Colour Class Culture

October is Black History Month.

In that context two interesting TV films, both shown on BBC, have looked at the place of black people in society today. In America Beyond The Colour Line Prof Henry Louis Gates Jr, chair of Afro-American Studies at Harvard travelled across the US

to meet the people who are defining black America, from the most famous and influential - Colin Powell, Jesse Jackson, Russell Simmons, Stevie Wonder, Chris Tucker, Alicia Keys, Maya Angelou, Morgan Freeman, Samuel L. Jackson - to those at the grassroots.

In his final film Gates looked at the way in which middle class black families have begun to move back to the South, but are still choosing to live in black communities.

This separation of the communities was also the theme of a film by Adrian Chiles on BBC2 yesterday (20/08/03).

Chiles sees himself as a fairly right-on, liberal kind of guy, but he has never thought about the colour of the company he keeps. On a trip through Liverpool, London and his home town of Birmingham with an all black crew and a black producer, Adrian finds himself in a racial no-man's-land, bickering with the producer and suddenly lost for words.

Like any middle-class white liberal Chiles was uncomfortable with the idea of social separation based on skin colour (while recognising that his friendship circle was almost entirely white) and had difficulty reconciling his integrationist views with what happens in practice. He visited for example a coach company based in Handsworth Birmingham owned and operated by Asians for Asians and two nurseries in London which despite facing each other on the same street were almost entirely segregated.

The question which he asked is important - why is such self segregation seen as acceptable for Black and Asian communities but not for white ones? He found great difficulty in getting any white people to actually talk about the issue, whereas in the words of one black woman in his film, the black community is much more robust about it.

The pat answer is that issues around 'white culture' have been hi-jacked by the far right, making it difficult for the liberal white to even ask what it means. Gary Younge of the Guardian suggested that events like the MOBO awards are in part defensive - white institutions are almost by default the national ones - Parliament, the boardroom etc.

I still have problems with the idea of black (or white) culture however - West African, Barbadian, English, Indian I can understand since these are based on physical community. The idea of a black culture is somehow different - it exists, but has been created as Gary Younge said as a defensive measure. Black or asian people should not be made to live in introverted communities - that would clearly be racist - but why should they want to - at least to the extent to which it is happening in Handsworth and Southall?

OK - I admit it - I'm confused. Somone help me please.

Comments

[denny]

confused? you're not alone. i have no idea. what might be interesting is to create a to read list of essays, books, and sites that are exploring these questions.

i'm in memphis, tn which is roughly 50/50 white and black with a very quickly growing hispanic community. also a growing indian community, ethiopian... the list goes on. my community ranges from the radical left (anarchists, punk rock, artists) to left liberals/progressives. the kind of crowd that want to confront racism, class, war... but it is almost completely white. why? i don't know. it's been the subject of conversation many times.

i will say this though. one recent development we've had is the shared space operation of a historically white food co-op and a historically black natural foods deli. the two started sharing a space in february and it's been interesting to see the two different communities meet-up and begin to mingle. who knows where it will lead. i think what's important is that there are shared political and health interests... a common ground which are shared within this new public space... an opportunity for us to crossover boundries. we'll see what happens.

it's a process with so many cultural and historical variables that's difficult to understand. anyway, yeah, i'm confused too.

- I like the idea of a read list based on the issue - I'm probably going to create lsits for other topics too.

Thanks for the comments