IN THE
UNION JACK
TEXT
PAUL GILROY
SUMMARY
THERE AIN’T NO BLACK
ISSUE 2
There Ain’t No Black in the Union Jack THE WHISPER WAKES, THE SHUDDER PLAYS P41-83. JULY 2020
Foreword
Paul Gilroy’s ‘There Ain’t No Black in the Union Jack’ is a seminal critique of British politics and exploration of anti-black racism.
With the current climate, there is a lot of talk about required reading and self education on the topic of race. It is with that in mind that I present my notes from grappling with Gilroy’s book. It is important to recognise that it is common to feel alienated by academic texts, often resulting in abandoning the content all together. This summary will hopefully act as a companion to the original book in hopes of making the content more accessible for those who would otherwise not be able to read it.
Reasoning and possible applications: •
To provide a summary for those unable to read the book (for those with time constraints/ that struggle reading)
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To add to a wealth of online content for self-education and offer a free, easily accessible place for Gilroy’s core ideas to be explored (for those with limited access to the original book)
•
My notes could act as a supplement to have on hand while tackling the book itself (for those currently reading)
•
This content could act as a resource to refer back to after reading the book to locate critical points quickly (to serve as a refresher to those that have read the content before)
Please note: The notes published are my attempt at a focussed reiteration of Gilroy’s core points. None of the text following includes any personal opinions, thoughts or critiques. This is a study of Gilroy’s material to share and encourage my friends and family to engage with his content, not an attempt to interpolate myself into the complex discussion of race. As a white woman, I recognise that it is not and will never be my place.
I have organised my notes into bullet points to separate ideas, with a thread of connected ideas being further indented. Where Gilroy is introducing ideas that are not his own, I have used grey text.
With that in mind, please enjoy issue 1- chapter 2 of Gilroy’s book.
Chapter 2 The whisper wakes, the shudder plays
P42. ‘Race’, nation, and ethnic absolutism •
This chapter moves away from the general and looks at racism in Britain- what Martin Barker (1981) called the ‘new racism’.
o
This newness comes from the capacity to link patriotism, nationalism, xenophobia, Englishness, Britishness, militarism and gender difference into one system that gives ‘race’ its meaning in terms of culture and identity, or the ‘whole life of the people’ (John Casey)
•
These ideas have cause left + right, liberals + conservatives, racists + anti-racists to converge and agree on what ‘race’ adds up to.
•
This agreement can be understood as marking the newness of the new racism.
P43. ‘Race’, nation, and the rhetoric order •
In Benedict Anderson’s ‘imagines communities’ he seems to challenge Tom Nairn’s (1977) argument that nationalism is derived from racism.
•
He tries to clarify the relationship between these ideologies-
•
o
Nationalism thinks in terms of historical destinies,
o
Whereas racism has its origins in ideologies of class- not nation.
To support this, he cites that South Africa continues to enjoy relations with prominent black politicians from other states- regardless of its internal race politics.
P44. •
Anderson’s theory claims that racism is antithetical to nationalism because nations are made possible by in print language, and not biological difference and kinship.
•
He argues that in theory, one could learn the language of a nation and then become a citizen enjoying formal equality.
•
Any objections to Anderson’s argument -e.g. Privileging written word over spoken- is not applicable to the British case.
•
The distinction between ‘race’ and nation here are blurred
•
o
As the politics of ‘race’ come from conceptions of national belonging
o
Phrases like ‘the island race’, and ‘the bulldog breed’ show this.
It is important to recognise the legal concept of ‘patriality’ (the right to reside in the UK) introduced by the Immigration Act of 1968 put the cultural biology of ‘race’ into statute law, as part of a strategy to exclude black settlers (WING, 1984) o
The act said that immigration controls wouldn’t apply to any would-be settler who could claim national membership on the basis that they had a UK born grandparent.
•
The Nationality Act of 1981 changed the legal vocabulary- so patrials are known as British citizens.
•
Another objection to Anderson comes from the military metaphors of war and conquest that are continually used to describe immigration.
P45.
•
For example- ‘the enemy within’, ‘the unarmed invasion’, ‘alien encampments’, ‘alien territory’, ‘new commonwealth occupation’have all been used to describe black presence. o
This language of war highlights the way ‘race’ directs attention to national boundaries- focussing on the entry + exit of blacks.
•
The new racism runs on mechanisms of exclusion + inclusion. It speculates who ‘belongs’ to the nation and encourages segregation of people whose ‘origin, sentiment or citizenship’ assigns them elsewhere.
•
The excluded are not always seen as a cohesive rival nation. o
i.e. West Indians and Asians are both judged to be incompatible with authentic forms of Englishness (Lawrence, 1982)
P46. •
•
The national decline is seen as the dilution of a once homogenous national stock by alien strains. o
This invites the conclusion that the national decline is precipitated by the arrival of blacks.
o
This, in turn, strengthens the desire to banish blacks to a place congruent with their ethnicity, to restore ethnic symmetry.
It must be explained how ‘race’ has come to coincide with national frontiers. o
This is seen in the 1970s when the word ‘black’ became synonymous with the word ‘immigrant’
o
And when settlers and their British born children are denied belonging on the basis of their ‘race’.
•
This racist logic and theories on ‘race’ stem from the work of writers from Britain’s ‘new right’ (Gamble, 1974; Levitas, 1986)
•
Peregrine Worsthorne- ‘though Britain is a multi-racial society, it is still a long way from being a multi-racial nation.’ o
Becoming a citizen granted by law is not the same as the more substantive membership that draws from historic ties of language, custom and ‘race’.
P47. •
Enoch Powell suggests parliament can change the law but national sentiment transcends this. o
‘the West Indian does not by being born in England, become and an Englishman. In law, he becomes a United Kingdom citizen by birth; in fact, he is a West Indian or Asian still.’
•
At the suggestion of Churchill, the conservative cabinet discussed using ‘keep Britain white’ as an electoral slogan in 1955 (Macmillan, 1973)
•
The ‘metaphysics of britishness’ (Carter, 1983) that links patriotism, xenophobia, militarism ad nationalism into sentiments of ‘race’ was key to challenging the old leadership of 1964-1970 and the change under Thatcher.
•
The language of one nation combines the populist effect of ‘race’ and a more general project attempting to link British people to antistatism (removing state centralized control over social and economic affairs)
P48. •
National culture and identity have historically been a theme inside conservative tradition (Bennett, 1962).
•
Powellism breaks away from this, taking a populist form- even if their object of a ‘unity of national sentiment transcending classes’ is the same (Cowling, 1978)
•
The reconstruction of Powellism as Thatcherism (Barnett, 1984; Worsthorne, Sunday Telegraph, 12.6.83) points to a new political language.
•
Conservative intellectuals have been candid in saying these ideas played a role in the rebirth of the party, after a period after Wilson lacked a language to match its vision. o
The solution to this slump involved making ‘race’ and nation the framework of a new populist rhetoric.
P49. •
Enoch Powell’s question ‘What kind of people are we’ summoned those very images in the negative. o
‘we’ were not muggers, criminals, immigrants. ‘We’ were the white man- scared that in 15-20 years, ‘the black man would have the whip hand over us’.
•
These were not the only definitions of nationhood used in that period.
•
Powell had to challenge these, and the ‘madness’ of the liberal integrationists on behalf of the new right.
•
His attack on the 1983 Christmas message (and thus, the multiracialist stance), shows some of the competing definitions of nation.
o
Powell attacked the queen’s attachment to the commonwealth, saying she was ‘more concerned for the susceptibilities and prejudices of a vociferous minority of newcomers than for the great mass of her subjects’.
•
The Sun picked up on this inferred racial message, and provided a summary in ‘plain English’- ‘The queen has allowed herself to be used as a mouthpiece for racial minorities, and ought to spend more time speaking out for the white majority.’
•
This is a clear display of his populism, and his belief that formal (legal) citizenship is overridden by a substantive cultural identity of British people- which has a longer life span than any single sovereign.
•
The idea that the new racism’s newness can span a range of political stances can be explored further
•
(Williams, 1983; Mulhern, 1984) bring up almost identically what Powell and Worsthorne mention about distinction between authentic and inauthentic types of national belonging.
P51. •
Williams combines discussion of ‘race’ with patriotism and nationalism. But for him, as with the right, ‘race’ problems begin with immigration.
o
The resentment of settlers leads to ideological specifications of ‘race’ and ‘superiority’.
o
He dismisses ‘standard liberal’ anti-racist comments (e.g. ‘they’re as British as you are’) by stressing that social identity is a product of ‘long experience’.
o
This prompts the question- How long is long enough to be a genuine Brit?
•
Williams’ insistence that racial conflicts originate from hostility between strangers in the city makes little sense as the 1971 Immigration Act halted primary black settlement. o
These arguments deny that blacks can share a significant ‘social identity’ with their white neighbours- whom have ‘rooted settlements’.
P52. •
Williams doesn’t appear to recognise black as anything other than the subordinate in an ideology of racial supremacy. o
Central questions to ‘race’ politics are thus obscured-
o
E.g. under what conditions can national identity displace ‘lived and formed’ identities based on gender/religion/ neighbourhood/ethnicity?
o
How has it come to be expressed in racially exclusive forms?
•
How social identities relate to the differences of language and culture is unclear except where Williams points out the identity fostered by ‘artificial order’ of the state are incomplete and empty when compared to ‘full, social identities in their real diversity’.
•
Where racism demands repatriation and excluding certain groups form the imagined community of the nation, the contradictions around citizenship that Williams dismisses remain important elements of the political field.
P53. The national community in peace and war
•
The imagery of black settlement as an invasion makes it impossible to discuss ‘race’ without the 1982 war in Argentina.
•
Thatcher’s speech at Cheltenham 3rd July 1982 defined the ‘Falklands factor’. o
This linked the struggle with the ‘Argies’ with the battle against British workers: Rail unions, NUR, ASLEF- whose actions were undone because such industrial actions didn’t ‘match the spirit’ of Britain.
o
‘Britain us not prepared to be pushed around. We have ceased to be a nation in retreat’.
P54. •
Like Powell’s, this speech made no open refence to ‘race’
•
Commenters speculated on the nature of the ties with Port Stanley despite distance and weak constitutional links. o
•
Peregrine Worsthorne- ‘If the Falkland islanders were citizens with black or brown skins… it is doubtful whether the royal navy and marines would today be fighting for their liberation.’
The Falklands episode highlighted the irony that is the contrast between intimacy of the ‘natural’ relationship with the Falklands and the difficult task of relating to intruders who persisted disrupting life in Britain. o
Again, Worsthorne points this out- ‘Britons today identify more easily with those of the same stock 8000 miles away … than they do with the West Indian or Asian immigrants living next door’.
P55. •
Worsthorne and Powell emphasize the cultural ties that mark the boundaries of ‘race’.
•
The need to recognise and devalue ‘transracial’ relationships between neighbours contains an implicit acknowledgement that such relationships do exist in urban living- even if the white Britons involved cease membership to Worsthorne’s nation at the point at which these relationships are conceived.
•
The popular power of patriotism was commented on by the left too. o
Their response can be characterised by a reluctance challenge the model of national greatness.
•
E.P. Thompson noted the Falklands had ‘stirred up an ugly nationalist sentiment’ and argued that we would pay for the way ‘for a long time in rapes and racism in our city’. (Thompson, 1982)
•
On the other hand, Eric Hobsbawm argued in favour of ‘left patriotism’. o
He argued that if patriotism was left ‘exclusively to the right’, and ‘falsely separated from the working class’, it would spill over into xenophobia, racism and jingoism.
P56. •
He argued that if class consciousness and patriotism combine, they harness the power of the working class and its ability to lead social change.
•
(Robert Gray, 1982) of the communist party attacked ‘national nihilism in the name of abstract internationalism’ and argued that what was required was a redefinition of national interests ‘around the alternate leadership of the working class’.
•
Few arguments can justify having the nation state as a primary focus- apart from pointing out the success that national sentiment has had with renovating the conservative project. o
It is as if the only problem with nationalism is that the Tories have a near exclusive monopoly of it.
o
It is unseen/unworthy of noting the possibility of a connection between nationalists and racism
o
The problem instead centres how socialists can (re) possess nationalism from the right
P57. •
Behind this lives two outdated ideas of Britaino
The first is that the nation is homogenous, and shares struggle
o
The second is that this country is, and must continue to be, a world power.
•
British socialists have remained silent on how national pride can be detached form the desire for imperial greatness. (Barnett, 1983; The Sun, 25.5.82).
•
The frequency that Labour’s spokespeople utilise the language of nation introduces a note of caution.
•
o
What is its purpose?
o
If it is just rhetoric motif, why has it become necessary to us at this point in time?
Michael Ignatieff’s discussion of the 1984-5 coal dispute uses language of nation. o
‘No one lives apart from national community’
•
Like many post-Falkland socialists, Ignatieff argues that ‘The left crucially overestimates Mrs Thatcher’s electoral appeal if it believes that she has succeeded in monopolising the language of ‘one nation’’.
•
There is no reason that the language of nation would be the most effective where people define themselves primarily in terms of regional and local tradition.
P58. •
•
For example, why would socialists answer to Yorkshire or Tyneside (where regional traditions are the key axis of political organisation) with language of British national interest? o
‘Geordie’, ‘Hinnie’, ‘Brummy’ or ‘Scouse’ may be more effective political identities than ‘fellow Britons’ or citizengiven the racial nature of citizenship allocation.
o
Regional subjectivities do not articulate with ‘race’ as their national equivalent does.
Colin Mercer’s discussion of nation parallels Ignatieff’s. o
Mercer ‘owns up’ to a ‘sneaking admiration for Enoch Powell’s prose’ and recognises his indulgence in ‘certain pleasures for Englishness’.
•
It would appear that England’s left intellectuals become transfixed and immobile in the path of populist nationalism.
•
How does the language of public good they propose, become a language for a nation so cohesive that ‘no-one lives outside the national community’? o
This idea is only plausible is racism is excluded.
P59. •
The work of other socialist thinkers can make Mercer and Ignatieff’s work seem like a mild case of this patriotic English disease.
•
E.P Thompson is positively enthusiastic.
•
o
His 1983 election pamphlet begins- ‘whatever doubts we have, we can all think of things in the British way of life which we like, and we would want to protect from attack’
o
He complains that ‘a large part of our free press has bee bought over our heads by money (some of it foreign money)’.
Thompson’s version of Britishness locates national greatness in popular resistance and cultural achievement.
P60. •
The ideology of nationhood may be malleable to some extent, but it is linked to ‘race’ and class confined to historical and political factors. o
•
Thus, the socialist adoption of it is unpredictable, even if the intention is radical.
The language of nation affords British socialists a rare opportunity, to begin to say ‘we’ and ‘out’ rather than ‘me’ and ‘I’, encouraging them to speak beyond sectorial interest. o
The problem with these plural forms is- who do they include?
o
And do they retain Blackness and Englishness is mutually exclusive categories?
o
Why are appeals to ‘the people’ in danger of transmitting as appeals to white people?
•
An answer to this may only begin from recognising the way that Britain’s language of ‘race’ and nation are articulated together. o
The discourses of nation are saturated with racial connotations- even if not overtly referred to.
P61. •
Attempts to constitute the working class across racial lines are thus disrupted. o
This must be directly addressed if socialists are to move beyond wondering why black Britons (as a disproportionately underprivileged group, ought to be loyal supporters), remain suspicious and distant form the political institutions of the working class. (Fitzgerald, 1984; Studlar, 1983; 1984; 1985).
•
Labour’s attempts to address nationalist sentiment are a site of further difficulty.
•
The concept of ‘Churchillism’ and ‘Thatcherism’, mentioned by Antony Bennett, is not adequate to Labour’s failures. o
•
It plays down the appeal of socialist nationalism.
Writings of left intellectuals suggest it is born out of something cultural and not political, rooted in imperial experience itself, not the end of an empire (Mackenzie, 1984; 1986).
P62. •
(Tony Benn, 1982) spoke on this issue and tried to define the British crisis in terms of descent into colonial status. o
His writings addressed the British inability to accept the end of the empire
o •
The bloodshed and mass violence of decolonisation have not been evident in recent politics. o
•
It was a clear attempt to harness what has been used effectively by the right- yearning for national greatness.
And Benn’s imagery trivialised the anti-colonial struggle.
Labour and Conservative languages of nation and patriotism overlap significantly. o
In Britain, statements on the nation are invariably statements about ‘race’.
o
Conservatives often intentionally play on this ambiguity.
P63. •
In her ‘Why democracy will last’ speech, Thatcher brought up the Somerset case of 1772. o
•
The judgement of this case was that British slave holders could no longer make their slaves leave the country without their will.
Thatcher wrongly suggested that this brought slavery to an end. o
The real problem lies, however, in mobilising an apparently anti-racist position in the heart of a nationalist statement.
•
The Conservative’s ethnic election poster in 1983 appeared in ethnic minority press and showed a young black man in a suit with wide lapels and the caption ‘Labour says he’s black, Tories say he’s British’
•
At one level, the poster suggests that the formal belonging placed upon black citizens is colour-blind
o
Yet, as Powell and Worsthorne illustrate, populist racism does not recognise formal membership of the nation to be a substantive guarantee of Britishness.
P64. •
(Alfred Sherman, 1976) – ‘A passport or residence permit does not automatically implant national values or patriotism’.
•
The slightly too-large suit work by the young man, with connotations of a job interview becomes a key signifier.
•
•
o
It conveys that blacks are being invited to forsake all that marks them as culturally distinct as price for admission of guaranteed ‘real’ Britishness.
o
The wolf is transformed by the sheep’s clothing.
The representation of a solitary man avoids the hidden threat of excessive fertility which is a presence in the form of black women (Pamar, 1985). o
This lone man is incapable of swamping ‘us’.
o
He is alone because racist discourse rallies against the possibility of making British blackness visible in a family to intergenerational group.
The black family is presented as deviant, incomplete.
P66. Culture, identity in nations and families •
The idea of nationness form speeches cited above involves the theory of culture that is ethnic absolutism.
•
Clearly presented by the new right, it views nations as homogenous ‘communities of sentiment’.
•
•
The new racism stemming from these theories denies that ‘race’ is a meaningful biological category. o
It is seen instead, as a cultural issue.
o
For example, (Enoch Powell, 1978) described skin colour as a ‘uniform’ for political conflict.
The cultural definition of ‘race’ is sometimes used to define the English as a ‘race’ separable from the Scots, Welsh and Irish– whose skin colour they share.
P67. •
Alien (i.e. black) cultures have been introduced to this country with disastrous effect.
•
Problems revolve around increased competition for limited resources and the disruptive behaviour introduced by immigrants. o
•
The biggest problems arise when diluting our nationhood to accommodate for alien interlopers and their legally (but not substantively) British children.
An important recent example of this is the controversy around attempts to dismiss Ray Honeyford- Bradford headteacher. o
Honeyford argued for a culturalist view of ‘race’ in articles published in the educational supplement and the Salisbury review (Seidel, 1985).
o
He argued that schools acted as agencies for socialising ‘Afro-Asian settler children’. And the presence of these alien children was an impediment to the education of white children.
o
He sought to recue education from multi-culturalists, the ‘well-meaning liberals’ and ‘clergymen’ with ‘post-imperial
guilt’- who would teach all our pupils to denigrate the British Empire (Honeyford, 1983).
P68. •
The anti-racists were quick to call him racist and called for his dismissal- from a school in which the majority of pupils were blackbut they struggled to articulate how he was racist.
•
Honeyford was presented as a martyr by popular press. o
His point became a populist rally point for the new right (Butt, 1985).
•
Culture becomes so potent that it blocks the once thought to be ‘natural’ long-term process of assimilation- in which schools were thought to play an important role (Carby, 1982).
•
The cultural differences visible in public (i.e. school) originate and reproduce in private (i.e. the home of black families). o
•
The attachment to non-British cultures (visible and enduring in black communities) is cited as proof that alien entry into the nation is impossible. o
•
These differences become a focus of resentment as it stops blacks from yielding to Britishness.
And thus, repatriation is the only logical, political, populist solution.
The absolutist view- that black and white cultures are fixed, mutually impermeable expressions of identity- is a theme in racial ‘common sense’ (Lawrence, 1982). o
Yet this view is constantly under challenge.
o
From the activities of blacks who pass through the cultural net that is meant to screen Englishness form them.
P69. •
The Falklands war was not the only moment that discourses around ‘race’ and nation erupted into popular politics.
•
Racial differentiation and national belonging are a continuous presence in coverage of the royal family, sports reporting, coverage of deportations under British immigration laws.
o
All are sites that establish the limits of the nation.
•
The emergence of successful black British athletes has generated significant ideological contradictions.
•
Frank Bruno, hailed ‘the brawn of Britain’ says is ‘he wasn’t Britain’s hottest heavyweight… he would like to be princess Di… she’s got so much going for her’.
•
When decathlete Daley Thompson refused to carry the union jack in the 1982 commonwealth games, reporters interpreted his reluctance as evidence of his partial commitment to Britain. o
The questioning of black commitment to natural identity remains a sub-text of sports pages.
P70.
•
The problem appeared in a different form when South African runner Zola Budd was granted citizenship in 10 days of her application. o
•
Her father claimed citizenship by descent, but Zola wasn’t granted hers under the patriality rules which operate to exclude blacks.
The daily mail discovered her grandfather’s decaying house in Hackney and paraded it as evidence of her British roots.
•
Unlike black settlers and their children, Zola was recognised as being ‘kith and kin’. o
•
This term is used to indicate durable national ties that cross over territories and establish the common identity of those in the old commonwealth- Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the Falklands.
When young blacks in South London demonstrated against Zola’s reluctance to denounce the apartheid, reporters branded them as being un-British racists. o
The Sun suggested they ‘return to their original homelands. There is no place for them in Britain.’
P71. •
The coverage of deportations has become a second space in which the contradictions around ‘race’, culture and national belonging are aired.
•
(Parmar, 1984; Sherman, 1979) The image of Asian women and children being repatriated is proof of victim status, that this group has been brought grief by cultural values that burden them with overly large families and cunning that strives to evade immigration law.
•
The case of Rodney and Gail Pereira questions the ‘race’ and nation. o
•
They were allowed to stay after neighbours in Hampshire bombarded the home office with petition forms.
Ronald Butt, of The Times, explained that the minister concerned had been impressed by the Pereira’s ‘commitment to Britain’ and their ‘active part in village life’, which gave them ‘an aspect beyond the simple convenience to themselves living here’.
•
Papers reported a myriad of ways in which the Pereiras fit in. o
Butt used this as a case to attack the definition of racism based on disliking individuals due to their skin colour.
o
He said anti-racists who had a ‘preference for accepting people with a strong inclination to be assimilated into the British community’ were anxious about people who (unlike the Pereiras), have ‘little commitment to English life’.
•
His opposition to anti-racism concluded that the case of the Pereiras helped us to understand what the argument is really about- that there is much more identity and culture than colour.
•
The definition of ‘race’ in terms of culture and identity has not only been held by the new right.
P73. •
It has also been articulated by some black and anti-racist groups.
•
It has been most clearly stated in the discussion of ‘transracial’ adoption and fostering.
•
This 1983 debate flared up with groups of black workers in the social services questioning if white families could adequately care for a black child. o
In March 1983, The Association of Black Social Workers (ABSWAP) submitted evidence to the House of Commons select committee (ABSWAP, 1983)
o
Their proposal demands that black children be placed only with black families. If not possible, they should remain in local authority care where, with black staff, they may form a ‘positive black identity’.
•
ABSWAP’s central concern is with ethnic cultures and their role in establishing ‘race’ and a racial identity. o
Thus, placing a black child in white care would jeopardise this process and be discontinuous for the child’s black identity- which arises from the child mirroring surrounding blackness, role models and shielding from racial abuse.
o
John Small advances this theory elsewhere.
P74. •
Small argues that racial identity should be a priority to avoid ‘identity confusion’- where black children internalize beliefs (e.g. a negative conception of black people) from white parents.
•
ABSWAP defines transracial placements as a ‘microcosm of the oppression of black people’ because black children are satisfying the needs of white families.
•
This definition of ‘race’ centres around culture in the same way as the new right ‘kith and kin’. o
Its political counterpart is a black cultural nationalism that relies on mystical, essentialist ideas of a transcendental blackness (Marable, 1981; 1984).
P75. •
ABSWAP and Small reject the term mixed race, as the term is said to imply ‘the superior race quotient’, and thus carries the notion of domination and subordination.
•
This theory tries to disrupt the expanded political definition of blackness that can encompass racial histories form Africa, Asia and the Caribbean.
•
This consigns children of ‘mixed parentage’ to racial indeterminacy.
•
The tone of ABSWAP and Small is one of black nationalism, suggesting that anyone who thinks a black child would be better off with a white family than in local authority care is advocating black kidnapping.
•
This black nationalism is misplaced where the black population is too small and fragmented to be thought of as a cohesive nation.
•
Other fundamental objections includeo
•
They reduce the complexity of personality formation to the single issue of colour.
Judging children and choosing adoptive/foster parents based on ‘race’ has been put forward by the new right as proof of the disastrous consequences of anti-racism (Kerridge, 1985).
P76. •
The nationalist attempt to view blacks as a culturally homogenous group says more about how the Social Service Departments (SSDs) work rather than ‘race’. o
Emphasizing ethnic difference allows a set of separate clients with different needs.
•
The black cultural nationalism can be seen as black professional’s justification of their relationships to black clients, and help to justify the contradictory position they occupy.
•
Simple notions of racial solidarity are called into question when black professionals are given power by the managerial class, while their clients are relatively poor. The black cultural nationalism is their response.
P77. •
(Barney Rooney 1980) pointed out some of these problems. o
•
(Stubbs, 1985) suggested the SSDs response to increased black clientele was to introduce black workers assigned to their cases.
o
•
You recruit black people to social sectors to relieve alienation, yet those recruited have nothing to do with the alienated groups- in racial or cultural backgrounds.
He argues that to do the work expected by the SSDs, they must balance their professional identity against alliance prompted by shared ethnicity.
If this is true, the nationalism arisen from ABSWAP may be interpretedo
The variety of ethnic absolutism salves the pain that stems from the tension of trying to be black and a professional at the same time.
o
It has settled upon black fostering to articulate an answer to the racist theory of black families as deficient.
o
The strength of black families may only be asserted if the issue of why the children are in care in the first place is ignored.
P78. •
David Devine, chairman of ABSWAP, claimed the ‘black community has been denied the right to look after its own’. o
This provides an important example of how the strategy of black cultural nationalists can intersect with the radical right.
P78. Conclusion •
This chapter sought to find links between ‘race’ and nation, and use them as an argument against the place that nationhood occupies in the work of English socialists and black cultural nationalists.
•
There are more reasons beyond the overlap with the Right as to why the language of the nation is not inappropriate for the black movement.
o
One reason is the uneven development of national decline has basically produced the north and south as two separate nations. Their difference lying in modes of production and relationship to decline and deindustrialisation.
o
(Doreen Massey 1984) who looks at industrial geography and the changing geography of class and gender patterns of employment, has concluded a new spatial division of labour is being created.
o
This must be taken into account of the language used by radicals if they are to end populist nationalism.
P79. •
The national recomposition along economic and regional axes goes against the language of patriotism.
•
Capital now transcends national structures; workers unions can’t combat limits- a international language must be developed.
•
Gilroy is not suggesting we abandon all Englishness, but the language of English nationalism- as it is understood as the expression of a pure and homogenous group.
•
Socialists have tried to answer to their marginalisation in populist working class patriotism (Hobsbawm, 1978)
o
This nationalist output has several sources-
o
1. By the peculiarities of the route the proletariat came to be (Linebaugh, 1982; 1984)
o
2. The early liquidation of the peasant class and the dominance of the aristocracy
o
3. The methods of historical materialism itself.
•
These have produced a blind spot around nationalism (Gellner, 1983; Kitching, 1985; Nimni, 1985; Nairn, 1977).
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Marx and Engels’ idea that the workers have no fatherland sits uncomfortably with their practice as German nationalists and theory of historic peoples, (‘the large viable European nations’) and the non-historic peoples (‘ruins of peoples’) (Volkerabfalle) (Robinson, 1983). o
The dismissal of nationalist movements from ‘historyless’ peoples (Geschitlossen Volker) shows the eurocentrism and statism of Marxism.
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This illustrates the limits of Marxian insights that may not be appropriate for ‘race’, nation and class analysis in the post-industrial era.
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The legacy must be re-examined to break the nationalist hold on today’s socialists.
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Black cultural nationalism- its inversion- simply replicates the problem.
Images sourced https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Gilroy https://www.versobooks.com/blogs/2768-paul-gilroy-race-and-useful-violence
“Hostility towards complexity, education, patience and the life of the mind are fundamental but often overlooked parts of the appeal of hyperindividualistic neo-liberal thinking. They also helped to weaken anti-racism and to consolidate a view of it as a disreputable and immature commitment.� -Paul Gilroy
Elicia Agar 2020