The National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC) recently reported that kids as young as ten in England have taken to whitening their faces in an attempt to fit in after repeatedly being the target of hate crimes and being told to “go back to your own country” in Brexit Britain. It seems the more things change, the more they stay the same. — At twelve, my best friend was a white boy named David, who lived across the road from us. …

Are you dreaming of moving to Africa? Hope for the best. Prepare for the worst. Expect nothing. And you should do just fine. — I've always wanted to move to Ghana. I fell in love with the people and the place on my first visit in 1989. My father had always told me that we were from the Gold Coast. The Gold Coast, he said, was where our people came from before "the carry…

The British royal family is a global symbol of Whiteness. As an emblem of white supremacy, their supporters despise the biracial Dutchess with a passion. That Meghan Markle outshines them all at every turn further rubs salt into bruised egos. Speaking through their tabloid allies, the palace hounds are out for blood. — Many people watched almost the entire first season of ‘Suits’ and had no idea the actress playing Rachel Zane was mixed-race. The first hint that Meghan Markle might be ‘Blackish’ came when Wendell Pierce arrived to play her on-screen father. The next we knew, the American actress was dating Prince…

My Royalist-Jamaican mother would have been smiling down at me from her seat on the right-hand side of God as the taxi arrived to pick me up to meet the Queen at Buckingham Palace. The idiot Eastern European driver parks his car at a bus stop two hundred metres from my flat, so I am forced to stride up to him, suited and booted with dreadlocks flowing in the cold evening wind. He looks almost straight through me just as I reach the stationary…

As someone passionate about design and architecture, I’ve always dreamed of building my own home and living off-grid. — My journey to designing a sleek and modern tropical courtyard house began many years ago while travelling through Ghana. I was struck by the loss of traditional housing forms in that country’s metropolitan centres, which led to a desire to create a modern self-built home that could pay homage to…

Endlessly searching for "a good black man" is tiresome. Not only for black women. Finding a committed and loyal brother has become even more unlikely for gay men since the explosion of hookup sites and gay dating apps. Because while you're not looking at the first meeting, he's already back…

Two black men kissing is how it started. To this day, I’ll never know from where that fantasy came. But it was a thought that consumed my every waking hour as a fourteen-year-old boy. — Even during sleep, the image of two black men kissing haunted my dreams. It was typically a much older lad and me, and all I could do to escape his grip was to wake up panting, breathing heavily, and covered in my juices. At school, I was a real lady’s…

Hating gay people in Africa won’t drive ‘gayness’ away. But it forces more people to live double lives and create social conditions that continue to fuel deceit and spread disease. Take a good look around you. Men having sex with other men is far more common in Africa than is socially acknowledged. — A business associate in Ghana is a married, middle-aged marketing manager with a young assistant who goes everywhere with him. One day, we were in a meeting when he touched the younger man’s shoulder and told him to “speak up.” It was such a tender moment and so illuminating that…

There’s been much talk about Child Q in the British press. But I’ve known for years that strip-searching a schoolgirl was no isolated incident. — My mum sent us grocery shopping nearly every Saturday when we were kids. From our middle-class home in Forest Hill, my sister, Jacqui, and I jumped on the 122 bus to Lewisham. We would steal whatever we could in the sparkling new shopping precinct and split the difference between us…