*This is an almost stream of consciousness blog post about the ‘state of the world’. I worked on it over a few days, editing bits over a few weeks with the changing situation as I wanted to create an opportunity for dialogue. If you disagree with some, all or none of what I say, that’s fine as we are all entitled to our opinions. Let’s be civil and not resort to any uncouth comments, fisticuffs or other such hijinks- Thanks go out to Liz Barrett, Cassius Kingsley, Firoza Choudhury and Frances for their advice and feedback*

In the words of the great Tintin cartoon from the 90s….’It all started…’ with a text message:

"They've thrown old Edward Colston in the river.”

I didn't know who he was and had images of some poor bloke being dunked into a river before my friend clarified in another text message, "His statue is in the River Avon.”

Somewhat relieved that no-one had been assaulted, I started to Google on my phone who this Edward Colston was and what he has done to warrant such an unceremonious knocking off his pedestal. Bristolian merchant, businessman, philanthropist, wow this guy seemed like a right renaissance man, and then.... slave trader. Hmmm, so there's the rub and what a rub indeed! Over the course of 16 years, it was estimated that the man had shipped over 80,000 Africans to America during the trans-Atlantic slave trade and of those 20,000 slaves had been thrown overboard as they either died or were declared too ill during the dreadful journey. It seemed almost symbolically fitting for Colston, to be thrown into the water too.

The Colston plinth- sans plinth. Photo credit: Eiizabeth Barrett

I’d no doubt the 24 our news cycle would be in a frenzy about this incident and that evening, when I settled down with my wife, it was all over Channel 4 News. There were the vox pop section of the news where a variety of reactions were shared. Many thought that having a statue of a slaver with a pandering message; “Erected by citizens of Bristol as a memorial of one of the most virtuous and wise sons of their city” was insensitive to many people within a city that prided itself on its multi-cultural credentials. However, many thought that the removal of the statue was sacrilege as it erased the history--even if it wasn't always illustrious or glorious.

Looking at the talking heads on the news I empathised with both sides of the argument. Those who eloquently spoke about why the Colston statue had to go said how it was an open sore in the city of Bristol; one which successive council leaderships had declined to amend or address. On the other side of this argument some stated that, ‘You can't judge people from the past based on today's moral code’ and that by removing the statue you ‘erased the history.’

Hmm, I was in a moral quandary. I wasn't sure that throwing the statue into the river was right but then again, leaving the fawning message tantamount to declaring him to be the ‘first son of the city’ was a bit much as it white-washed his horrible behavior, at least on the plaque. However, was this really ‘erasing history’ as some claimed?

When it was stated that numerous council applications for the removal of the statue to a museum or proposals for amendments to be added to the plaque to provide a more balanced account of Colston’s history had been declined, I could understand why so many people were frustrated and angry. However throwing the statue into the river wouldn’t get you very far in my opinion as it would anger those in the middle of the political spectrum who were looking for a more nuanced and balanced conversation but hey, life is complex and maybe this was a bit of a wake-up call to those in authority that things needed to change. However, during a pandemic, where the civic duty of staying at home to protect each other was at the forefront of most people’s mind, I waited to see what the general reaction would be.

It seemed to me that Britain was having a bit of an existential crisis of sorts and with the toxic Brexit campaign, with the ridiculous canvassing and nasty politics by the left and right, and the killing of George Floyd in America it all acted as catalysts for what we were seeing occurring here.

The Times, They Are A-Changin’

The prevailing thought in Britain has been that we are further along the road that the US as concern race, and in many ways we are, but there are many who believe that the type of racism here is more subtle and is ingrained in our systems and institutions. Those who aren’t even open to this suggestion think that the Black Lives Matter movement is just an excuse for people to loot and cause damage to property, even though the vast majority of the marches and demonstrations have been peaceful. However, looking at data (supplied by the BBC) tells a different story:

If you’re black in the UK you’re twice as likely to die in police custody compared to someone who’s white
You’re 9 times more likely to be stopped and searched compare to someone who’s white,
You’re 3 times more likely to be arrested compared to someone who’s white,
If you’re BAME you’re more likely to die from Covid-19, not due to the color of your skin but because of social inequality around jobs, housing, health and wealth,
If your black and aged 16-24 the unemployment rate is 26% compared to 11% for white,
The Rowntree Foundations research into poverty level found 26% for white, 48% for Black and 60% for Bangladeshi
1.5% of Britain’s top bosses are Black. (Source: BBC Radio 5)

This data is shocking but it does show some of the deep level of inequality that exists in the current system in the UK. Now there’s a lot of data and fake news bandied around so I went to the original source of data at gov.uk website and did some research about the crime stats for England (from 2017) and it made for some pretty sober reading:

Black people had the highest stop and search rates in every police force area for which there was data,
the 3 Black ethnic groups had the highest rates of stop and search out of all 16 individual ethnic groups
there were 51 stop and searches for every 1,000 Black people in London, compared with 19 per 1,000 Black people in the rest of England and Wales
between April 2018 and March 2019, there were 4 stop and searches for every 1,000 white people, compared with 38 for every 1,000 Black people,
Black people had the highest arrest rates per 1,000 people in every police force area for which there was data
In 2017, the conviction ratios for Black and Mixed ethnic groups were lowest at 78.7% and 79% whilst the conviction ratio was highest for defendants in the white ethnic group, at 85.3%
The conviction ratio for the white ethnic group was highest in all age groups in 2017
In 2017, the Black and Mixed ethnic groups had the lowest conviction ratios for male defendants ( at 79.2% and 79.3%), and the Black and Asian ethnic group had the lowest for female defendants (at 74% and 73.8% respectively)
Behind this data lies real world implications which informs life choices and life chances. More Black people were stopped and searched and arrested, however the conviction rate for Black people was lower than for white people. The part I found very interesting was when the gov.uk report stated:

differences in the rate of arrests in England and Wales are likely, in part, to reflect population differences in those areas (with many more people from the Asian, Black, Mixed and Other ethnic groups living in London than in North Wales, for example)

Based on this, why is so much of the media making it seem like there was a black criminality problem across the country? The report stated:

the Black African, Black Caribbean and Other Black groups consistently had the highest rates section 60 stop and searches involved Black people, the highest number out of all ethnic groups for this legislation with 4,858 (compared to 1,827 for Asians)
I didn’t understand why this would be but maybe it is due to the fact that the news often focusses on ‘high-profile’ crimes or picks on a trend like in 2019 when knife crime hit London. More often than not, knife crime is blamed on Black youth but in England and Wales 38% of knife possession offenders under 25s were non-white in 2017. This rose to two thirds in London but, as the report states, this is likely due to population differences across the country. The murder victim and suspect figures are more or less proportionate to the makeup of the population. Up until very recently, the stabbing capital of Britain was Glasgow, which has a 95% white population so why wasn’t knife crime seen as a ‘white problem?’ The fact is that crime is most prevalent in poorer areas and since most Black people are disproportionately poor, they are the ones that are disproportionately affected as victims and perpetrators. In fact, Akala brought up this very point on ‘Good Morning Britain’ with Piers Morgan.

So, this is a class issue and not one of race or culture so why the heightened fear of Black youth? Maybe it due to the ‘Blue Dot Effect’; this is the experiment where people were asked to identify blue dots amongst groups of a range of colors, this was then moved onto aggressive and non aggressive faces. What researchers found was that, after being made highly suggestible for a while, people identified purple dots and blue and, more worryingly for the real world, neutral faces as ‘threatening’.

Maybe the identifier of Black youths and knife crime in London has been extrapolated to across the country?

Reading through all this data and information it may seem surprising and even shocking yet there are many who say, ”I don't see color”, which is great but the systems and institutions that rule our lives often do see colour and these have real world impact and implications. That's what people are saying with Black Lives Matter; they don't matter more than any other lives but they are worthy of recognition because often it is these communities that are victimized and marginalized and the data supports this. This has been highlighted particularly in America where abuses against the Black community have been going on for many years (and is referred to as ‘Black Witnessing’) but the access of cameras on mobiles has meant that only now are incidences being recorded and shared. So where does this profiling come from, because that is what this is?

A Personal Journey

I studied history for GCSE and A-Levels and from what I remember we covered the Roman, the War of the Roses, the Tudors, the Industrial Revolution and World War 1 and 2. I may be misremembering or forgetting a unit here or there, as it was nearly 25 years ago, but these units were definitely covered with a British idyllic sheen. I remember at the time thinking how jingoistic and jolly hockey stick the content was, ‘plucky Britain surviving and thriving against the odds’, ‘Britain the island fortress’ etc etc etc. Acclaimed historian Niall Ferguson wrote in his book ‘Empire: How Britain Made the Modern World’, that the Empire created the first global economy through a process of 'Anglobalisation'. He then praises how, having disseminated the benefits of the free market and parliamentary democracy, it then discreetly faded away. This glorification of the British Empire as a sort of a benign master has been what has been taught to us for many years and this has been the prevailing thoughts amongst educationalists and much of the British population, however even in secondary school in the late 90s, I remember thinking, "Why haven't we looked at the cost and legacy of Empire on the lands that were conquered and taken?"

My parents are second generation British-Pakistanis and I remember being told of the various atrocities and crimes committed by the British Empire to India during the rule there but also through partition. Being an arrogant teen, I remember of numerous occasions telling them to calm down as without Britain we wouldn't have trains, an efficient bureaucratic system, fish and chips etc; they were too old, too entrenched in their old views from Pakistan... Weren't they?

It was only when I studied Anthropology at University that I started to find books and lectures critical of colonialism and imperialism. Since then, when the issue of race has come up and I’ve thrown some interesting and accurate facts about some lesser known aspects of empire, imperialism and colonialism which challenge the popular narrative, I’ve heard the following:

Why can't you get over it? It's all in the past.
If we don't talk about it (racism) it will go away.
Stop playing the race card.
You have a chip on your shoulder.
Why don't you just go back to where you came from?
You should be grateful that you have free speech.
You just hate Britain, you are anti-British.
But what about (insert any injustice here)
You are trying to blame me for what my ancestors did.
You just blame the West for all of the world's problems.
I don't see colour.
It's not about race.

I wonder if people would say these same arguments to me if I were white? I honestly don't know. Maybe if I were white I'd be accused of being a 'woke libtard' or something of the like. We live in a very weirdly stratified society, where even though we are more connected more than ever before in many ways, we also seem to be separated.

Whatever the case, there does seem to be a cognitive dissonance between the history that is taught and celebrated and what actually happened. Our values are narratives that are constructed by our experiences, either personal, shared or learned. The British Empire narrative we've been told for years are that it was amazing and contributed much positively to the world. Our British identities are built on this narrative and thus, people are protective of it. However, in this case when the positive colonialism narrative has been challenged, many people have reacted in extreme ways, not understanding why so many BAME people are so angry at the lionisation of people who did pretty reprehensible things in their time. Whenever the history and legacy of the British Empire has presented in England, it has usually been through the rose tinted lens of innovation, commerce and industry. This imbalance needs be redressed through educational reform and updating the curriculum as I believe that only by educating people can we learn from the past and move forward with clarity.

The excuse of, "It was years ago" doesn't fly as after hundreds of years of rule where the societies were upended, controlled through hierarchical systems and subjugated according to these systems, to resolve all these in the short time span is a ridiculous expectation. However, it behooves us to clean up the mess left and assist in bettering the lives of those our empire has negatively impacted as until then, lots of legacy issues will remain unresolved; like the recent unresolved border issues between China and India, the ongoing Kashmir and Israel-Palestine question and the myriad of other borders which were hastily drawn up with no real forethought given after World War 2 and the crumbling empire. These have led to ongoing tension in those regions. In Africa, the line drawing meant tribes and ancestral lands were ignored and so much of the current fighting there is the legacy of this. There are plentiful more examples I could give but for those who are interested in understanding the past there are lots of good books and resources available to do this. The problem is finding reputable sources as in this age there is a lot of fake news and alt-left or alt-right agenda driven media so choose your poison carefully. A good rule of thumb is that when shape-shifting lizards, 5G or Bill Gates are mentioned you may need to back away and look again.

Of course a country would want to celebrate its glorious past and paper over the less than fabulous bits but to say in 2020, during the Black Lives Matter movement, that the past had no or little repercussions on the current status quo and that ‘All Lives Matter’ is either to gaslight millions of people who are actually living with the legacy of empire or to be naive in the extreme. We must own the fact that things that occurred in the past still have an effect today, and as Brits today we must understand that the legacy of Empire wasn’t always a positive one for many.

White Privilege and ‘White Lives Matter’

White people often don't like talking about ‘white privilege’ as many believe it’s reductive and apportions blame for simply being white. However, white privilege is different from that in that it states that systems and structures are in place that hinder Black lives, and as such not every white person is racist, but they do need to recognize that the systems in place are set for the norm to be ‘white’.

This concept of 'white privilege' is a contentious one as people who are white don't see it but people who are BAME see it and experience it all the time. It's difficult to explain as unless you walk in someone else's shoes for a while you may not ever see the micro-aggressions or normalized racism that happens daily. You could always do black face like Justin Trudeau did 20 years ago but boy do people *not* like that. When 'white privilege' comes up some people will frequently cite poor white working class people and say, "Look, they are white and they don't get special treatment" except they do without even realizing it. White working class people have a lot of the same issues as their Black working class counterparts but are less likely to suffer from issues surrounding the hostile environment policy, the policing of Stop and Search or being blamed (alongside whichever peoples are The Mails ‘bogeymen of the week’- Romanians, Poles, Lithuanians etc) for the wage stagnation and a ‘race to the bottom’ whenever there is an economic downturn

A vey popular video that went viral last year was of the ‘racist soap dispenser’ where the machine dispensed soap for the white person but not the Black person. The machine itself obviously wasn’t racist, it’s just that the technician who programmed it maybe didn’t think of a different skin tone, and this is just an example of how the norm for the world is often ‘white’, often subconsciously.

White privilege does exist but blaming all white people does not help. In the same way that we wouldn’t (and shouldn’t) blame all Jews for the Israel/ Palestine conflict, all Muslims for the 9/11 terror attacks, or all white people for the white supremacist shootings that have occurred in America and other places. We shouldn’t assume all white people are aware of this bias that exists, why would they? After all, the last 600 years of history have been predominantly written by the victor's and as a result this is the legacy of empire that exists and the impact still reverberates in the world to this very day.

We are family

Now I can't look down from my BAME tower and smugly act holier than thou. If white privilege is a tough pill to swallow for many, being southern Asian in heritage doesn’t mean that I can stand on the moral high-ground either as sometimes my community does help perpetuate the system too. People often lump the BAME together but we are not one homogenous amorphous blob, there are real differences within this group.

I don't claim to speak for all south Asians in East London as these are my personal experiences but I've seen how some of my community speak about the Black community, it's often racist and dehumanizing. Sometimes, the community even do it without realizing, like when a kid is born one of the first questions asked after gender is, "Is it fair?" If the kid is light-skinned, it's considered beautiful, if it's dark skinned it's often considered less desirable and joked about, later bantered as 'Kaalu' (A pejorative term meaning ‘dark skinned’ but in much less polite terms)

Recently, I got annoyed when I saw Bollywood stars backing the movement after shilling whitening creams for years. It is a common trope in the industry that the comedic bit-part 'character' actors are usually played by the darker skinned actors. There has been a caste system that's been around for millennia and the British Empire leant heavily into this as it justified many heinous acts as people of color were 'lesser' through the tripartite system where there were Whites, Colored and Blacks- carried through with dreadful consequences in South Africa and much of colonial Africa.

Casual racism exists, typically in the older Asian community but amongst the younger generation too. I've been to family and friends’ houses where people have spoken about ‘kaales’ and Jamicki’s (Jamaicans) lumping them all together. Now, it could be grandfathered in, saying “Well, they’re old so maybe they have some old-fashioned view” but it has happened with my peers too, people of the same age as me. I met an old Indian school friend I hadn’t seen in about 15 years in Barking a few years ago and he said, “Barking’s changing man, these kaale are coming here, taking our jobs and houses, stealing and robbing. The areas going downhill” It's all nonsense but this truthiness gets a lot of people's anxieties going and people make silly choices or poorer decisions when they are emotional. My old friend didn’t see the irony behind this, nor did he realize that many people would have said similar things about our parents when they moved into the country in the 60s and 70s.

Whilst it's true, post-Olympics Barking has changed quite a bit as it has turned into a commuter town this is to be expected when one looks at the cost of housing in East London post 2012. I worked in the youth services as a youth worker for 10 years, from 2000 to 2010 and that was in predominantly BAME communities in Beckton and East Ham in East London. I saw the changes that were occurring in the area and it was exciting and a chance for regeneration but the 2008 economic crisis affected the area hugely and the social, economic and health disparities started to rise again, bringing class tensions to the fore which some groups sought to change into racial tension; a tale as old as time. When the situation goes south, look for someone to blame and usually it is those lowest in the pecking order.

Fear of Change and Changing the Narrative

Lecturer, Jane Elliot spoke about how people were complicit in the subjugation of Blacks in America by asking an audience, “Who would be happy to be treated as this society in general treats our Black citizens?”

If we were all being honest we know that being Black affects life choices and chances in many ways and the anger felt is palpable, which is why there has been so many protests and calls for change. We know that civil disobedience (like the many marches of Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr. and the women of Liberia), getting Marcus Rashford (or any other sport star or celebrity) to call out the government or changes to the educational system have great results but often they take a looooong time to have an effect, often with the issues being kicked into the long-grass. However, taking matters into your own hands seems to be a recurring theme throughout history, sometimes radical protest- like the suffragette movement, which eventually resorted to violence to get attention, led to real change. I’m not advocating for violence and destruction but it's just what happens when people feel that they are continually being ignored or people in authority and power are too slow to take note.

The anger felt by this community is real and probably justified but I am not one for cancel culture. Let’s not knock down statues or shout down any dissenter as racist but rather have a callout culture. If things are no longer appropriate then by all means call it out, calmly and sensibly, and ask for change.

In my opinion, cancel culture can be toxic as it doesn’t allow people to learn and grow and there are no teachable moments, however callout culture requires you to point out mistakes and get people to think about their actions or mistakes and ask them to do better. Learning and growing sometimes means that you simply read, listen and be open to different opinions and viewpoints with respect and maturity.

Make no mistake, even though I’m talking about a wider malaise this post is primary about Black Lives Matter as it is this community which is being victimized, marginalized and killed at an alarming rate by the police, institutions and systems that supposedly exist to protect them in America. Yes, ‘All Lives Matter’ but we can’t just stand by and let more Black people die on our watch, and we may not have the sheer numbers or shocking video footage in Britain but a lot of the issues that Black people face in America are also felt here by the Black community and we need to make things better.

I hope that as we move forward there is an appetite for real change to occur and things aren’t just kicked into the long grass.

More people seem to be realizing that the world has been built on a flimsy foundation of sand; the 2008 financial crash and the Covid-19 pandemic has shown the inequalities that exists in our system. Many people are starting to see that they have nothing left to lose and are driven in creating a New World Order (no, not the Illuminati one) but one where equity exists for all. So what to do, well you could:

Read up on history and consider what the effects and legacy of empire, colonialism and imperialism has been,
Push for a more honest and accurate account of history. This is starting already starting to happen with the curriculum being adapted in Bristol to look at Colston’s actions, both positive and negative. It will hopefully lead to more reflective conversations about how the state of the world currently may have something to do with what occurred before,
Listen to people when they tell you what they are experiencing. You may not see it or understand it but listening is important,
Be reflective and consider our role as part of the system. Are we building people up, tearing them down or, most probably, perpetuating a system because ‘it’s always been like that’ and it suits us just fine? It may be difficult to speak to your own communities and challenge perceived wisdoms but only by doing this can we move the conversation forward,
Consider the reasons why some people may not be pleased with having certain figures from the colonial past praised and exalted. When applications for altering plaques to be more honest and requests for removal to a museum come, don’t think of it as erasing history but rather re-contextualising and providing a more nuanced look at history. Don’t worry, no-one is going to remove Churchill’s statue, he is a war hero and even though he made some dubious policy decisions (including one that led to millions of Bengal Indian losing their lives due to a famine as a consequence of his policies) and had some morally questionable opinions (he had some interesting views on the hierarchy of race) he deserves his place in the pantheon of British legend,
If you are in a position of power, influence or privilege use that position to amplify the voices of the Black Lives Matter movement,
Join movements, organisation and protests that you feel best share your vision and help out. Being seen and heard does have real-life consequences, no-matter what the naysayers may claim. It was only after Colston’s statue fell that the conversation around education and telling the more nuanced ‘truth’ about history came into focus, however this is not to say that breaking stuff will help carry your argument forward as often it will only alienate people from you and may confuse your message.

I'm a kitchen sink thinker in that I'm not the most educated, profound, insightful or deepest guy out there but I'm willing to reflect on my background and privileges I've had to consider my position in the world today. I'm just doing the best I can given my circumstances and hope to provide for my daughters and give them a better world than the one I emerged in. I believe the Black Lives Matter movement is a part of that and irrespective of a few groups trying to derail it through violence, the central message is of peace, growth and transcendence. I believe that people of all colours must come together as there is an intersectionality where the betterment of the state of the world is for the benefit of everyone and not just the few. Boomers, Gen X, Millenials, Gen Z or however people choose to classify themselves (or are labelled) need to come together to push for real-world change. Gen Z are vocal but may not necessarily be in positions of power, Gen X and Millennials have struggled with some tough anchor points but need to put into practice all the forwarding and thumbs-upping they do on Facebook and Boomers may be in positions where they can actualise real change but need to get on with it. Only by working as a societal Voltron can things get better in my opinion, so let’s all form to create something awesome and build a better future.