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100% of the emotional labour, 0% of the emotional reward: #BlackenAsiawithLove
Last night over dinner and drinks, I spoke about race in the classroom with two white, upper-middle-class gay educators. Neither seemed (able) to make any discernable effort to understand any perspective outside their own. I had to do 100% of the emotional labour, and got 0% of the emotional reward. It was very sad how they went on the attack, using both passive and active aggression, yet had the nerve to dismiss my words as ‘victimhood discourse’. This is exactly why folks write books, articles, and blogs like ‘Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race’.
Worse, they both had experienced homophobia in the classroom, at the hands of both students and parents. Nonetheless, they had no ability to contribute to the emotional labour taking place as we spoke about race. Even worse, the one in charge of other educators had only 24 hours earlier performed the classic micro-aggression against me: The brown blur. He walked right past me at our initial meeting as I extended my hand introducing myself while mentioning the mutual friend who’d connected us because, as he said, he was “expecting” to see a white face. He was the one to raise that incident, yet literally threw his hands in the air, nodding his head dismissively as he refused any responsibility for the potential harm caused.
“I’m an adult,” I pled, explaining the difference between me facing those sorts of aggressions, versus the young people we all educate. This all fell on deaf ears. Even worse still, he’d only moments earlier asked me to help him understand why the only Black kid in one of his classes called himself a “real nigger.” Before that, he had asked me to comment on removing the N-word from historical texts used in the classroom, similar to the 2011 debate about erasing the N-word and “injun” from Huckleberry Finn, first published in 1884. According to the Guardian, nigger is “surely the most inflammatory word in the English language,” and “appears 219 times in Twain’s book.”
Again, he rejected my explanations as “victimhood.” He even kept boasting about his own colorblindness – a true red flag! Why ask if you cannot be bothered to listen to the answer, I thought bafflingly? Even worse, rather than simply stay silent – which would have been bad enough – the other educator literally said to him “This is why I don’t get involved in such discussions with him.” They accused me of making race an issue with my students, insisting that their own learning environments were free of racism, sexism and homophobia.
They effectively closed ranks. They asserted the privilege of NOT doing any of the emotional labour of deep listening. Neither seemed capable of demonstrating understanding for the (potential) harm done when they dismiss the experiences of others, particularly given our differing corporealities. I thought of the “Get Out” scene in the eponymously named film.
“Do you have any Black teachers on your staff,” I asked knowing the answer. OK, I might have said that sarcastically. Yet, it was clear that there were no Black adults in his life with whom he could pose such questions; he was essentially calling upon me to answer his litany of ‘race’ questions.
Armed with mindfulness, I was able to get them both to express how their own corporeality impacts their classroom work. For example, one of the educators had come out to his middle-school students when confronted by their snickers when discussing a gay character in a textbook. “You have to come out,” I said, whereas I walk in the classroom Black.” Further still, they both fell silent when I pointed out that unlike either of them, my hips swing like a pendulum when I walk into the classroom. Many LGBTQ+ people are not ‘straight-acting’ i.e. appear heteronormative, as did these two. They lacked self-awareness of their own privilege and didn’t have any tools to comprehend intersectionality; this discussion clearly placed them on the defense.
I say, 100% of the emotional labour and none of the emotional reward, yet this is actually untrue. I bear the fruits of my own mindfulness readings. I see that I suffer less in those instances than previously. I rest in the comfort that though understanding didn’t come in that moment, future dialogue is still possible. As bell hooks says on the first page in the first chapter of her groundbreaking book Killing Rage: Ending Racism: “…the vast majority of black folks who are subjected daily to forms of racial harassment have accepted this as one of the social conditions of our life in white supremacist patriarchy that we cannot change. This acceptance is a form of complicity.” I accept that it was my decision to talk to these white people about race.
I reminded myself that I had foreseen the micro-aggression that he had committed the previous day when we first met. A mutual friend had hooked us up online upon his visit to this city in which we now live. I doubted that she’d mentioned my blackness. Nonetheless, I had taken the chance of being the first to greet our guest, realizing that I am in a much safer space both in terms of my own mindfulness, as well as the privilege I had asserted in coming to live here in Hanoi; I came here precisely because I face such aggression so irregularly in Vietnam that these incidents genuinely stand out.
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Works mentioned:
Eddo-Lodge, R. (2018). Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race. London: Bloomsbury Publishing.
Hanh, T. (2013). The Art of Communicating. New York: HarperOne.
hooks, b. (1995). Killing rage: Ending racism. New York: Henry Holt and Company, Inc.
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Game of Thrones ain’t shit
This poem’s inspired from ‘Megatron’ by British poet Hollie McNish, and obviously there’s spoilers to follow. So, if you haven’t watched it and you read it, don’t come crying to me.
she said:
“the dragon queen’s the best
if I was a queen, I’d side with her and her kin
Dany’s nice and all that
but it’s Cersei who really wins
(Game of Thrones, HBO)
so many times, I’ve listened to this
since the end of HBO’s fantasy hit
and unto the fans, I say:
that show Game of Thrones ain’t shit
and every season since 2014
it continued in its pursuits
of sex, sweat and pleasure
but where it lacked in story
it cloaked itself in plot armour
saying that Arya and Jon
are unkillable, basically
because they can live forever
(Game of Thrones, HBO)
but these characters aren’t real
Dany, Jon, and the Lannisters…
if you want to see bad writing
look how Dany broke the wheel
I watched this show from the start
something we call a farce
including the gradual build up
when they killed off Ned Stark
at the top of those steps
never did I think a show could fall
as my heart shifted six inches left
and I knew every character’s name
and D&D, one bullet to our brains
to us the fans, who pledged
our fealty to the houses and clans
he said
“I felt this way after The Sopranos.”
he said
“I know, it’s the same”
it’s not the same, this wasn’t one episode
and after that season finale
I sat in silence, hung my head in shame
my name’s not Jon, as his body
started to change, ribs realigned,
lungs redesigned. Bran defied nature
nine kingdoms out of seven
and D&D sent seasons 1 – 4 to heaven
and I’m still pissed off up to now
filled six episodes with air
an amniotic sack of stuff
HBO hacks are the ones that dared
destroy the show, look how it came to this
cus I know Game of Thrones ain’t shit
she said
you’re so extra
and that was it, because I know she’s
got to be taking the piss.
And every time, they’d praise Dany
I remember parents named
their children named after that shit
how she sacked the Capital
after travelling West
the dragon queen and her hoards
who freed herself and freed cities
but you know that show
Game of Thrones ain’t the best
and every time
I think about seasons 1 – 4
like when Bobby Baratheon
was skewered by that boar
my heart shifts to the right
it reverts back to this
and after four years
of doing that, I remember
how Game of Thrones ain’t shit
(Game of Thrones, HBO)
compared to many others shows
this one stood bold as brass
and the only thing fans gave
to these long games of thrones
(showing me nothing lasts forever)
is unwavering fealty
of which HBO gave no shits whatsoever.
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Why can’t we answer the important questions?
I lead a module (CRI3003) which centres on institutional violence. Based on pacifist, feminist and zemiological principles, the module focuses on several institutions including social services, the police, prison and the military. The module is discussion based and seeks to understand the complexity of institutions, identifying recurring themes across a variety of different violences through the critical analysis of official inquiries. Through engagement all participants are challenged to disrupt everyday narratives around such processes.
Garver insists that violence ‘occurs in several markedly different forms, and can be usefully classified into four different kinds based on two criteria, whether the violence is personal or institutionalised, or whether the violence is overt or covert and quiet’ (1968: 257). His definition offers a road map for understanding a variety of violences, allowing scholars to navigate their way through extreme complexity.
This week saw the publication of phase one of the Grenfell Inquiry (Moore-Bick, 2019). The subject of much conjecture (and some leaks), the report runs to four volumes and c. 900 words. As with many reports of this type, there is the combination of the procedural and the extremely personal. At times, it makes for harrowing reading, at others, it reads like a technical manual. Nevertheless, its publication is a landmark for all involved and offers some potential answers for the traumatised survivors, families, fire fighters and others.
Although, phase 2 of the Grenfell Inquiry is not due to begin until early 2020, it is evident that some early conclusions and recommendations have been reached. Some of these centre of London Fire Brigade [LFB] and particularly, the judgement of their commissioner, Dany Cotton. Such an approach is typical of inquiries into crime, drilling down to analyse individual decisions and behaviours, cause and effect. If an individual had walked down from the top floor of Grenfell tower, pouring petrol outside every flat, and then lit a flame, such processes would be part and parcel of any investigation. However, the disaster at Grenfell tower cannot be answered through individual blame and naming and shaming.
It is important to note that the men and women that make up London Fire Brigade did not:
- start the fire
- did not manufacture the fridge-freezer which is believed to have started the fire
- were not responsible for sourcing, supplying or fitting the cladding
- have any input in the business decision(s) that led to choosing that cladding
- have any say in political decisions to embrace the ideology of “austerity” which included reducing safety checks on manufacturing, trading standard officers, fire officers, fire appliances and closing fire stations
All of the evidence to date indicates that the disaster at Grenfell was not unexpected. With the benefit of hindsight, it is clear that there were many warning signs, repeated concerns amid a general feeling that some people matter more than others, that some people are less worthy of consideration, that some people deserve to live in safe housing. Furthermore, discussions in the UK focus on the need to support businesses, not ever acknowledging that business and countries are comprised of people. Until official inquiries have terms of references which allow them to focus on the lived experience in all its complexity, any conclusions can only be partial. Additionally, any recommendations are incomplete.
While, as a society we continue to treat people as commodities, a “human resource”, with no worth beyond their economic value, we ensure that horrific disasters such as the fire at Grenfell Tower (to name but one of many) continue to happen. We can also expect many more official inquiries which never quite explain what those affected need to know. We can continue our handwringing, the oft-repeated mantra of “never again”, spending vast amounts of money in attempts to apportion blame, costs that can, as in the case of the Grenfell Inquiry, far surpass the original money saving. Or we can begin to respect the dignity of humanity, regardless of where we are born, our income or the amount of money we’ve stockpiled in the bank.
It seems apt to close with the words of Dr Martin Luther King, Jr
An individual has not started living until he can rise above the narrow confines of his individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity (1959: 25)
References
Curtin, Deane and Litke Robert, (1999b) ‘Preface’ in Deane Curtin and Robert Litke, (Eds), Institutional Violence, (Amsterdam: Rodopi): xi-xv
Garver, Newton, (1968), ‘What Violence Is’ in A. K. Bierman and James A. Gould, (1973), Philosophy for a New Generation, (New York: MacMillan): 256-66
King Jr, Martin Luther, (1959), The Measure of a Man, (Philadelphia: Christian Education Press)
Moore-Bick, Martin, (2019), Grenfell Tower Inquiry: Phase 1 Report: Report of the Public Inquiry into the Fire at Grenfell Tower on 14 June 2017, (London: The Stationery Office), [online]. Available from: https://www.grenfelltowerinquiry.org.uk/phase-1-report [Last accessed 2 November 2019]
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#BlackenAsiawithLove: Welcome to our travelling blogger
Dr Diepiriye S. Kuku-Siemons earned his PhD in Sociology at Delhi University (2011). He joined the University of Northampton in 2012, where he is currently a Senior Lecturer in International Business, and is on sabbatical in Hanoi. He has also been a visiting lecturer in business ethics and cross-cultural management at FH-Aachen, Germany and ESDES Lyon, France (2015-17). Diepiriye is from Louisville, Kentucky and avidly follows American media and political history. His current research areas are popular culture; Artificial Intelligence in society; Engaged Pedagogy, Intersectionality; Sustainability.
Diepiriye previously worked in international development: In Delhi, he worked with several community-based and international development organisations (Oxfam, UNAIDS, USAID) organisations. While earning his MPH in International Heath and Development at Tulane University’s School Public Health and Tropical Medicine (2003), he interned at the Institute for Human Rights in Colombo and spent a semester studying health systems management at the ASEAN Institute for Health Development at Mahidol University in Bangkok. His first graduate posting was with the Peace Corps, where he worked with a local cooperative and taught ESL in rural Mali (1997-99). He earned a B.A. in Biochemistry and Africana studies from Oberlin College (1997). Diepiriye loves to dance.
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Britishness is at crisis point
This idea of Britishness has become an increasingly contentious question. What does it mean to be a British-born person of colour in the UK today? What does it mean to be born under West Indian parents or grandparents? And what about being born to South Asian immigrants from places like India or Pakistan? Where are the intersections of your family’s culture and British culture? Reading Brit(ish) by Afua Hirsch as part of my dissertation research and then Black and British by David Olusoga made me think about my own cultural identity, and I came to the consensus that I feel more British than West Indian. And I felt most British when I was on holiday, or abroad. That even in my own country, Britain, British-born people of colour are still seen as “foreigners” – “aliens” – “interlopers” – “immigrants.”
There have been Black and brown people coming to our shores since Roman Times. We have been a multiracial nation for hundreds of years. The idea that people feel threatened by this supposed “immigrant problem” is crazy. “There were Africans in Britain before the English came,” wrote the late journalist, historian and academic Peter Fryer. There were Africans on these shores before we even thought about Englishness. And when people boast about their Anglo-Saxon heritage, they’re boasting a Germanic ancestry. And those dark features like hair and eyes that are often named as Celtic are probably more likely Mediterranean. And by Mediterranean, there could be a North African influence there as well. Centuries ago, they’d have called those North Africans “blackamoors,” or more simply, “moors.”
There were Black British communities in the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries, and by Black I mean “historically Black” (so non-White, including Asians). Did you know the first Asian MP in Britain was in 1892, when Indian-born Dadabhai Naoroji was elected to represent Central Finsbury for the Liberty Party? Britain’s ignorance to its own history is very much tied up in how we teach history at schools, a very White-centric history curriculum when that ethnic diversity is something that’s been part of British history for the best part of two thousand years. The postwar immigration boom after WW2 is just one example of people coming and going, but simply one of many.
And now in 2019, people here, especially people of colour are experiencing a Brit(ish)ness of sorts. When Britain abolished the Slave Trade (1833) and compensated the slave-owners to the tune of £20m (£17bn today), the establishment saw fit to spread their newfound morality on other slave-trading nations. This became known as Britain’s moral mission. This was the “great,” Victorian, moral righteousness in full swing. It didn’t matter that we used enslaved Africans for the best part of 300 years, toiling on sugar, tobacco and cotton plantations. What mattered is we abolished. It didn’t matter that Britain’s cotton mills were filled with US, slave-picked cotton, what mattered is we weren’t “officially” slave traders anymore. Britain transformed from leaders in slavery to a nation with integrity. Ahem.
a pioneer of slavery in her day, endorsing (Sir) John Hawkins in 1562/63
(Mary Queen of Scots, Focus Features + Universal Pictures)
And still today we are uncomfortable talking about the racial thinking that in-part came out of colonialism and Slavery. Whilst learning about the Nazis and condemning their racial thinking, we refuse to take a look at our own backyard. From Cecil Rhodes to Enoch Powell and Winston Churchill, our history is filled with people who held White supremacist views. And acknowledging the heinous crimes of the British monarchy and the Empire is still something that’s controversial and uncomfortable. The monarchy couldn’t possibly have been the pioneers of slavery before the independent traders. That colonialism was so long ago that it couldn’t possible matter?
And when it comes to discussing racial thinking in British history and general race and ethnicity in modern society, people suddenly become silent. The racial hierarchies at The Front during The First World War for instance. And even today, from education (racism on campuses) to the police and the NHS, institutional racism runs riot (but quietly, insidiously). And when you complain, you are told to go home. To leave. Well, Britain is home. And that ties back to how Black and brown people are seen as alien and White people are seen as indigenous. Race equality, social justice and identity politics matter, and these talks and discussions need to be had.
To me, British is an ideology more than anything else. You can spend forty years living in New York or Cape Town, but if you migrate to London you’re now a Londoner. To be British is to be White and that’s tied up in (historic) institutional racism (how Britain sees / saw itself, and its neglectfulness to portray images of its people of colour with the same pride it did its White population). Or unconscious bias as we love to say at universities, which in my view is just a more palatable term for structural discrimination.
I feel most British when I’m on holiday. When I was campaigning for my student union role I was told “You don’t look British.” Does British have a face? Yes, (in a way). It’s white. And that’s how White Privilege operates.
White is the default setting but there were Black and brown people in Britain before the English came, weren’t there?
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the place is Selma
When we look at Selma through the lens of class, we are looking at a tale as old as time, Black criminality in the face of institutional violence. Black people wanting to vote and being told no. To be Black is to be criminal – savage – beast. From slavery to Selma, DuVernay’s film lays it all out for us.
Last month, as part of Freshers’ fortnight, the Students’ Union screened Ava DuVernay’s Selma – based on the true story of that three-month period in 1965, during the Civil Rights Movement before the Voting Rights Act was signed. This was a part of history when Black people were not afforded their basic human rights. Like the vote, being systematically stopped from reaching the polls. And the same sort of voting fraud still happens today.
Following Dr Martin Luther King, Jr (David Oyelowo), the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People), and this all-star cast (including Common (The Hate U Give) and Tessa Thompson (Creed) in support) we are taken on a journey showing what institutional discrimination does to communities, including the covert racism that made voting harder for a Black person than a White person – the systematic use of legal innovations to strip Black people of their rights, (and dignity).
Since Selma was released in 2014, Ava DuVernay has since made the documentary 13th showing the history behind mass incarceration in American prisons, including slavery and convict leasing. Additionally, she has made the miniseries When They See Us – looking at the story behind the Central Park Five and how the small print (in the US legal system) described in 13th was used to incarcerate these young Black and Hispanic boys.
What got to me in rewatching Selma is how important the racial thinking that (mostly) came out colonialism / slavery is in how we think about race today. The fact discrimination only became a crime in the UK in 1965 (with the Race Relations Act), and the idea we still endorsed blackface minstrelsy until the late 1970s. BBC television still had blackface as entertainment until 1978. However, slavery was outlawed in the USA in 1865 but the slave-owning class won the war on race, as Blacks continued to be treated like slaves even though they weren’t – from convict leasing to Jim Crow Laws.
One hundred years after the end of the American Civil War, like-racism (from slave days) continued. The Voting Rights Act was signed in 1965 and Jim Crow Laws were abolished as well, but those ideologies are what built America from the days of slavery, in both the North and the South. Seldom is it acknowledged that slavery existed in some northern states too.
We don’t talk about slave codes in places like Virginia, where it was stated within the law that if an altercation occurred between slave and master, and the slave died, it would not be a felony. In the slave codes for Virginia of the 1660s, it states within the laws that it was legal to kill a Black person. This was systematic use of the law to deny Black people their rights. Whether this was Virginia 1660 or Virginia 1960, not a lot had changed.
(Selma, Paramount Pictures, Pathé, and Harpo Films)
When Rosa Parkes sat down, she stood up to the establishment and unjust laws. And before Rosa Parkes, we had Collette Colvin. Moreover, when Black people boycotted the buses, they almost bankrupted the bus companies. They were seen as a nuisance. People thought they should stay in line. This old tale of Black resistance against White authority can be traced back to master, mistress, stately homes, cotton, cane and king sugar.
From the get-go, Ava DuVernay is at your throat, with her depiction of the 16th Street Baptist Church Bombing. This film was not made to score political points but it’s a film that tells it how it is, with vivid imagery of attack dogs, tear gas and police on horseback. Very much like the Klu Klux Klan killing defenseless people on the basis of race. Brutal. From Sandra Bland to Treyvon Martin, those stories of police brutality still ring true today. The history of disdain from Black communities to the police in Britain and America is one we’ve all heard, and it’s one that I think is in-part at least responsible for the lack people of colour joining up.
Why would Black, Asian and ethnic minority members of our society want to join an institution that has a historic pattern of discrimination? Why would they want to join an institution that talks about recruiting more BAME people, but still treats the ones they have already abominably?
Despite being a British viewer, there are many things I took away from this film, especially the subjectivity of the law. How White people in authority expect people of colour to be objective in the face of racism. The recent Naga Munchetty debacle with the BBC comes to mind. “You’ve got one big issue,” states LBJ (Tom Wilkinson) to King (Oyelowo). “I’ve got one hundred and one.” For most of the film, he does not appear to be taking the Black vote seriously, until it directly impacts him and what he’s trying to do.
Tim Roth as Governor Wallace (Alabama) is brilliant – spewing hate, hate and more hate with such venom. You hate him from the second his face appears on screen, and his scenes with Dylan Baker’s J. Edgar Hoover are brilliant. There is no love for Wallace. He is a White supremacist and director Ava DuVernay makes sure we know that. However, it got me asking questions about how we depict White supremacists in Britain. Mainly, with statues dotted around the country, including Parliament Square!
Is Selma a controversial film or is it simply no-nonsense and very American? It talks about things people feel uncomfortable talking about. In Britain, that includes anything remotely sounding like race, racism, colonialism or its role in Slavery. But critique Churchill or Nelson in anyway and you’re the enemy? But it does a great job recreating moments like Bloody Sunday, as state troops and local police let rip on the marchers.
“The whole nation was sickened by the pictures of that wild melee.”
Coretta Scott King (Carmen Ejogo)
From tear gas to men on horses with whips, it was riddled with symbolism, as well as truly fantastic cinematography, sound mixing and musical score. Oprah (one of the producers) was great in her role, and David Oyelowo is one of the most underrated actors working today, and a testament to an alternative image of Black men on screen. Whilst my grandparents’ generation had Harry Belafonte (Carmen Jones) and Sidney Poitier (To Sir, with Love), this current generation of Black people have David Oyelowo.
This film is rough when it needs to be but delicate when it needs to be. It’s engaging, emotional, and leaves a lump in your throat right up to and through the credits. It’s also very funny – “that White boy can hit” says Dr King after being decked by a racist local. All the speeches, all the symbols, all the nods to America’s history of slavery and oppression – it’s intertwined with how the US is today – Trump’s Twitter tantrums and all that jazz.
(Selma, Pathé, Paramount Pictures and Harpo Films)
“We must march! We must stand up! […] it is unacceptable that they use their power and keep us voiceless.”
Dr Martin Luther King, Jr (David Oyelowo)
Ava lingers on faces (especially eyes) in scenarios of extreme violence longer than what is humanly comfortable, much alike to Kathryn Bigelow with Detroit and what Steve McQueen did with Solomon Northup (Chiwetel Ejiofor) in 12 Years a Slave. From cinematography to acting, music, and sound, I have no complaints. And at moments, it was like documentary.
And nearly everyday, I’m hearing people say the system is broken; is it broken, or was it built this way, fit for purpose – for the use and upliftment of a White, male, patriarchal, able-bodied, hetero-normative society?
Bibliography
Dorsey, Bruce. “Virginian Slave Laws, 1660s”. History 41. n.p. n.d. Online. Access: 19th October, 2019.
Fryer, Peter and Gary Young et al. Staying Power: The History of Black People in Britain. London: Pluto Press, 2018. Print.
“Moral Mission.” Black and British: A Forgotten History, written by David Olusoga, directed by Naomi Austin, BBC, 2016.
Olusoga, David. Black and British: A Forgotten History. London: Pan Books, 2017. Print.
Selma. Dir. Ava DuVernay. Pathé, Paramount. 2014, Netflix.
n.d. “Slavery and the Law in Virginia”. history.org. n.p. n.d. Online. Access: 19th October, 2019.
n.d. “Slave Law in Colonial Virginia: A Timeline”. shsu.edu. n.p. n.d. Online. Access: 19th October, 2019.
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You can’t tell me what to do….
It seems that much criminological discussion centres on motivation. This ranges from focusing on the motivation to commit crime, the motivation to report victimisation, the motivation to work within the criminal justice system, all the way though to the motivation for punishment. In each of these circumstances, much is taken for granted, assumed and reacted to as if there were a consensus.
However, how much do we really know about motivation? To be sure, there are plenty of criminological theories focusing on individual explanations for criminality and deviance, particularly around psychopathy, personality and biology. Others, such as Classical theory assume that we are all the same, rational creatures motivated by the same factors. But take a moment and consider what motivates you? Are those factors positive or negative?
Let’s take the prison for example. According to some politicians, the media and other commentators, incarceration can punish and rehabilitate, frighten people out of crime whilst also empowering them to move away from crime. It offers an opportunity to desist from drug taking, whilst simultaneously enabling prisoners to develop a drug habit. Prison can offer a haven from social problems on the outside, whilst also creating a dangerous environment on the inside and these are just a few of the many pronouncements on the prison. Although oppositional, these differing narratives all indicate the prison as a place of change; transformation, the only difference is whether this is positive or negative, in essence does prison make people better or worse?
Considering much of the blog’s readership is focused on education, it might be useful to apply the prison experience to our own personal motivations. Would it be helpful to have someone constantly telling you what to do? Escorting you to and from the toilet, the classroom, the workplace? Controlling your every move? Deciding when and what you eat? Determining if you can access a shower, the library, the gym and so on? Passing judgement on who can visit you and when they can come? Would these “motivational” factors inspire you to study more? What if you were locked in a very small room (think student accommodation) for hour upon end, would your essays be any better?
For me personally, all of the above, would not motivate; they might frighten or even terrify me. They would allow me to feel resentful, bitter, alienated, perhaps even aggressive. Maybe I would become depressed, self-harm, or turn to drugs for consolation. Maybe, I could retreat into studying as release from an oppressive regime, but is that motivation? or escapism? or even institutionalisation?
I wonder, surely there must be far better, less harmful ways of tapping into motivation? By looking at our own experiences and considering what has motivated us in a positive way previously, we can begin to consider how we might motivate ourselves and others. Some of the motivational factors I can identify from my own life include, people who are prepared to listen to my ideas (good and bad) without interrupting, to guide (but not tell, never tell!) me to finding solutions to problems and to treat me with dignity and respect. Other examples, include introducing me to important literature, but not batting an eyelid when I excitedly tell them all about the content. Being there for me as a fellow human regardless of status (perceived or otherwise), when everything is a challenge, and I just want to vent and celebrating all successes (however tiny). These are just a few, personal reflections, but what they have in common, is the focus on another human who matters to you, who is cheering you on from the side-lines and is able to empathise and encourage. The other commonality, of course, is that these factors are not entrenched within the prison or the wider criminal justice system.[1]
Have a think for yourself and see if you can find anything currently within the prison or CJS that would motivate you! If it doesn’t, you need to question what it is the prison is actually trying to achieve.
[1] This does not preclude individual positive interpersonal relationships within the prison or CJS, but it is not a primary function of either.
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man does how he pleases with his property
“Does the bench and parliament not have a duty to uphold and create the laws that progress our morality, […] if not to protect us from others, then to protect us from ourselves? Laws that allow us to diminish the humanity of anybody are not laws. They are frameworks for crime.”
John Davinier (Belle)
When we discuss the worst acts of human history, events that are often brought up are household names. The extermination of the Jews under the Nazis comes to mind, what is often called Auschwitz or The Holocaust. Others include Nagasaki, Hiroshima, and The Black Death of the 14th century. But Britain’s bombing of Dresden is not a household event, nor is the Bengal Famine under Winston Churchill (voted the best Briton by the British public) – who we decided to put on the £5-note. What about the Congolese Genocide under King Leopold II of Belgium, or Lord Kitchener in those Boer Concentration Camps? Concentration Camps are a British design but it’s always linked to Germany, due to how that story’s been framed. And Winston Churchill is a household name, as is parliamentary abolitionist William Wilberforce. But in discussions on colonialism, why do we know nothing of Amritsar, the Mau Mau, or Morant Bay? And when discussing Britain’s role in the Transatlantic Slave Trade, why are those sorts of conversations more often than not, shutdown?
Britain still holds a nostalgia for its empire. Whilst Nelson is remembered as a war hero that led Britain to victory against the French and Spanish at Trafalgar, why do people seldom talk about his exploits as a man who protected slave ships crossing the Atlantic (for the Royal Navy), or married into a slave-trading family on Nevis? It was one of the jobs of The Navy to protect British commerce, including slaves. Property not people. Flesh for cash. We paint pretty pictures of British history that make this country look great, but when it comes to the darkness in our past, the establishment, and to an extent, the British public, slinks into its hole of historical amnesia.
Watching Amma Asante’s Belle last week made me ponder how we frame our colonial history in relation to national identity, but also institutional violence, then and now. Set in the backdrop of The Zong Case, the film follows (Black) mixed-race Georgian Dido Elizabeth Belle Lindsay (Gugu Mbatha-Raw), the niece of Lord Mansfield (Tom Wilkinson) – the ruling judge on that case and one of the most influential men in 1780s Britain.
“In the prolonged history of collective suffering which formed the story of Atlantic slave trading, few incidents compare to those of the Zong Case of 1781. Luke Collingwood, captain of the Liverpool ship, had 133 slaves thrown overboard to their death when supplies were running short, hoping to claim for their deaths on the ship’s insurance. The case came to court in London two years later, not for mass murder but as a disputed insurance claim.”
James Walvin
(Belle, Fox Searchlight Pictures)
We remember the history that makes us look good. We remember fifty years of abolition, and Dunkirk, but rarely do we shed light on the skeletons in the closets of “our heroes.” Are we too ashamed to admit that how Britain discusses its history and its icons is often too two dimensional? Are we too British to admit to feelings of guilt? We erect statues to White supremacists and slave traders, dumbing down our role in how we came to speak the terms “developing countries” and “third world struggle.” We put Rhodes in Zimbabwe, and named streets for monuments to king sugar and racism.
Belle brings a an alternative history, that slave stories happened within our borders too – from Buckingham Palace to the Merseyside River. Not only in distant lands in the American South and the West Indies. Reni Eddo-Lodge put it best, giving a snapshot of how in the 21st century the national psyche is so far removed from its past of genocide, conquest and stolen land.
“Although enslaved African people moved through British shores the plantations they toiled on on were not in Britain, but rather in Britain’s colonies. […] so, unlike the situation in America, most British people saw the money without the blood.”
Reni Eddo-Lodge
And in 2019, we need to ask why William Wilberforce is a household name, and Granville Sharpe isn’t; and are we really too British to come to terms with the guilt of our past, or will we just keep calm and carry on?
Bibliography
Eddo-Lodge, Reni. Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race. London: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2018. Print
Walvin, James. A Short History of Slavery. London: Penguin, 2007. Print.
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Those kinde of people
This poem is named for the first chapter of the iconic book Staying Power (1984) by historian and academic Peter Fryer. A book that talks about the history of Black people in Britain, from Roman times up to his modern-day. It’s also inspired by ‘Mathematics’ by British poet and author Hollie McNish.
Adam said:
those goddamn universities
and their goddamn books
learned people, crippling egos
with nothing but a look
he says those goddamn historians
and their god damn history
I tell them they worked hard
to get there, can’t you see?
I ask him what
he expects British history to be
he says he remembers
the land of Blyton and Christie
coastal wrecks, greenery
and a good wage before those people came
where people went to work, pot-bellied
national pride, stood proud before they came
now no British jobs, their kinde are to blame
I ask how he knows this to be true
he said he saw it on BBC News
every time a Pole takes a job from us
each time he hears a different language
whilst riding the bus
this divide and conquer, them and us
to me just does not add up
he makes a brew, two sugars in his tea
I say didn’t you know those granules
came from the sugar economy
he grunts, goddamn Blacks came and took our stuff
I tell him about sugar and cotton, you know
how slaves gave us indigo and tobacco – hot air to puff
I show him Brixton Road and Portobello Market
I show him rock n roll, Network Rail and the NHS
I show him the immigrant-built west
I show him straight roads and pictures of my Gran
how the Jamaican ackee comes from the Ghanaian Akan
He’s sick of history and social science
sitting all sad and smug on his island
I spent three years on a degree
did a dissertation on British identity
I geek over John Blanke
renaissance trumpeter who was Black
Oh and Ann Lister, call her Gentleman Jack
and Afro-Romans and The Slave Trade
Black Georgians, Saxons and Viking Raids
and I so want to scream when I hear folks say
goddamn immigrants taking our jobs
but how we teach history – we don’t talk
of Mrs Shah’s shop employing Bill and Bob
where people with money love to spend
employing women and men in tens,
her gift for business is self-taught
all her plans meticulously well-thought
and all your prejudice talk
forgets the soldiers the colonies pledged
forgets the men left for dead
in Tangiers, Dunkirk and at the Somme
as the world wars went on and on
from Mr Smith to Mr Wong
and I know people love to complain
but England our name
the land of Angles is all that remains
from Saxons to Jutes
stories of migration since before WW2
and often, those kind of people
are more native than the locals.
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A Love Letter: in praise of art
Some time ago, I wrote ‘A Love Letter: in praise of poetry‘, making the case as to why this literary form is important to understanding the lived experience. This time, I intend to do similar in relation to visual art.
Tomorrow, I’m plan to make my annual visit to the Koestler Arts’ Exhibition on show at London’s Southbank Centre. This year’s exhibition is entitled Another Me and is curated by the musician, Soweto Kinch. Previous exhibitions have been curated by Benjamin Zephaniah, Antony Gormley and prisoners’ families. Each of the exhibitions contain a diverse range of unique pieces, displaying the sheer range of artistic endeavours from sculpture, to pastels and from music to embroidery. This annual exhibition has an obvious link to criminology, all submissions are from incarcerated people. However, art, regardless of medium, has lots of interest to criminologists and many other scholars.
I have never formally studied art, my reactions and interpretations are entirely personal. I reason that the skills inherent in criminological critique and analysis are applicable, whatever the context or medium. The picture above shows 4 of my favourite pieces of art (there are many others). Each of these, in their own unique way, allow me to explore the world in which we all live. For me, each illustrate aspects of social (in)justice, social harms, institutional violence and the fight for human rights. You may dislike my choices. arguing that graffiti (Banksy) and photography (Mona Hatoum) have no place within art proper. You may disagree with my interpretation of these pieces, dismissing them as pure ephemera, forgotten as quickly as they are seen and that is the beauty of discourse.
Nonetheless, for me they capture the quintessential essence of criminology. It is a positive discipline, focused on what “ought” to be, rather than what is. To stand small, in front of Picasso’s (1937) enormous canvas Guernica allows for consideration of the sheer scale of destruction, inherent in mechanised warfare. Likewise, Banksy’s (2005) The Kissing Coppers provides an interesting juxtaposition of the upholders of the law behaving in such a way that their predecessors would have persecuted them. Each of the art pieces I have selected show that over time and space, the behaviours remain the same, the only change, the level of approbation applied from without.
Art galleries and museums can appear terrifying places, open only to a select few. Those that understand the rules of art, those who make the right noises, those that have the language to describe what they see. This is a fallacy, art belongs to all of us. If you don’t believe me, take a trip to the Southbank Centre very soon. It’s not scary, nobody will ask you questions, everyone is just there to see the art. Who knows you might just find something that calls out to you and helps to spark your criminological imagination. You’ll have to hurry though…closes 3 November, don’t miss out!
Thoughts from the criminology team 