Not Seeing The Same Things

It gets tiring sometimes. I began writing this at three in the morning. It might meander in places and seem emotive. It is an emotive time, a troubled time. There are stereotypes and expectations. There is reason and rhetoric. Most of all there is emotion, a lot of emotion. Black lives matter…as well is the appendage some seem to need to hear. For some, the eyes are rolling at seeing that three-word mantra. All lives matter don’t they? They do. They absolutely do but not all lives are equal. It is not always easy to explain or articulate racism.

If it is overt, it’s easy. An insult or an attack is a definitive thing, something one can point to and say this is unacceptable because of. It is the subtle things that are more difficult to explain, to highlight. The looks, the body language of others, the unconscious prejudices rooted in stereotypes, these things are difficult to articulate in a way that allows understanding and/or credibility.

It is akin to be in a relationship with someone you do not quite trust. You know or suspect they are doing something wrong or seeing someone else, yet they use your doubt against you, telling you that you are paranoid or making stuff up. If you do actually catch them in a lie, they turn it around and blame your paranoia. There is no winning.

This is the life of a black person. That may seem like a ridiculous statement. Let me explain. There are stereotypes that follow black people around. The angry, aggressive black man is one, as is the angry black woman. There is also the perpetuation of those who do not display those traits of being ‘alright, no trouble”, an implicit subservience.

The fact that a person, a black person, could be appropriately angry does not matter. A flash of anger, raising of the voice, is seen as aggression. Think about that. Nobody thinks of their white colleague as aggressive if he/she raises his/her voice. They are having a bad day or they are moody. A different perception.

Here in the UK, where there is a misguided belief that the racism is not as bad as Stateside, there are red flags that we see as black people, that others feel are progressive. A black family joining a long-running soap, even though the characters were obviously written by white writers, was seen as newsworthy. It should not have been.

Every time there is a notion of a change of actor for the role of Bond, there are countless, pointless, column inches about the possibility of the character becoming a black man. This all seems quite progressive, a British character, that has always been white, being played by a black man? Wouldn’t that be brilliant? No.

Interestingly, the Bond franchise is owned by an American producer and has been for decades. A more relevant British character that is prone to change and is a wholly British product is Doctor Who. Doctor Who is a character that has been played by multiple actors since the sixties. It has always been played by a white man until recently when the decision to have a woman play the character for the first time was heralded as some sort of watershed.

Doctor Who is a character created for television with the defining characteristic of being reborn in a different form. It is actually built into the scope of the premise to include an actor of any hue in the role, yet the actor has always been white.

There is a lot of tokenism but it is almost ‘just enough’. There is and has always been a paucity of black shows and films in British media and black music has been taken over by the white masses over here, to the point that the former MOBO - music of black origin - awards have become a farce in the last few years awarding the likes of Sam Smith.

There are very few black restaurants even though black people have been on these shores for centuries. Caribbean food, a staple of many West Indian households and not vastly different between the islands is given such little credence in society that Jamie Oliver felt embolden enough to invent a Caribbean dish - Jerk rice - that does not even exist. He could have just asked somebody. A black person perhaps.

The music matters. There is an expectation that one will know certain artists; Rolling Stones, U2, Elton John, Queen, Abba, David Bowie. If you are of a certain age, black, white or other, one would expect that you know these artists. The likes of Take That, Wham, New Kids on the Block, Britney even Taylor Swift, are well known. White artist who fame cover every decade from the sixties to modern-day.

Everybody has heard of Michael Jackson, Stevie Wonder, Bob Marley and probably Diana Ross but the likes of Luther Vandross, Maze, David Joseph, Dennis Brown, New Edition, En Vogue, Mica Paris and Dave, unless one is into music, probably not. Black artist who inform and continue to inform our history.

A friend of mine wrote a book some years ago, a book of poetry. I am not a great fan of poetry but I bought the book because that is what friends do and I wanted to support him. Similarly, another friend release a music track and I purchased that in support. Both friends are black. That is not to say I wouldn’t do that for a white friend, I would and I have, but for myself, the anger is temporary and difficult to maintain. Yes it flares up and the blood pressure rises with indignation but it does not help anything. It does not help move the needle one way or the other. When the anger dies down and the protests have passed and the world returns to normal, what will change?

That is not to say that protest is pointless, not at all, this article would not exist without current events. There are small things that we can do for ourselves as black people. One of the main ones is to support one another’s businesses. Not just the hair shops and barbers or the deejays who get you free entry to clubs, but those who create and produce products and things.

Every business has to start somewhere and every business needs customers. Our money is good enough for Apple, Samsung, Gap, Nike, Adidas and any numbers of well-known brands and one can keep shopping with those brands and others - except on July 7th 2020 - but also try and find black creators, try and support black business. It is the foundation for the future and only we can build it.