Moving forward with credibility, not CRED

Yesterday was another tough day in the lives of Black and Brown people, as well as other racialised groups, including the Irish, who didn’t escape the dripping cynicism in the Commission for Race and Ethnic Disparities. I’m sorry, but it had no CRED with me.

Among many of the hurtful and disappointing paragraphs in the report was:

The ‘Making of Modern Britain’ teaching resource is our response to negative calls for ‘decolonising’ the curriculum. Neither the banning of White authors or token expressions of Black achievement will help to broaden young minds. We have argued against bringing down statues, instead, we want all children to reclaim their British heritage. We want to create a teaching resource that looks at the influence of the UK, particularly during the Empire period. We want to see how Britishness influenced the Commonwealth and local communities, and how the Commonwealth and local communities influenced what we now know as modern Britain. One great example would be a dictionary or lexicon of well known British words which are Indian in origin. There is a new story about the Caribbean experience which speaks to the slave period not only being about profit and suffering but how culturally African people transformed themselves into a re-modelled African/Britain.

My ancestors weren’t forced to board a boat to travel from India to the Caribbean, to work on the plantations–they were just lied to, treated like idiots, called monkeys and never earned enough to make it home. Indentured servitude is a forgotten story about the Caribbean; I would never aliken it to slavery–it means the populations of the Caribbean colonized by Britain, Spain, France and The Netherlands, are very mixed. Colonisation meant young Caribbean minds were educated to look to Britain as the Mother country, a land of dreams, where anything was possible. They weren’t taught their own history. And so, when she called, of course the children answered, “Yes, Mum! Coming!”. My parents were among those who looked to Britain as the answer to a more prosperous future, as well as addressing a need within the country. The last of the Windrush generation of people arriving in the UK between 1948 and 1971 from the Caribbean.

After 41 years in the NHS where my mum saved and supported thousands of lives, including developing a tool to diagnose post-natal depression, (which was taken from her and recredited to white people), and 50 years on Savile Row where my father saw the dying trade of British bespoke tailoring and created a school to save it (which white men struggled to support, but he was, at least, eventually acknowledged with an OBE and honorary Professorship for his work), my parents’ stories remain meaningless without the context of the background. My parents thrived not because they were supported by Britain, but despite it. Just imagine what they could have achieved with a welcoming environment! Those of African and South Asian heritage are not part of a remodelled Britain, we’re – to use a term mandated and taught in British schools as a British Value – tolerated. And not even that at times.

Decolonisation is not problematic. It’s enlightening.

"History isn’t written once. It’s written afresh by every generation, not because the facts necessarily change, but because our perspectives do."

"’We cannot — and should not — now try to edit or censor our past,’ communities secretary Robert Jenrick said in February. But censorship is already woven into the way the past was written. Without understanding how certain people and ideas were erased, and others were deliberately promoted, we’re left with distorted narratives." - Angela Saini writing in the Financial Times.

Acknowledging different perspectives on the past, exposing it, tracing it, reflecting on it, learning from it, redressing it – this is a process which all people have to play a part, otherwise, as Angela Saini says, the narrative is not whole.

If this government wants all children to reclaim their British heritage – well, I’m a child of Britain and this is the heritage I claim: In solidarity with enslaved-descended people I agree with the removal of the Colston statue and all that he stands for. I agree with the sentiments behind #RhodesMustFall. As a child of Britain I want those perspectives on the past, to be exposed, traced, reflected on, learnt from, and redressed.

The influence of the British Empire was influence without choice. There was no free exchange of ideas, services and goods. They were taken. Stolen. Pillaged. Pilfered. Vandalised. So, less of an influence and more of imposition.

Modern Britain is a place where, even the UN says:

The UK Government’s policies exacerbate discrimination, stoke xenophobic sentiment and further entrench racial inequality, the UN’s expert on racism and human rights said in a report.

In the report to be presented to the Human Rights Council on 8 July [2019], E. Tendayi Achiume cited persistent racial disparities in, among others, education, employment, housing, health, surveillance, interactions with police, prosecutions, and incarceration.

"The structural socio-economic exclusion of racial and ethnic minority communities in the United Kingdom is striking," the Special Rapporteur said in her report, based on a fact-finding visit to the country in April and May 2018.

"[N]otwithstanding the existence of a legal framework devoted to combating racial discrimination, the harsh reality is that race, ethnicity, religion, gender, disability status and related categories all continue to determine the life chances and well-being of people in Britain in ways that are unacceptable and, in many cases, unlawful."

So, where do we go from here? There are no quick fixes, but at this point I suggest rather than simply paraphrasing the book here, people pick up Emma Dabiri's What White People Can Do Next.

She says: “a great thirst for change exists”. She also quotes George Lipsitz: ‘good intentions and spontaneity are not adequate in the face of relentlessly oppressive and powerful well-financed military and economic political systems’.

But, I must also leave you with a message of hope. Coincidentally, alongside Emma Dabiri’s book arrived Amanda Gorman, “The Hill We Climb”:

Let the globe, if nothing else, say this is true:

That even as we grieved, we grew,

That even as we hurt, we hoped,

That even as we tired, we tried.

That we’ll forever be tied together.

             Victorious,

Not because we will never again know

defeat,

But because we will never again sow

division.