Black History Month may have drawn to a close, but the questions it raises remain as relevant as ever. How much progress have we really made? What can history teach us about the racism we see today? And what will it take to create a different future?
These were among the questions explored when BRIG’s Lorna Shaw and Jagwant Johal joined Dr Peter Rookes on Unity FM’s Connecting Communities Programme.
Here are some edited extracts from a conversation that moved between past, present and future, exploring both the progress made and the challenges that remain.
The historical context:
The first Black History Month in the UK was in 1987.
Lorna: “Black History Month became part of the celebration of we're here, and we've made contributions to social, economic, cultural life. It’s about our shared understanding of history.
What we know is some histories are not necessarily recognised, validated or shared and understood. And there's an opportunity then for Black History Month to do some of that, so that we get that history woven into what we learn around the experiences of the communities.
While some people would argue that a month isn't long enough to recognise and celebrate, nevertheless, it was seen as a really significant opportunity to talk, to teach, to celebrate the contribution that Black people have made and how Black people have helped shape Britain in so many ways - through industry, the NHS, education, culture, politics and community lives. So it was really part of that recognition of what contribution communities have made and the struggles they've been involved in – which had often been overlooked as well.”
Looking back to look forward:
Jagwant: “In order to make progress, we have to take the old African saying – Sankofa - that we have ‘to look back to look forward’.
We have to learn the lessons of the past in the present to make a difference to the future.
So when we started Black History Month here in Birmingham, we had a simple equation, which was: past + present = future.”
Almost 40 years on from BHM in the UK, what’s changed?
Jagwant: “There has been progress, and there's no doubt about that. But the embers of colonialism and the racism that breeds through a notion of white privilege allow institutional racism to continue to embed itself and impact our lives.
So there’s a perpetual loop; that loop metamorphoses itself, depending on the sort of circumstances that it defines itself in.
We've obviously had what we thought we'd left in the past of the 1970s- far-right organisations donning themselves in the respectability of political parties, pushing out the same sort of messages. We've had the rise of Reform, Raise the Colours, the Restore Party. Mainstream politics has been inundated and emboldened by racist attitudes.
So I would say, and some of our parents’ generation are saying, it is much worse now than it was then, because then you could actually see the racists coming. Now they are cloaked in respectability.
Here is that continued old frame of scapegoating, not actually looking at why these problems exist in our society, but blaming the other.
How many hoops do we have to actually jump through before proving our achievements?
Young people today don't experience racism until they actually experience it.
And a lot of people probably don't know how to deal with it - when they're actually faced with that abrupt experience, made to feel less than, and their legitimacy to exist is being questioned. That’s also because we do not teach these subjects.”
The economics of racism:
Lorna: “So what we've seen over the course of the years is that as there's a need to shift capitalism, as economic shifts happen, racism also shifts - changes, contours and shapes.
So in the 1980s, what we saw was a shift away from biological racism to cultural racism, the idea that ‘alien countercultures were coming in and undermining the British way of life.’ That was in the specific context of the decline of traditional industries. There was a need to find a way to make sense of and argue for what's going on. And I think the same is happening today. So I think it's important to see that the relationship between the two is quite key.
If you had the Prime Minister or the Leader of the Opposition here – what would you say to them?
Lorna: “There's a phrase in our community: not all skin folk are kin folk. So we need to be very clear about who is on our side, as it were, and who sees the world through our eyes and our experiences.
So what would I say to Kemi Badenoch and Andy Burnham? We've made enormous progress. We shouldn't overlook that, and we should celebrate that. But we know that someone's ethnicity, race, can still influence their opportunities, their treatment and their life chances.
I'd want both of them, and certainly Kemi in particular, to be really careful about the language they use to describe what's going on in this country.
Leadership demands that we deal with the difficult issues, and I think too often political leaders take the easy way out.
They have enormous power to bring people together, but they also seem to deepen fear, mistrust and division, and I'd say communities don't need more promises or another round of consultation where nothing seems to change. We want to see action, accountability and a genuine willingness to see change happen.
I think here in Birmingham - Jagwant has talked about becoming a world-leading anti-racist city by 2035 - that is a really positive step in the right direction. We are going to be working with key leaders, institutions and our communities to move that forward. And some of that will demand some significant shifts in power and for people to be held accountable by communities.
Edited extracts from a radio interview on Unity FM’s Connecting Communities programme.