Before I begin. Huge props to Derek Owusu and all the authors involved in his book, Safe: on black British men reclaiming space. Credit also goes to those who helped organised the Foyles book event which I attended back in March. As black British male writers there is I think a unique feeling of isolation, and so to enter a lit event comprised primarily of black men, this was, in of itself, an incredible feat.
I ought to mention from the get-go that this article is not a review of the book itself. Rather, it’s a piece about the nature of review within the ‘black context’. Millennial black men are under-represented in literature to the point of non-existence and so this kind of book I’ve been ready to talk about. The only problem was I didn’t know how.
Millennial black men are under-represented in literature to the point of non-existence and so this kind of book I’ve been ready to talk about. The only problem was I didn’t know how.
It began that evening in Foyles. Sitting in that black audience listening to those black writers talk about the possible onset of a black renaissance, I admit, got me all gassed up. I couldn’t help but imagine the possibilities of all the great writers and artists to emerge, of creating something that felt uniquely black British with a movement to match.
It wasn’t until my commute home that I caught myself. How in this state was I supposed to engage a critical reading of this book, let alone a review? How was I to quell my inner fan girl and produce a piece of work that didn’t rest upon a pillar of awe and deference?
How was I to quell my inner fan girl and produce a piece of work that didn’t rest upon a pillar of awe and deference?
Of course, these guys are not god’s, and neither was I looking at them as such (I hadn’t even read the book yet!), but I can’t deny that in me was a resistance towards being too critical or even remotely negative. That evening as they were speaking, everything skeptical I’d usually propound found itself silenced by the very feat of their existence as black men in literature.
everything skeptical I’d usually propound found itself silenced by the very feat of their existence as black men in literature
This strange conundrum of honesty versus loyalty/respect I speak about with my brother all the time. We jokingly send one another what we like to call ‘hotep whiteboard’ videos. You must have seen these before. Pan-African Saturday-school-type lectures on a range of topics from spirituality to health to history, most often held in a classroom or a church, and always complete with what seems to be a dusty projector and/or whiteboard.
What always strikes me in some of these ‘hoteps’ is that in their passion to uplift the black community, they somewhat ironically end up tearing down the black people who happen to fall outside the ideology of Pan-Africanism. Often at the barrel of their barrage are successful black people, gunned down for not using their privilege and power to help others in the community succeed. Whenever I am confronted by this consideration my thoughts usually range from ‘you’re wrong, they’re successful, leave them alone’ , all the way to, ‘you’re right, but they’re successful, leave them alone’.
What you may read in my response as flippancy or passivity you may also read as, ‘aren’t things hard enough?’. It’s to the latter where my feelings towards Safe lay. Without actually analysing the contents of the book, I know enough to care less about the aesthetics of literary criticism when juxtaposed with the reality of food on the table.
I could care less about aesthetics and literary criticism when juxtaposed with food on the table.
And whilst this is admittedly immature on my part and unjust for both the reader and the writer, if I’m being wholly truthful there is also a part of me that’s quite fearful of being too critical and interrogatory. Allow me to explain…
Black criticism – if I may call it that – takes on a unique feature, I think. I went to a lecture recently where the topic of discussion centred around the now infamous Rhodes Must Fall campaign. When Q&A time came, a black man in the audience rose to consider the question of his potential status should he choose to go against those campaigning for Rhodes’ Fall.
The trouble he saw lay in the representation of his blackness. His point being that, within the constrictures of blackness, for him to do anything but support black South Africans would leave him irrevocably vulnerable to speculation and/or isolation from the black community and from the very idea of blackness itself.
within the constrictures of blackness, to do anything but support leaves one vulnerable to isolation from the very idea of blackness itself
One of the assumed precepts of blackness is that we stand together in community, and so how do we be confidently critical towards one another when doing so threatens isolation? And furthermore, what does the reality of having to manage such concerns mean for the development of black British literature?
The answers lay in considering and challenging the fundamental conceptions of ‘blackness’ that are often taken for granted yet consistently fed. And I refer not only to the negative representations widely proliferated, but also to the positive ones too. The idea that there exists a homogeneous group called the black community, that they share something called the black experience, and that they ought to care about black issues (or that there exists ‘black issues’ at all) – these notions can and do serve to unify black people in this country, yet at the same time they can also work to nullify.
If prophecy rings true and a black British renaissance is indeed on its way, as a starting point, for both readers and writers alike, it’s important that we keep this in mind.
Margin Page.
Margins Page is a play on its very words. Stories of black people in Britain, both past and present, have often been relegated to the margins of the British canon. This platform attempts to reconfigure this position, serving as a page to help develop, curate and promote black British literature.
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