Yasmin Alibhai-Brown

1 month ago | inews.co.uk | Yasmin Alibhai-Brown

On the BBC’s Sunday Morning Live this weekend, I took part in a discussion about lost boys, noxious masculinity and the lure of online misogynist strongmen. This growing crisis is often attributed to those malevolent influencers. Yes, the internet’s reach into the minds and hearts of vulnerable young people is disrupting their capacities and realities. It can feel as though there’s nothing we can do to protect them.

1 month ago | inews.co.uk | Yasmin Alibhai-Brown

I wrote here recently about Kim Sengupta, The Independent’s remarkable world affairs editor. He and I were among the first Brits of colour to get into the mainstream print media. We talked about those breakthroughs as part miracle, part luck and part bolshiness. At his memorial service, Sengupta’s race or ethnicity was not mentioned in the moving and meaningful speeches I heard. The three other non-white journalists at the gathering noticed this, too.

1 month ago | inews.co.uk | Yasmin Alibhai-Brown

Unconditional fidelity to a particular community, faith or political party leads even the most thoughtful and intelligent people down a blind alley. That’s what I thought after reading Polly Toynbee’s latest Guardian column, published hours before Liz Kendall, the Work and Pensions secretary, announced sweeping benefits cuts.

1 month ago | inews.co.uk | Yasmin Alibhai-Brown

I step onto terrain where angels fear to tread. It’s a field strewn with explosive emotions and irreconcilable stances. I have, thus far, stayed away from it. But this week, I was drawn into the danger zone. It started with a conversation with an old friend, a Ugandan Asian, like me. She wanted to share some distressing news. Her 15-year-old granddaughter, she told me, is a “beautiful girl, wants to be a boy. She is going to the doctors to get hormone [sic]. Nothing changes her mind.

1 month ago | inews.co.uk | Yasmin Alibhai-Brown

This is In Conversation with Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, a subscriber-only newsletter from i. If you’d like to get this direct to your inbox, every single week, you can sign up here. On Sunday, we went to the British Museum to see the Picasso: printmaker exhibition. On display are some of his prints from a vast collection owned by the museum. It has had five star reviews from the The Guardian, The Times and The Telegraph – and has been described as “revelatory” and “thrilling”.