UCU: Home of the Blaccent

I am not Black, I am a UCU student

By Marvella Zimbiri, on behalf of PoCCo

It’s officially the beginning of my third and final year at UCU (finally). It also marks the third year that I’m the only darkskinned Black woman on campus. So let us state a problem that I have written about many times in this column: Where are all the Black people?

You could argue Utrecht is a very white city, and sure, there aren't as many of us here as there would be in Paris, Berlin, Brussels, etc... But I've been to enough ACHN (African and Caribbean Heritage Network) events to know that is not the whole story. Black students exist here. Black people are everywhere, honestly, sorry to break it to you if you thought you were escaping us.

In proper fashion, I ran a little experiment towards the end of last year: I counted the black people on campus. Thirteen. Treize, for my Frenchies. Thirteen Black students on the entire campus, and half of them graduated in June. Here are some of the messages that were sent on a group chat that I made with all of us: “are you sure there’s not more of us”; “Damn fr only 13 of us?” I genuinely don't want to know what the number is now, because I know the incoming cohort didn't bring six more to replace the ones who left.

That is the reality of UCU: the melanated presence on this campus is vanishing. But UCU, in its most thoughtful fashion, has found a way to make up for it: by appropriating us instead of admitting us. Yes, I said it. Y’all want to be us so bad.

Let me paint you a picture. I'm walking across campus, as one does, and I keep hearing this word: "Bombo…" I look around, thinking, is that Black people I hear? Imagine my surprise when the person saying it is not, in fact, Black. For anyone not chronically online: "bombo" is short for bomboclaat, a Jamaican Patois curse word, literally "genital cloth," used as an exclamation. It’s a word that has always lived in Black spaces. Now, thanks to TikTok, it is the word you use because your Black bestie uses it. It became the ABP buzzword of the semester.

And that is how it always starts. Cultural appropriation is never a single dramatic theft, instead, it’s built out of the smallest, most ignorant increments. A cute trend, a funny word, a fun little accent. And then Primark is selling hair bonnets. And then the Kardashians are calling box braids "boxer braids," and others are calling edges "sticky bangs". Appropriation of black culture especially is always so disrespectful and audacious, yet normalised and ingrained even in the way we speak. 90% of the slang used nowadays has Black origins; you may come directly to me if you disagree, and I’ll give you a personalised linguistic breakdown.

For some of you, this may seem harmless, but when UCU and other predominantly white institutions advertise the university as culturally diverse while failing to admit Black students, there is clearly a problem. Stanford University recently got caught using AI in their marketing campaign, replacing a non-Black student with an AI-generated Black student. The reality is that institutions are benefiting from their programmes appearing as diverse, while not actually being diverse. This is why, when the UCU marketing team called for students to pose for new pictures for the website, I deliberately chose not to participate, not wanting to be the new token black person. The one remark I get from almost all people of colour in their first year is that they saw the pictures on the website of the classic "multiculturally diverse friend group" and thought, "wow, I am going to a diversity heaven," when in reality, I personally feel like I am living in a scary dystopian alternate universe every time I step foot through those gates along Prins Hendriklaan.

Honestly, what I want you to take away from this: as you become aware of the African American Vernacular English (AAVE) words and other words and expressions you have borrowed from Black communities to be funny, cool, trendy and relevant, also think about why you can borrow our language so easily, but this university still cannot manage to admit more than thirteen of us.