bell hooks and the big issue

bell hooks said that race and class as well as sex determine the extent to which individuals are exploited, discriminated against or oppressed. as the big issue prides itself on giving a voice to the voiceless, it is easy to expect that there will be many people represented in this magazine who are a part of a minority group.

However, it is not until the 6th page that we see somebody of an underrepresented group. this person being Marvina Newton, a woman of colour. The page in which we see Newton mentioned is a 3 page spread that tells readers about former Big Issue vendors and where they are in their life now since moving on from their time as a vendor. In this page we receive updates on 12 different people, predominantly white men. This being said, there is no change difference in the way their progress is discussed. The Big Issue is generally an objective magazine and aims to merely make a change in society for the better, although it has an obvious left wing lean, it does not force its opinion onto interviews or other factual pieces (for example, facts about somebody's life since leaving TBI) and manages to remain objective. Because of this need to keep personal opinions out of the writing, everything on the moving on spread is merely factual with quotes from the person who the segment is about with no added message of congratulations or anything which allows the big issue to represent everybody's progress equally and objectively.

Newton tells readers that she was sleeping rough on the streets of east London whilst she was a teenager and sold the big issue as means of income. now 30 and a part-time biomedical technician, she focuses on her charity for disadvantaged children, Angel of Youths. There is then a quote from Marvina telling 'whether they're white or black or whatever, [she} can see a little bit of [her] in them,' as she aims yo stop other teenagers ending up in the same situation she did. The fact that race is mentioned in what seems a fairly

random manner, to me, implies that somebody or someone made her think that race was a necessary factor to her success or experiences.