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Do Black Women Want To Stay Or Leave The EU? Why?

The EU referendum has been a huge topic for the last few months and with less than two weeks away, everyone and their dog has an opinion on whether we should stay or leave. The conversation has been dominated by white men and women in suits, surprise, surprise. When black women have aired their opinions, they've been accused of in fuelling racist rhetoric, look no further than the backlash received by Melanin Millennials' Imrie Morgan, when she challenged Nigel Farage on live TV.

So we decided to ask black women if they are voting in or out, because, well, this is a site for black women. Secondly, we should be able to say what we really feel without being publicly condemned and criticised...

Jo, 37, Compulsory teacher

Remain. I'm a working class black woman e.g. bottom of the socioeconomic pile. I don't believe those in power such as our current Conservative government would protect my employment rights.

I also think country borders are increasingly irrelevant. We're going to struggle to justify our high standard of living in comparison to countries we've destroyed through colonialism and economic pillaging. These are things we need to address together as western countries. Unilateral action is ineffective.

I also think we sometimes forget we're just a tiny island off the side of a huge continent. Our power will wane and we need to share in order to protect ourselves in the future, so we must stick together and remain in the EU.

Tiwa, 17, Student

Remain. I personally feel that the sentiment behind the leave campaign, i.e. "let's make Britain great again" is the kind of patriotism which can be seen as being dangerously insular and should be a concern to all ethnic minorities. As much as the leave campaign would like to dress it up with, frankly unfounded, economic arguments, it seems clear that the leave campaign is driven by a deeper sense of xenophobia. We have seen the true colours of people like Boris Johnson who had the audacity to claim that Barack Obama is anti-British because of his Kenyan heritage. If we were to leave, it would open a Pandora's box of anti-immigration and racist legislation.

Amy, 28, Fashion Designer

Leave. In the last 5-10 years, I don't believe the UK has benefitted from its membership in the EU and this is simply because the EU hasn’t been managed properly. Just looking at the numbers, it seems that the UK pays quite a lot into the EU and get much less back. I'm just really hard pressed to find an actual reason to remain, as much as I want too.

I also find the immigration stance on both sides completely and utterly ridiculous, the topic of immigration has been used to scare people into a corner on both sides of the campaign. Regardless if we leave, there is already a law in existence that will allow EU citizens to stay in the UK, so it wouldn’t matter to me if we left.