Why I'm No Longer Talking to White People About Race(54)
None of this means that overt or structural racism is over. Donald Trump is still president of the United States, and far right white-nationalist groups around the world are encouraged by his success.9 They think that everyone will give in to the politics of hate; that they will succeed in taking the world away from the rest of us. Electorally, there has been little climb-down from the far right gains of 2016. But I do believe that there is a difference between ignorance and malice – even though the former can very much feel like (and descend into) the latter. When it comes to the middle ground, I think the side of anti-racist progress is winning. I’m filled with hope, and a kind of political nourishment, when I hear the conversations that come to the fore during my events. Every time I do one I see the audience as a hub of knowledge and potential. I see change. I see talent. It’s there in the crowd, buzzing in the atmosphere. I learn a lot, too, from the people of colour who turn up, who are experts in their respective fields and have taken on the additional job of ‘anti-racist in the room’ at work. Sometimes at these Q&A’s I think there are people in the audience who are far more qualified than me to answer specific questions. This is the power of the collective. We’ve reached a tipping point, and I’m glad that my book has served as catalyst. My dream is that the people who turn up to my events take that opportunity to meet each other, swap details and form their local resistance.
I consider myself to be part of a movement, and I think that if you are deeply touched by what you read in this book, then you are part of that movement too. It’s happening right now.
NOTES
PREFACE
1This 1994 documentary about race was championed by Oprah at the time of its release. It’s a powerful watch.
1: HISTORIES
1The Brooks slave-ship drawing, contributed by Bristol Museum, A History of the World in 100 Objects, BBC & The British Museum, http://www.bbc.co.uk/ahistoryoftheworld/objects/Akxq5WxwQOKAF5S1ALmKnw
2‘Ports of the Transatlantic Slave Trade’, conference paper given by Anthony Tibbles at the TextPorts conference, Liverpool Hope University College, April 2000.
3Britain’s Forgotten Slave Owners, episodes 1 & 2, David Olusoga and University College London, first broadcast on BBC2 July 2015.
4Popularised in the 1980s, the concept of political blackness was used by anti-racism activists to describe anyone who wasn’t white, in the spirit of solidarity.
5‘Remember the World as Well as the War: Why the Global Reach and Enduring Legacy of the First World War Still Matter Today’, British Council, 2013, page 12.
6Egypt, France, Germany, India, Russia, Turkey, United Kingdom.
7‘Why the Indian soldiers of WW1 were forgotten’, Shashi Tharoor, BBC News Magazine, 2 July 2015, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-33317368
8‘A White Man’s War? World War One and the West Indies,’ Glenford D. Howe, BBC History, 3 October 2011, http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/worldwars/wwone/west_indies_01.shtml
9‘Riots on the streets of Cardiff as poverty hits’, Wales Online, 7 July 2009.
10‘The Roots of Racism in City of Many Cultures’, Liverpool Echo, 3 August 2005.
11National Archives, Spotlights on History, ‘Demobilisation in Britain, 1918–20’, www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/pathways/firstworldwar/spotlights/demobilisation.htm
12Mother Country: Britain’s Black Community on the Home Front, 1939–45, Stephen Bourne, The History Press, 2010, page 17.
13Staying Power: The History of Black People in Britain, Peter Fryer, Pluto Press, 1984, page 326.
14The Keys, courtesy of the British Library, The League of Coloured Peoples, 1933, http://www.bl.uk/learning/citizenship/campaign/myh/newspapers/gallery1/paper2/thekeys2.html
15The Keys, courtesy of the British Library, The League of Coloured Peoples, 1933, http://www.bl.uk/learning/citizenship/campaign/myh/newspapers/gallery1/paper5/thekeys5.html
16By the advent of the Second World War, Dr Moody had married a white woman, Olive Tranter. They had six children, and his son, Charles Arundel ‘Joe’ Moody, was not only old enough to fight, but keen to do so. But when he went to sign up, he was told by a white army officer that it wasn’t possible, because he wasn’t of ‘pure European descent’. Outraged, Dr Moody used The Keys to campaign, and allied with other black organisations for maximum clout. His lobbying of the Colonial Office – a government department that dealt solely with affairs of Empire – led to the decision being overturned in October 1939. Joe was the second black commissioned officer ever to serve in the British Army.
17There were very few black women in port cities due to the gendered nature of military and ship work.
18Report on an Investigation into the Colour Problem in Liverpool and Other Ports, Liverpool: Association for the Welfare of Half-Caste Children, Muriel Fletcher, 1930.
19‘The Fletcher Report 1930: A Historical Case Study of Contested Black Mixed Heritage Britishness’, Mark Christian, Journal of Historical Sociology, Volume 21, Issue 2–3, pages 213–241, June/September 2008.
20Empire Windrush 1948, Exploring 20th Century London, Renaissance London Museum, http://www.20thcenturylondon.org.uk/empire-windrush-1948.
21Peach, Ceri, ‘Patterns of Afro-Caribbean Migration and Settlement in Great Britain: 1945–1981’. In Brock, Colin, The Caribbean in Europe: Aspects of the West Indian Experience in Britain, France and the Netherlands, London: Frank Cass & Co. pp. 62–84.