this post was submitted on 16 Mar 2024

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217

New Welsh leader 'honored' to be Europe's first Black national leader (www.nbcnews.com)

submitted 7 months ago by MicroWave@lemmy.world to c/world@lemmy.world

28 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Vaughan Gething won the Welsh Labour Party leadership contest on Saturday, and is set to become the first Black leader of Wales’ semi-autonomous government.

Gething, who is currently Welsh economy minister, narrowly beat Education Minister Jeremy Miles in a race to replace First Minister Mark Drakeford. Drakeford announced late last year he would step down once a replacement was chosen.

Gething, 50, won 51.7% of the votes cast by members of the party and affiliated trade unions, and Miles 48.3%.

Once he is confirmed next week by the Welsh parliament, the Senedd, where Labour is the largest party, Gething will become the fifth first minister since Wales’ national legislature was established in 1999.

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[–] Reverendender@sh.itjust.works 17 points 7 months ago (1 children)

These names are SUPERBLY British-sounding

[–] harry_balzac@lemmy.world 9 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Yeah, not very Welsh-sounding at all. On the other hand, dude was born in Wales to a Welsh father, so as long as he is focused on helping Wales and the Welsh people, that's what matters.

[–] Worx@lemmynsfw.com 9 points 7 months ago

Gethin is a Welsh name which is very similar. The guy here is Gething, with an Ng at the end rather than a N, but still. Also, interestingly, Gethin apparently could mean "dark-skinned"

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gethin

[–] sirico@feddit.uk 10 points 7 months ago (1 children)

One day I hope we'll get past focusing on this stuff

[–] Squizzy@lemmy.world 15 points 7 months ago (1 children)

I dont think it is focusing, reppresentation and inclusion are important. When we get passed it it will be bacause it isnt a rarity but rather the norm

[–] Silentiea@lemm.ee 2 points 7 months ago

Someone once asked (I think) Ruth Bader Ginsburg how many women had to be on the SCOTUS in order for it to not be biased towards men. Her answer was "All nine of them. After all, it's been all nine men before and no one thought that was special"

I am, of course, quite heavily paraphrasing.

[–] Scarecrow59@lemmy.one 5 points 7 months ago (3 children)

This is something I dont understand, can someone explain to me: Is Rishi Sunnak not black? Do my eyes deceive me. Is he not a black leader of a european country too? Excuse my apparent ignorance.

[–] scrappydoo@lemmy.world 21 points 7 months ago

Er, no. Rishi Sunak is of Indian heritage, and therefore brown. Likewise, Humza Yousaf, the First Minister of Scotland, is of Pakistani heritage. Black would be African heritage.

[–] KumaLumaJuma@feddit.uk 7 points 7 months ago

He’s of Punjabi descent rather than black.

[–] Noel_Skum@sh.itjust.works 2 points 7 months ago (2 children)

Here’s the thing, Vaughn has a white Welsh father and a black Zambian mother so it’s a bit dishonest to call him black. Rishi has two brown Indian parents. But yes, as a result, they probably do have a similar-ish skin colour.

[–] scroll_responsibly@lemmy.sdf.org 6 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Maybe this is something lost in translation but given that you appear to be British, did brits think of Barack Obama as being a bit dishonest for being referred to as the first black US president given that he had a white American mother and a black Kenyan father (as you put it)?

[–] Noel_Skum@sh.itjust.works 4 points 7 months ago

Dishonest, no. The vast majority of British people would have happily classed him as black - the same with Vaughn. Whether through racism or ignorance I’m not sure. In South Africa the term coloured/colored is used with zero negative connotations but in the UK “coloured” (and I assume the US too) is viewed very negatively as that is how the older generation categorised anybody who wasn’t white… whether you were Bangladeshi, Nigerian, Chinese etc it didn’t really matter.

[–] autotldr@lemmings.world 0 points 7 months ago

This is the best summary I could come up with:

Vaughan Gething won the Welsh Labour Party leadership contest on Saturday, and is set to become the first Black leader of Wales’ semi-autonomous government.

Gething, son of a Welsh father and a Zambian mother, will be the first Black leader of a government in the U.K. — and, by some definitions, of any European country.

Northern Ireland is led jointly by Michelle O’Neill and Emma Little-Pengelly, meaning that for the first time there are no white male heads of government in the U.K.

The British government in London is responsible for defense, foreign affairs and other U.K.-wide issues, while administrations in Cardiff, Edinburgh and Belfast control areas such as education and health.

Gething was the front-runner to win the contest, though his campaign was rattled by the revelation he’d accepted 200,000 pounds ($255,000) in donations from a recycling company that was found guilty of environmental offenses and breaching health and safety regulations.

The original article contains 444 words, the summary contains 185 words. Saved 58%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

[+] feedum_sneedson@lemmy.world -12 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Ah yes, skin colour. Very good.

[–] Worx@lemmynsfw.com 12 points 7 months ago (2 children)

Until people of all <skin colour/disability/gender/etc.> are represented fairly, then yes, it is a big deal. Do you know how many black people live in Europe? It's got to be at least fifteen. And yet, he is apparently the first black national leader.

[–] Kusimulkku@lemm.ee 6 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Wales is 0.8% black according to the 2021 census.

[–] Worx@lemmynsfw.com -2 points 7 months ago (2 children)

So we shouldn't have been allowed to elect Vaughan Gething until we've had 99 other white people elected? What's your point here?

[–] Kusimulkku@lemm.ee 2 points 7 months ago (1 children)

You wrote this

Until people of all <skin colour/disability/gender/etc.> are represented fairly, then yes, it is a big deal. Do you know how many black people live in Europe?

Wales seems to be 0.8% black. What would fair representation look like here?

[–] Worx@lemmynsfw.com -1 points 7 months ago (1 children)

In the words that you quoted, I am taking about the whole of Europe. One black leader for the whole of Europe over the history of Europe is pathetic. The statistic for Welsh population is actually irrelevant in this context.

However, as a Welsh person (and not an overt racist), I am happy to have a black person representing us. As a country to have suffered extreme colonialisation in the past, it's good to have someone who says he is learning Welsh and wants to help Welsh speakers, and someone who says he wants to try to mitigate the damage Conservatives have done to our country.

[–] Kusimulkku@lemm.ee 1 points 7 months ago

In the words that you quoted, I am taking about the whole of Europe. One black leader for the whole of Europe over the history of Europe is pathetic.

How is it pathetic? There haven't been that many black people in Europe historically. I'm really confused by your idea of representation.

The statistic for Welsh population is actually irrelevant in this context.

It's relevant when talking about fair representation.

[–] feedum_sneedson@lemmy.world 1 points 7 months ago

Yes that's the rule, I think there's probably been a hundred or so over the years though so no problem. Although, Last King of Scotland? Are we not counting that?

[–] feedum_sneedson@lemmy.world 2 points 7 months ago (1 children)

I'd prefer we elect our leaders by merit, rather than demographic. His skin colour is irrelevant to me, his policies are what matter.

[–] BluesF@lemmy.world 12 points 7 months ago (3 children)

That is why he was elected. The point is not that we should elect the wrong people just to sort out the demographics ffs.

Let's say that black people make up 5% of the European population - idk if this is true but the exact number is not important - and they make up 0% of the national leaders. This is unusual, we should expect that at least some of the black people have the "merits" needed to be elected, right? So either 1) they don't for some reason or 2) they do but they don't get elected for another reason.

Either of those points towards systemic issues. 1 suggests there might be biases in education, or cultural reasons that black people aren't politically engaged. 2 suggests that the political industry is systematically racist in some way. Those are the problems that need to be solved... The demographics will naturally sort themselves out in a fairer society.

Sometimes so called "affirmative action" or "positive discrimination" is needed when 2 is the issue, because the good candidates exist but they are discriminated against by systems that are not easy to fix directly. Part of the reason is that diverse organisations are less likely to be institutionally racist (or sexist, homophobic, etc), so actually manually correcting the diversity repairs the root problem in the long run. Politics isn't really the place for this, obviously, but I wanted to mention it because it doesn't (when done well) mean that we aren't choosing candidates for some position on their merits - we are, in fact, making it more likely that candidates will be fairly selected for their merits.

[–] Kusimulkku@lemm.ee 3 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Let's say that black people make up 5% of the European population - idk if this is true but the exact number is not important - and they make up 0% of the national leaders. This is unusual, we should expect that at least some of the black people have the "merits" needed to be elected, right?

The number seems to be pretty important. With very low percentages, it would not be unusual at all not to have any black national leaders. And considering how much it varies, with it being 0.8% in Wales and even less in some places, the likelihood of them becoming national leaders, assuming random chance, is tiny.

[–] BluesF@lemmy.world 2 points 7 months ago (1 children)

I looked it up, the real number across Europe is between 1 and 1.2%. Source here, although this only considers those of African descent, not sure how that affects the final total.

Your point remains valid if you consider only one cohort of national leaders. 44 countries in Europe, it seems reasonable that none would be black if only 1% of the population of Europe is black. But there isn't just one cohort of leaders to consider... There's another cohort every, 4-5 years or so. Even going back only to the beginning of the century that's over 200, suddenly it seems like we should have had at least one. Obviously demographics have changed over time, but nonetheless it remains significant that there has never been one.

[–] Kusimulkku@lemm.ee 1 points 7 months ago

Every year going backwards the percentage gets even smaller and smaller. So not at all surprising and whatnot that there haven't been black national leaders before. There haven't been that many black people in Europe.

[–] Worx@lemmynsfw.com 2 points 7 months ago

Thanks for answering this better than I would have put in the time to

[–] feedum_sneedson@lemmy.world 1 points 7 months ago

It's certainly no bad thing, perhaps it is something of a milestone although he just looks like any other mixed race British guy to me. Although the cynical side of me says the Conservatives use race as a smokescreen or means to confound the public when pushing unpopular policies (I'm aware he's not a member of that political party, I'm just highlighting a way in which I feel representation can be weaponised for "spin" purposes).