SAVE BLACK BRITAIN — New talents call for action

By Thomas L Blair
22 October 2009

What links a keen student of world economy, a careers advisor for Black beauty, and a candidate for a Conservative Party seat in Parliament for Hammersmith? They are Black and proud and raised some high-ambition goals at Rev David Shosanya’s State of Black Britain symposium launched 17 October.

 “Youth must globalise their knowledge,” Adam Cooper told the 200 delegates, families and children. Cooper, a scholar in Asian and African Studies, edits Ceasefire, the journal of student and academic activists in the peace movement.

  “Be Totally You,” advised Martina Nelson. The BTY college empowers youth with self-sustaining skills and careers in hairdressing, beauty therapy, ICT, and business administration.

 “Raise your political game”, said Conservative candidate Shaun Bailey. Born in a deprived inner London housing estate, his charity, My Generation, rescues troubled and crime-prone youth in the badlands of inner cities. Definitely not in the mould of his New Labour voting audience, “he is a Tory – and an increasingly influential rising star,” say party leaders.  

 These talent-led, “next generation” proposals herald major changes in knowledge, life styles and political action. Why? “Because the state of Black Britain is in deep crisis,” Rev Shosanya acknowledges. 

 Whatever area of life Black people find themselves in — from deprived neighbourhoods to Her Majesty’s prisons and to college, high-flying IT jobs and leafy suburbs — they are confronted by severe and unfair exclusions that  inevitably damage personal, family and community life.  “It’s time for change; time to say ‘Yes, we can!’ ” says the devout Black Christian church leader, echoing the campaigning motto of US President Barack Obama.

 Rev Shosanya clearly favours up-close, bonding and nurturing Black  communities. However, the founder’s vision may prove to be overly Christian, evangelical, bible-based and too God-obsessed for many in Britain’s diverse Black communities. Not all of Britain’s one million people of African and Afro- Caribbean heritage, colours and faiths can be expected to tread a single path to progress.

Contenders in the movement towards renewing Black Britain have their own views and spheres of influence.  They range from ministers  of the Black Muslims and the Nation of Islam,  disillusioned marxists and Labour stalwarts to obama-ists,  integrationists, mixed-race rights campaigners, Rastafarians and cultural nationalists to strivers, hustlers and “the brothers and sisters who just don’t give a damn”.

 Nevertheless, most recognise the need to increase social mobility and foster greater ambitions. Helping Black families and communities to recover from economic traumas is urgent. Rescuing ailing urban districts with significant Black populations—ghettoes, some say — is over due. Improving education, careers and job prospects are important issues. Crucially, Black voters seek to reform insensitve,  heavy-handed educational and criminal justice policies that weigh heavily on their youth.

 New talents have placed new thoughts for action on the Black Agenda. The symposium marked the first popular 21st century debate on Black life and political progress, or its lack. Constant dialogue about accelerating change over stagnant survival will fuel fierce debates on birthing a new generation in the State of Black Britain.

 * In this third part of a Black History Month 2009 series on Unshackling the Afro-British Mind, the author Thomas L Blair looks at how Blacks in Britain are bedevilled with problems and why talented youth could have the radical answers needed. He is a well-known academic and independent political commentator on Black urban affairs at http://Chronicleworld.org. Details of his book THE AUDACITY OF CYBERSPACE -The struggle for Internet power can be viewed at http://bit.ly/m-ybooksblair  and is highly recommended by The-Latest.com

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Black British Culture in Crisis

By Thomas L. Blair , 11  October 2009

Complacency is the greatest threat to Afro-Caribbean culture in Britain. Only a plan for rescue, revival and representation can save its carriers from a life sentence of cultural illiteracy and dependency. This article suggests the ways that a triad of Black youth, cultural scholars and policymakers can empower local Black communities and revolutionise their  relationship with providers of cultural services.

 After centuries as slaves and subjects of the empire and immigrants in residence, Afro-Caribbeans in Britain are victims of a monstrous popular stereotype – that they have no history, no culture and hence no future in Britain. 

 Alas, unlike Britain’s ethnic groups – indigenous Caucasians, South East Asians, Muslims, Chinese, Jews and Poles — it is solely the descendants of West Indian heritage who show a serious lack of continuity with their cultural, creative and ideological antecedents.

 Professor Rex Nettleford, University of the West Indies vice-chancellor says, “This state of mind has taken its toll on the West Indian diaspora in Britain”. As a result, “The diasporic brethren and sistren are left without the icons of hope they need to survive spiritually in a hostile environment,” says the leading intellectual on urbanism, poetics and politics. 

 However, the situation is not hopeless. Black History can be re-discovered and saved from oblivion. Black Culture can be revitalised. A new Black Agenda can be planned.

 Unchaining the Afro-Caribbean mind begins with a conceptual fact. Experts define “Culture” as the socially transmitted patterns, traits, and products of a people, class or period. Britain’s white ethnic groups, the English Victorians, the Ashanti kingdoms, Han dynasty, and African Americans all have cultures. So do people of Afro-Caribbean and African heritage in Britain.

 Furthermore, evidence has proved that “[Black] Culture, is both a mode and a driving force for individual and group action, and remains the central pillar of black pride and black identity”, say scholarly editors of Présence Africaine, the cultural revue of the Black world.

  “We must learn to use Black culture as springboards to the future”, says Wole Soyinka, Nobel Prize winning writer, cultural activist and member of the Society of African Culture.

 However, major barriers must be overcome. Highly paid guardians of the British culture industry pontificate on what should be done for Black people while living miles away from them.

 What they stubbornly, and often hatefully, refuse to admit is that their arrogance is saturated with centuries of master over slave, white over black cultural abuse. This dominance tore the heart out of Black civilisations, raped their artefacts and resources, and nearly destroyed the inventors and carriers of Black culture, the people themselves.

 Who will silence the deniers of Black culture? Who will denounce the “afrophobia” that sours all Black-White social relations? Who, indeed, is to chart the passage through the valleys of complacency and malaise to the mountaintop of ideas and liberating action?

 [Renascent Black youth is the focus of the next instalment. The series began with Unshackling the Afro-British mind] ©copyright Blair ChronicleWorld 2009

Notes on the author

*Thomas L Blair, PhD and Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts FRSA, is an African-American sociologist resident in Britain for over 40 years. His book The Audacity of Cyberspace: The struggle for Internet power (2009) ISBN 978-1 906986-81-0 describes how Black communities in America, England, and language groups in sub-Saharan Africa are taming the new information technologies. It complements this article and is available through bookstores, libraries and online via Google and Amazon books.

Unshackling the Afro-British mind

A series by Thomas L Blair

October’s Black History month comes again – full of contradictions.  Local worthies recite undigested “facts” and add swatches of colour, comedy and music to the events. However, the back-up money and thematic control is firmly not in their hands.

The leading players are government and town hall agents, the media and advertisers.  Charities, churches, voluntary groups, primary care trusts add their balm of Gilead. Museums and libraries promise they care.  Of course, nothing confrontational, please.  Nothing “too political, or nationalist”.  Nothing “too black”, really. Only images that beguile and suit the tastes of the “wider society”.  

The usual cast of cardboard characters appear on stage. Politicians mouth their “I’m so happy to support you” platitudes to invited successful celebrities. City officials and “race relations experts” cobble together a potpourri of walks, talks and exhibitions endorsed by servile self-seekers and dependent local groups.

However, to keen observers, three decades of these post-colonial events expose a fatal flaw. The origins and meaning of Black History Month are ignored – some say suppressed.  It is not widely reported that a Ghanaian,  Akyaaba Addai Sebbo of the Greater London Council, is credited with originating the event in 1987.

We are deprived therefore of some essential information.  The African American Kwanzaa creator Dr. Maulana Karenga, the invited host of the first assembly, was a major source of inspiration.

Furthermore, at its deepest roots, the month signifies the gathering of the African community in the Diaspora. Originally, the celebrants shared their food, libations, dance and drumming. They extolled their leadership, sang praise-songs, and recited their common experiences in the citadels of modernism.

In this way, the celebrants of African heritage affirmed two important principles to safeguard them in a hostile urban environment. They strengthened their confidence and awareness of their cultural heritages. They celebrated their triumphs since slavery, colonialism and debt bondage. Moreover, they reclaimed their own humanity that has given so much to British society and world cultures.  

Hence, the misplaced zeal unleashed in October’s sponsored events masks a singular inability to be serious about Black culture.  Moreover, the hodgepodge of individual personalities and heroics – greats this and the 50 that – does not create collective cultural and social capital for Black communities.

To be serious requires Black definition and direction. Celebrating Black culture would have to be rooted in thoughtful afro-centric analysis.

Alas, a historically challenged people are disempowered – rudderless, adrift in a sea of despond. They have no major dedicated, guiding and protective Black advancement institutions. No anti-defamation leagues.  Publishing houses are scarce. The one “black newspaper”, The Voice, is “foreign-owned”  by the Caribbean Gleaner company  whose interests are more representative of its “Go Jamaica” tourist, sugar, rum, soft drinks and minerals supporters  than those of the poor in the Kingston yards.   

Moreover, the wellsprings of wisdom have run dry. The early prize-winning students and Rhodes scholars vanished in the olive groves of academe. There are no Black-led study associations. No authoritative, homegrown, sustainable Black literary, business and political journals exist. In addition, there are no dedicated teams of Africana and Black Studies scholars, writers and artists working to bring cultural history to life.

Without  grounding, community building institutions, rock-solid organisations and robust talents, Black pride and identity erodes, and cultural deformation and alienation surely follow. This is the hallmark of a postcolonial people in deep crisis.

To combat this dire prospect, it is essential to securely preserve, defend, authenticate and invigorate Black culture in the diaspora so that favourable conditions for development can be created.

In a series of articles, I propose a range of innovative ideas to unshackle the Afro-British mind. Questions will be asked and answered. What are the key issues shaping the crisis of culture called Black urbanism? How can cultural empowerment link to social, economic and political progress?  What are the best strategies to birth a new generation of cultural champions among Black youth, public intellectuals and policymakers?

Text and photo are Copyright © Thomas L Blair 2009 and cannot be used without  written permission. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

 Notes on the author: Thomas L Blair PhD is a sociologist and independent online commentator, and publishes the 12-yearold Internet news magazine The Chronicleworld http://www.chronicleworld.org.  Author of numerous books and articles, his most recent publication is THE AUDACITY OF CYBERSPACE -The struggle for Internet power in Black World communities.  ISBN: 978-1-906942-00-7  Published 2009. See The-Latest.com Books page. PREVIEW AND ORDER this new vision and plan for Blacks in cyberspace at  http://m-ybooks.co.uk/blair/index.html

Cairo, where Obama and Malcolm X showed two very different faces of America

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The firebrand Muslim minister struck a blow  for African American civil rights and African liberation
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Thomas L Blair, 5 June 2009

Cairo on the tip of Nubian Africa has played host to two exceptional African Americans. One named Barack Hussein Obama, the son and grandson of Muslims, came as US President this June. The other was the radical African American Muslim minister El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz (widely known as Malcolm X) in June 1964.

Both invoked the great Islamic past; both aimed to forge unity on crucial international issues. But what a dramatic contrast. Obama, the suited up, sophisticated new African American in the Office, aimed at calming the volatile Muslim world. However, Malcolm X in Cairo called for an unprecedented joint action by Africans and African Americans against a common scourge – racism and imperialism.

Malcolm came to this revolutionary conclusion after founding the secular, black nationalist Organisation of African American Unity (OAAU). Later, he tested his ideas with political activists in an extensive tour of Africa and the Middle East in June 1964.

The tour strengthened his newly developed beliefs. Officials courted him; he gave interviews to newspapers, and spoke on television and radio in Egypt, Ethiopia, Tanganyika (now Tanzania), Nigeria, Ghana, Guinea, Sudan, Senegal, Liberia, Algeria, and Morocco. Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana, Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt, and Ahmed Ben Bella of Algeria invited Malcolm X to serve in their governments.

The scene was set for his unprecedented call for concerted action at the second summit meeting of the Organisation of African Unity, convened from 17 to 21 July 1964.

His arrival was widely noted. To his admirers at the meeting of the fledging African authority, Malcolm X was a courageous advocate for the rights of African Americans, a man who indicted white America in the harshest terms for its crimes against black Americans. He was also El-Hajj, a penitent Sunni Muslim aware of the broad humanity of the Islamic faith.

Interviewed by reporters and radio journalists in Cairo, Malcolm X said: “When I arrived here, there was a great deal of publicity in all of the press over here concerning my coming. It was historic in a sense because no American Negroes had ever made any effort in the past to try and get their problems placed in the same category as the African problems, nor had they tried to internationalize it.”
His reference to “colonialism”, and plea for renascent dignity and justice found favour in the highest quarters. Egypt’s President Nasser made specific reference to the condition of African Americans, and hailed the then recently passed Civil Rights Act of 1964, in his opening remarks.

With this cache of prominent supporters, Malcolm X gained acceptance as an observer at the OAU summit of independent African states. His eight-page memorandum warned America of a coming conflagration; it echoed James Baldwin’s eloquent manifesto “The Fire Next Time” (1963). He urged African leaders and freedom fighters to internationalise the plight of African Americans and bring the issue before the UN.

Then, in one of the most remarkable coincidences of the turbulent 1960s, Malcolm X delivered his memorandum on 17 July, a day before what later became known as the “Harlem riots” that rocked New York that summer.

* Thomas L Blair publishes the Chronicleworld http://www. chronicleworld.org. Discover the Internet facts and common visions of the Black world in the author’s just published E-book The Audacity of Cyberspace: The struggle for Internet power by Thomas L Blair (Orders may be placed at 
http://m-ybooks.co.uk/blair/default.html

Black History goes digital

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We lost sight of the true worth of Black History
Now let’s get it back — and digitise it

October is a month of mighty memories for Black communities. Their computers are brimming over with the treasures of Black history. However, what are we doing to preserve Black heritage electronically for the next decade, much less for the ages?

Fortunately, in my new series Black History Goes Digital, I offer some answers to this vexing question. You’ll discover that digital preservation is more than a matter of expensive software in the hands of technocrats. It is content that really counts. That is people gathering, creating, storing and digitising Black Heritage for advancement.

Furthermore, in my view, the challenge of the 21^st century is overcoming information poverty. We need to know what Black communities are doing to tackle the problems and increase the prospects of “Going Digital”. How are they “Crossing the Digital Divide” and “Training cyberarchivists and organisers”?  And, crucially, what are the best methods of Internet action for “Decolonising euro-centric history”, “Creating social capital”, and “Networking the Black World”.

Drawn from diverse sources and reprints from the ChronicleWorld web site, the series has one over-riding purpose. It supports the view that Black History is an irreducible web of experiences that unite Africa and Diasporic communities. Not separate, but equal to others in the human quest for fraternal, peaceful and cooperative relations between all peoples.

By Thomas L Blair, 20 October 2008

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 Have you heard the news!!  The Chronicleword.org and its publications are an important “representation of British Culture”, says the national British Library, leader in “conserving world knowledge”. 

Ø  Top-class commentary on policy issues, problems, pride and power of Black Britain and Afro-Europe is our secret of success. Cyber Social Action and Bridging the Digital Divide are constant themes.

Ø  Readers benefit from more than a Decade and a 1000 pages on our website founded in the UK domain in 1997.

Ø  Go to http://www.chronicleworld.org –

Contact details for Prof Thomas L Blair: e-mail: tb@thechronicle.demon.co.uk