14
votes
Black and British...and a world apart
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- Title
- This Is Not America by Tomiwa Owolade review - black and British... and a world apart
- Authors
- Colin Grant
- Published
- Jun 26 2023
- Word count
- 945 words
This line is somewhat ironic: “Britain’s problems with race pale beside the awful day-to-day enmity in the US.” The book is primarily about not comparing the two, and the reviewer immediately feels the need to do so.
I started to include a reply about issues I’ve seen from Blak people in Australia having their discussions viewed through an American lense but I actually don’t feel qualified to speak on their behalf. Suffice to say that it isn’t only a UK problem, and I think this is a result of Americans being the “loudest” (ie most numerous group) online. I’d be interested to read how things have shifted in this regard from pre-internet times to today
He argues that the country's problems are distinct from those in the U.S. and should be understood from a British perspective, so to make the argument, some amount of comparison is necessary.
I've never heard that term. You mean African Australians? Or Indigenous Australians?
What he’s actually saying is that race problems are not as bad as in the US which feels unnecessary in this discussion.
Blak refers to indigenous Australians (although of course they aren’t a monolith and not everyone uses this spelling). As I understand it the spelling difference started out as a way to reclaim the word, and is now also used to encompass those indigenous people who identify strongly with their roots no matter what colour their skin looks. You might also see Blakfella or Blakfulla (or either of those with the c in black).
I'm curious how much people in Britain weight race versus ethnic categories in comparison to the US. I've always found America's obsession with racial categories, between both liberals and conservatives, pretty strange and phrases like "race relations" (like they're different countries or "oil and water") kind of gross. Since Britain is closer to various European, African, Middle Eastern countries and interacts with them more, I would imagine that your specific country of origin would be considered relatively more relevant.
Yes I'd love to hear from some Brits.
I studied there for four years but sort of got coded as middle class among my mainly white fellow students so race didn't come into it much. I'm sure nonwhite Brits would have much more varied experiences navigating Britain's race/class markers.
Well, Brit POC here (mixed white british and Indian, not black).
We (brits) are generally way more class prejudiced than colour prejudiced.
And more likely to make judgement’s based on perceived social class than race.
Among the younger generation (<40) people are overwhelmingly fine with all races and racism isn’t really tolerated today. (Although contrasting with the likelihood to have more extreme minority views because of radicalised social media).
I have been the racially abused in the past during my school years. In a professional setting not to my knowledge or to my face.
Racism in the UK is generally less overt in my experience.
People aren’t (as often) calling each other slurs in the street.
More likely it’s starting in education and extending to employment opportunities.
Non white students are less likely to be perceived as academic and ethnic sounding names are passed over during hiring.
In early careers POC’s are less likely to be promoted to positions of actual power.
My experience in industry is still that POC’s can go pretty far as individual contributors doing technical work, but are less likely to have leadership positions and especially at C-suite and board level are not seen as often.
A lot of the disadvantages start in early stages as a result of wealth inequality.
POC are more likely to live in poorer areas, council estates etc. and go to worse schools.
There has been a trend in the last decade+ where social mobility has been discarded, justified by the fallout of 2008 and austerity policies by the Tory government that has hit everyone although the poorest and POC have been hit the hardest.
Academically, poor POC’s and young white boys from the poorer areas of the north of England have been allowed to slip through the net with no education or training.
As a Singaporean Indian, I found this review quite interesting in how it raises the issue of POC issues internationally often being filtered through an American lens.
The book and the review deal with the black British experience but I can think of similar situations from the Asian perspective.
Crazy Rich Asians, for example, was feted as an achievement for Asians in Hollywood but ironically it was a largely (East) Asian-American cast portraying a very specific Singaporean demographic (and relegating other Singaporean ethnicities to barely visible roles, but I gather that's a fault of the original text).