When I was a boy things were decidedly different in this country, it was a time of change and upheaval. Britain had emerged from WWII poorer, Empireless and weak and for those that had grown up in the most powerful nation on earth, this was quite a shocking change.

For most the Empire was an abstract concept, they knew it existed, they also knew that it belonged to Britain, but for most the peoples of the Empire were conquered peoples, subjugated and in many cases deemed to be savage or primitive. It was quite a shock then during this time of change, for the former peoples of the Empire to arrive in Britain and to live and work amongst them.

One only needs look at Enoch Powell and his contemporaries to see the sort of effect this had on people, the fear, the xenophobia and the feelings of helplessness. I understand much better than I did at the time the motivations for the behaviour of some of the white people in Britain during my youth, it wasn’t anything personal, it wasn’t even really directed at my race but it was an underlying fear of the unknown.

Ironically this continues today and even more ironically, despite being from a family of immigrants, I am no more pro immigration than perhaps the Britons of my youth were and this may be the same for many second or third generation immigrants (see video below), but I digress.

In my youth I stood out quite a bit, particularly in the early days and like many families we moved into an area that was predominantly white. I was teased both in the street and at school by other children, sometimes also adults.

I was called many names, piccaninny, wog, sambo, negro, nig nog, coon, jungle bunny, and of course nigger. Despite being the most well known, at least amongst whites, I was seldom referred to as a nigger. I was much more likely to be called wog, sambo, coon or my personal favourite nig nog (such a silly phrase that requires an equally silly facial expression to deliver it properly!). Of course as a boy these words weren’t that important, it was the way that they delivered that was hurtful.

Like many from the era I faced the daunting daily prospect of being the only coloured boy (as we were then known) in any given situation. Walking into Mr Archer’s shop or the Butcher’s with my mum and joining the queue waiting for someone to make a remark. Some days it was just dirty looks, some days it was shaken heads and tuts, other days it would be an insult. Sometimes people would look away embarrassed when I was taunted, other times I was stared at, as if they were daring me or my mother to respond.

Of course this sounds far worse than it really was, I was lucky, I was very young during the worst of it and never the victim of physical abuse or even really hatred, just petty name calling which, whilst upsetting, was much better than some of my friends and relatives suffered. Over time this overt hostility (I don’t want to say racism for reasons that I will come to later) became covert hostility over the years until it eventually petered out, I honestly can’t remember the last time that I felt I was discriminated against, even covertly.

I don’t think the people calling me coon or wog were racist, I did at the time but even just a few years later I knew that they were not. Why? Because I heard my parents using similar derogatory terms about the next crop of immigrants and I knew then, as now, that my parents were not racist.

The clip below is something that I remember well and I think it demonstrates two things very cleverly. The first is Mr Alf Garnett, he typified a certain bred of men (and women) at the time, probably a lot earlier than this was set, who had real difficulty coping with the turnaround in British fortunes. I don’t believe it was their fault, more down to ignorance and a stubborn refusal to acknowledge that things had changed, exemplified in his remarks about the ’sambo’ nearly 150 years after slavery had ended. It is amusing because of his remarks and also the absurdity of his remarks, but people like him did exist, and they did think that way.

The other is of course the attitude of the black man toward the new generation of immigrants, a surprisingly typical view at the time.

This of course (eventually!) leads me to my point. As someone who experienced those turbulent early days of immigration in Britain, whose family and friends did face racism and hatred on a daily basis, I find it very annoying when someone like Naomi Campbell trivialises it all by using her race to win an argument or worse, receive special treatment.

Naomi Campbell was picked as a supermodel at an early age and incredibly even at 38 is still one of the world’s top supermodels. She’s been at the top of her career since it started, her looks and her colour have earnt her millions. To even attempt to place herself as a victim of anything is actually quite offensive, let alone to be the poor victim of racism.

She claimed that she was treated differently because of her race, whining;

You are a racist, you would not be doing this if I was white.
It’s because I’m a black woman, you are all racist, I’m going to sue you, I’m going to f*** you.
You bitch, I want my luggage – it’s because I’m black and famous.

Racism is a word that is bandied around a lot today and it makes me cringe when I hear a black person claiming racism, I am sure that there are some people who are the victims are racism, but many who use the term who are not. It seems an automatic response for some people that if they are black (or brown), and the other person is white (or brown) and not giving into their demands, it is down to racism.

True racism is a terrible thing and should not be trivialized in this manner, or used as a stick to beat innocent people with. It is not a joke term, or an accusation that can be levelled and then taken back. It sticks. Using it as a failsafe discussion winner takes away from true victims of racism, rather than those who are just the victims of circumstance.

Campbell’s shocking outburst is a classic example of this, crying racism over a lost bag, as if they had singled her bag out purely because she was black. The cabin crew and the passengers may well have disliked her, but this was far more likely have been due to her manner, than her colour.

She also then claimed in court that a member of the BA cabin crew called her ‘a golliwog supermodel,’ which I find quite surprising as it isn’t really the most popular racism term used today. Oddly, no one else has come forward saying they heard it too. I am sure that this is just an attempt to excuse her despicable behaviour and her claims of discrimination. Such words are so taboo these days that I find it hard to believe someone would have said that, or that none of the bystanders would have come forward and confirmed it.

Then again perhaps as she was blaming racism so much that someone decided to provide her with justification. Had I been on that flight I would have had a few choice words with her at the very mention of her being treated differently because of her race. Such flippant remarks and accusations make it harder for the true victims of racism to prove their case and belittle what people went through just a generation ago.

If she’s made it up then she’s also spread a malicious lie about BA, one that, due to the nature of the accusation, they will probably be unwillingly to take her to court over.

After a long absence it seems that I am picking up right where I left off, another black celebrity bemoaning the lack of black faces in the media. This time however it is US director, Spike Lee who said of Eastwood’s film Flags of our Fathers;

That was his version. The Negro version did not exist

An extremely pointless and unhelpful comment but one that seems to pervade the mentality of many leading black celebrities. As if every historical event should be based on today’s ethnic make up, rather than reality.

Eastwood retorted:

The story is Flags of Our Fathers, the famous flag-raising picture, and they didn’t do that. It’s not accurate.

Quite right, adding black faces to a historical event would be implying that we need to be represented to make us feel better, or even implying that we do not have enough famous historical events of our own to be proud of, therefore we must muscle in on those of others. Not to mention the disrespect to the one who is replaced. How would the family of Mr Smith (I don’t know the names of the men involved) feel if he were replaced by a negro in all future representations of this iconic image? Pretty pissed off I imagine.

This attitude is becoming quite worrying, where certain leading black figures seem to feel unwanted, unappreciated or disrespected if they do not see a black face in everything that they view.

I haven’t seen many of Mr Lee’s film, but those that I have seen did appear to be quite light on white faces. Even though 80% of America is white. Clearly this compulsion to balance things out doesn’t extend the other way.

I find this kind of view of the world disturbing, particularly in light of past events; as if being equal isn’t enough, now we have to appear equal in all aspects, regardless of the fact that in the West, blacks are a minority. I don’t live in a black nation, nor does Mr Lee. I have accepted that, clearly Mr Lee has not.

After basically accusing Clint Eastwood of being racist, you can understand why he told Spike to shut his face and said that his film Bird featured a 90% black cast and his upcoming film about South Africa will not feature a white Mandela! Very smoothly handled by Eastwood who must have been extremely insulted by being smeared racist.

I am sure that Mr Lee’s voice carries a lot of weight amongst the black community in the US and now, thanks to his ill thought out comments, many blacks will be trying to spot the black face in Eastwood’s movies, or worse, forever view him as being racist.

A shame really, as the one of the pair who is undeniably a racist is Spike Lee, although I doubt that you’ll ever hear anyone call him that. He seems to be of the view that racist is a noun that only applies to white people. Just take some of his comments as an example;

The most overrated player of all time, I would say it’d be Larry Bird. Now, Larry Bird is one of the greatest players of all time, but listen to the white media, it’s like this guy was like nobody ever played basketball before him

I don’t know a lot about basketball, but I do know that Larry Bird is white and certainly the only white player that I have ever heard of. Just the tone and words he uses is clear enough to me to be from racist ‘white media’, the media is the media, giving it a colour again implies some sort of unfairness.

Basketball is a black dominated sport and maybe there are better black players, however taking away the achievements of a player, purely because of his race, and thus robbing a race of a hero is shocking and would not be countenanced were it a white person making the statement.

Imagine if a white person were to say;

The most overrated player of all time, I would say it’d be Tiger Woods. Now, Tiger Woods is one of the greatest players of all time, but listen to the black media, it’s like this guy was like nobody ever played golf before him

For me there is no difference between the statements.

Lee’s ignorance is also quite shocking, he accused Eastwood of making two films about Iwo Jima with neither of them featuring blacks, the military, like everything else in the US was segregated during WWII, there weren’t any black soldiers mixed in with the white soldiers. Moreover Eastwood’s film did contain black soldiers, clearly Lee hadn’t bothered to watch them.

Spike Lee’s film about the Miracle at St Anna has apparently upset the survivors and the relatives of the victims, although I cannot find any information pertaining to the reason for the upset, I really hope he hasn’t just added black people to the events purely for the sake of it.

Nottingham has in recent years become almost as famous for its crime rate than for its legendary son, Robin Hood. Nicknames such as Assasination City and Shootingham say it all really, so I wasn’t too surprised to hear of boys from a Nottingham school being excluded for bringing in a knife.

That was until I read that they were primary school children.

Three boys have been excluded for seven days and a 10-year-old boy they allegedly threatened has been told to stay away for three days.

A vegetable knife was found in the bag of the 10-year-old who attends St Ann’s Well Junior School, Nottingham.

Knife crime and gun crime are becoming serious problems within the black community. It is no surprise that Manchester, London, Birmingham and Nottingham have the highest rates of gun and knife crime in England. It is also no surprise that London, Birmingham, Manchester and Nottingham have the highest percentages of black/mixed races inhabitants.

The question is why? In my youth we never had any of of this gun or knife culture in our community, so where has it come from? Unfortunately I can only point the finger in one direction, the United States.

But lets not get ahead of ourselves, this is not he fault of the US, but rather a fault with our own education system. Ask a young negro today who my namesake was and they’ll stare at you bemused. Ask them when slavery was abolished and they’ll either not know or hazard a guess at 1863, which is spot on, in America.

And therein lies the problem. Children in the UK in general and especially black children have nothing to relate to in regards to British history as it is rarely taught. The world wars are covered, perhaps a little about Henry VIII but chiefly it is US history that is taught. Everything from the pilgrim fathers, through to the plains Indians, civil war, slavery and the civil rights movement.

Perhaps in some misguided attempt to avoid offending children, or their parents, the single most important event for multicultural Britain is glossed over. The British Empire. Slavery and more importantly their emancipation is likewise glossed over.

This leads to a disconnection of all children, at the moment English people, notably white English people are struggling with their identity, or indeed questioning if they actually have one. Others such as Muslims, are turning to their religion and the culture of their far off homeland for their identity. Young blacks are turning to the US.

Ask a young black person in Britain to name some of their political heroes, and you would likely receive a string of rappers, or if you were lucky names like Malcolm X or Martin Luther King. Young black people in Britain see black US culture as their own, assume that the violent and in some cases on going struggle is likewise their own. Words like ‘oppression’ and ’struggle’ and probably ‘civil rights’ would be at the forefront of their thoughts. And sadly they would miss so much of what of what being a black Britain is about, people that they should be proud of are being forgotten.

Growing up I had plenty of black heroes, foremost of course was Ignatius Sancho. Sancho was the first Negro to vote in a general election, not just in Britain, but in the Western world. He cast his first vote way back in 1774, two years before the United States declared their independence. In England anyone who owned property was entitled to vote, regardless of colour.

Sancho did much to dispel the myth that Negroes were stupid, inferior and could not be educated in the same way as white people. He was self educated, highly literate and articulate and was quite literally living proof of the immorality of the slave trade. He wrote letters to newspapers criticising slavery and the slave trade, sometimes using the name ‘Africanus’.

All very noble and laudable of course, but what really interested me as a young boy was what he got up to. He was something of a playboy and slept with many of high society’s white women! Clearly the taboos weren’t as clear cut back then as we are today led to believe. When, as a boy, I read about his exploits, I was shocked, even though it was two hundred years later, but it did put a mischievous grin on my face!

Ignatius Sancho truly was extraordinary and paved the way for the abolition of slavery and equality.

Without discourse in schools about where we have come from we cannot move forward, worse, knowledge of the history of another nation but none of their own, gives young blacks today the wrong impression of what it means to be a Black Briton.

Rather than learning about Abraham Lincoln and the abolition of slavery in the US, British children (and not just blacks) should learn about the likes of Ignatius Sancho, Olaudah Equiano and William Wilberforce.

It is also worth pointing out that Britain abolished the slave trade, despite the fact that it was extremely lucrative, because it was wrong. No war was fought, no riots, just reasoned argument in Parliament, with William Wilberforce championing the abolitionists. The fact that this was even possible was a testament to Britain and British people.

Another example is Enoch Powell. Whilst blacks in America were fighting for their civil rights, Enoch Powell delivered his Rivers of Blood speech, a speech that ended his career. He was sacked from the Government the next day and forever branded a racist by the people of Britain.

The history of black Britain doesn’t have the same violence and anger as that of black Americans. Until recently there was no gang culture amongst British Blacks, no need to carry guns and knives for protection. Unfortunately as the education system was unable to offer role models, history and culture, black youths have turned to US films and TV.

Likewise the white youth, bereft of both history and culture are also following suit.