This is Not America

This book argues two main points. We should understand race in Britain through a British perspective, and we shouldn’t reduce black people to their race. Being black and British is as much shaped by being British as it is by being black. The only way to approach racism in Britain helpfully, and to acknowledge the distinctive qualities of black people in the UK, is by accepting this particular duality: black and British. Race is not an abstract or metaphysical thing. It relies on context – national context, in the case of distinguishing the experiences of black British people from black Americans, but other forms of context, too. For instance, when we talk about black British people, we have to recognise that we are not talking about a singular group of people: we are talking about different communities and cultures, divided by language and religion and national origin and class. When we focus on race in Britain, therefore, we need to take into account the unique complexities of black British identity. Despite such differences, however, there are also striking similarities between the communities that fall under the category of black British – an emerging dialect called Multicultural London English (MLE), for example, which is now used by younger black British people of all backgrounds and even, increasingly, by younger British people of all backgrounds, irrespective of their race or where they live in the country. The experience of black British people is not only defined by racism, and it would be profoundly damaging to suggest so: it has also been characterised by love and tenderness and humour and friendship. It has been an incorrigibly British experience.

This is Not America is not a history book about black British people. Nor is it a definitive account of contemporary black Britain, or of race relations in Britain today: events are moving so rapidly that an exposition of that ambition will only be impressionistic in any case.

Imperialism, too, was not one singular ideology committed to suppressing native communities in Africa, Asia and the Caribbean. It had other dimensions. As the Oxford historian John Darwin argues in his Times Literary Supplement review of Elkins’s book: ‘We cannot defend or deny the atrocities visited by the British on those they saw as their enemies, or the racist assumptions that enabled the sometimes contemptuous attitude to non-European life. It is right that these should be recorded and exposed.’¹⁷ Nevertheless, the British Empire was more than a record of atrocities. Darwin adds that it ‘engaged with colonial peoples in many ways other than by violence: religiously, educationally, architecturally, philosophically, medically, scientifically and through ideas about law and – perhaps surprisingly – justice. Much of this has survived. Even as we reject the morality of colonialism, it is too reductionist to see its legacy as simply or mainly one of violence.’

What will a more effective form of anti-racist politics look like? It will have to be two things: collaborative and specific. When it comes to the relationship between the police and black British people, for instance, the police will have to do their part in curbing racism within their ranks: investigations into police misconduct will have to be done in a way that is utterly transparent to the victimised party. Many young black people don’t trust the police, and you can understand why: the legacy of institutional police racism still has traces today, in terms of hostile responses to some black people who have been unfairly suspected of a crime. A small minority of activists and academics believe the police should be abolished; it is ineradicably corrupted, they argue, by racism. An argument like this is thoroughly misguided: the people who will suffer most from the eradication of the police are the young black men sucked into crime and vulnerable to the brutal violence of criminal subcultures. The police and particular black communities need to build a better relationship together, precisely because black lives matter.

The police could go into schools and local youth centres in an open and generous manner. Likewise, black activists should set up events and talks where young black people in impoverished communities can be invited to interact with senior members of the police. This should be done in order that these groups can develop a greater degree of trust and can bond with each other. The police also need to do a better job of recruiting from the areas they serve: this localist approach will demonstrate that they are not an alien force imposing control from somewhere distant, but are tightly embedded within their communities.

In terms of education, rather than generalising about how black people do in terms of exam results and discipline, we need to be more specific in our focus. Many activists argue that teachers and staff in school are unfairly hostile to black students. But the true picture is more complex than this. It is black Caribbean students who are excluded at a high rate, not black African students. We need to ponder why this is the case. Even controlling for class, the disparity between black Caribbean and black African students still exists. One reason is perhaps differing family formation: black African boys are more likely to have more role models in their lives. Young men, in particular, need Activists should thus encourage more long-lasting mentoring schemes. This can even be done in-house: so schools should encourage high-achieving and well-disciplined older black students to mentor the younger black students who pose red flags, in terms of behaviour and discipline.