This weeks photographs were taken at the recent celebration on All Saints Road to honour the Mangrove Restaurant. It was a hub for black activism led by Frank Critchlow from the late 60s. They were repeatedly raided by the police searching for drugs but nothing was ever found, so they eventually planted evidence. Critchlow was sent to prison, for which he was later exonerated and received compensation for false imprisonment and battery and secured an early release but by the time he came back the restaurant had all but folded and the movement had suffered from his absence. The police had systematically been trying to undermine the black community and they succeeded.
The Windrush generation were invited over to Britain to work as so much needed rebuilding after the war and they came over only to find that a lot of people didn’t want them there and they were, for the most part, treated terribly by British citizens, its establishments and the constabulary. They should have been welcomed but they weren’t. Instead they were harassed and abused and attacked and made to feel anything but welcome. These first wave immigrants were suitably confused by this mixed message from the heart of their Commonwealth. They were told they were needed but once they were here they were told they weren’t wanted.
The people of Britain should have been explained before they arrived by the leaders of the day that it was beneficial to this country to have them here and consequently we should be nice to them, they are our guest, give them hospitality not hostility. Sadly that speech was never given, the message never sent. And so without guidance from the Top, a fear of ‘the other’ emerged which then manifested into aggression. They should have been protected by the Government that brought them here but they were left alone to deal with the hostility driven by small island mentality. They were left out to dry but if our representatives had only instructed everyone that these new additions to our country should be treated with the same respect as everyone else it might have been a very different story.
It was Black History Month this October and even though this is the story of the black community in the U.K it is the same for all immigrants wherever they come from and wherever they go. And, as you can see by the way other immigrant communities are being treated here and all over the world it is still happening. We need to pay attention to the past and to stop repeating the same mistakes so that communities that come over can integrate better and the public need to be informed so there is less animosity towards the new residents but that clearly still isn’t happening. Although there has been massive improvements over the decades you can tell by the rise in hate crimes towards minorities and the blacklivesmatter movement in the U.S that we still have a long way to go.
In Dr Who’s recent episode about Rosa Parks it actually does a great job of showing how much progress there has been as a young black man from modern Britain has to deal with abuse and contempt in 60s Alabama but it has taken two full generations to reach a point where they are just treated normally rather than as 2nd class citizens and still it is not a level playing field for so many. And modern America, under Trump, now seems to be regressing, not evolving in its racial tolerance. And that is because the message from the top down is fuelling this irrational hatred and driving division amongst the races. He has single handedly exacerbated racial tension in his country and you are now starting to see the ramifications with the Pittsburg shooting and the re-emergence of white supremacists.
In this country, racism has also been given a green light by Brexit as people are being led by its message of ‘we don’t want you here’ and they are running with it and using it to stoke their resentment at what they think is the problem in their country. Why do they think immigrants are the problem? Because right wing tabloids such as the Daily Mail are constantly telling them they are the problem.
And now we are witnessing the return of the far right across the whole globe. We have just seen Brazil reaching for the facist hand to pull them out of their quagmire which is beyond depressing and utterly scary. In Europe we have seen it happen in France, Hungary, Austria, even Scandinavia as Islamaphobia takes grip in all of these societies. And now Germany, a country that knows only too well how this all ends is also visibly lurching to the righ, directly because of Merkel’s open invitation to the Syrian refugees. Many of the indigenous German population felt these foreigners were thrust upon them and they were not given a choice and so now want them gone.
A large demographic in all of these countries, including here, want a return to racial puritanism but truth is, they can want it all they like because unless they can get hold of a time machine they aint ever gonna see it. Single race countries are a thing of the past. Despite a desire to return to our tribalist nature, we have come too far to go back. Those that want to turn around don’t realise that path is no longer available. The past is the past, we must look to the future and to not allow things to go backwards within our societies. You really have two options..get on the hate train or the love boat. Your choice. Its pretty fucking obvious which is the way forward for this species but we clearly haven’t learnt a thing. We are still just dumb scared animals.
