This article is taken from the February 2023 issue of The Critic. To get the full magazine why not subscribe? Right now we’re offering five issues for just £10.

I am often compared to Rosa Parks. This is unsurprising, given that I have worked assiduously and selflessly throughout my life in the pursuit of equity and inclusion. The only difference is that I wouldn’t be seen dead on public transport. 

But I think the time has come to reassess the legacy of Rosa Parks. In many ways, Parks was deeply problematic. Why, for instance, did she insist on sitting in the white section of the bus? She was clearly a self-hating racist. 

Again and again, I find that so many of the heroes of the civil rights movements fail to live up to my standards. Consider Martin Luther King and his famous “dream” that future generations would be judged not “by the colour of their skin but by the content of their character”. Here’s what he should have said: 

I have a dream that little children will one day live in a nation where they will be judged not by the content of their character, but the colour of their skin — in order to fulfil diversity quotas and deconstruct the inherent toxicity of whiteness.

I have also surpassed Mahatma Gandhi. He might have brought the British empire to its knees, but did he ever chuck a tin of soup over a Van Gogh in the National Gallery? No, he was too busy mincing around in flip-flops and collecting salt.

I remember bravely looting my local Louis Vuitton

I was at the forefront of the BLM riots — I mean, protests. I remember bravely looting my local Louis Vuitton, and compassionately punching a police officer in order to advance the cause of social justice. I actually think that “peaceful protest” is a form of violence because it makes those of us who want to throw bricks at people and set everything on fire look really bad.

So as we move into 2023, I humbly accept my ongoing role as an icon for the downtrodden and the dispossessed. I have made a name for myself as a pioneer of intersectional activism and, as such, am far blacker than Martin Luther King could have ever hoped to be.