Saris, Samosas & Steelbands-Happy Smiling Faces!

Some say I live in the past….and perhaps I do!

Nonetheless I grew up in a time when the expression of unadulterated Black culture was at its height. Black was Beautiful and so were we. I grew up as a teenager when the civil rights movement in America was showcasing its pride in its own culture and was internationally influential….. and the music was great!. This was characterised in what was loosely called the Black Power movement. Black was a political expression and was a symbol of non-acceptance of the status quo and a resistance to hundreds of years of violent racism and the one-drop rule was the qualification for Blackness.

Key figures like Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, Stokely Carmichael, Rosa Parkes and Angela Davis gave many of us inspiration and were saying and doing the things that some of us were too frightened to even think about. Let’s not forget that as Black people we had been traumatised by years of colonisation aided and abetted by a corrupt and misinformed education system that denied our worth and erased our glorious histories. The consequence of that was that was that we started to believe all the stereotypes about who we were supposed to be. Always characterised as astonishing athletes, great musicians, good dancers and always smiling no matter what our situation was, little appreciating that we were denied recognition of other qualities that threatened the fields carved out for White people. Of course, some individuals were let through, but they were seen as exceptions to the rule and were held up as examples of the liberal mindedness of the status quo.

Back in the day there was a recognition of key moments in the UK that we would always remember and commemorate such as Stephen Lawrence Day, The New Cross murders, Race Relations Acts, The Mangrove 9, and many others. However, many of us have become complacent and comfortable with what we think that we have achieved. We refuse to recognise racism in the workplace, racism in the criminal justice system and racism in the health services and are seduced by the fact that they have let us in and many of those system have Black & Brown faces….. and the façade of inclusion lives on. Also many of us have benefitted by the small scraps that we have been allowed to consume.

Tragically many of the systems to identify and respond to racism have been dismantled and sadly we as Black people in our desire to be accepted and integrated choose silence lest we be accused of being troublemakers and the only time our consciousness is piqued is when it directly affects us personally and the quote from Pastor Niemoller rings even more loudly now than ever before:

“Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.”

Let us not forget that there was a time when society’s attempt to diffuse civil rights actions was to resort to the tactics of celebrating difference without responding to inequality and use those optics to demonstrate that despite our difficulties, we were happy smiling people and the era of “Saris, Samosas and Steel bands “ was born. The more recent arrival of Black migrants has accelerated this programme and is not dissimilar to the practices of Caribbean migrants in their earlier days…remember Lord Kitchener! Dashikis once an indication of rebelliousness and consciousness are a long way from what they once represented!

Yes, I have no problem with the sharing of our different cultures, but I strongly feel that without reference to issues of Equality it distracts from serious issues of Racism that are experienced by Black people and in particular Black people from migrant communities whether they see themselves as Black or not. The trouble is that White liberal organizations, yes, the ones on our side, are more than happy to collaborate with the notion of Saris Samosas & Steel Bands as they are non-threatening and neutered by the absence of any political message that may not accord with those who are responsible for their existence.

So do we carry on laughing, smiling, and fulfilling that well worn stereotype or do we challenge the way things are. Clearly this may threaten the security of the place that we have found for ourselves but let us not delude ourselves as we will be choosing to purposefully ignore the real truths of racism that still exist and our refusal to acknowledge that is the oxygen that serves its continuation.

Don John

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