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Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, June 20, 2007 - 01:37 am: | 
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Black British: Different country, same story, different day
By Ron Walters, NNPA Columnist
June 18, 2007
Traveling to Britain with the Rev. Jesse Jackson recently, I was struck by the similarity of the condition and the strivings of Black people there and here. In particular, they face the historical dynamics of the rise of a second generation that is wedded to being British and all that means, while the movement that I wrote about in Pan-Africanism and the African Diaspora in the 1980s has waned. The question there, as here is what the costs are.
To begin with, I continued to experience the global popularity of Rev. Jackson as a recognized civil rights leader, not just in the United States, but in Britain as well. He could go few paces without being recognized from his automobile or asked by both Black and white alike for photos with him. In this country, he is put in the localized box of "Black leader" only and often marginalized by major media. There, as elsewhere, he is sought out by major leaders, media as well as organizers in the Black community. The point of going to Britain was to speak to major economic groups about the continuing legacy of slavery on the 200th anniversary of the elimination of the British slave trade. But while there, he began a movement to organize growing voting power of "Blacks" and their allies into a progressive force.
The platform for this movement, however, was also eerily similar that in the United States in two dimensions. I mentioned the rise of a new generation. As we arrived in Britain uproar was in progress because a popular television game show participant had used the "N..." word to refer to one her Black counter-parts, a move that, in the wake of the Don Imus scandal in the United States, caused her to be removed from the show. That touched off a debate about its use among rappers and others in the culture of the country. This shows not just the power of hip-hip culture, but the integration of the two societies through the instrument of mass media, as the style of Hip-Hip has been appropriated by young Brits to express the content of their own situation today.
What we find in that situation is also parallel. While African descendant peoples make up nearly 3 percent of the British population, they often move politically with East Indians and Asians - other people of color - to increase their demands. Those from Bangladesh are similar in actual status to African descendants, while Indians appear to be the preferred people of color in that mix, perhaps because there was comparative far less slavery in India than Africa. The "Black" population is now 10 percent of the country, 38 percent in London.
Yet the socioeconomic problems appear to be similar those in the US. Only 35 percent of kids finish high school, and the rate of unemployment for those 25-64 averages 4% for whites, 7 percent for Indians, but 20 percent for Bangladeshis and 15 percent for African descendants. As we arrived, a London Times article reported that 38 percent of Black British males were in the DNA data base maintained by the prison authorities for having been brushed with the law and by 2012, fully 68 percent would be in the database. This results from the high rate of incarceration at 11% for Blacks who, as indicated above, are only 3 percent of the population. Racial profiling there is called "sus" law, or hastling people on suspicion they have done something wrong, which Tony Blair is attempting to bring back in the wake of the focus on "terrorism."
When I first came to Britain 30 years ago, there was a robust movement challenging these problems. There were counter-part organizations, similar to the NAACP, the Black Panthers, and the Nation of Islam. And while the NOI was our escort on this occasion, there is a distinct trend toward institutional participation as the way to resolve these problems as in the U. S. For example, the number of Black elected officials has increased from four in 1980 to 14 today and there likewise the first generation of immigrants from Africa and the Caribbean counted on going home one day, their children have increased their place in the workforce. The top 50 British firms report that their ethnic minority employment rose from 6% in 2004 to 8 percent today, but the increases in smaller firms are not keeping pace.
With nearly 10 percent of the British population, Rev. Jackson's mission was to illustrate the power potential located in the "Black" vote. Estimates by local officials indicate that as many as 100 seats in Parliament could be affected by a significant increase in Black voter registration. Blacks in Britain were not prevented from voting historically because there were so few, so there is not the equivalent of a voting rights act to empower them. Pulling together as Afro descendants from Africa and the Caribbean, from India, Pakistan and Bangladesh and with white progressive allies, a substantial new political force could be created. So, Rev. Jackson returns this Fall to lead a national voter registration drive to accomplish the increase in the "Black" vote that could enhance the leverage to not only increase the number of Blacks in the Parliament, but determine the next Prime Minister in elections that take place two years from now.
The question I had was why the British Black Parliamentary Caucus had dissolved when there was such great need for the increase in their numbers to be reflected in increased policy power in Parliament. As in other places, the decline in Black political consciousness has led to lessening unity that, in turn, has decreased Black institutional power. That body was inaugurated by the US Congressional Black Caucus in 1980, when it had only 4 members and needs to be renewed. Their weakness is shown in the fact that they should have conceived and led a national Black voter registration drive, but Black ministers are much freer to do so.
Black ministers ion Britain will be a part of this mobilization as some of their churches resemble the growth of Black mega-churches in the United States. We attended one Black Pentecostal church in London that had 45,000 members with two services, with a dynamic Black preacher and US-styled gospel choir that would not wait. This minister committed himself to the voter registration movement and vowed to enlist his congregation and other ministers. Change will require the use of their independent power because the drift toward institutional political strategies and individual economic moves will not suffice - as we know.
The independence of Black ministers were much on my mind as the news came to Britain that Rev. Al Sharpton had led a demonstration illustrating the difference between the justice given to Paris Hilton (a glamorous white female) and that given to ordinary folks, especially ordinary Black folks. The poor and the Black and brown would not have been allowed to spend their sentence of incarceration with an ankle chain in their homes, especially in contravention to a sentence imposed by a judge. But this mini-drama, mimicking the Anna Nicole saga, illustrated what passes for "news" today, overshadowing the firing of General Pace, head of the Joint Chief of Staff, and the G8 failure to deal with poverty in Africa at its meeting in Germany.
Different country, same story, different day.
Dr. Ron Walters is the Distinguished Leadership Scholar, Director of African American Leadership Institute and Professor of Government and Politics at the University of Maryland College Park.
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