Take Pride in protest
Some reasons to be cheerful: Black Pride in the UK celebrates its 15th year today. Quite possibly the most egalitarian and heartwarming protest I’ve ever witnessed, it is a haven for LGBTQ people of colour every year. Much like everything else, the programme has gone digital this time round, with performances and talks all streamed online, but it’s worth taking stock. What started in 2005 as a gathering of black lesbians in Southend that cost Phyllis Opoku-Gyimah £427 saw 10,000 people travel from all over the country to attend the event in east London last year.
Seeing queer refugees, asylum seekers – multiple voices marginalised by sexuality, class, religion and ethnicity – take centre stage and get their day in the sun is radical. True, it’s really fun too, but unlike the “main Pride”, this one still feels political and with lots still at stake. More power to them.
No solace in A-level results
You would think that at least this year, of all years, we would be spared the annual farce of A-level results day. Not the very real catastrophe at hand, but the tedium of adults who use the moment to share their wisdom on why exams don’t matter because hey! Have you heard? Grades are overrated and dreams can still be achieved without a piece of paper!
Every August, on TV, radio, in newspapers and especially on Twitter, we are treated to a grotesque strain of humblebrag masquerading as Good Old Fashioned Advice that might as well come from 1842.
The “I didn’t even go to school after 11, wore newspaper for shoes and now I’m a rich and famous author!” kind. Or “I fluffed my A-levels at private school and I still inherited a peerage!” sort. (Both real examples, I very much kid you not.)
The idea that this should reassure an 18-year-old in 2020, two recessions and a global pandemic already under their belt, only to be punished by an algorithm, makes me cringe to my core.
I’m all for optimism and giving teenagers something to look forward to. Offer hope without patronising them. Empathise with their experience without making it about yourself. But let’s not peddle delusions about the strength of our meritocracy - this generation has just witnessed their marks determined by a government-sanctioned postcode lottery.
Plenty can and will be achieved by young people, irrespective of their A-levels but no matter how tenacious and talented they are, they’ve still been dealt a terrible hand. It isn’t just unfair – it’s wrong.
Find joy in quarantine
Is it worth going on holiday if I have to quarantine afterwards? So my friends keep asking me and all I can say, days out of my own two weeks of strict bunkering down, is “first of all, I was away for work” and second, hell I don’t know. It depends how sane you feel or, rather, how much TV you can un-guiltily burn through. In my case, I watched more in two weeks than I think I have in the last five years. Succession, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Indian Matchmaker, the BBC’s delicious series on the Rupert Murdoch empire. All thumbs up. I also played my music too loud, ate cereal three times a day and got really good at hula hooping. In brief: if you can withstand two weeks of being 11 years old, go for your life.
• Nosheen Iqbal is an Observer columnist
