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If I had a time machine…which coronation would I see?
If I had a time machine…which coronation would I see?
If I had a time machine, I would most certainly travel back in time…to witness some great moments in history.
The birth of Jazz in Congo Square in New Orleans, or
Martin Luther King deliver that great speech in Memphis the eve of his assassination, or
The moment the first white man set shore upon the Niger Delta.
Would I go back and see
The crowing of King George, or
Queen Victoria’s coronation, or
Would I be wicked enough to sneak into the palace of the tiny Spanish queen Anne who gave permission and cash to ‘explorers’ who’d cast caste onto the dark skins of every ‘native’ they encountered.
Caste. And race.
Without imperialism, there’d be no black stain upon my skin against which my ancestors resisted.
Without the profit of human trafficking, there’d be no need for labels like Black or white, nor
Racism, nor patriarchy for that matter, a concept squarely meant to trace intergenerational wealth Black folks have been robbed in these United States and upon these British Isles.
See, my mother tongue is English –
The language my Black mother spoke to me came through colonialism.
We were enslaved and inherited names and customs that are easily recognizable to Brits today.
This language limits how I discuss these events, and
Unless I try really hard, and make concerted efforts,
This language limits how I think about these concepts.
You heard that? The English language limits places I take myself in my own mind!
These facts are maddening.
If I describe the Spanish explorers as conquerors, and
Tell you that virtually every pope was a sinner not a saint, and
If I could go back in time, I’d slit the throat of that young Spanish queen, and
If I admit that I have nothing but disdain for every English man, woman and child who’s held that orb Charlie held this past Saturday, then
Even by my own standards, I question if I’d be the hero of my own history.
If I were to go back in time and arm Nat Turner with weapons, or
Help Harriet Tubman guide folks along the underground railroad north to freedom, or
Go further back and try, try, try to stop the entire triangular slave trade altogether, then
I must accept that I’d be erasing myself.
I’d risk robbing Congo Square of its famed place in history, and
I might not be able to hear the pop, Rock, Hip-Hop and House music blasting out of this tawdry bar’s speakers right now.
I’d risk not even being me.
This does not make me grateful for the crown, nor
Does it reduce me to resentment and rage.
It’s complicated.
I’m proud of the New World cultures Africa and her Diaspora have made from our mangled past.
My identity?
It’s layered.
As layered and, again, as complicated as all the fates of all the peoples of the Commonwealth to whom I am now tied due to, dare I say, the golden and bejeweled crown
Carefully placed upon your king’s head.
Long may he reign.
Not.
We all want our histories repaired.
And an end to monarchy.
The End.
Dancing in Congo Square, AKA The Queens and Kings of Jazz
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At The Mouth of ‘Bloody Sunday’ #Travel #Prose #History
At the Mouth of Bloody Sunday
I know the one thing we did right, was the day we started to fight. Keep your eyes on the prize…hold on. Hold on.
Bloody Sunday in Selma only highlighted the bloody Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays that Black people in America have faced from the first time we laid eyes on these shores. It took people to gather and protest to change. In December ’64, the good Rev. Dr. King was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for this movement. That spring in Selma, people marched across a bridge in order to highlight the normal voter suppression practices still happening throughout the south – and still in 2021.
“If you can’t vote, you ain’t free. If you ain’t free, well then you a slave.” –Intro interview to Eyes on the Prize part 6/8.
According to the National Park Service, who oversees the important civic monument now:
“On “Bloody Sunday,” March 7, 1965, some 600 civil rights marchers headed east out of Selma on U.S. Route 80. They got only as far as the Edmund Pettus Bridge six blocks away, where state and local lawmen attacked them with billy clubs and tear gas and drove them back into Selma.”
From my 7th grade social studies class circa ‘87, I would also add: The good white citizens of Selma gathered at the mouth of the bridge for the spectacle, to witness or probably participate in the oppression. We see them in the footage, films, pictures and media coverage of the events, and we know many are likely still alive. Black-n-white news footage of the days leading to Bloody Sunday show the sheriff and his angry henchmen prodding people with their clubs, plenty of ‘regular’ people watching in joy.
The people prodded? Well-dressed and behaved Black citizens of Selma and activists who’d come to support them. According to the footage, white citizens came out in droves for what they knew would be a bloody suppression of simple voting rights. As spectators, their presence made the massacre spectacular.
I’ve visited the National Voter Rights Museum and Institute at the mouth of the bridge, and there they have an actual jar of jellybeans used to test Black people coming to sign up to vote at the local government office. Yes, sitting behind that booth was a white man who demanded that a black person – any citizen of the darker complexion – accurately guess the number of jellybeans in a jar in order to be allowed – in order for him to allow them – to register to vote. I feel like I have to repeat that, or say it in different ways because it is so unbelievable.
This September, I visited a museum at the edge of the Edmund Pettus bridge in Selma, Alabama, on the way to Montgomery, the state capital. This historical museum marks local efforts to contest voter restriction practices. These practices were heinous in tone and texture, yet creative and cringe-worthy in nurture and nature. For example, consider the ingenious of these jellybean-counting white men in DC who created the separate-n-unequal space to inspire a variety of voter suppression taxes, tests and clauses throughout the south. It is these sorts of mad men who make decisions that impact the entire world as we have come to know and understand it now.
Yes, it is these sorts of men who send politicians to the state houses, and sent/send senators to Washington DC, to cajole politicians of every hue to compromise on their values. Now, we also know they send mobs to storm the capitol on the very day all the legislators gather to confirm the election results.
I know the one thing we did right, was the day we started to fight. Keep your eyes on the prize…hold on. Hold on.
Imagine yourself standing there in a museum, looking at a shelf, and there is a jar of jellybeans. There’s nothing spectacular about the jar, nor its contents. For any of us have seen something like this in virtually any kitchen, or supermarket. My granny grew, harvested and canned vegetables, so growing up I got to handle many mason jars first hand.
In fact, I love jellybeans. I used to visit the gourmet jellybeans shop in the mall after school when I was a kid. You could pick out any flavour that you liked, and I always went for blueberry, and cherry. I loved the contrast between the royal blue and Corvette red. It is a childhood fascination that my dentists still adore me for to this day. Naturally, these gourmet jellybeans were a little more expensive than the ones you get in the supermarkets, but I liked to save my money and treat myself sometimes. Plus, it felt very special being able to pick out the ones you like, and not have to discard the disgusting ones – who ever thought licorice or cola belonged on a jelly bean!?!
As a candy, jellybeans are so visually enticing. As you enter the shop, the walls are covered from floor to ceiling with all sorts of bright neon colors. Every shade of the rainbow grabs your eyes, calls to you. Between stacks of plastic bags and scoops, you are awed by the massive jars of each individual jellybean color ready for you to pick-and-mix. There are also tables with stacks of both empty and pre-filled jars. There are jars of all sizes filled with colorful patterns of jellybeans with matching ribbons tied in bows around the lids. Of course, the entire shop smells like fruit, all kinds of fruits, sweet, succulent fruits that you cannot even imagine. You are the customer, you are king. By virtue of entering the fancy shop, this is your kingdom.
Now take all of that and put it in a jar. To get to this jar, you have to enter an official government building in the town center. Next to the entrance stands an armed, uniformed white man who gives you a disgruntled look as you enter, signaling that he’s not there for your safety but aggravation. Now, as you approach, you see the jar, sitting on a counter, and behind it sits another white man. Try to imagine this white man, probably with a gun next to him or somewhere nearby, with nothing better to do than to threaten your life. Because the town is so small, he knows your last name, and may know of your family.
Since this is a small town, he knows your employer, he knows where you live as you’ve just written this down. He may even know your family, as the local history is so insidious, his family may have even owned or overseen yours at one time. Or, at that very moment, you or a family member may work for him or his kin. Your kids might play together. You may have played with him as a kid when, for example, your mother was his nanny (read-and-said-in-the-south: Mammy). Yet now, here in a free democracy, it is his job to register citizens to vote.
It is his prerogative, the birthright of this individual, plain (white) man on the other side of the glass to demand that you count the number of jellybeans in the goddamn jar. It is a privilege that no one anywhere near here has ever questioned. So, with a smile, he plops a big red “DENIED” stamp on your registration form. Of course yo’cain’t! A “killing rage” surges. Be glad you don’t have a gun with you.
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It’s summer in America. #BlackenAsiaWithLove
It’s summer. I’ve returned to the UK, got vaccinated, continued to work online, kept calm and carried on. Away for nearly 2 years and so much has changed. Many have spent months on lockdown, clicking-n-collecting everything they need, when what they crave is companionship – non-digital human interaction. And fresh air. Worse, for many, pandemic-induced fear and social-distancing routines have festered into genuine social isolation and alienation. Here, please be mindful that social media cannot replace what we do IRL. A comment or thumbs-up cannot replace a real conversation (surprise!?!). Besides, life is short, speak to folks directly!
Across the pond, there are hundreds of prosecutions underway against individual January 6th insurrectionists. Plus, there’s a new congressional investigation into the the insurgency; the police officers’ testimonies are damning, exposing the ugliness of white supremacy and violence at the core. One particular insurgent’s hate crime against a Black Capitol Police officer really cuts to the core. Officer Harry A. Dunn said in interviews in the days after the attack, and repeatedly in his written and oral congressional testimonies:
One woman in a pink “MAGA” shirt yelled, “You hear that, guys, this nigger voted for Joe Biden!” Then the crowd … joined in screaming…”
At the same time, the traditional celebration of Emancipation is now a national holiday. All this during global outbreaks of an unprecedented worldwide pandemic, dramatizing both all our humanity and all our interconnectedness – irregardless of any social and political/politicized divisions. Diseases, like storms, don’t respect maps. All this, and still Mr. Backlash is right on time, thus Nina penned-n-crooned:
So, Mr. Backlash, Backlash
Who do you think I am?
You raise my taxes, freeze my wages
Send my son to Vietnam
It’s summertime, and the livin’ ain’t easy. CONservatives have set their sights (of their guns) on continuing to serve a bleached version of our history next to their bleached burgers in schools. Taken right out of the Jim Crow playbook, they’re not only suppressing votes by stoking fear of foreigners, CONservatives sit in congress and call the events of January 6th “peaceful protests” to the faces of officers giving testimony, who barely survived that day.
True to Jim Crow, they keep the masses ignorant by reducing Intersectionality to ‘Critical Race Theory’, and pitting that as the enemy of America. Yet, when you present them with the facts of our collective history, say, by simply acknowledging that many “founding fathers” were slave-owners-boasting-bout-freedom, they’re as silent as an electric car (shhhhhh).
Like zombies, CONservatives silently retreat to their narrow view of their Bible “and their bombs, and their guns.” It’s as if they don’t know we can learn how to have better conversations. To be sure, Intersectionality and CRT are inter-related enemies of fear, ignorance and therefore, crucially, white supremacy. It’s not in your head, they are fighting.
It’s now summer in America and three multi-billionaires are racing to go to space. At the same time, so much about our nation is broken: outdated and decaying schools, policing, healthcare and infrastructure… and now both our spirits and democracy are threatened. Insurrection betrays the very spirit of democracy – let’s not act new! Coupled with the empty shop shelves in a post-Brexit/mid-Covid Britain, this moment reminds me of something seminal spoken-word artist Gil Scott-Heron spat in 1970:
The man just upped my rent last night.
(’cause Whitey’s on the moon)
No hot water, no toilets, no lights.
(but Whitey’s on the moon)
I wonder why he’s upping me?
(’cause Whitey’s on the moon?)
I wuz already paying him fifty a week.
(with Whitey on the moon)
Taxes taking my whole damn check…
It’s summer, summer, summertime 2021 in America and we’re still asking, “what did it cost our nation to put whitey on the moon?” Is it summer in America, or is it winter? Can’t be, there ain’t no more glaciers. Happy MF’ing New Year. Have a great summer. See you on ‘the other side of the moon’.
P.S.
Did you catch all those space-billionaire and musical references? Despite all this sickness-n-division, near-n-far, yet-n-still, “music makes the people come together… yeah.”
PIX:
Gil Scott-Heron: https://genius.com/Gil-scott-heron-whitey-on-the-moon-annotated
Whitewash History, adapted from: https://www.evanstonian.net/archived-opinion/2014/10/05/history-lessons-whitewash-history/
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Rioting coverage of Week 1: I watched Faux News for Six Full minutes. #BlackAsiaWithLove
I watched Fox News today.
For 6 full minutes.
They had a panel of 3 cops to discuss the current unrest…or so it seemed.
Of course, a token negro in uniform was amongst them.
“Defund the police” is the headline of this comical sketch.
That’s not the actual proposition; proponents promote funding “public safety” measures.
But shutting down the police is all the sly Fox heard, and
Cunningly called on these cops to comment upon THAT, only.
The first white cop went off: “We’re here for business owners and hard-working people.”
He didn’t address the threat to Black life, espcially cops’ roots and roles in terrorism.
The host nods knowingly, and they summarily reduce all this unrest to law-n-order.
No mention of the brutality of cops.
No discussion of their pattern.
Predictably, the other white cop gave a worst-case scenario about Domestic violence.
What would citizens do without cops?
He says this as if cops have some awesome reputation of domestic intervention.
Also, I’m thinking: But…
Wasn’t that black chick just killed in Texas last year,
Inside her own house,
In response to a neighbor calling the police for care one night.
The neighbor hadn’t even called 9-1-1, but rang the non-emergency number, and
They still came in blazing as they are wont to do in Black households.
“I just wanted them to check on her…
Her front door was open… it was late…
So, I was concerned,” the neighbor later says matter-of-factly on the nightly news.
Atatiana Jefferson was a law-abiding citizen,
Playing video games with her 8-year-old nephew.
She got shot dead.
Check.
Black people cannot call the police.
Check.
Not even a concerned citizen.
Check.
Check this: In my hometown, Breonna Taylor was also a so-called law-abiding citizen.
Not only was Breonna law-abiding, but she was a medical worker –
Essential during a global pandemic!
But, she was Black.
She was shot to death in her own house,
Moments after the police arrived.
Fox don’t talk about none of this.
They go on with the implicit assumption that
Either Black people are not law-abiding,
Or, Black citizens never need the police.
“Cops need to be more sensitive, sure…” the other white cop says, then adds 12 butts!
He looks like an ass.
This whole faux news channel reduces today’s protests to rioting and looting, law-n-order.
They have met every effort at Black liberation with the same hostility.
Though openly devoted to non-violence,
Those pundits called the good Reverend Dr. King a “radical,” an “outside agitator,” and
Much, much worse!
When we peacefully took a knee just a few years back for the same cause,
These same pundits were quick to diss us,
Dissed Beyoncé for taking over the Superbowl in Black Power fashion!
Dissed Nike for sighing Collin Kaepernick – posting videos of them burning their own Nike gear.
They diss every Black person killed by the police as “disobedient” and “non-compliant.”
They consistently diss our resistance as unpatriotic – the oldest race card,
Because for them, racism is a game.
As if they didn’t twist their Bible to say slaves had to be loyal to their masters.
As if our efforts to breathe life into the Constitution weren’t patriotic!
As if Crispus Attucks wasn’t the first American to die for Independence!
As if this weren’t some strange and rotten fruit!
These pundits said the same about Martin Luther King, the FBI’s “an enemy of the state.”
They said all of this, of course, until he was martyred.
Then eventually, they called him a hero.
Now, even this faux news channel quotes Dr. King regularly.
Cleverly, Martin Luther da King gets pulled out of the Fox’s hat at the sign of any racial trouble!
The token negro cop gets asked the token question:
He’s asked to speak on behalf of all Black people.
Perform for your master, [N-word]!
Luckily, this man changes the narrative from dissing these hasty solutions to
Talking about real, systemic change to a systemic problem.
It’s not even clear that the other guests command this level of vocabulary, keeping it so simple.
The other cops were set up to denounce this solution, and
They were neither asked, nor chose to address any single way of improving policing.
All responsibility is implicitly shifted to individual citizens:
‘Policing is fine, Black people just don’t act right!’
I wish they’d just gon’head and say it!
Luckily, this Black man is neither stepping nor fetching their white supremacy for them today.
Not today, Satan!
Again, the faux media pundit circles back to defunding the po-po.
At present, this is only the legislative solution presented by any lawmaker thus far.
Weeks later, that message emanating from Minneapolis had spread,
Even to Congress, although
Aunty Maxine had already reclaimed her time on this one.
Predictably, this incites the white cop to repeat his singular talking point like a quacking duck:
“We’re here for business owners and hard-working people,” again, in THAT order.
‘We’re not to be called upon as citizens’, as Toni Morrison said after 9-11.
Check
Fox then seamlessly shifts back to “Agent Orange’s” economic talking points.
Cut to commercial.
After the ads, 45 comes back railing about saving Wall Street.
The faux host asks rhetorically if this will be “the greatest economic comeback ever!”
It’s like they can only ever speak in superlatives.
Finally, the host is optimistic in otherwise dreary times.
God bless America, and F everybody else!
I really wish they’d just gon’head and say it!
They gon’ be alright.
Checkmate.
—
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Should we be impressed by those who OBEy?
In the aftermath of the General Election, Britain continues to spiral with most of Europe down the hole of despair, into something that George Orwell wrote about in his 20th century novel, Nineteen Eighty-Four. And in this hysteria, imperial thinking is now back on the rise. But that’s not what this post is about. Well, not much.
Every year, the “best of the best” of this country are decorated by the Queen in what’s known as the Honours List. Knighthoods, MBEs, OBEs and CBEs. Nods to the British Empire, racism and colonialism. Watching debates on Sky News’ ‘The Pledge’ has shown me how resistant Britain is to talking about race, but deeper still, its ventures in colonialism overseas.
Amidst the Windrush Scandal and Brexit, that resistance was put onto the world stage. It got me to think about British history but also how specifically working-class people often defend the monarchy and patronage, an institution that despises them. Do people that have been honoured have a feeling of accomplishment by having those three letters after their name? Would their ancestors feel the same way? Or is it a feeling of “I’ve made it,” a ruse of passing from one class into another?
When people are named Member of the British Empire (MBE), it leaves me feeling icky inside. Seeing that after someone’s name, leaves me feeling sick. Order of the British Empire (OBE), Commander of the British Empire (CBE). It’s obsolete, drawing up thoughts of genocide, conquest and stolen land.
When I hear the word “empire,” especially in this country, I think about oppression of minority Britain in the jaws of Little England. It’s reminiscent of how my ancestors were slaves in the Caribbean. It’s Apartheid, the American Revolution, the Suez Crisis, Potato Famine, the Mau Mau, the Amritsar Massacre and so much more. To have that after your name is really to celebrate racism, classism, genocide, stolen land etc etc.
And it’s because of Britain’s nostalgia for this history that I grew up going to school being taught Black history as only slavery. We didn’t even get as far postwar immigration, as that’s the other common denominator of the Black British narrative. It’s because of that, why I don’t know my name.
Not Ventour, that’s a slave name. I don’t know the name my ancestors had before Ventour was forced upon them under the lynch and the lash of Caribbean plantation slavery.
My crisis of identity is not due to history, it’s more so due to the present day climate where British people of colour are routinely having their Britishness contested. I’m staunchly anti-monarchy and anti-empire. And there’s something weird about debating the concept of the Queen’s Honours with people who are either ambivalent to it or are so pro-monarchy that they can’t possibly acknowledge that there’s negative connotations with the Royal institution. I’ve been in quite a few discussions with people about the monarchy. Thankfully, none have gotten ugly and we’re still friends today.
These Honours awards are to people that have made significant contributions to society through their professions — from arts, including: theatre, literature and film — to everyday people doing great work in the community, to journalists. That last one, I don’t like. Should journalists really be accepting awards from people they’ve critiqued, or even vilified?
The Honours awards are a slap in the face of multiracial / working-class Britain. When it comes to the British Empire, many have asked “Does the end justify the means?” And my reply to that is, no. How much is life worth to you? You cannot justify torture and genocide. Life isn’t flesh for cash. It’s not a business. And those colonial statues littered throughout Britain, including London, Bristol and Glasgow; all those British streets named for slave traders; all those White imperialistic university module choices.
The concept of “Honours” feels like Britain clinging on to a past bygone. Given the chance, would Britain enslave its Black British population? Would it let three million Indians die in the Bengal Famine if the circumstances were to present themselves again? Would it commit to a Scramble for Africa and a starving Ireland? If these circumstances were to happen again?
Institutionally, The Monarchy sanctioned slavery, and yet, millions still defend it. Truth is, I don’t understand how anyone, regardless of their background can accept awards with attachments as deeply horrific as these ones.
They came out of a system that oppressed people of colour, women and the LGBTQ+ community. There are many Black and brown people that love those awards. It makes them feel accomplished, whilst simultaneously speaking out against racism. Whilst being part of the system they speak out against, they’re some of its proudest members. They are activists against the ruling class but then accept invitations to Buckingham Palace. In breaking their backs for babylon, are they willing to accept chains on their ankles?
These awards go to Joe and Jane Bloggs. They go to musicians, authors, poets, businesspeople, celebrities and more. These awards are given to people, irrespective of class or colour. Seeing those three letters after their name feels like betrayal. Should I bow to them? Do I have to act impressed?
I’m a poet before anything else and have recited my own work, unpicking British history, including empire and conquest, and how those things impact the present day.
I’ve been called racist and anti-White (I’m anti-White Supremacy). But really, I want to reach an audience of people that are willing to listen. That the history we’re taught at school is what my mother would call “chang-chang” — in bits and pieces. Did Christopher Columbus discover America or was he only the first White man to get there? Could the same be said for Captain Cook with Australia? Is explorer a synonym for coloniser?
I’m a storyteller. What in the old days people would call a bard. What the Celts called the Awen. I probably will never be offered one of those awards. And if I was — to accept one would be to lose my dignity. I wouldn’t be able to look my younger brother in the eye. I would lose all pride and respect for myself. Which is why I have so much respect for people that decline them and live their best life, doing what they do best, living livelihoods without want of incentive, be it an OBE or being named Poet Laureate.
Your Benjamin Zephaniahs and Ken Loaches. Who both showed me that art is more than the Tate, The National Gallery or arthouse cinema.That poetry is more than Tennyson, Blake and Wordsworth, that history is written in black and white. It’s poor people, LGBTQ+ and women and…
“Look around, look around, at how lucky we are to be alive right now” — The Schuyler Sisters (Hamilton)
And anyone close to me will know why I despise January 1 and The Queen’s Birthday, since it’s the date the the Honours Lists are released. A better honour would be if the British Museum gave those stolen pieces back to places like Ghana and Greece. OBEs, CBEs, MBEs , knighthoods — genocide, slavery, torture, class oppression, massacres and more massacres, war and violence — and it’s 2020. When will the British Empire shut its mouth?
Let history be history. The British Empire is not cause for celebration. For every colonial statue in this land there should be a slave child next to it, or a starving woman, a symbol showing how the end doesn’t justify the means.
Let’s call the British Empire what it was: a business venture that consumed the lives of millions, not something to be worn like a badge of honour, because it is honourless.
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The Unremembered: Churchill shrugs his shoulders at the 1m African war dead
There’s something inspiring about seeing people that look like me speaking on something, in Britain, that’s been portrayed as a vocation for middle class White people (mainly men). Watching candidate for Tottenham David Lammy in the Commonwealth war graveyard in Voi (Kenya) talking about history took me back to when I first saw David Olusoga, a Black historian talking about history in a way that wasn’t detached in hope of being objective. Whilst Olusoga is a historian, Lammy is not. However, seeing Black people on British TV talking about history is not a narrative I’m familiar with.
In The Unremembered: Britain’s Forgotten War Heroes we are pushed to remember the two million Africans from British East Africa (now Kenya) dragged into the First World War, many of whom were press-ganged into service. One million joined the dead. In the Voi cemetery, we are witness to a site fitting for those who gave their lives for king, country and commonwealth. But they were White. Each decorated with a headstone, as written into the equalities policy by the Commonwealth War Grave Commission. However, if you were a Black African, then your service was not seen as equal to that of a White person. You were nothing. Forgotten.
“The erection of memorials to the memory of native troops, carriers etc, depends upon local conditions,” wrote the colonial secretary in 1919. “In ordinary circumstances, the Commission would not erect individual headstones but a central memorial in some suitable locality to be selected by the Government concerned.” That colonial secretary’s name was Winston Churchill, who’d go on to be knighted and elected as Britain’s prime minister. In his view, Black Africans (who were British subjects) did not fit into the Commission’s frame of reference for equality.
“I hate Indians, they are beastly people with a beastly religion.” – Winston Churchill
A century on, this year, is the centenary of the first remembrance service. Is it time we confront this legacy of discrimination and institutional racism? The bodies of Black Africans were not in the Voi cemetery, but beyond a fence under canopies of bushes. Here, we see how much the colonial office cared. David Olusoga wrote “Black soldiers were expendable – then forgettable.” Their corpses were in a wasteland under bushes and litter. Here’s the opening of the documentary, and so the investigation begins.
Whilst it can be interpreted as a harmless doc, it follows in the footsteps of The Unwanted: The Secret Windrush Files, as both show the institutional racism implemented by the British establishment against those of African heritage. Moreover, investigating how the imperial mindset and colonial-era racial thinking has been allowed to fester into modern Britain.
It’s no secret that British history is a study in erasure, and the stories of Black and brown people in our history books struggle to reach print. These stories really are scaling the walls to get noticed and the unmarked burial sites of hundreds of thousands of Black Africans, including women and children, is just one more example of structural racism. And that the only way to get these histories integrated, is to acknowledge that the establishment erased these stories because of its white supremacist thinking, evident in the heads of the gatekeepers, policy and colonial laws.
The Macpherson Report was in response to the police investigation into the murder of Stephen Lawrence. Its definition of institutional racism includes neglect and “failure to act.” His definition could as easily be applied to the plight of Black and brown colonial soldiers during the world wars, when they came home, and the Black war dead on the African continent.
“the collective failure of an organisation to provide an appropriate and professional service to people because of their colour, culture or ethnic origin” – Macpherson Report, 1999
Whilst MacPherson’s report is about the police, academic frameworks like Critical Race Theory argues that racism is ingrained in the fabrics of society, linking whiteness to power and blackness / brownness to social subordination, allowing White Privilege to thrive. CRT says it’s not about the individual racist, but the system as a collective. And is the system broken, if it was built “racistly” to benefit the White elite? Knowing this, in the mix of the colonial racial thinking in the system, is it really surprising that Black and brown soldiers were treated abominably, both in life and in death?
Channel 4’s documentary is riddled with devastating moments and really leaves no hope for the viewer. David Lammy meets Mwamkono Mwavaka, a man whose now dead grandfather was one of the Carrier Corps – men, women and children taken on to carry supplies on mules to the front lines. In Dar es Salaam sits a massive war cemetery, where British and Germans are buried side-by-side. Yet, no such love is given to the Native Africans who gave their lives. “Where do I go in my own country?” cries an interviewee.
The final act is a metaphor for talking about race in Britain – hostile and resistant to any critique. Lammy at the HQ of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission in conversation with its director general is uncomfortable viewing. “Do we have the names? I don’t believe we do,” says Victoria Wallace, hostilely. Refusing to talk about race, historically, and how institutions like the CWGC were complicit in systemic racial inequality.
The story ends with no apology, just a few words on some money for a plaque on African soldiers. And yet, no comments on how someone voted the Best Briton by the British public (Churchill) was a racist and complicit in some of the worst crimes in human history – from the Bengal Famine in what was then British India (in 1943) to the Boer War Concentration Camps.
Reparations is faceless: to some its money, but to me it’s historical awareness, which begs the question why there’s so much resistance to teaching colonial history, or is the establishment scared of what it potentially might find?
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In Thanksgiving, White Supremacy thrives under US
In the autumn of 2004, my schoolteacher said: “In fourteen hundred and ninety-two, Christopher Columbus sailed the ocean blue.” She made this man seem so likeable. If we played a little word association game with him, words like genocide, thief and coloniser come to mind. Murderer. Evil. Within a little rhyme, she had dressed him in innocence. By no fault of her own. I’m sure there are numerous schoolteachers up and down this island nation who really don’t have a clue about colonial history, and in sermonising this “explorer,” she was dismissing the individual who opened the doors to European colonisation of the Americas (what became the New World) and the Caribbean.
Whilst the rest of the United States of America breaks bread on their annual day of thanks, Natives see this day as a day of mourning. Like an armistice, in remembrance of their ancestors, and a people that were erased through genocide committed by White Europeans in the prologue of colonialism. It is often noted that the first Thanksgiving was in 1621, but really it could be argued that day belongs in 1637 when puritan Governor Winthrop decided he would give thanks for the safe return of those who went to Mystic, Connecticut and participated in the Massacre of the Peqout.
Like a lot of the history I thought I knew, it seems more of a taking than anything else. Thanksgiving is for giving thanks, but the story behind it feels more like a thanks-taking. Do they teach this in American schools? Something tells me, no.
The late great Malcolm X said “We didn’t land on Plymouth Rock; the rock was landed on us.” And in Britain, the voyage that led the British into slavery was by an ambitious man from Plymouth (UK) called (Sir) John Hawkins, as in 1562/1563 he hijacked a Portuguese vessel, sailed to the new world and sold his cargo into slavery, making a small fortune. Not to be confused with Plymouth in the US, often labelled as America’s hometown.
However, growing up in Britain, as I did, the story of Christopher Columbus “discovering America” is one that’s been told so many times that it’s now begun to feel like folklore. Not once, as a child, did I hear anything about the native peoples living in America and the West Indies before he came.
What they mean when Columbus discovered America, is he was the first White man to discover it. Because achievements (historically) like this are only valid in western society when a White person does it. From Cook to Columbus, White explorers who went to “new places” to “find” peoples and cultures different from their own only to react with savagery and violence.
Not once in my school classes did I get stories from the perspectives of the oppressed. Whether we’re talking about slaves during the 200+ years of British colonial ambition, or the world wars, as at war the ones that suffered most were the working classes. What happened after? If I was to go by what I was taught at school, I’d live life believing everything was rosy.
At school, the sermons my teachers had for Columbus now make my skin crawl. Lorded as one of the great European heroes, turning up in Hispaniola in 1492, native to Amerindians prior to colonisation. The majority of the people there did die of European diseases but nothing could prepare them for the monumental onslaught that came from Columbus’ soldiers. And when any country invades another, rape is always a feature.
“His soldiers snatched babies from the breasts of their mothers and dashed their heads against the rocks. Children were fed alive to his dogs. Women’s breasts were cut off. He decided to hang thirteen of the Native Americans in Hispaniola to recreate the crucifixion of Jesus, plus the apostles.”
George Monbiot (writer, journalist, activist)
What Columbus’ soldiers did in Hispaniola set the precedent for what happened next, the eventual genocide that erased almost all of the Native peoples of America from existence. However, when I think about Native people, as much as screen representation is concerned, I think to Old Hollywood. John Wayne in The Searchers being one of the most horrific films I’ve ever watched and this is what Said means by orientalism. Though, I believe his theory can be applied to any non-White oppressed group.
And when we think about colonial statues, we really need to think about the character of the people we are building monuments to. From Barcelona to New York, Columbus is known all over the world. And I think due to how we teach history in schools, we blindly celebrate people we really know nothing about. From Churchill in India to Columbus and Captain Cook.
And both George Washington (first US President) and Thomas Jefferson (third US President) endorsed Columbus’ actions, and what’s more, both these men owned slaves. Who really are we celebrating? Who are we honouring with statues, plaques and awards? Who are we putting on our money? Great leaders aren’t always great people, and how did they treat others? What about their morality, equity, and values as public figures?
In Thanksgiving and Columbus Day, the US establishment does not recognise its history of genocide. The fact that we have Natives with us today is nothing short of a miracle. That their ancestors managed to survive: disease, Catholicism, and settler colonialism; telling their stories to preserve their culture and identity is activism. Their existence is resistance.
Columbus is a symbol of conquest and privilege. How can we condemn Hitler and Stalin but not Columbus? Simple. When non-White history is told from the perspective of the oppressor, the lack of White empathy is obvious. In colonialists Cecil Rhodes and former-PM Winston Churchill the British establishment honours White supremacists and mass murderers, united in their pursuits for either one, two or all of the three: gold, glory or God.
And in Christopher Columbus, the American establishment honours a White supremacist, a mass murderer and a slave trader; and under the administration of President Trump, I believe it’s safe to say it ain’t changing any time soon.
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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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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.
Thoughts from the criminology team 