Everything in Britain is broken

It is rare to find an example of public art which one can applaud, unequivocally, but I think I have found one in London. The educational group Black Blossoms is running a series of lectures as part of the Art on the Underground scheme making the case that – as I had long suspected – photography is racist. This is true of colour photography (can we not find a different name for that!) just as it is for monochrome photography, in which black is the domain of shadows, the dark and what we might call ‘otherness’.

The history of photography is rooted in white supremacy and subjugation, according to Black Blossoms, and it needs decolonising, sharpish. Quite right – and it is the job of all of us to swing the wrecking ball. For example, whenever anybody says to me ‘Say cheese’, I do not cravenly smirk, thus adding to the century and a half of oppression, but shout out: ‘No! I will not be part of your bigotry.