Kehinde Andrews

Andrews is of British African-Caribbean heritage.^[2] He grew up in Birmingham, the son of a half-white English, half-Jamaican mother who was a university graduate and was born in Britain, and a Jamaican father who had come to the UK in his early teens.^[3] Andrews earned a PhD in sociology and cultural studies from the University of Birmingham in 2011. His thesis was entitled Back to Black: Black Radicalism and the Supplementary School Movement.^[4]

Andrews is a professor of Black studies in the School of Social Sciences at Birmingham City University.^[5] He is the director of the Centre for Critical Social Research, founder of the Harambee Organisation of Black Unity,^[6] and co-chair of the UK Black Studies Association.^[7] Andrews is the first Black Studies professor in the UK and led the establishment of the first Black Studies programme in Europe at Birmingham City University.^[8][9][10]

Andrews regularly appears in the media discussing issues of race and racism, colonialism and slavery, and British nationalism. He contributes to The Guardian,^[11][12] The Independent,^[13] New Statesman,^[14] CNN,^[15] OpenDemocracy,^[16] and often appears as a guest on the BBC^{[17][18][19][20]} and Good Morning Britain.^{[21][22][23][24]}

In 2016, Andrews criticized universities in the United Kingdom for institutional racism, specifically the lack of diversity in students' assigned readings.^[8]

In 2019, Andrews appeared on Good Morning Britain, where he argued that the Royal Air Force bombing of Nazi Germany constituted a war crime^[25] and equated the racial views of Winston Churchill to those of Adolf Hitler.^[26]

Andrews narrated the 2018 film The Psychosis of Whiteness, which explores race and racism through cinematic representations of the slave trade.^[27]

In July 2019, Andrews criticized the idea that prominent non-white members of the Conservative Party automatically represent racial progress, saying that a "cabinet packed with ministers with brown skin wearing Tory masks represents the opposition of racial progress".^[28]

In 2020, he was interviewed by the Los Angeles Review of Books discussing Malcolm X and the question of violence in Black radicalism.^[29]

In June 2021, Andrews described Elizabeth II as "the number one symbol of white supremacy in the entire world".^[30] Following her death in September 2022, he called for the abolition of the monarchy.^[31]

In September 2024, Black political commenter Calvin Robinson reported Andrews to the police for allegedly using a racial slur against him.^[32] The professor was investigated by the West Midlands Police who, following a voluntary interview with Andrews during which he explained his academic work, dropped the probe.^[33] In an interview with The Independent, Andrews said, "'house negro' is a political critique and has never been used as a racial slur" and criticised the police for "criminalising Black and brown people" and the criminalization of Black thought.^[32] Months before the police investigation, the Metropolitan Police had contacted Andrews for advice for a Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) review for an investigation into an alleged hate crime, in which a British Asian woman held a placard depicting Rishi Sunak and Suella Braverman as coconuts. Andrews declined to take part in the review, explained to the police why this use of 'coconut' was not a racial slur, and urged the police and CPS to drop the investigation. The police and CPS pursued the conviction but the woman was found not guilty.^[34]

While critiquing books written by academics as a "con", Andrews said the work of many academics is "devastatingly bad" and stated one of his peers had written something so bad that "he writes like he has a brain injury".^[35]