LONDON, 8 August 2004 — Anti-immigrant racism has, for close to 50 years, offered perks to those at the top of the racial hierarchy here in Britain. Jobs, promotion once at work, access to careers which are almost exclusively open to those with white skins are but some of them.
It is inevitable that among immigrants and their offspring, copycat divisions would appear. We have supped from the cup. And just as that wider conflict expresses itself in violent racial attacks, so will the phenomenon repeat itself among Asians and West Indians. This antisocial activity has raised its ugly head in jets of violence, if hardly on the scale of white racism. It is certainly not as deep rooted; nevertheless, it exists, and if allowed to continue can transform areas of the inner city into very nasty places.
I celebrate my 21st anniversary in broadcasting with a documentary titled, Who You Callin’ a Nigger. It reports on violent confrontations between West Indians and Somalis in South London and between West Indian and Pakistani youths in the Midlands. There are comments from Asian men and women which are wholly disparaging of their fellow migrants from the Caribbean, and equally vitriolic language from West Indians about Somalis.
It was very difficult listening to all this throughout the filming and in the editing studio. There have been frail deposits of this phenomenon as far back as I can remember, but it never went beyond banter between West Indians and Africans, totally devoid of any rationale that attempted to justify it. It was merely a dissonance that occurs when strangers meet without prior introduction. It is only in recent times that these deposits have matured into full-blown violence, as has happened between West Indian and Somali youths in Plumstead and Woolwich.
My activism in the black community over the last 40 years included fierce and unrelenting campaigns on issues of the final liberation of Africans from colonialism. Mrs. Howe actually held the platform with Amilcar Cabral at a hot meeting organized in support of Africans against Portuguese colonialism. Then there was the anti-apartheid movement and the birth of Zimbabwe. Then, an entire generation of West Indians in the UK could be relied on to stand tall.
Not, it seems, now. I journeyed through Woolwich and Plumstead, where thousands of Somali refugees are settling. The Caribbean community is mostly unwelcoming. Some visit on Somalis the same kind of racial abuse we suffered in the period of early migration. Dissenters to this reactionary view are few and far between. “They are taking our houses. They are getting social benefits which are denied to us. Their children are overcrowding our schools.” And more.
One middle-aged West Indian woman capped her experiences at the hand of a group of young Somalis with uninhibited outburst: “I hate Somalis. They should go back to where they came from.” She did not bat an eyelid.
Parts of Woolwich and Plumstead can only be described as the pits. The surrounding docklands offer no economic activity. Some housing stock depresses even optimists among social activists. Both communities of dark skin forage for a handful of employment opportunities. White Greenwich, a spit away, thrives, while citizens of Plumstead and parts of Woolwich can only feel teased and taunted by their neighbours’ success.
The Somalis are a captive community in the grip of self-appointed community leaders. One of them slapped around the documentary director because we did not ask his permission to film his subjects.
And off to Walsall, just outside Birmingham. I had not visited there for close to 25 years when waves of West Indians and Asians (in particular Pakistanis) converged at first shift to set in motion the engineering factories which served the motor industry. The wages from this mass industrial activity supported whole communities. It’s all gone now, leaving a wasteland, and new generations of Pakistanis and West Indian youths at each other throats with little social activity to mediate the conflict.
The virus which produces this conflict has also infected small Asian businessmen and the clerical lower middle classes who inhabit nearby Handsworth. The small Asian entrepreneur is slowly losing its captive clientele to large supermarkets and department stores. And there is a mad scramble for clerical jobs in the civil service, local councils and banks.
I spent some time with a Punjabi small businessman. He sells Indian sweets and a young generation of Punjabis ignores his wares for Mars bars, jelly babies, Bounty bars and the rest. He sees enemies everywhere. His primary target is the West Indian community, then the Russians and East Europeans. He belches forth the most lurid abuse he can muster.
My difficulties did not end with the filming and editing. I anticipate a return of hurdles I have long transcended in my earlier work at Channel 4. The first is positive images. My detractors will charge that such a documentary will strengthen the cause of the BNP. As I see it, our Asian businessman is already classic BNP material and I reply to those who make the charge only that the program represents the truth. Dirty linen needs airing. We have to be mercilessly realistic to make any assessment of who and where we are.
It is impossible for a section of the immigrant community to avoid gravitating to racial categorization when the practice is so rewarding for the indigenous population.
— Darcus Howe is a writer and broadcaster. His documentary, Who You Callin’ a Nigger, will be shown on Monday on Channel 4 at 11 p.m.
