Myth-Busting Black British History:“There is No Such Thing as Black History in Britain!”
The Persistent Myth of Nonexistence
After posting my video announcing this Black British History series, I got my first troll a lot quicker than I expected. Sadly, not a bot, and not an angry white British person (which I was mentally prepared for), but a fellow first-generation immigrant. In a couple of angry comments, he said:
“There is no such thing as black history in Britain, and I say that as a black man. Why can’t you just accept that we are nothing but voluntary immigrants? Surely there were a few… but they were just temporary workers who eventually returned to Africa. Black British culture and history is not a thing.”
Although I subsequently deleted this comment to maintain the respectful tone of my social media platform (internet rudeness is exhausting), I almost didn’t, because this person articulated the first and most pervasive myth I want to tackle in this series. As you can see, above, I have highlighted the definitive assertions in the comment, which are all, in reality, assumptions. Educators refer to a comment like this as something a student might say that “reveals the scaffolding” of a their thinking; the underpinnings that shape, or prevent the intake of, all the information we may try to teach them. So, let’s take a look at these assumptions.
“There is no such thing as Black history in Britain”
This one is a definitive statement of fact, with the added authority of “saying this as a black man.” One of the challenges for people encountering history as a subject is the problem of one’s own subjectivity. History is storytelling, using qualitative data rather than quantitative data. So, many feel that if what they learn conflicts with their own experience, perspective, or worldview, it must be wrong. But that is not how history works. Black people in Britain and elsewhere in Europe is a historical reality, no matter how I, or any other person, identify with, or feel about it. Because history is not based on anecdote. While my (and your) story matters, historical understandings are crafted through so much more than that. Indeed, a historian may pursue a research topic based on a hunch, but as my graduate advisor told me, you have to follow the evidence. So, to make a definitive statement, then try to evidence or authenticate its validity using your subjective identity, just doesn’t cut it for making claims about history and people groups. I can’t write about Black women and make a definitive claim, based on my experience, about the universal realities of Black womanhood in the 21st century. Rather, we can use our own vantage point to ask questions about broader historical realities.
“Black British history” makes two simple claims:
Black people live in the UK. Many have been born and raised there for several generations, many for a few. Therefore, we can ask historical questions about their lives and experiences.
“Black British” is a term that points to nationality for some, culture and heritage for others, but honors the presence of the Black diaspora in the UK. Black people are embedded in broader British culture, but have a distinctive experience as a result of differing origins, cultures, and white supremacy. Therefore, there is something to study.
Ironically, though the commenter denies Black British history and culture as an identity, he does use “we” to refer to himself and me, and (presumably) other Black people living in Britain. He doesn’t know my heritage, whether we’re from the same place or not, but he assumes based on the fact that “we” immigrated to the same place, that we are a “we.” This on its own proves the point: even if you do not identify as British (which you don’t have to), the immigrant experience in the same nation has created a cohesive group enough to make us refer to ourselves as “we.” That, alone, is worth studying, even if you’re not quite settled on the term “Black British.”
Indeed, similar to the evolution of terminology in the US for self-identification, there is great debate about what we should call ourselves. Historian Hakim Adi argues for referring to it as the history of “African and Caribbean People in Britain” (the title of his new book) because he believes the term “Black” erases the multiplicity of ethnicities and heritages of the people who live in the UK now and throughout history. Contrastingly, the founder of Black History Month in the UK, Linda Bellos, a biracial woman with a Nigerian father, saw Black History Month as a moment to celebrate the contributions of Africans, Caribbeans, and Indians, taking a pan-racial and Commonwealth (former colonies) countries approach to the identity. Historian Olivette Otele uses the term “African Europeans” in her incredible work tracing the long presence of the diaspora across the whole continent, including British, arguing that the term “African Europeans” functions better than European Africans because historically, “most of them are defined by other groups or define themselves firstly through their connection with the African continent.” Public historian David Olusoga argues for a global conception of “Black British history,” not because of migration and communities in Britain, but because “black British history is as global as the empire.” Indeed, terminology is not the issue, as it is always in flux. The problem is the denial of the relevance of Black stories and their significance in the broader narrative of British history.
Sadly, the meaning of the presence of Black people in the UK across time has been defined by white supremacy. Who we are, and how we get to identify, is often in the eye of the beholder. In fact, this comment spurred a conversation between my sisters and me about whether we identify as British or African and Caribbean. Even among the three of us, we have differing levels of identification with the term “Black British.” My oldest sister and I have both immigrated to the United States, and both agree that our experiences as cultural outsiders in America solidified our self-perception as Black British women. Meanwhile, my sister, who still lives in the UK, doesn’t feel as strongly about identifying this way, feeling stronger ties to our Ghanaian and Trinidadian heritage. But she noted: “The reality is, we’re not allowed to identify as British. It doesn’t matter that we were born here, we’ll always be asked where we’re ‘really’ from!” On that, we all agree. Accepting Black British as an identity feels impossible when everyone around you says, “Well, you’re not really British, are you!”
Nonetheless, immigration creates fusions of old and new, of heritage and nationality, birthing something new. Each child of immigrants feels this if they visit their parents’ homeland, and even psychology teaches the “ambiguous loss” immigrants themselves go through- a loss of cultural fluency, remaining attached to a version of home that is no longer present. Residence shapes and reshapes our identities. We meld unique blends of cultures and ideas, creating a new thing. This new “thing” is often pushed away by white supremacy, which prefers to leave us as placeless people whose stories aren’t significant outside of individual experience. But rendering us nameless concedes our nonexistence. Whatever we choose to name ourselves, our histories remain.
We’re Just Voluntary Immigrants
This assertion is an interesting one that many might miss the implications of, but this is a common assumption: the Black diaspora is only defined by slavery. This is a slavery-centric understanding of the Black diaspora, and while I have been a historian of slavery in America for the last decade, I have many colleagues who study Black mobility outside of the institution of slavery. Indeed, for those in Europe and America, after the inauguration of the Transatlantic Slave Trade, slavery defined the lives of even free Black people across the world. But Black history is diverse because experiences are diverse, even today.
Additionally, “voluntary immigrants” is a bit of a misnomer in the context of vast colonization. Most immigrants from African nations are such as a result of the economic, political, and social instability that colonization and neo-colonialism caused. While some people are naturally adventurous and choose to emigrate, most choose to for the sake of opportunities that otherwise would evade them. Indeed, this is “voluntary,” but it cannot be understood outside of the forces of larger systems and histories that shape the pathways of people throughout time and today.
As the director of the Institute of Race Relations said in 2008 at an event in celebration of the institute’s 50th anniversary: “We are here, because you were there.”
“Sure, there were a few but they were temporary workers who returned to Africa.”
My next post will dive more deeply into debunking this myth, but I still want to highlight the assumptions embedded in the statement. Beginning with the assertion that “there were a few,” Black people in Britain across history, the assumption is that there has never been enough to matter; that their presence is exceptional and therefore has no impact on Britain’s broader history. Historian Olivette Otele argues the complex consequences of the narrative of “exceptionalism,” highlighting that while it allows us to explore what mainstream historical narratives leave out, it can also misshape our understandings of Black history across the world. She argues that the knowledge of select Black figures across time has been severed from the broader history of “a fight against exploitation,” which has been erased, resulting in the belief of “only a few.” The presence of ANY Black people in Britain at any time is evidence of larger stories of trade, cultural exchange, movement, and interconnections between places and people we imagine as geographically and culturally disparate. If Henry VIII had a Black trumpeter in his royal court (he did), that tells us not about an exception to be ignored, but opens up questions on a systemic and micro level.
Additionally, the notion of “few” suggests that history only matters if it happened to a significant enough number of people. Who gets to decide that number? And how do we trust numbers when people’s presence his been erased from the record, or they were unable to, or prevented from, recording their own stories? Even today, Black Brits represent less than 4% of Britain’s population, a hyper-minority. Does that render the experiences of around 2.3 million people meaningless? Does that suggest that their presence is without consequence or impact on the British economy and society? If nothing else, the current uptick in anti-Black and anti-Asian sentiment in the UK suggests that our presence is felt (and scapegoated). It is important to understand that if critical mass is what we’re looking for in the historical accounts of Black people’s presence in the UK, we will continually wrestle with the question of whether Black history is a thing. We will facilitate our erasure, by believing ourselves insignificant enough to ignore.
Lastly, and colloquially, “temporary workers” is crazy. If by “temporary workers” we mean enslaved people who were often kicked out of the country after being freed, then let’s say that. If we mean that some people move to the UK, live and work, and return to their home country, then let’s say that. In either case, these are still histories waiting to be told, and their presence shaped British history and tells us a lot about Britain. In reality, the 3.7% Black population is evidence that people came to the UK and stayed.
Ignorance is Not Bliss
The fact that we have to begin with a defense of “Black British history” as a category of study is evidence of the success of the narratives written by white supremacy. As Otele highlights, the subjugation of African and African descended peoples has not only been physical, but rather, it has been “accompanied by not only a rewriting of the oppressor’s history but also by a shaping of the story of the oppressed.” Cedric Robinson evidences this using the extensive records from British and European travellers to West Africa in the 15th and 16th centuries, in which they describe the advanced social, cultural, and agricultural systems among the different communities, yet by the 18th century, this evidence had been sidelined for a more convenient ideology of “unsophisticated” Africans. These attitudes prevailed through the 20th century, evidenced by British historian Hugh Trevor-Roper declaring in 1965 that: “Perhaps in the future there will be some African history to teach. But at present there is none: there is only the history of Europeans in Africa.” As an undergraduate studying history, our core courses required that we read Roper.
We cannot deny that what we know, and do not know, what we believe, and cannot fathom, is shaped by these long-standing myths of white supremacy. Our ignorance of Black history in Britain is by design. It is not incidental or a result of how individual immigrants feel about their heritage. To ignore that would be an exercise in continued erasure.
So let’s get into the fuller story of British history, the one in which Black, or African and Caribbean, voices and stories can be heard.
Come back on Wednesday to bust the next myth: “Black people have not been in the UK for very long!”