Well, I wouldn't tell him, but I would definitely ask him if he claimed he was black. Then he would probably explain that he doesn't mean "black" as color but "black" as culture (same as "Jewish" religion vs. "Jewish" ethnicity) and that's fine.
> people that look like them and sound like them can succeed.
After a (semi-)black president, is this really still relevant?!
> why there were two BAME people in my year of four thousand people at Oxford
Maybe because Oxford is in England and England is predominantly white?
In general, I oppose such categorisations, because (1) they're racist, and in emphasizing race, they encourage other people to do so as well, and (2) race is far less relevant than other characteristics, in particular class (wealth), and by focusing on race, you're playing a divide-and-conquer game, making groups of people hate each other, while ignoring the most important inequality in existance. (Which, coincidentially, was the most likely cause of the discrepancy you saw at Oxford.)
When the current President has committed to rolling back much of what said President achieved socially, economically and culturally, it's fair to say that Obama being elected wasn't the panacea people thought it would be.
> Maybe because Oxford is in England and England is predominantly white?
The number is off then by two orders of magnitude - and there are specific patterns of underachievement amongst black youth in England which exist when you control for other factors such as class and wealth. Black youngsters in the U.K. are twice as likely to be unemployed as white ones.
Focusing resources on the specific problems these communities face is not playing 'divide and conquer' any more than is providing specific support to LGBT communities who have a higher prevalence of mental health issues.
http://www.runnymedetrust.org/blog/how-black-young-men-are-o...
One black guy being elected President doesn't solve that - you need to see examples of black guys as doctors, lawyers, computer scientists, engineers for it to work. Studies have shown that one of the greatest predictors of whether someone goes on to do a certain career is whether they or their family knows anyone in that profession.
That's why it's important and not 'racist' to proactively point out examples of successful black people. It's not that there aren't successful white people as well - they're visible everywhere, and we recognize them anyway (ever see the Oscars?). We do it because sadly the status quo leaves some people without black role models.
The guy's race matters because it's important that people from minorities see that people that look like them and sound like them can succeed. The guy's race matters because in the past history has been rewritten to give prominence to white faces even when black faces have carried out exactly the same roles [1]. It matters because they've had to overcome, in many instances, a system that is structurally biased against their success. And it matters because middle aged, white, heterosexual men, who completely coincidentally stand to gain the most from things staying as they are, are the ones who argue the loudest that we shouldn't recognize these structural biases. It matters because in order to succeed they have had to overcome obstacles that you haven't.
If you think that we are somehow overcompensating by even recognizing the color of someone's skin, perhaps you can also tell me why there were two BAME people in my year of four thousand people at Oxford. One of whom went to Eton.
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Seacole