The Brussels So White (or #BrusselsSoWhite) movement is an informal movement denouncing the lack of racial diversity in the

European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational union, supranational political union, political and economic union of Member state of the European Union, member states that are Geography of the European Union, located primarily in Europe. The u ...

institutions in Brussels.

Origin of the term

The hashtag BrusselsSoWhite first appeared in an article by

Politico ''Politico'' (stylized in all caps), known originally as ''The Politico'', is an American political digital newspaper company founded by American banker and media executive Robert Allbritton in 2007. It covers politics and policy in the Unit ...

in 2017 written by Ryan Heath. The article featured a collage of the portraits of all of the 751 Members of the European Parliament accompanied by the hashtag BrusselsSoWhite. In May 2022, the podcast EU Scream launched a new series dedicated to the issue of BrusselsSoWhite. The first episode of the series dealt with the question of white feminism in an interview with author Rafia Zakaria.

Underrepresentation of people of colour among EU decision makers

The use of the hashtag on

Twitter Twitter, officially known as X since 2023, is an American microblogging and social networking service. It is one of the world's largest social media platforms and one of the most-visited websites. Users can share short text messages, image ...

has emphases the lack of racial diversity in the European Parliament. Ethnic minorities account for more than 10% of the population of the EU, however less than 5% of the lawmakers elected to the European Parliament are people of color, a proportion further reduced to 4% after

Brexit Brexit (, a portmanteau of "Britain" and "Exit") was the Withdrawal from the European Union, withdrawal of the United Kingdom (UK) from the European Union (EU). Brexit officially took place at 23:00 GMT on 31 January 2020 (00:00 1 February ...

. The lack of racial diversity among employees of the

institutions of the European Union The institutions of the European Union are the seven principal decision-making bodies of the European Union and Euratom governed under the Treaties of the European Union and European Union law. They are, as listed in Article 13 of the Treaty o ...

in Brussels, referred to under the hashtag BrusselsSoWhite, is even more striking because Brussels is a relatively racial diverse city. The European Commission refused in the past to collect information on the ethnic diversity of its employees.

Discrimination and racism

The hashtag BrusselsSoWhite has been invoked to denounce manifestations of racism towards people of colour working in European affairs in Brussels. Employees of color at the European institutions are frequently assumed to be cleaning personnel, catering personnel or intruders. Shada Islam argued that because of the lack of diversity as denounced by #BrusselsSoWhite, whiteness could be perceived as being central to the European identity. In this manner the lack of racial diversity could fuel the arguments of the far-right movements in Europe.

Reactions

In September 2020, the

European Commission The European Commission (EC) is the primary Executive (government), executive arm of the European Union (EU). It operates as a cabinet government, with a number of European Commissioner, members of the Commission (directorial system, informall ...

put forward an Anti-Racism Action Plan to tackle the structural racism in the EU, including measures to address the lack of diversity of the European decision makers in Brussels, as denounced by #BrusselsSoWhite. The plan and any accompanying announcement by the European institutions have yet to be translated in progress in terms of diversity in the European institutions. Commentators expressed regrets about the absence of response or action from Brussels-based think-tanks and environmental NGOs in reaction to the stated objective of the European Commission to combat racism.

Notes

{{Reflist Hashtags Anti-racism in Europe Anti-racism in Belgium European Parliament European Commission Von der Leyen Commission