Apparently I’m part of the ‘global majority’, now – what a load of nonsense

The term has come into vogue in progressive and academic circles, writes Sunder Katwala. But in many ways it is a step backwards for ethnic minorities, erasing their unique cultural heritage in the name of ‘inclusiveness’

Constant changes of terminology are often seen as confusing and distracting by those from minority and majority backgrounds alike (Getty)

Are you part of the “global majority”? I was surprised to hear that I am. There has been a sudden spike in recent weeks of the use of this novel term, which refers to people like me – those of us who are mixed race, Asian or Black in Britain today. Over the decades we have most often been called “ethnic minorities” – because white British people continue to make up three-quarters of the population.

The use of the term “global majority” seems to be intended to offer us an empowering upgrade. We may be part of a range of minority groups in Britain, but we would be part of an overwhelming majority – with 85 per cent of other people on the planet today – if we did share a group identity with all of the people around the world who are not white.

The umbrella group NCVO hope it will “decentre” whiteness – yet there is no global ethnic majority group, unless you take the incredibly white-centred view of the world that all non-white people are a group of their own.

The experience of being Black British in Bristol is different from the experience of being Black in a Black-majority Caribbean or African country. The experience of being a Muslim in a west European majority white country is different from being a Muslim in a country where Islam is the primary religion.

That is why so few of the 6.8 billion people in this suppose “global majority” will have heard anything about a term only used to talk about minorities in Britain and North America.

The reason we pay particular attention to minority rights and equal opportunities is that there are often greater risks of minorities facing prejudice or discrimination – sometimes direct, sometimes more subtle.

The global demographic is not relevant for equal opportunities (unless you are staffing the United Nations) – only the national, regional or local demographic is.

For example, UK universities need to have effective equal opportunities strategies for British students – ones based on geography, class and ethnicity. It is simply confusing to use the term “global majority” for Black and Asian British students, as if they form part of some abstract international group.

The term feels regressive despite its intentions, because British ethnic minorities – particularly those from a Commonwealth background – have placed a distinctly strong emphasis on their British identity. The writer Tomiwa Owolade has argued that it is important to understand that Black British people are as British as they are Black – often having more in common with other British people than with Black people in other regions.

The term “global majority” offers the opposite perspective – regarding third and fourth generation Britons as members of diaspora, more “other” than British.

How we talk about ethnicity often changes over time.  The idea of “political Blackness”, which helped to forge black and Asian solidarity, made a lot of sense to pioneering anti-racism activists taking on the prejudices and racist violence of the 1970s. That had largely faded away by the time I was a student in the 1990s – most British Asians did not identify as Black. Being less under the cosh made that less necessary, enabling people to rebalance shared goals in tackling racism and discrimination while embracing the specific national or faith heritage of our parents.

A message of the Black Lives Matter anti-racism protests in Britain was the need to pay attention to specific challenges of anti-Black racism and prejudice. There was a shift away from the use of the term “Bame”, and the lazy way it seemed to lump all minorities together.

The trend in charities and academia towards adopting the term “global majority communities” takes the opposite lesson. Research shows that most people prefer simple and familiar terms: “ethnic minority” still polled best when British Future research various terms in 2021.

Constant changes of terminology are often seen as confusing and distracting by those from minority and majority backgrounds alike. If there is going to be a change of terminology, it would be important to first find out how welcome that is to the broad groups of people it is trying to describe.