particular views, the point is that racist ideals are fuelled by what people see. If you look Black, you are Black and your personal politics are null and void by someone who sees you as the enemy simply based on the colour of your skin.

It’s important to acknowledge that this story was originally broken by Lester Holloway at Black African and Caribbean newspaper, The Voice. It’s a reminder of how important publications like The Voice still are as they are focused on covering the news stories that impact the Black communities. This story has since been picked up by Nels and journalists at the Private Eye allowing these stories to reach a wider audience.

Before I went to press publish a prolific figure in the Black community, Lee Jasper posted a new post from Dominique talking about her recent evolutionary change.

In essence, Dominique no longer feels compelled to be the poster girl for right wing politics due to a life change. Honestly, I’m not sure that I read that Dominique has changed – she states she still unapologetically holds the same beliefs – however we’ve seen the end of her past trajectory.

MANDATORY ANTI-RACISM TRAINING PROPOSED FOR TEACHERS

Copyright: Sam Balye

I came across this article uabout teachers being given mandatory racism and anti-racism theory training on journalist Natalie Morris’ LinkedIn page. As I read the words written by Naomi Evans, it triggered a couple of memories from school.

My primary school music teacher was doing a play – what it was about I can’t remember – and the requirement was I must do an ‘African’ accent, namely Nigerian. I was told I must practise to achieve the desired outcome. It didn’t matter that I wasn’t Nigerian. That was the creative vision. I couldn’t do it. And I lost the part. A last minute reprieve – probably due to my tears – meant I was allowed to continue, in my English accent. What I didn’t know then was school was inadvertently preparing me for microaggressions and stereotypes I would experience further in secondary school and throughout my life.

It would be great if this training could be implemented as opposed to the ineffective use of unconscious bias training, which is more a placebo to the problem than anything else. What I hope is that people remember that this training wouldn’t be a lesson in who’s right or wrong but a real opportunity to unlearn preconceptions influenced by incorrect assumptions. It’ll actually create better teachers and better learning environments for everyone.

THE MISSING THREAD AT SOMERSET HOUSE

Every so often an occasion arises that means I will shake off my homebody ways are head out into the bright city lights and that happened this week with the launch of The Missing Thread.

The official description is “The exhibition examines how the cultural, counter-cultural, political and socio-economic backdrop of the 20th and 21st centuries have shaped the identity of Black style and in turn mainstream fashion culture. Extending far beyond the realm of the catwalk, the exhibition spotlights and contextualises the profound impact of Black creativity through music, photography, art and design”.

As soon as the invite landed in my inbox to the preview – this doesn’t happen as often as I’d like despite my profession – I RSVP’d straight away and labelled it “YOU WANT TO GO TO THIS” as I know how easily I can give into a change of heart. And boy what a pleasure it was.

Nothing fills my spirit more than experiencing the creativity of others. I couldn’t stop smiling the whole way through the exhibition.

My favourite part was discovering they had a whole section dedicated to one of my business icons Ozwald Boateng. To be fair you can’t talk Black British fashion and not mention the designer at No.30 Savile Row.

Ozwald blends the quintessential English cuts with the vibrancy of Ghanaian/African print. His cuts are so distinctive that you can recognise a Boateng on sight. I turned a corner and gasped when i saw the suit and gasped some more when I saw they were playing the anime he created for his 2004 show with Givenchy. Pure class.

Launched perfectly during Fashion Week, I floated through the exhibition so excited and electrified by the immersion in our culture, especially one that is often hidden. It wasn’t something I could take in all at once and, ideally, I’ll go see it again and there’s a little time as it runs until 07 January.

However, as I started to think about other ways I could get another dopamine hit through our museum culture, it evolved into a stark realisation about the inequity of access. London’s headline exhibitions can be financially out of reach. I explore those thoughts more in my article, Since when did Culture become so financially inaccessibleSince when did Culture become so financially inaccessible?

The Missing Thread is a must-see and a beautiful documentation of our contribution to British fashion.