News

Dear friends of OBV this is Teshura Adams first article for OBV. She is a intern and a Boston University undergraduate studying international relationship and politics. She will be doing a wide range of work with us including writing, campaigning and research. This is very insightful article, which goes way beyond the hyperbole of Oscar night. Well done Teshura.

Simon Woolley

A hard hitting no-nonsense independent report, led by Baroness Ruby McGregor-Smith, concluded that the UK loses out on 24 billion pounds a year by ignoring and or locking out Black talent from the work place.

The review ‘Race In The Workplace’ stated that only 6% of people from BME backgrounds reached top-level management positions, while their employment rates were 12% lower than the average

Skin lightening products are a multi-billion selling industry, with films exploring the issue and here Dotun Adebeyo discussing the complexities, politics and ramifications.

Written by Dotun Adebayo

The political train of xenophobia, gutter opportunism and blatant lies dramatically hit the buffers yesterday, when the people of Stoke rejected the politics of the far-Right.

Author Nicola Rollock, lecturer at Birmingham University has been named 'author of the month' by the renowned publisher Routledge. Rollock was the driving force behind the multi-awarded winning book, ‘The Colour of class', collaboratively written with David Gillborn, Carol Vincent and Stephen Ball.

When Cllr Reena Ranger was invited to speak to young minority International leaders, in Brussels at the Transatlantic International Leaders Network - TILN-, (now in its sixth year), she spoke with her usual passion, energy, insight and knowledge. Speaking from her own experience Ranger talked about the lack of women of colour in all  positions of power. Furthermore, she said: 'Our role as women is not to sit around and lament but to do something about it.'

A British Muslim schoolteacher travelling to New York last week as a member of a school party from south Wales was denied entry to the United States.

Juhel Miah and a group of children and other teachers were about to take off from Iceland on 16 February on their way to the US when he was removed from the plane at Reykjavik. The previous week, on the 10 February, a US appeals court had upheld a decision to suspend Donald Trump’s executive order that temporarily banned entry to the country from seven Muslim-majority countries.

The Nobel prize-winning author Toni Morrison once said, “If there is a book you want to read, but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it.” And as a young woman the “book I wanted to read” was a narrative where a black woman could be a member of the UK parliament.

Perhaps no MP in recent British history has had to face years of internal and external racial bigotry than Diane Abbott MP.

In one week alone a Government Minister David Davis subjected Ms Abbott to sexism, racism and a level of patronising that demeans our democracy.