There is a TikTok meme doing the rounds where users mime along to an audio clip. “A win is a win,” it goes, as an unseen crowd objects and jeers, “a win is a win, I don’t care what y’all saying.” The joke is that sometimes things are so bad that you have to massively inflate tiny mercies in order to cope. Stuck on a flight that was so delayed that you missed your own wedding but got free drinks? A win is a win.
Celebrating Rishi Sunak’s rise to the premiership feels very much like “a win is a win” territory. The first British Asian prime minister finally walked into No 10 after a historic meltdown of government (twice); after he was rejected by his party membership; and then after not giving that membership the choice at all the second time. It was truly not our “Obama moment”. Still, recognition of this “historic” occasion was issued by his party and the opposition frontbench. A win is a win.
This is now the template for measuring racial progress – take what you’re given and be grateful. As another Black History Month draws to a close, it is becoming clear the occasion is becoming more corporate, performative and depoliticised with every passing year. In my head now, it is just another secular event on the calendar, like Halloween or Thanksgiving. Instead of pumpkins, it’s black people decorating the premises. For a few weeks, a few of them get paid, some white people sit through their mandated talks, and maybe some kids get to learn something not deemed important enough to be included in their curriculum every other month. The Black Lives Matter summer of 2020 began as an epic global movement of street protests, and it’s ended up as an annual presentation.
