It was an average morning for a group of multicultural college students, who were enjoying the June sunshine on their leafy campus. 'It was all so normal,' Sanjay tells us. 'Hua, Kwame, Diego, Amelia (she's gay,) and I were preparing for our upcoming exams when we heard rustling from the bushes.'
They were greeted with the cold, invasive eye of a long-lens camera.
The college photographer, 46-year-old Oliver Brown, has been tasked with designing glossy brochures for the university for ten years. Since then, he has been striving to represent the full range of brilliant students who have walked the hallowed halls. 'It isn't always easy,' he tells us. 'Most of the people here are white, cis, able-bodied and straight. I usually end up having to photoshop minorities into the background. That's why Sanjay's group were so irresistible. It's the kind of diversity we collage together from stock images and slap on the front page.'
All Oliver wanted was one picture of the gang huddled around a Bunsen-burner or poring over books together in the library, but the colourful clique refused.
'It's tokenism, plain and simple,' Hua said. 'The moment we saw him coming we scattered; Kwame discarded his wheelchair, Amelia started kissing Sanjay and Diego tore off his Yarmulke. We weren't going to let him exploit our differences to make up for the racist flaws in this institution.'
After another belligerent attempt from Brown to photograph them returning from an intersectional feminist book-club, the gang decided to press charges against the shutterbug.
Sanjay shouted 'See you next Tuesday... in court.'
First published 6 Jun 2023
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