black oxford students bullingdon club

Ten black Oxford freshers have recreated the infamous Bullingdon Club picture

Honestly a vast improvement


Ten black Oxford University freshers have recreated the infamous Bullingdon Club picture that featured Boris Johnson and David Cameron.

The new image was posted on LinkedIn earlier this week by one of the boys in the photo, law student Joshua Chima, who spoke about increasing representation.

He captioned the picture: “Times are changing; increased access to opportunity is among the most important ways of allowing social mobility to flourish. There is a way forward. #increasedrepresentation #matriculation #oxford.”

Another student in the photo also shared it on his LinkedIn and told The Daily Mail he hoped the picture would empower people.

He also said being from south east London there were “certain structural economic and social pressures unjustly perpetuated upon me by the establishment figures in the original Bullingdon picture”.

The new photo was shown side by side the original by the newspaper The Peckham Peculiar on Twitter. They had posted the photo as a Peckham local, Amgad Salih, was one of the boys involved.

Amgad, who is studying economics and management, commented on the photo saying: “Representation is key! #blackhistorymonth #blackexcellence #oxford.”

The tweet by The Peckham Peculiar soon gained a lot of interest and many people were celebrating the new photo for the increased representation it brings to Oxford. Others thought that whilst the photo was great, it would be good to see girls also recreate the picture.

There were some people who criticised the boys for aspiring to be like the Bullingdon Club members. However many Twitter users were quick to point out the purpose of the photo is not to aspire to be anything like the Bullingdon Club members but instead to disrupt assumptions and increase representation.

Featured image credit: LinkedIn

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