Our issues with racism are far from skin-deep
Here in class-obsessed Britain, there’s a belief that people are judged not by the colour of their skin but by the calibre of their education, the tailoring of their suit and the plums in their mouth.
There’s a wry acceptance that such classism isn’t good – but it’s definitely not considered out-and-out bad either. Not like – whisper it – racism.
And then we learn that Edward Enninful, the first black editor-in-chief of British Vogue, was stopped by security guards at the front doors of the magazine’s Mayfair offices and told to “use the loading bay”.
The 48-year-old, who has been at the helm of the fashion bible since 2017, has the bearing of a monarch, the dress sense of a princeling and cut-glass vowels that would put our young, Estuary-inclined royals to shame. Yet that cut no ice with security at Vogue House.
Enninful, who was appointed an OBE in 2016 for services to diversity in the fashion industry, wrote on Twitter: “Today, I was racially profiled by a security guard whilst entering my work place.
“As I entered, I was instructed to use the loading bay. Just because our timelines
and weekends are returning to normal, we cannot let the world return to how it was.”
If that isn’t enough to give any white person who ever bought a pair of designer shoes or a high-end high street frock pause for thought, I’m not sure what will. There’s an egregious example of racial profiling for every demographic.
Coming on the back of Team GB sprinter Bianca Williams and her athlete husband receiving a police apology for racial profiling, and middle-aged couple Ingrid Antoine-oniyoke and Falil Oniyoke receiving a police apology for racist comments by officers who stopped them for no good reason in Suffolk, we can no longer pretend there isn’t a pattern.
“It just goes to show that sometimes it doesn’t matter what you’ve achieved in the course of your life: the first thing that some people will judge you on is the colour of your skin,” Enninful later told his one million followers on Instagram.
There was considerably more dignity in his words than his treatment. The security guard has been sacked, and no doubt explained away as a one-off. But unless we all face up to the issue of racism, it won’t ever go away.