NANA AKUA: Kemi Badenoch is right, Britain IS best place to be black

NANA AKUA: I’ve travelled the world and Kemi Badenoch is right, Britain IS the best place to be black – despite what hand-wringing white liberals would have you think

Just like the party faithful at this week’s Conservative conference, I applauded Business Secretary Kemi Badenoch when she said — quite rightly — that Britain is the best country in the world to be a black person.

But I’ve learned that it’s always worthwhile paying attention to the reaction to big political speeches.

A quick survey of the blowhards lambasting her on social media, among them the usual suspects such as Left-wing commentator Owen Jones and Green MP Caroline Lucas, revealed a fascinating detail: a lot of them happen to be white.

I’m prepared to be charitable and accept that some of these liberal do-gooders may have noble, anti-racist intentions. But that doesn’t make them right — either about their misrepresentation of what Badenoch said, or their assumptions that black people in Britain are systematically ‘oppressed’.

First of all, Badenoch never said Britain was perfect, but I’ve travelled and lived all over, and I know it to be far better than most places when it comes to racism.

NANA AKUA: Just like the party faithful at this week’s Conservative conference, I applauded Business Secretary Kemi Badenoch (pictured) when she said — quite rightly — that Britain is the best country in the world to be a black person

In Britain, I’ve scarcely been exposed to aggressive, in-your-face abuse since the bad old days of the 1970s. But I have experienced exactly that sort of abuse in France — where people of colour are often effectively segregated in rough and crime-ridden suburbs — as well as in Italy and Spain.

In these nations so beloved of Remainers, I have been eyeballed by local people who spat out racial epithets and made me feel not only unwelcome, but unsafe. I recall one particularly terrifying experience on a crowded train in Spain, where a middle-aged woman directed a lengthy diatribe against black people directly at me. I was scared because I had no easy way to escape until a Spanish-speaking friend physically intervened to defend me from her.

I lived in the USA in my teens and I would never want to be a young black person there, either. During my childhood in Essex, I was the only black girl in my state primary school and all my friends were white. Many of my boyfriends have been white and both my children are mixed-race to different dads.

But in my experience, American blacks and whites tend to live separate lives with unequal life opportunities and little prospect of mixing.

That’s just not true here, which is why so many people risk their lives to come to Britain. We can see the success of integration all around us in the huge numbers of families who have accepted black and brown people with open arms, seeing them as a son or daughter-in-law without judging them for the colour of their skin.

As the Prime Minister himself said today, he is ‘proud’ to be the first British-Asian PM, but ‘even prouder that it’s just not a big deal’.

In fact, it’s the race zealots — and some black activists — who pigeonhole people according to the colour of their skin, a form of discrimination that starts with the ridiculous assumption that all black people are the same, have the same aspirations, the same problems and also — the Labour Party is particularly bad in this regard — the same political views.

Judging people by the colour of their skin is what the liberal elite loves to do, writes Nana Akua (pictured)

But that’s clearly nonsense and the statistics speak for themselves.

Some 62 per cent of black people aged 19 are in higher education — compared to 40 per cent of young white people. British-Nigerian students are doing better than their white counterparts in their GCSEs and A-levels.

Black people have thrived in this country in everything from sport and music to business and, particularly, politics — especially the Tory party.

So it is no surprise to me that Kemi Badenoch should become a Conservative minister. She can see the Tories still operate according to that famous message of civil rights campaigner Martin Luther King: ‘I look to a day when people will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.’

The irony is that judging people by the colour of their skin is what the liberal elite loves to do. And this doesn’t do black people any favours. If you tell a thousand black youngsters they are ‘oppressed’, a few might work harder and succeed, but more will be demoralised and give up altogether.

Tell them anything’s possible and you will inspire a generation.

That’s what Britain offers to black people. It’s not perfect, but as Kemi Badenoch said, I firmly believe that it’s the best country in the world for us to live in.

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