Friday 15th August 2025
Blog Page 465

Anti-blackness: a performative business

Ti Balanta
-
0
Anti-blackness: a performative business

TW: Racism

The early 19th century saw the introduction of minstrel shows and their quick and steady spread across the United States and Britain. Minstrel shows consisted of ridiculing black people with comedic intent, as white men wore blackface in the name of performance. They lampooned black people, ridiculing them in order to ensure black people were still, and forever would be, chained. Chained to the mangling stereotypes that live on today as a means of reminding the privileged people of America, and indeed the world, that these ‘animals’ were nothing more than a joke. These ‘jokes’ and ‘games’ were nothing more than performance in the name of art and humour with a clear goal: to perpetuate the notions of an oppressive system that to this day claims the lives of the innocent.

The early 21st century sees the weight of racism, like Sisyphus’ infinitely rolling stone, claim even more black lives. On May 25, 2020, white police officer Derek Chauvin murdered George Floyd, an innocent black man over a ‘false cheque’. Shortly after this horror, Toronto police pushed Regis Korchinski-Paquet, a 29-year-old gymnast, off her balcony to her all-too-soon death. On February 23, 2020, Ahmaud Marquez Arbery, another unarmed, 25-year-old African-American man, was lynched via gunshots by two white men as he was jogging. On April 22 1993, 18-year-old Stephen Lawrence was fatally stabbed as he waited for the bus. The list of victims of modern-day lynching is infinite and continues to claim lives like a perpetual plague.

Whilst these occurrences are only some of the ones most recently brought to light, they do not stand as isolated events. The history of the world and the society that we inhabit today is built off the contributions of black people and the anti-blackness that imprisons us daily. Denying it, like the history books and the curriculums choose to do, will not eliminate the truth, that for some reason, so many non-black people are terrified of admitting they possess and benefit from privilege. And with this privilege comes performance. 

As the Minneapolis rebellion takes action and highlights to the world the crimes condoned by the system, and the injustices are replayed time and time again, a wave of performance in the name of ‘solidarity’ surges with greater force than the fires across the Minnesotan city ever could. The Internet is flooded with messages and posts of apparent unity and respect towards black people. Some have been genuinely supportive, helping to amplify the situation and gain significant donations to relevant charities. But while most, at surface-level, seem supportive and genuine in their intentions, the same cannot be said for all the messages.

An example is that of influencer Nikita Dragun. In a recent tweet she seemed to be extending an arm out to black people, a supporting sister in all of these troubles. And yet, even the lightest of digging exposed that her support and heart are as shallow as a paddling pool. Not only is she known to maintain and monetise anti-black sentiment as a ‘culture vulture’ through using natural protective hairstyles and questionable foundation shade choices, but her tweet demonstrated what we already knew: the clout is bigger than the lives and that POC/minority solidarity isn’t real. Her badly copied and pasted tweet – a half-assed attempt to stand up – left more than just a sour taste in my mouth. Not only was the message patronising and a load of over-complicated and artistic fumble and mumble with no real meaning (“I’m not black but I support you”…what am I supposed to do with that?), but Dragun couldn’t even bring herself to copy the whole message leaving a whole chunk of it out. How brave of her to stand up and ‘speak for those who don’t have a voice’, putting her entire Internet career at risk when black people are only being abused, unjustly incarcerated, and murdered day in and day out. 

This is, unfortunately, a shared attitude across non-black people and their actions during this. As black people deal with the bricks of trauma which experiencing situations like this brings, they are also the only pioneers of real help and solidarity throughout all of this. They have the facts, the links, the instructions and tips for keeping safe during protests and the contacts to charities and organisations working to lighten the load. And what about our Fake Woke folk who proclaim justice via one silent ‘Like’? They are just that: silent. A deafening silence that reminds us of what they believe to be worth talking about. Black people are just not worth the effort, it seems, until it circulates and is being forced into everyone’s faces.

These are the people that stay quiet or prefer to log out because they’re “uncomfy” when someone says the N word (that someone often being themselves), or when a teacher makes a racist remark as a ‘joke’. These are the ‘siblings’ that will not speak back to their colourist families and the derogatory words they use to refer to black people, or the type of people who will accept Doja Cat because she is a tolerable or acceptable type of black person – not too black, not too loud, not too angry. These are the people that will take the true, well-meaning initiatives of POC and claim them as their own for their own drops of performative glory (I promise you are not as subtle as you think you are). These are the people who claim to campaign for real social reform and justice but choose to reflect an ‘apolitical’ stance so as to not get so involved in the issue and to protect themselves from the labours of carrying black troubles with them.

Even worse are the people who post on social media when black deaths go viral but will make no active effort to apply deep introspection and re-evaluate their privilege and how to use it for good. This is a privilege many cannot afford and frankly, I do not blame you from choosing the easy route. If George Floyd could’ve chosen, I think he too would have preferred an easier way. Nevertheless, choosing to be ‘apolitical’ is a political choice and a vile one at that. With every breath in your lungs you are saying that you consciously side with the oppressor and the perpetrators of these abuses and, simply, that you are perpetuating and actively benefiting from racism.

But some silences are more troubling than others. We’ve reached a point where ignorance and lack of empathy from certain demographics can be rationalised or merely brushed off. However, when the performative activism of the groups that we feel we are part of – friends and people that we trust care for our lives as black people- is unmasked, the fact that they simply do not care is not only evident and irrefutable, but deeply disheartening.

Do not forget that black people exist in all circles and groups of this world. Black people are religious. Black people are atheists. Black people enjoy all different types of art and music. Black people are your fellow STEM and Humanities students. They are your teammates and lab partners. Black people exist in different cultures and in different languages. Black people are the people that hold up your institutions and economies too. Black people have friends and families and pets. Black people are LGBTQ+ – and frankly nothing disgusts me as much as having to remind other LGBTQ+ people that it was a black trans woman that gave you what you have today. Your inability to be as fuelled by anger at these injustices when Stonewall itself was a riot against the brutalities of the police against the vulnerable and disregarded is as pathetic as it is nauseating.

Black people are and do everything like you, and yet, we are nothing to you. Having said that, why should it matter whether you can relate to a black person? Is your sense of humanity so weak and shallow that it can only blanket those that you feel you can directly understand? Are you so apathetic to other people that as soon as they are beyond the bounds of your immediate circle of interests or similarities, they cease to be humans with deserving lives? Are you so pitiable that you justify your picking and choosing of which lives are worth your efforts and your interest? When did the need to spread and gawk at a traumatic video of brutal murder (that is not only dehumanising and disrespectful, but simply cruel for everyone involved) become the only, and somehow acceptable, way of eliciting empathy? How can you call for liberation and justice when you turn a blind eye as to contribute and uphold the pillars of racism in all systems of society? Does your performance not extend that far? 

Despite all of this, black people are somehow meant to peacefully and quietly unpack the centuries of trauma that situations like these make us relive whilst enacting our own type of performance. We are made to perform for the Internet, for the political leaders and for everyone involved who won’t even bother to watch. It has become a routine job for black people to pick apart, explain and describe each and every little detail of this trauma in order to be heard; to put on a play for those who refuse to educate themselves on the matter as if Mr. Google isn’t a powerful enough tool. It’s almost as though some people enjoy seeing black people suffering and unpacking like this. As if the shock factor is thrilling more than it is terrifying.

Do not forget that black people do not owe you anything – not in these times or in any time. It should not be the duty of your black peers to educate you on what decent humanity for non-black people should be. It should not be our duty to replay our greatest fears for you because you refuse to see beyond your Fake Woke agenda. Nonetheless, every day it seems that this is the only tool we have left. You, non-black people, should be the ones taking the reins to protect the black people around you.

Do not forget that during these times your black peers are living with an indescribable amount of terror for themselves and for their loved ones. They live in the fear that one breath too loud could make it their last. Do not forget that black people deserve your genuine solidarity and respect and that it is important that this support extends beyond this immediate shock.

Be as loud and as angry when a little black girl is told her hair is unacceptable, or when black trans women, the most vulnerable minority group in the world, are attacked and murdered at disproportionate rates. Be just as vocal and true to us when young black men are denied access to places, events, and the working world. When talented students are disregarded or told they only reach academic peaks for the sake of a quota. When undercover cops cause chaos and young black people are run over and killed for it. How the media’s presentation of all of this, much like the minstrels, serves to show a damaging image, a ridiculed and violent form that fuels the anti-black fires.

No one is as hated or as disregarded as black people. Time and time again we are reminded, in both microaggressions and overt violence, that we aren’t considered worthy enough to live as equals. Anti-blackness is rife within white communities as well as Asian, Arab and Latinx ones. Blackness is relegated to the bottom of hierarchies of desirability and even humanity. And yet, you thrive off of our labour, our thoughts, our art, our cultures and our sweat. It takes real action and violence to be heard; no twisted, self-centred or ignorant myth that you wish to use to convince yourself otherwise will justify your inaction.

It is simple: black people are vulnerable, and anti-blackness is an all-consuming and fatal pandemic.

Images by Imran Suleiman

Oxford JCRs show solidarity with George Floyd protests

Tilly Walters
-
0
Oxford JCRs show solidarity with George Floyd protests

A number of JCRs have proposed and passed motions in solidarity with George Floyd and ensuing protests in the United States. 

So far St. Anne’s, Wadham, St. Hilda’s, Regent’s Park, Christ Church, Worcester and St Catz are among the JCRs which have submitted motions for their 6th week JCR meetings. As of the evening of Sunday 31 May, Regent’s Park, St. Hilda’s and Keble are among those which have passed their motions. 

Protests broke out in the US and worldwide after the killing of George Floyd, an African-American man, while in police custody. Protests have also occurred in the UK throughout Sunday. 

The JCR motions pledge to donate to organisations including the Minnesota Freedom Fund and the National Lawyers Guild. Both the MFF and the NLG use funds to pay for the bail of those who have been arrested, as well as other legal costs. 

Wadham SU, made up of both undergraduate and graduate students, was the first to propose a motion, which proposed committing £500 from their charity fund to the Freedom Fund. The SU has also submitted a second motion in support of the National Lawyers Guild. 

St. Hilda’s JCR amended their motion to increase the College’s donation from £450 to £499 in support of the Minnesota Freedom Fund; Christ Church has committed £720 to the Black Visions Collective, Reclaim The Block, and the Minnesota Freedom Fund; Regent’s Park JCR has committed £50 in support of the National Lawyers Guild; Worcester has committed £200 to the Black Visions Collective, and Keble has committed £500 to National Lawyers Guild.

St Catz’s motion is to pass a letter of solidarity with the protesters, as their constitution prevents direct donation.

Wadham’s motion, as with those of other colleges, notes that “Police brutality is not confined to America but materially impacts Black British people and this includes Wadham students.”

Henna Khanom, who proposed Wadham’s motion, from which many JCRs have adapted their own motions, stated: “Standing up against police brutality and systematic racism is especially important for Oxford colleges given Oxford’s history, having profited off transatlantic slavery from the likes of Codrington at All Souls to Burge at Wadham.

“The system of carceral violence we are witnessing in America right now is the legacy of such slavery, and so Oxford is intimately tied to issues of racial justice whether we choose to acknowledge this or not.

“More and more JCRs are standing in international solidarity to demand justice against these systems of racial violence. If your JCR hasn’t yet done so, I would urge to consider raising a motion.”

This article was edited at 21.50 to include Worcester in the list of colleges who have passed motions.

Image credit to Phil Roeder / Wikimedia Commons.

The societal consequences of the prosthetic womb in Helen Sedgwick’s ‘The Growing Season’

Mia Sorenti
-
0
The societal consequences of the prosthetic womb in Helen Sedgwick’s ‘The Growing Season’

Imagining a world where reproductive technology has evolved to popularise prosthetic wombs, Helen Sedgwick’s ‘The Growing Season’ toes the line between utopia and dystopia and prompts urgent reflection on questions of equality in our own rapidly developing society.

Sedgwick’s speculative fiction effectively flips Margaret Atwood’s ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ on its head, bringing together strands of feminist thought on sex and gender to consider what would happen if those of us with wombs were emancipated from our reproductive burdens. A new ‘baby pouch’ is provided by FullLife, a glossy for-profit private company with an ominous Intercap that instantly screams ‘Black Mirror-esque baddie’. This groundbreaking technology enables pregnancies to occur through ectogenesis (the incubation of fetuses outside a human for the full duration of a pregnancy) and thus enabling us to ‘solve’ the ‘problem’ of our biological differences.

The shiny successes of the pouch are immediately evident. Queer couples, single people, those medically unable to conceive, are all able to become parents with the aid of this new technology; couples are permitted to share equally the joys and burdens of pregnancy; no longer restrained by the need to take maternal leave, women can uncompromisingly pursue further education or career aspirations, their opportunities unrestrained by their ‘biological clocks’. Societal attitudes subsequently shift, with both sex and gender ceasing to be an obstacle to anyone in life. Supposedly, everyone wins.

As the narrative flits between the first trials of the prosthetic womb and present day, where the ‘pouch’ has become popularised throughout society, it is undeniable that the impetus behind such experiments were inspired by the rhetoric of Shulamith Firestone, whose 1970 novel ‘The Dialect of Sex: The Case for Feminist Revolution’ became a classic text of the second-wave feminist movement. Within it, Firestone asserts that modern society could not achieve true gender equality until women’s biological traits are separated from their identity; in theory, FullLife provides the technology to enable the evolution of society along these lines. This is certainly reflected in the hopes of Holly Bhattacharya, a young woman who is the first to donate her eggs for the first human trial of the ‘pouch baby’; in a rebuttal of her parents’ sexist expectations, she is astute that “If equality was to be achieved, the physiology, the biology, had to evolve.” Certainly, from the heralded successes of the pouch, it could be speculated that essentially removing the process of childbirth from the conventional female life trajectory has the potential to alleviate entrenched societal, cultural and economic inequalities. 

However, there are certainly more insidious undertones to Sedgwick’s world which we would do well to heed. The framing of the baby pouch as an alternative to abortion (women who become unwillingly pregnant can have the feotus transferred to a pouch) in order to pacify religious opposition results in children’s homes overburdened to breaking point. Simultaneously this rhetoric is an effective ‘full stop’ in the fight for full recognition of women’s reproductive and civil rights – although complications regarding existing abortion legislation are neglected from the book, this would undeniably place essential reproductive rights into a dangerous grey area.

FullLife also appears to have eclipsed and absorbed the obstetric services of the NHS, with public healthcare slipping silently into private annexation behind the success stories. Although it is claimed the pouch is “affordable for all”, lower-class couples appear to only access ‘second-hand pouches’, and an international black market is hinted at. Whilst this idea is only touched on in the novel, Claire Horn discusses the realities of artificial wombs and accessibility in her blog post, ‘Ectogenesis at Home?’: “The artificial womb, (…) is likely to be expensive and limited to use in highly equipped neonatal intensive care units. Global disparities in health outcomes for pregnant people and neonates, as well as racialized disparities in these outcomes within the wealthiest nations stand only to be increased by the introduction of this technology. In the pursuit of technologies widely perceived to be fundamentally positive, such as interventions to sustain prematurely born babies, access is too frequently an afterthought.” The result of neglecting such questions can result in irreversible consequences, as disparate access to this new technology clearly poses the possibility of exacerbating social inequality. 

We are also offered glimpses of the pouch as an extreme way for abusers to control women; a partner is able to carry the pouch and control every element of the pregnancy, capable of threatening damage to the pouch as a means of coercing their victim. This revelation is especially poignant through the perspective of the pouch’s initial creator, Freida. Upon presenting this information to the board of FullLife, the researcher finds herself dismissed and silenced. Her realisation that her creation has been released into a society ill-prepared for it and is now irreversibly out of her hands leaves a lasting impression.

Thus, whilst not detracting from the positive impacts of the pouch for many groups of people, there is certainly a lot to be said about this ‘quick fix’ for a plethora of complex and intertwined economic, legal and cultural issues. This notion of technology effectively ‘leap-frogging’ essential societal reforms is effectively epitomised by the novel’s main protagonist, Eva, one of the last remaining anti-pouch activists: “Instead of fearing the pain of childbirth (…) perhaps we should be celebrating the strength of women”.

The undercurrent of unease threading throughout the book consistently enforces this idea that whilst this invention may smooth a sheen over the messy, painful and inconvenient elements of childbirth, it effectively leaves a number of entrenched attitudes, behaviours and social structures of inequality to fester. 

Whilst these rather ominous undertones do not formulate the main impetus for the narrative, which instead focuses on faults with the technology itself, in reality they may manifest into more than theoretical experiments; since ‘The Growing Season’ was published in 2017, some striking developments have been made in reproductive technology. The same year, researchers at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia successfully trialed a ‘biobag’ which has the capacity to keep lambs alive that were born at the equivalent of 23 weeks of human pregnancy. More recently, in October 2019 scientists from Eindhoven University of Technology announced that they were within 10 years of developing an artificial womb that could save the lives of premature babies. Such technology would be groundbreaking; 15 million babies are born before 37 weeks every year, half of whom don’t survive. The researchers have since been given a €2.9m (£2.6m) grant to develop a working prototype for use in clinics.

Whilst full ectogenesis is still a big leap from present stage of development, these innovations and the ethical concerns surrounding them certainly imply a trajectory not so dissimilar to that of FullLife and its baby pouch. Consequently, as our own reality draws closer to that of Sedgwick’s speculations, the need for preemptive legislative, social and cultural change becomes ever-more pressing.

Classic Letdowns: Ulysses by James Joyce

Ben Jureidini
-
0
Classic Letdowns: Ulysses by James Joyce

There are some rites of passage simply not worth the walk – just ask David Cameron. From pig’s heads to pyramids of naked would-be rugby players, sometimes the ends simply do not justify the means. For any English student, after the wonder of that UCAS acceptance letter pinging into your inbox wears off, after celebrations and congratulations, comes the realisation: you have to actually spend time reading. Certain titles come with the territory, such as Beowulf, To the Lighthouse, Middlemarch – texts that the great and the good have powered through and come to terms with, texts referred to as a rite of passage for a literature student. A spectre looming over any modernism paper, however, like overdue gonorrhoea test results, is Joyce’s Ulysses. 1195 pages, according to the annotated student edition that haunted my bedside table throughout the Michaelmas vacation, of literary swampland. Moving from Middlemarch to Ulysses between Michaelmas and Hilary is the equivalent of graduating from the philosopher’s stone to the goblet of fire, and trying to read Joyce’s masterwork certainly finds some kind of analogue in the boy wizard’s attempts at divining clues from that screaming dragon egg before Robert Pattinson tells him to submerge it in a bath (a method which crossed my mind around chapter four).  

‘You swine!’ – I hear you, my tutor, and Anthony Burgess yell through the dusty corridor of literature studies – ‘Everybody knows now that Ulysses is the greatest novel of the century!’ This very quote, in fact, sits on the back cover of the edition, next to a photo of Joyce himself, a Portrait of the Artist as a Young Twat, sneering out at my pathetic little uncomprehending mind as I read a page-long passage of Leopold Bloom evacuating his bowels. This, apparently, is the novel to end all novels, the greatest artefact of the English language – to which I reply, like Mr. Bloom himself: ‘Pprrpffrrppfff.’ 

I am fully willing to accept that Joyce’s art is simply beyond my comprehension, that I’m just not smart enough to grasp the genius behind the word ‘contransmagnificandjewbangtantiality’ (which, apparently is a play on the hilarious words ‘consubstantiation’ and ‘transubstantiation’, as well as a joke about the famously irreverent sex life of the virgin Mary). Indeed, I’m reliably informed that Ulysses is a laugh a minute, but Joyce’s polylinguistic puns, based on knowledge of Polish subjunctive verbs, street names in historical Dublin, and scribal error in a medieval poem about the missing bollocks of a Benedictine monk simply pass me by. Apparently, Joyce was attempting to create a language so allusive and specific it borders on the private. If only it remained as such. 

The novel is a classic, and its place in the history of innovation is undeniable. On the other hand, this seems like innovation in much the same way as 3D TVs and Google Glass: sure, it’s new, but I don’t want it anywhere near my face. Finally, the critics tell me, it is a rendering of the human mind in all of its complexities and subjectivities: wonderful, yet if I wanted an exact descriptions of the goings on in someone’s brain I’d save the £24.99 and just sit and think for the thirty-eight years it took me to actually make it to the end of this book. I can’t actually root the sheer, visceral hatred Ulysses evokes in me in any considered, intellectual, literary analysis. It’s just really long, it doesn’t make any sense, and it gives me a headache. Whilst reading, I missed out on all of the things Joyce was doing because I couldn’t stop thinking about more productive, more pleasurable ways I could be spending my time, ranging from sitting staring at a wall to sticking a toothpick under my toenail and kicking said wall. By page 800 I was wistfully longing for the dishwater preaching of Dorothea, or the specific conjugations of class 4 Old English verbs, anything that didn’t feel like the literary equivalent of Chinese water torture, each of Declan Kiberd’s laborious annotations, like a hammer to the skull, informing me that this particular line is a reference to an arctic bird, or perhaps a scholar of medieval Catholicism, or perhaps another fart joke.

In all likelihood I’m missing the point, Joyce was actually parodying difficult books, don’t you know, it’s me taking all of this too seriously, the joy of the book lies in its glorious irreverence and self-referential innovation and other chains of meaningless words. Perhaps I was the pig-headed one all along. It is not so much that, as Virginia Woolf venomously put it, that Ulysses is ‘illiterate’, nor is it even illegible: I just don’t want to read it. I would love to be proved wrong, to have my eyes opened to what makes this overgrown mass of pages actually really fun to read, worth more than an emergency supply of 1000 sheets of toilet paper. For now, however, Anthony Burgess can keep his book of the century and keep it in the 1900s, in the venerable company of Polio and the Nickelodeon time capsule. 

Do It For the Gram: Dalgona Heartbreak

Bella Cooper-Brown
-
0
Do It For the Gram: Dalgona Heartbreak

I’ve grammed my food exactly once in my nineteen years. In my defence, it was Thanksgiving, the food is really only in the lower half of the pic, and something about a platter of carrots adds a quirky twist to an otherwise shameless selfie. And yet, I have spent God knows how long looking at food on Instagram. I don’t even think about how it tastes, I just reckon it looks so pretty. Is there any reason to blend your fruit and yogurt into a rainbow swirl smoothie bowl instead of just eating it? No, but gosh it looks nice. I know it’s all too easy to make fun of those of us who’ve dabbled in quarantine baking, but I salute you guys. If you find you can keep the lockdown blues at bay by channeling your productivity into banana bread, I’m impressed, and my Netflix marathons have nothing on you.

Inspired, I decided to tackle an Instagram food trend myself. I had to pick something within my capabilities – I’ve got scars that could tell stories, and those stories are pretty much all that I should not be trusted in the kitchen unsupervised. Whipped coffee looks not only aesthetically pleasing, but achievable, and unlikely to result in injury should it go wrong. 

I’ve searched Google, TikTok and Instagram. All this extensive research has led to this master recipe: two tablespoons of granulated sugar, two tablespoons of boiling water, and two tablespoons of instant coffee. Whisk it until it’s all fluffy, and spoon over iced milk.

But I’m a woman of ambition, and so I wanted to take this a step further. Or perhaps a five-year-old of ambition, because I felt the necessary extension of this challenge was to instead make whipped chocolate milk, whipped strawberry milk, and whipped banana milk. It’s rare that you find yourself buying banana Nesquik for the sake of student journalism, but here you have it.

After five minutes of using an electric whisk on some Nesquik Extra-Choc to absolutely zero results, I learned that although instant coffee (which I forgot to buy) and Nesquik are both flavoured instant-drink powders, they are not interchangeable. I’ll be honest, I didn’t see that coming. I took a break, added some milk to my bowl of Nesquik Extra-Choc syrup, added some Crunchy Nut cereal to that, and went back to the drawing board.

The only thing I made today. Delightful, yet headache-inducing: do not try this at home.

I tried again, this time using ground coffee. Worse than before. With the previous attempt, I at least made some Nesquik Extra-Choc. This time I made something that not only tasted bad, but was seriously starting to affect my self-esteem. Further googling has taught me that instant coffee is a ‘foaming agent’. “Don’t worry if you don’t have instant coffee!” chirped one online blogger. “Just use meringue powder.” Okay, Karen.

I’ll be real with you guys – I tried whipping milk (not possible), I tried making this with an espresso (no), and I even tried it with crème fraîche. What kind of house has crème fraîche but not instant coffee, you ask? My house, and I can’t wait for lockdown to be over.

All I can offer you is a review of the Nesquiks.

Nesquik Extra-Choc: 11/10. No, 11/7. What did you expect?

Nesquik Strawberry: A grave disappointment. The recipe has been altered to reduce the sugar. If I wanted the taste of a strawberry without the sugar, I would eat a strawberry. Let me chase Type II diabetes in peace.

Nesquik Banana: A bizarre flavour experience. Impossible to describe – I won’t even try.

So, I’ve spent the better part of my day substituting sugary drinks for a meal and I still haven’t mastered the Savage dance from TikTok. Was this really the best use of my time? I say yes. Marie Kondo reckons we should hang on to whatever sparks joy, and for me, it’s hard to find something that sparks more joy than Nesquik. Bless up, guys, and stay happy.

In Defence of a Goddess: why I love Nigella

Bella Stock
-
0
In Defence of a Goddess: why I love Nigella

In the comedy Miranda, Penny, Miranda’s preposterous mother, laments that her daughter ‘hasn’t been blessed by the goddess of socialising.’ ‘There isn’t a goddess of socialising’, Miranda rebuts only to be swiftly rejoined by her mother: ‘then how do you explain Nigella Lawson?’

For me, this is no joke. Nigella is a goddess, though she herself chafes against the title. I’ve never been particularly invested in the notion of ‘role models’ or ‘idols’, but I make exception for the goddess Nigella, whose shrine I worship at every day. Like her, I adore delicious food (both the cooking and tasting of it); she too was once an Arts student at Oxford; we both fell in love with Oscar Wilde at 16 and, most crucially, we both share a rare species: a father called Nigel. Nigella is often considered ripe for burlesque: her name has become virtually synonymous with ‘voluptuous’, her perceived seductive presenting style is satirised in the label ‘the queen of food porn’, and her misfortunes are scrutinised under the media’s glare. For me, however, Nigella is so much more than all of these trivial caricatures, and so I write my defence of Nigella. 

Every morning as I pad downstairs in my tired, old dressing gown and Birkenstocks, with my dishevelled bed hair (which has earned me the family nickname of ‘Brian’ for its resemblance to the tresses of Brian May), peruse the cupboard and engage in a toss-up between Weetabix and Shredded Wheat before reaching for the latter, I vow to be more like Nigella. I pledge to purchase a black silk wrap; to stop wearing sandals which include my own surname as slippers; to wake with perfectly coiffured hair; to glide rather than shuffle; to have my own well-stocked pantry and finally, to feast on things like ‘Eggs in Purgatory’ and ‘Panettone French Toast’ rather than paper wrapped oblongs which have the flavour profile of cardboard. In short, I take the oath to be Nigellissima.

In a world of Joe Wicks and Deliciously Ella and their legion of ‘clean eaters’, of keto diets, of rabbit-food fanatics and a New York Times Bestseller called I Quit Sugar: Your Complete 8-Week Detox Program and Cookbook, I salute Nigella’s unapologetic loyalty to the indulgent: to pasta, to chocolate, to wine. Her raison d’être is never to rule out any food stuffs but to celebrate proper, nourishing, homemade food in all its delectable variety. Only Nigella would say something as delightfully irreverent as ‘I’m a great believer in fat. My view is, it’s a moisturiser from the inside.’ Nigella once speculated about her success saying, ‘I do have a theory about why women like to see me, and that’s because I’m not thin.’ What Nigella implies is a kind of feederism, that her audiences enjoy watching her cook and eat ‘naughty’ food whilst themselves abstaining. Whilst it’s not something with which I personally identify, I suspect Nigella’s theory contains much truth and it is a complex to be conscious of: fetishizing Nigella in this bizarre schadenfreude-esque fashion is to be avoided.

I always reproach people when they parody Nigella, pouting their lips and swaying their hips in the sexualised manner that commentators attribute to her, because I think they fail to see what Nigella articulates as her ‘pronounced sense of camp.’ Nigella doesn’t do things by halves, but I find her flamboyance and sensuous theatricality so refreshing when compared with the muted tones of many food presenters. What I admire too, is that there is nothing underhand, calculated or contrived about Nigella’s style: she does what she says on the (baking) tin. Nigella herself has said that ‘I was astonished to be told I was suggestive and coquettish and so forth because the reality is, I’m a straightforward person.’ Of course Nigella is sexy, but she’s also an enormously talented presenter, one who’s manner is vivacious, sharply witty and inviting of one’s confidences. So, trying to condense her recipe for success down to her sexuality, to the idea that Nigella hoodwinks us into viewing through her flirtation, is just flawed. She is a storyteller, a wordsmith, and one who elevates the humblest ingredient to the level of splendour through her mouth-watering prose. It’s Nigella’s commentary, the moments when she tells us she is wearing gloves to prepare her beetroots because ‘otherwise I’ll have something of the Lady Macbeth about me’ as she smiles wryly at the camera, or when she holds a couple of jewel-like blackcurrants to her ears and turns archly to the viewer: ‘nice earrings?’ In short, there is no-one I’d rather watch.

Every time I – the girl who’s never even punted – weave my way home after a tequila-too-many at Bridge, I think wistfully of that iconic photo of Nigella during her student days; playing croquet whilst being carried in a sedan chair. I bet Nigella wasn’t spending her Thursdays in a sweaty nightclub, I sigh, or munching on Twiglets to motivate herself through essays at ungodly hours. But then, actually, Nigella has never claimed to be or to have lived a perfect life – it’s the reason why she pooh poohs the goddess title. Her life has been punctuated by great sadness: her mother died of cancer when Nigella was only 25, her younger sister aged 32 and her husband at 41. Then, after a ten-year marriage, images emerged of Nigella’s second husband, Charles Saatchi, with his hands around her throat. Plagued by allegations of habitual drug use, Nigella was forced to admit very occasional use during a tempestuous marriage to ‘a brilliant but brutal man.’ It has not, by any means, been an easy life; but Nigella is stoical and has no desire to be pitied saying, ‘some see me as a tragic heroine, and that’s what makes me acceptable to them. The idea that I might be happy is unforgivable. Well, I’m sorry. It’s better to be happy.’ And it’s not just tragedy: Nigella glories in all kinds of imperfection. When Nigella took her presenting style to the US, it was a welcome change to American viewers who were accustomed to being told everything had to be ‘just so’ by TV cooks like Martha Stewart. Nigella – who dips and licks her finger, who spills and eats in bed, who is messy, fun and spontaneous – felt within the realms of possibility to the average home cook. Nigella is spirited but there’s also something so endearingly forgiving and relaxed about who she is. She never seems to lash out or to be enraged but instead laughs things off with an appealing nonchalance. Missing the irony of the title of bestseller How to be a Domestic Goddess, critics initially lampooned her as being anti-feminist and retrograde. Nigella merely said ‘at first I thought it was ridiculous but then, I thought, you have a column to fill. If I were still a columnist, and this book came out, I’d have done exactly the same.’

The maxim by which I live, is that it is always better to be an embarrassment than a bore. Thankfully, the goddess approves: ‘I would rather embarrass myself and be a bit idiotic sometimes than spend my whole life worrying about what people think.’ So what I ask is this: look past the black silk and bee stung lips, the luscious locks and smoky voice, and you’ll find what it really means to be a goddess, to be Nigellissima. 

Image via Wiki images

Nora Ephron, and Why You Should Never Regret the Potatoes

Emily Capon
-
0
Nora Ephron, and Why You Should Never Regret the Potatoes

“I have made a lot of mistakes falling in love, and regretted most of them,” says Nora Ephron in her thinly-veiled autobiographical novel, Heartburn, “but never the potatoes that went with them.” Heartburn was published in 1983, four years after seven-month pregnant Ephron discovered her husband, journalist Carl Bernstein, was having an affair with a mutual friend.

The novel is perfectly titled. Heartburn – a form of indigestion often experienced after eating – has a recognisable, burning ache, right behind the chest bone. Heartburn as a form of heartbreak, that we see Ephron’s protagonist navigate cloudy-eyed and disorientated, is just as pertinent. Heartburn grips the chest in a rising burn, reaching up to the oesophagus, acidic and sharp. Heartburn, like heartbreak, makes us suffer from a surfeit of what we, as people, enjoy most: food, love, and a mixture of the two. Ephron writes: “I’m very smart about how complicated things get when food and love become hopelessly tangled.”

She was not a food writer, and never claimed to be. Her speciality was, initially, journalism, but as her fame grew, so did her areas of expertise. She is perhaps best known for writing the screenplays for some of the most well-known and well-loved romantic comedies (she is the mind behind such rhetorical masterpieces as “restaurants are to people in the Eighties what theatre was to people in the Sixties” from When Harry Met Sally). But food still occupies Ephron’s work, and accounts of her life, like a dependable best friend, its presence so omnipresent that it becomes unremarkable, and comfortingly so.

Heartburn is only one in a bounty of case studies by which I could demonstrate her latent epicure, but there is something in the raw heartache of the novel that posits food as one of life’s only enduring control variables. Lovers may come and go, but whole blanched almonds, sautéed in browned butter until golden with small burnt bits, lightly salted and served with a hard drink, are forever. Ephron’s fictionalised mother follows her almond recipe with “Men are little boys’” reminding her daughter not to stir the drink, or she’ll bruise the ice cubes. Commendable nonchalance, caring about life’s finer, reliable details.

Rachel, the novel’s protagonist, spends the first 150 pages of the novel debating whether or not to leave her husband, Mark (a rightfully scathing fictionalisation of Carl Bernstein, who was inexplicably infuriated by the publication of Heartburn). Her odyssey through betrayal, rage, confusion and sadness is punctuated by recipes, meals, and memories of her marriage that you can almost smell. Just over half way through the novel, when she realises her marriage is unsalvageable, she describes a week in West Virginia, when the food was good and her relationship intact. She offers an olive branch, the perfect peach pie recipe, and the precision of “1/4 cups flour, 1/2 teaspoon salt, 1/2 cup butter and 2 tablespoons sour cream” is soothing – a guaranteed certainty in uncertain times. Ephron, and her readers, can depend on a predictable chain of cause and effect, if you stick to the recipe. If you put all the aforementioned ingredients into a Cuisinart and blend until they form a ball, you can be sure that soon you’ll have a ‘perfect’ peach pie crust.

She says: “we swam in the river and barbecued ribs and made Bellinis with crushed peaches and cheap champagne”, and it’s not hard to imagine the metallic fizz on your tongue, followed by the soft, floral juice of crushed summer peaches. It’s somewhere we’ve all been; not West Virginia, but a precipice of change, for the better or worse, where the smallest details are amplified and highlighted to the point of fetishism.

I remember the slightly stale sweetness of a Nature Valley bar on the morning of my first interview at LMH in 2017. I remember the espresso martini I made with my boyfriend days before our relationship began to fall apart (it was bittersweet, which figures). Taste is an anchor and a guide, present at the point of heartburn, and in the days, months, years that follow. The experience of food can be interpersonal or private, something shared or enjoyed alone, but its joy lies in choice. Ephron doesn’t regret the potatoes because they’re reliably, dependably, her own.

So in uncertain times, take a pair of scales, meticulously measure “2 cups sugar, 2 sticks butter, […] 2 ½ cup milk, one 13-ounce can evaporated milk, 2 tablespoons nutmeg, 2 tablespoons vanilla, a loaf of wet bread […] and one cup raisins”, and make the best bread pudding of your life.

Student campaign for affordable access to Oxford COVID-19 vaccine

Imogen Duke
-
0
Student campaign for affordable access to Oxford COVID-19 vaccine

Universities Allied for Essential Medicines (UAEM), a global network of university students, is campaigning for affordable, global access to a COVID-19 vaccine. UAEM UK talked to Cherwell about their endeavours “to ensure that publicly funded COVID-19 vaccines developed in Oxford are widely and equitably accessible to those who need it most.” 

The campaign has developed a mapping tool to track public funding of COVID-19 research and development in universities. It visualises information synthesised from government databases and publicly funded institutions. The tool is currently tracking the funding of university groups in 13 countries.

UAEM UK told Cherwell that their tool aims to highlight the role of the public sector in research, because the “contribution of the public is virtually never reflected in the pricing, accessibility, and affordability of the final drug.”

“The public deserves a return on public investment by ensuring that COVID-19 vaccines are the global public goods which the UK public want – there was a recent survey by [the Wellcome Trust] which supported the overwhelming public majority behind universal equitable access to a vaccine.”

Emily Swift, an Oxford medical student who is part of the UAEM UK campaign, told Cherwell: “It’s hard for people to access this information from fairly dense websites. The goal is to allowed people who are interested to find where their money is going… Hopefully this is a way to hold institutions a bit more accountable for what people’s money is being used for.” 

UAEM UK have been assessing the licensing agreements for the University of Oxford COVID-19 vaccine. They have concerns about “potential stockpiling by rich countries, namely the USA and the UK, to secure access to the vaccine before others.”

AstraZeneca state they have the capacity to produce one billion doses through 2020 and 2021. UAEM UK note that agreements for “at least 400 million doses” have been made so far, 100 million for the UK and 300 million for the US: “That’s forty percent gone.”

Oxford University have set out guidance to organisations about the licensing of University intellectual property about COVID-19 related products and services. It states that the default approach will be to “offer non-exclusive, royalty-free licences to support free of charge, at-cost, or cost + limited margin supply as appropriate, and only for the duration of the pandemic, as defined by the World Health Organisation (WHO).”

UAEM UK expressed concerns to Cherwell that this means non-exclusive licensing of the vaccine will be limited to the duration of the pandemic. Once the WHO downgrades the classification of the virus spread, prices may increase, which is “likely to disproportionately affect countries and parts of society which are unable to rapidly manufacture or access  vaccines and other treatments once they become available.”

UAEM UK have requested that the full licensing terms of the Oxford University vaccine are made public, to clarify the safeguards in place and to prevent the creation of potential monopoly-generation protections. They also have requested that Astra Zeneca declare their manufacturing costs, to verify their commitment to pricing a vaccine product “at cost” during the pandemic. 

A statement made by AstraZeneca this week states that it is “collaborating with a number of countries and multilateral organisations to make the University of Oxford’s vaccine widely accessible around the world in an equitable manner.” It also states that it is engaging with international organisations and governments “for the fair allocation and distribution of the vaccine around the world.”

UAEM UK told Cherwell: “Given the state of global access to medicines, we feel that more is necessary and we need more information. We also want the companies involved, so far only AstraZeneca, to make good on their promises to make the vaccine affordable and accessible to everyone – we haven’t seen any concrete evidence of this yet. While everyone is saying the right things, these still need to be turned into actions.”

UAEM is campaigning for universities to sign the ‘Open COVID’ pledge. Developed by an international group of scientists and lawyers, this encourages organisations to commit to providing non-exclusive, royalty-free licenses for their products, processes, and information for up to one year after the pandemic. 

UAEM UK also wrote to the Jenner Institute, in collaboration with other organisations including Just Treatment and Global Justice Now, to request that the deal between Oxford and AstraZeneca be made public, and to explain how it safeguards fair access for all. 

They have not yet received a response to the letter. A University spokesperson recommended to Cherwell that questions about the University policy for licensing COVID-19 related intellectual property be directed to AstraZeneca, as they are handling manufacturing. 

UAEM UK note that Oxford University and researchers have “said all the right things so far and made lots of positive steps”, but want this to turn “into concrete action that challenges the dominant model of excessive pharmaceutical profits and exclusivity.”

Image from mapping tool created by UAEM student volunteers.

Layla Moran resumes Lib Dem leadership bid

Timea Iliffe
-
0
Layla Moran resumes Lib Dem leadership bid

Layla Moran MP has reaffirmed her bid to become party leader, following a decision by the Liberal Democrat Federal Board to bring the leadership contest forward. Moran was re-elected in December to represent Oxford West and Abingdon, a marginal seat. 

Moran first announced she would be running in March 2020, after previous leader Jo Swinson lost her seat in the 2019 general election. The election was initially postponed to May 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic but has since been brought forward to August 2020. 

Wera Hobhouse, MP for Bath and current Climate Spokesperson, has also announced her intention to run. Other potential candidates include Ed Davey, MP for Kingston and Surbiton and current acting co-leader of the party. Most recently, Justice Spokesperson and MP for St Albans Daisy Cooper has issued a statement saying she will not be running, following previous speculation.

Speaking to Cherwell, Moran said: “I was glad the federal board decided to bring the leadership contest forward, I think this gives our party a fantastic opportunity to debate how we approach the next election, and I look forward to taking part in it.

“The overwhelming message that I’ve heard on the doorsteps as I travelled across the country meeting local parties, and now doing the same virtually, was that the Liberal Democrats need to move on from the last decade and put forward a positive vision for the future.

“We’re living in unprecedented times as a nation and a planet, and when we come out of this we all have to rebuild. I want to help build a United Kingdom that’s more compassionate and equal. I want to build a country where politicians cooperate to tackle the climate crisis, and the huge democratic deficit.

“I’ve seen throughout Oxford West and Abingdon; the fantastic work Liberal Democrats can do when they win and have the power to change their community. I want to help local parties across the country do the same, and win in their communities.

“I hope as the contest moves forward I can continue to listen to local members and voters across the country to build a vision for the future of our party, and of the country.”

Formal nominations will open in late June. Voting will take place between 30th of July and the 26th August, and the final result will be announced on August 27th.

Image credit to Keith Edkins / Wikimedia Commons

Campaigners contest Local Plans, claiming University will retain affordable housing for own use

Catherine Dema
-
0
Campaigners contest Local Plans, claiming University will retain affordable housing for own use

Oxford and Cherwell Local Plans are being contested by Green Belt campaigners, including 25 councillors, campaigners, and Layla Moran MP. The Oxford Local Plan – recently agreed by independent planning inspectors – is set to build almost 11,000 homes in Oxford by 2036. The Cherwell Development Watch Alliance (CDWA), who is contesting the plan, claims the University of Oxford is at the forefront of the planning and will be a primary beneficiary of the new housing. 

The stated purpose of the Local Plans is to address the Oxford housing crisis, with a particular emphasis on providing affordable housing. The CDWA claims the University and its Colleges intend to retain the majority of affordable housing for their own use.

Oxford City Council argues there is not room in Oxford to meet the city’s housing needs. Many of the proposed new homes have been assigned to other district councils. 4,400 new homes were assigned to the Cherwell District Council – which is the entirety of new housing proposed in a partial review of its Local Plan. 

A letter written by Alan Lodwick of the CDWA – addressed to the Secretary of State for Housing – claims that the Oxford City Council overestimates the city’s need for 28,000 new homes over the next 20 years. Such a development would be approximately as large as the existing city of Oxford. CDWA claims the Office for National Statistics’ projection of a decline in population over the time frame supports their evidence for the City Council’s overestimate. 

CDWA opposes the Local Plans because they argue it will bring the demise of the Green Belt separating Oxford from Kidlington, and Kidlington from Yarnton and Begbroke. The letter points out that the election-winning Conservative manifesto pledged to prevent building on Green Belt land unless there was a justifiable need for it.

The letter argues that the Local Plans are not supported by local residents and that there is unprecedented objection to the Cherwell Council plans. Local residents have resisted Oxford City Council’s expansion into surrounding areas. The letter was undersigned by Layla Moran, County Councillors, all local District Councillors, all local Parish Council Chairs, planning professionals and local organisations opposing the Oxford and Cherwell Local Plans.

In a statement to Cherwell, CDWA said: “Oxford University together with Christ Church, Merton and Exeter Colleges have invested heavily in the Cherwell Local Plan in order to get their land allocated for development… The University and Colleges own plenty of land within the city, much of it under-utilised, but are striving to push development into the countryside around Oxford in the name of meeting Oxford City’s housing need. They are also doing the same on an even bigger scale in the Green Belt in South Oxfordshire District.”

CDWA claims the University already owns underused land that is either protected or promoted for commercial use. They say the University could use this land for purposes essential to have in Oxford City. CDWA recommends the use of satellite locations for the University to protect the green spaces in and around Oxford. 

“CDWA disputes Oxford’s claimed unmet housing need and opposes Cherwell District Council’s plans to build 4,400 homes for Oxford’s unmet need entirely on the Green Belt to the north of Oxford. This will lead to urban sprawl, coalescence of existing distinct settlements, the removal of a strategic gap and destruction of the countryside, precisely the things that the Green Belt is intended to prevent. The University and Colleges and their well paid agents and lawyers have worked hard to make the most of this opportunity to concrete over an important part of the Oxford Green Belt – and to swell their coffers,” the CDWA statement said. 

The CDWA statement alleges the University’s role in the Local Plans evidences a contradiction in its approach to climate change: “On the one hand it has a huge skill base working to address climate change whilst on the other it is decimating the Oxford Green Belt that provides an opportunity to protect the City of Oxford.  This includes the destruction of a 113 year old ‘green lung’ in the form of the North Oxford Golf Course with thousands of trees most of which will be destroyed.”

CDWA argues that, despite the stated purpose of the plans to address unmet housing needs in Oxford, the University will retain the majority of affordable housing. The Local Plans do not state the University’s role, and the CDWA calls on the plan to do so. “[At] least one half – and probably much more – of the new housing will be market housing, which will do nothing to meet the need for affordable housing in the City. Instead it will be highly profitable for the University and Colleges and their commercial partners and, most likely, aimed at the London commuter market. The University and Colleges will effectively be behaving as property development companies to provide this market housing, which has nothing to do with their purpose and charitable aims.”

The letter from the Green Belt campaigners recognises the importance of the University and its world-class research. While they acknowledge a desire to see the University thrive, they claim this could happen without the proposed “destruction” of the Green Belt. 

CDWA welcomes student support for their efforts and recommends students reach out to the Vice Chancellor and principals of Christ Church, Merton, and Exeter to voice their concerns. 

Despite the controversy, the Oxford Local Plan was agreed by inspectors who concluded the plan was legally sound and justified in building into the Green Belt. They agreed that for Oxford to meet its goal of building approximately 678 affordable homes per year, approximately 1,400 total homes would need to be built per year. 

The inspectors, Jonathan Bore and Nick Fagan, concluded: “The situation in Oxford, with its stark inequalities and a very large and growing number of households unable to access market housing, clearly justifies the plan’s approach.”

The University of Oxford and Oxford City Council were contacted for comment on the objections to the Oxford and Cherwell Local Plans. 

1...464465466...2,518Page 465 of 2,518

Support Student Journalism

Cherwell is Oxford’s oldest independent newspaper, established in 1920. We are entirely student-run. By supporting us, you will contribute to keeping our paper in print and online. Every donation makes a difference.

Donate

Explore

Follow us

More

Oxford Student Publications Limited © 2025 - All Rights Reserved | Privacy Policy

Website by James Ashley