The notion of "political blackness" arose in the United Kingdom as an

umbrella term In linguistics, semantics, general semantics, and ontologies, hyponymy () is a semantic relation between a hyponym denoting a subtype and a hypernym or hyperonym (sometimes called umbrella term or blanket term) denoting a supertype. In other wor ...

to refer to all people in the UK who were likely to experience

discrimination based on skin colour Discrimination based on skin color, also known as colorism, or shadeism, is a form of prejudice and/or discrimination in which people who share similar ethnicity traits or perceived race are treated differently based on the social implications t ...

; i.e., anyone who was not

white White is the lightest color and is achromatic (having no hue). It is the color of objects such as snow, chalk, and milk, and is the opposite of black. White objects fully reflect and scatter all the visible wavelengths of light. White o ...

. Following increased

immigration to the United Kingdom Since 1945, immigration to the United Kingdom, controlled by British immigration law and to an extent by British nationality law, has been significant, in particular from the Republic of Ireland and from the former British Empire, especially ...

after the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...

, most non-white immigrants were designated as " coloured". The notion of "political blackness" became a popular concept from the 1970s onwards, but began to fall out of favour by the early 1990s. Although seen as an important frame of reference in Britain in linking prejudice against

British Asian British Asians (also referred to as Asian Britons) are British citizens of Asian descent. They constitute a significant and growing minority of the people living in the United Kingdom, with 6.9% of the population identifying as Asian/Asian Bri ...

and

Black British people Black British people are a multi-ethnic group of British citizens of either African or Afro-Caribbean descent.Gadsby, Meredith (2006), ''Sucking Salt: Caribbean Women Writers, Migration, and Survival'', University of Missouri Press, pp. 76–7 ...

(especially

British African-Caribbean people British African-Caribbean people are an ethnic group in the United Kingdom. They are British citizens whose ancestry originates from the Caribbean or they are nationals of the Caribbean who reside in the UK. There are some self-identified Afro-C ...

), its applicability was criticised by some as an imposition not allowing for specific British Asian or Black British prides, or implying that the situation of Asian and Black African-Caribbean British people were the same. In 2016, UK Black History Month criticised the

University of Kent , motto_lang = , mottoeng = Literal translation: 'Whom to serve is to reign'(Book of Common Prayer translation: 'whose service is perfect freedom')Graham Martin, ''From Vision to Reality: the Making of the University of Kent at Canterbury'' ...

for promoting

Black History Month Black History Month is an annual observance originating in the United States, where it is also known as African-American History Month. It has received official recognition from governments in the United States and Canada, and more recently ...

with images of

Zayn Malik Zain Javadd Malik ( ; born 12 January 1993), known mononymously as Zayn, is an English pop and R&B singer. Zayn auditioned as a solo contestant for the British music competition television series ''The X Factor'' in 2010. After being eliminate ...

and

Sadiq Khan Sadiq Aman Khan (; born 8 October 1970) is a British politician serving as Mayor of London since 2016. He was previously Member of Parliament (MP) for Tooting from 2005 until 2016. A member of the Labour Party, Khan is on the party's sof ...

, who are of Asian heritage. Similarly,

Riz Ahmed Rizwan Ahmed (; ; born ) is a British actor and rapper. As an actor, he has won an Emmy Award and has received nominations for a Golden Globe and three British Independent Film Awards, and as a rapper he has won an Academy Award for the short ...

– a British actor of Pakistani heritage – also used the term "black" to refer to "ethnic minorities, of all backgrounds" in a video for

Operation Black Vote Operation Black Vote (OBV) is a British non-partisan and not-for-profit national organisation, established in 1996 to address the Black British and ethnic minority democratic deficit. OBV has recruited church leaders to persuade people to registe ...

. The term is also used in this sense by the Black Female Professors Forum, a primarily-online informal network for highlighting both the presence and absence of senior women professors who are not white. The Black Students' Campaign is a group that uses the term 'black' to refer to all non-white students; in recent years, there have been calls to change the group's name because of this.

See also

References

Further reading