'Black African' identification and the COVID-19 pandemic in Britain: A site for sociological, ethical and policy debate.

Abstract

This paper is a narrative review of the use of collective terminology in relation to race and health in Britain, with particular reference to the ‘Black African’ community. ‘Black Africans’ have been categorised in the 1991–2011 censuses with added free‐text in 2021 in response to user demand. However, the UK government is increasingly reporting data for the ‘Black’ pan‐ethnicity, especially in the even more generalised ‘BAME’ (‘Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic’) acronym in COVID‐19 pandemic reports. The consequences of this practice are addressed. Firstly, with respect to ethical challenges, Black Africans find their conscription by government into the term BAME offensive and do not accept it as a self‐descriptor. This labelling, which subsumes Black Africans’ self‐assigned ethnicity in the census, and consequent misrecognition may be interpreted as a micro‐aggression (a term coined in the 1970s but used here to denote microinvalidation), as suggested in the current black activism of the ‘Black Lives Matter movement’. Secondly, ONS has warned that concealed heterogeneity renders the pan‐ethnicities unreliably crude, making them scientifically inaccurate. Analysts are recommended to present ethnic group data for the full census classification where possible for reasons of validity and respect for the patient as arbiter of their ethnic group.