akala race and class in the ruins of empire

However, the motherland largely met them with hostility. “Many of them Second World War veterans – with British passports to match, moving from one of Britain’s outposts to the metropole.”

“They were literally British citizens,” Akala explains. The Windrush generation were BritishĪkala’s grandparents were among the Windrush generation, hundreds of people from the British colonies who came to the “motherland” to help rebuild Britain in the post-war period. While at school, he was “taught to worship slave traders and imperialists, and lionise philosophers and politicians who believed to be less than human.” His local pan-African Saturday school provided an alternative education that affirmed his blackness.Īkala 5. He explains: “Racist insults leave you feeling dirty because, even at five years old, we already know on some level that, in this society at least, we are indeed lesser citizens with all the baggage of racialised history following us ghost-like about our days.” Racism is learned from an early ageĪt five years old, Akala had received his first racist insult and had already begun to internalise negative ideas about being black. However, the reality is that racism is present in the historical, economic, social and legal structures that make success stories like his the exception and not the rule. Good people are not racist – only bad people are. “In another time and space, someone born into my socio-economic bracket would have had to drop out of school and work to help feed the family.”Īkala argues that we are trained to see racism as an issue of interpersonal morality. While he does not deny the impact of his hard work and sacrifice, he asserts that without the support of his community – parents and teachers, community elders and football coaches – it is “inconceivable” that he would be where he is today. He is a self-employed entrepreneur, an independent artist, has travelled widely and has lectured at almost every university in the country. Racism is not just about “bad people”īy many counts, Akala is successful.

Haiti abolished slavery immediately upon independence – 30 years before Britain would do so – and became the first state in the world to outlaw racism in its constitution. This was the first and only successful slave revolution in human history. As it turns out, the 1807 Act which abolished the slave trade (but not ownership) throughout the British Empire, came three years after Haiti declared itself independent in 1804. Tales of bloody revolutions, attempts at genocide and European military disasters have largely been lost from public consciousness. But, Akala asks: “Did Wilberforce do it all by himself? Was Britain the first nation to abolish slavery, and were Africans queuing up on the shores of the Atlantic to sell their own children to the highest bidder? No, no and nope.”

Akala race and class in the ruins of empire