Exploring Black British Identity
07:13
During the Easter holidays I attended a Vanguard event which was called “Lectures and Poetry”. It was a night filled with poetry and a talk by Tony Warner who focused on Black British civil rights. He explored topics such as racism on local transport, protest marches and the way in which Black Brits were treated by indigenous people. These are topics that we usually associate with Black American history. It was only then that it dawned on me that normally when people think of “Black history” they associate it with the likes of Martin Luther King, Malcom X, Rosa parks etc. Not to say that these people didn’t leave a legacy but what we don’t often realise or remember is that while Black Americans were fighting the forces of oppression, Black British people we’re doing the exact same thing. But how many of us were actually taught about Black British history? For example how many of us knew that there was a group called the “Black British Panthers” in the UK? They were doing the exact same thing as the Black Panthers in America but on British soil.
This then led me to reflect on British black identity as a whole. I think a lot of us Black brits forgot that we have our own culture because we’re always looking at the Black American culture instead of our own. We base a lot of our narrative and identity on Black American culture. I mean, It’s easy for us to focus on Black American culture because let’s face is Black Culture is Pop Culture but I won’t go into too much cultural appropriation today. This is not to say that we don’t have our own culture. Let’s take grime for example. That’s something that we claim as our own and not only has it become influential in the Black British culture it made it’s way to mainstream culture. The fact that Kanye West shared the stage with some of the most influential Grime artists show us that not only is Black British culture influential but it’s also seen as influential by our Black peers in the States. What makes Kanye West's performance of "All day" at the Brit awards more interesting is the fact, that he said he based his performance on the London riots in 2011.
Following on from this we also have our own Television shows, Movies, even slang but yet a lot associate our Black identity with an African American Identity. The fact that us Black Brits are only taught the struggles of African American history, I believe is used as a distraction. It’s used as a way to distract us firstly from the oppression faced in history and today secondly, how influential Black British culture is on British culture. The stories of the Black diaspora are scatted all over the world, this isn’t to say our stories are exactly the same. The experiences and the history of a French African will not be the same as an African American. The struggles of the Black diaspora vary but maybe we need to start looking closer to home before trying to identify ourselves with the African American “other”.
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