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Well Done Leona
But will the media ever wake up?
One of the most heart-warming stories of 2006 is that of Leona Lewis the The 21-year-old Londoner who became the first woman of colour in the UK to win a major reality show.
Of course Leona has a rare talent and would have gone on to do big things even if she had not won ITV's X Factor and what is particularly refreshing is the large vote she received from the British public. Votes her mother several days before the final had doubted would appear. Never was a mother more pleased to be wrong.
However with the success of Leona winning the X Factor come familiar media referrals. Despite being of English, Welsh and Jamaican parentage, Leona is now being officially described as a Black artist. Do they think that Black people are blind and will be compensated with Leona winning when Lemar who is an equally exceptional talent did not or is it because Leona's parents are still together and she does not fit their stereotypical image of a confused mixed-race individual.
Leona definitely deserved her win but let's not pretend it's something it isn't yes she is a woman of colour but in most parts of Africa and the Caribbean she would be described as white. It's highly unlikely that most of the five million people who voted for Leona thought of her as a Black young woman or a white one for that matter. Let's hope Leona has the confidence to speak up and acknowledge her mixed-race background before she too gets nominated as one of the UK's 100 Black Britons.
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