Lifeisannoying’s Weblog

www.charcoalink.wordpress.com/2009/10/24/why-black-britain-is-an-illusion/
Please read Charcoalink’s article before reading mine. Ta!

I love Charcoalink, she is intelligent self assured, and proud. I applaud her, she is ambitious and articulate. However her summation of my community in this post just hurt!! It was painful, i don’t think she could have gotten away with roasting any of the other british ethnic minorities.

A lot of what she said i feel, was worthwhile, but some just smacked of an outsider who had no knowledge of the community, and that is what stang, a white woman would be torn down for being “priveiledged” and thinking that one glance could deftly explain the complexities of one minority group, without study.

When my grandparents generation came to this country, they expected the welcome mat, that white colonialists had brainwashed them to expect. They were confronted with a country that scorned them. Landlords that could charge a whole wage packet for substandard housing. Police who would beat and arrest at will and whim whomever they pleased. Employers could discriminate, banks did not lend and morgages were denied not on inability to pay, but on simple discrimination.

So My community fought, they rioted in the streets for equality for all, they fought and lobbied for employment laws that protect us all today, they fought for equality across the board. Housing, schooling,employment and i for one think those are pretty important. WHY did we fight for equality, because we are a proud people We came to work and do well and we found in the late 1940’s that we could not do well because there was discrimination and opression that strangled our development.

For the Majority of the 1960’s I have been told, by relatives. that the thinking was in schools and all educational facilities, that all black children were educationally sub-normal on account of strong west indian accents, those children who did not “bleach” the sound of their mother country from their tongues, were left to languish in the classes for the educationally sub normal classes regardless of ability. Teachers were those born at the earliest 1930 or there abouts, so we can safely assume that they were brought up on tales of empire savages and slaves, it’s not a streach to see how they must have reacted to boisterous west indian children with their stecatto brash accents. So for the best part of the sixties a whole generation was written off.

In the 1970’s to early 1980’s we had the sus laws. Where british police had the right to stop, search or arrest anyone on the suspicion that they , had been, or would be involved in a crime. Black people were targeted on amazing scales and this erupted with the new cross fire. My community had had enough of the flagrant disregard of the establishment.

The new cross fire.
A party held not far from new cross gate station. Held by a West Indian family for a youngster. It was being held in a home. suddenly the house is ablaze, numerous children and young teens are seriously injured. 13 young teenagers die. The fire makes the news. The police investigate claims from injured people that there was a petrol bomb thrown into the living room. The national front had increased activity in the area and several people decide to mobilise the community into campaigning. 2nd march 20,000 black people marched for the lost youths Throughout central london. They campaigned and still campaign for justice two inquests have happened recently i am not quite sure of the exact years but we do care for our community and for our youths.

http://www.newstatesman.com/199902120015 -Darcus Howe’s feelings on the events of the night.
The kind of immigrants we had during the 1940’s to the 1970’s were predominantly families, large families. We took low paid jobs, often beneath our qualifications because we had familes to feed, it was more important that families stayed together, ate together and had a good quality of life that jet set at the exepense of having no quality of life.

Assimilation of the mid 1980’s to present. yes my community is assimilated as far as black people can assimilate. Why? because That is how our colonial background has shaped us, we have no language ties that force difference with our white neighbours, we have no religious difference that separate us from our white neighbours. Some black men (a few black women also) like having sex white people, who are we to stop them? West Indians love each other and their heritage, but we suffer a disadvantage that other minorities do not have.

Our Creole heritage ( when i use the word creole i mean it in the caribbean way not the american way) means we have some of our african traditions, but all, they have been corrupted, diffused and changed, our heritage has been anglicised, we have no language of our own “patois” is understood by all. Other minority groups at least have the option of keeping a bond by using the exclusive mother tongue, we do not share that option.

But to say that we are not proud to be black, because we utilise the term “black british”, is asinine. I am black, I am british, not untruthful, but scratch the surface and i am more than happy to tell you about my heritage. The fact that i am born and bred in England, does not neutralise my west indian culture, west indians cannot be neuteured. We are too proud if any thing.