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kemetic-dreams · 3 years

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First Africans in Puerto Rico

Slave transport in Africa, depicted in a 19th-century engraving

When Ponce de León and the Spaniards arrived on the island of Borikén (Puerto Rico), they were greeted by the Cacique Agüeybaná, the supreme leader of the peaceful Taíno tribes on the island. Agüeybaná helped to maintain the peace between the Taíno and the Spaniards. According to historian Ricardo Alegria, in 1509 Juan Garrido was the first free African man to set foot on the island; he was a conquistador who was part of Juan Ponce de León's entourage. Garrido was born on the West African coast, the son of an African king. In 1508, he joined Juan Ponce de León to explore Puerto Rico and prospect for gold. In 1511, he fought under Ponce de León to repress the Carib and the Taíno, who had joined forces in Puerto Rico in a great revolt against the Spaniards.Garrido next joined Hernán Cortés in the Spanish conquest of Mexico. Another free black man who accompanied de León was Pedro Mejías. Mejías married a Taíno woman chief (a cacica), by the name of Yuisa. Yuisa was baptized as Catholic so that she could marry Mejías. She was given the Christian name of Luisa (the town Loíza, Puerto Rico was named for her.)

The peace between the Spanish and the Taíno was short-lived. The Spanish took advantage of the Taínos' good faith and enslaved them, forcing them to work in the gold mines and in the construction of forts. Many Taíno died, particularly due to epidemics of smallpox, to which they had no immunity. Other Taínos committed suicide or left the island after the failed Taíno revolt of 1511.

Friar Bartolomé de las Casas, who had accompanied Ponce de León, was outraged at the Spanish treatment of the Taíno. In 1512 he protested at the council of Burgos at the Spanish Court. He fought for the freedom of the natives and was able to secure their rights. The Spanish colonists, fearing the loss of their labor force, also protested before the courts. They complained that they needed manpower to work in the mines, build forts, and supply labor for the thriving sugar cane plantations. As an alternative, Las Casas suggested the importation and use of African slaves. In 1517, the Spanish Crown permitted its subjects to import twelve slaves each, thereby beginning the slave trade in their colonies.

According to historian Luis M. Diaz, the largest contingent of African slaves came from the areas of the present-day Gold Coast, Nigeria, and Dahomey, and the region known as the area of Guineas, together known as the Slave Coast. The vast majority were Yorubas and Igbos, ethnic groups from Nigeria, and Bantus from the Guineas. The number of slaves in Puerto Rico rose from 1,500 in 1530 to 15,000 by 1555. The slaves were stamped with a hot iron on the forehead, a branding which meant that they were brought to the country legally and prevented their kidnapping.

African slaves were sent to work in the gold mines to replace the Taíno, or to work in the fields in the island's ginger and sugar industries. They were allowed to live with their families in a bohio (hut) on the master's land, and were given a patch of land where they could plant and grow vegetables and fruits. Africans had little or no opportunity for advancement and faced discrimination from the Spaniards. Slaves were educated by their masters and soon learned to speak the master's language, educating their own children in the new language. They enriched the "Puerto Rican Spanish" language by adding words of their own. The Spaniards considered the Africans superior to the Taíno, since the latter were unwilling to assimilate. The slaves, in contrast, had little choice but to adapt to their lives. Many converted (at least nominally) to Christianity; they were baptized by the Catholic Church and were given the surnames of their masters. Many slaves were subject to harsh treatment; and women were subject to sexual abuse because of the power relationships. The majority of the Conquistadors and farmers who settled the island had arrived without women; many of them intermarried with the Africans or Taínos. Their mixed-race descendants formed the first generations of the early Puerto Rican population.

In 1527, the first major slave rebellion occurred in Puerto Rico, as dozen of slaves fought against the colonists in a brief revolt.The few slaves who escaped retreated to the mountains, where they resided as maroons with surviving Taínos. During the following centuries, by 1873 slaves had carried out more than twenty revolts. Some were of great political importance, such as the Ponce and Vega Baja conspiracies.

By 1570, the colonists found that the gold mines were depleted. After gold mining ended on the island, the Spanish Crown bypassed Puerto Rico by moving the western shipping routes to the north. The island became primarily a garrison for those ships that would pass on their way to or from richer colonies. The cultivation of crops such as tobacco, cotton, cocoa, and ginger became the cornerstone of the economy. With the scale of Puerto Rico's economy reduced, colonial families tended to farm these crops themselves, and the demand for slaves was reduced.

With rising demand for sugar on the international market, major planters increased their cultivation and processing of sugar cane, which was labor-intensive. Sugar plantations supplanted mining as Puerto Rico's main industry and kept demand high for African slavery. Spain promoted sugar cane development by granting loans and tax exemptions to the owners of the plantations. They were also given permits to participate in the African slave trade.[10]

To attract more workers, in 1664 Spain offered freedom and land to African-descended people from non-Spanish colonies, such as Jamaica and Saint-Domingue (later Haiti). Most of the free people of color who were able to immigrate were of mixed-race, with African and European ancestry (typically either British or French paternal ancestry, depending on the colony.) The immigrants provided a population base to support the Puerto Rican garrison and its forts. Freedmen who settled the western and southern parts of the island soon adopted the ways and customs of the Spaniards. Some joined the local militia, which fought against the British in the many British attempts to invade the island. The escaped slaves and the freedmen who emigrated from the West Indies used their former master's surnames, which were typically either English or French. In the 21st century, some ethnic African Puerto Ricans still carry non-Spanish surnames, proof of their descent from these immigrants.

After 1784, Spain suspended the use of hot branding the slave's forehead for identification. In addition, it provided ways by which slaves could obtain freedom: A slave could be freed by his master in a church or outside it, before a judge, by testament or letter. A slave could be freed against his master's will by denouncing a forced rape, by denouncing a counterfeiter, by discovering disloyalty against the king, and by denouncing murder against his master. Any slave who received part of his master's estate in his master's will was automatically freed (these bequests were sometimes made to the master's mixed-race slave children, as well as to other slaves for service.) If a slave was made a guardian to his master's children, he was freed. If slave parents in Hispanic America had ten children, the whole family was freed.

Royal Decree of Graces of 1789

The Royal Decree of Graces of 1789 which set the rules pertaining to the Slaves in Puerto Rico and the Caribbean

In 1789, the Spanish Crown issued the "Royal Decree of Graces of 1789", which set new rules related to the slave trade and added restrictions to the granting of freedman status. The decree granted its subjects the right to purchase slaves and to participate in the flourishing slave trade in the Caribbean. Later that year a new slave code, also known as El Código Negro (The Black Code), was introduced.

Under "El Código Negro," a slave could buy his freedom, in the event that his master was willing to sell, by paying the price sought. Slaves were allowed to earn money during their spare time by working as shoemakers, cleaning clothes, or selling the produce they grew on their own plots of land. Slaves were able to pay for their freedom by installments. They pay in installments for the freedom of their newborn child, not yet baptized, at a cost of half the going price for a baptized child. Many of these freedmen started settlements in the areas which became known as Cangrejos (Santurce), Carolina, Canóvanas, Loíza, and Luquillo. Some became slave owners themselves.

The native-born Puerto Ricans (criollos) who wanted to serve in the regular Spanish army petitioned the Spanish Crown for that right. In 1741, the Spanish government established the Regimiento Fijo de Puerto Rico. Many of the former slaves, now freedmen, joined either the Fijo or the local civil militia. Puerto Ricans of African ancestry played an instrumental role in the defeat of Sir Ralph Abercromby in the British invasion of Puerto Rico in 1797.

Despite these paths to freedom, from 1790 onwards, the number of slaves more than doubled in Puerto Rico as a result of the dramatic expansion of the sugar industry in the island. Every aspect of sugar cultivation, harvesting and processing was arduous and harsh. Many slaves died on the sugar plantations

#kemetic dreams #carolina hurricanes #african #africans #igbo #yoruba #puerto rico #criollos #slave owners #british #abercromby #afro puerto rican #afro ricans

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kny111 · 5 years

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As an instrument of oppression and control, modern police departments are deeply rooted in some of the most racist and repressive colonial institutions of the United States. Since the establishment of the first policing systems like the Night Watch, the Barbadian Slave Code, the urban Slave Patrols, to the “professional” police forces and other law enforcement agencies, every one of these organizations has had the task of surveilling and controlling the population while imposing and upholding colonial law mainly through the use of force and coercion.

US police force was modeled after the British Metropolitan Police structure ; however, the modus operandi –especially when policing poor working class, migrant, brown and black neighborhoods- in the present, resembles the procedures of the 18th century Southern slave patrols, which developed from colonial slave codes in slave-holding European settlements in the early 1600s.

Colonial Law Enforcement

Essentially every colony in the western hemisphere, be it French, Spanish, Portuguese or English, had difficulties when it came to controlling its slave population and designed similar systems to manage the problem.

As early as the 1530s, runaway Indigenous and African slaves already presented a problem for Spanish invaders in the regions now known as México, Cuba and Perú. Some of the first recognized precursors of slave patrols deployed in the 1530s were the volunteer militia Santa Hermandad or the Holly Brotherhood, which chased fugitives in Cuba. The Hermandad had been established in Spain in the 15th century to repress crime in rural areas and then transferred to the Spanish colonies. The Hermandad was later replaced by expert slave hunters known as rancheadores, who regularly employed brutal tactics. These slave catchers used ferocious dogs to capture escapees. In Perú, enslaved and free blacks “owned by the municipality of private individuals” aided the Spaniard Cuadrilleros in Lima in the apprehension of runaways starting around the 1540s.

Administrators of the Spanish and Portuguese empires passed laws to handle slave-related situations, including the capture and punishment of renegades. Eventually, every Caribbean island and mainland settlements created their own rules and regulations and used a combination of former slaves, paid slave catchers, and the militia as apprehenders, all of them forerunners of patrols.

By the 1640s, Barbados, an English colony, had put in place a formal military structure which included white males, obviously but also indentured servants and even free blacks whose primary functions were patrolling slaves and protecting the island of foreign attacks.

“Though there be no enemy abroad, the keeping of slaves in subjection must still be provided for.” - Barbados Governor Willoughby

Years later other English island and mainland colonies adopted the Barbadian slave code as model, including Jamaica in 1664, South Carolina approximately in 1670, and Antigua in 1702.

Slave patrols in the Southern Colonies

The slave patrols emerged from a combination of the Night Watch, used in Northern colonies, and the Barbadian Slave Code initially employed by Barbadians settlers in South Carolina in the early 1700s.

As Southern colonies developed an agricultural economic system, slave trade became indispensable to keep the economy running. African slaves soon outnumbered whites in some colonies and the fear of insurrections and riots led to the establishment of organized groups of vigilantes to keep them under control.

In The Suppression of the African Slave-Trade to the United States of America 1638 – 1870, W.E.B Du Bois quotes South Carolinian authorities: “The great number of negroes which of late have been imported into this Colony may endanger the safety thereof.” And “…the white persons do not proportionately multiply, by reason whereof, the safety of the said Province is greatly endangered.”

All white men aged six to sixty, were required to enlist and conduct armed patrols every night which consisted of: Searching slave residences, breaking up slave gatherings, and protecting communities by patrolling the roads. Historian Sally E. Hadden, notes:

“In the countryside, such patrols were to ‘visit every Plantation within their respective Districts once in every Month’ and whenever they thought it necessary, ‘to search and examine all Negro-Houses for offensive weapons and Ammunition.’ They were also authorized to enter any ‘disorderly tipling-House, or other Houses suspected of harboring, trafficking or dealing with Negroes’ and could inflict corporal punishment on any slave found to have left his owner's property without permission. ‘slave patrols’ had full power and authority to enter any plantation and break open Negro houses or other places when slaves were suspected of keeping arms; to punish runaways or slaves found outside their plantations without a pass; to whip any slave who should affront or abuse them in the execution of their duties; and to apprehend and take any slave suspected of stealing or other criminal offense, and bring him to the nearest magistrate.”

Free blacks and “suspicious” whites who associated with slaves were also supervised. Slaves lived in a state of trauma and paranoia due to the terror that these patrols instilled in them. Various former slaves from different colonies provide an account of their daily lives.

“[A runaway] was with another, who was thought well of by his master. The second of whom… killed several dogs and gave Messrs, Black and Motley (patrollers) a hard fight. After the Negro had been captured they killed him, cut him up and gave his remains to the dogs.” - Jacob Stroyer (Neal, 2009)

“Running away… the night being dark… among the slaveholders and the slave hunters… was like a person entering the wilderness among wolves and vipers, blindfolded.” - Henry Bibb (Neal, 2009)

Rather than punishing, the primary purpose of this racially focused law enforcement was to, “prevent mischief before it happened”. Racial profiling became the fundamental principle of policing and the definition of law enforcement came to be white –and whitewashed- patrolmen watching, detaining, arresting and beating up people of color.

In an effort to establish a consistent surveillance and identification system, the slave pass, one of the earliest forms of IDs, was created to prevent indentured Irish servants from fleeing their master’s property, to identify Native Americans entering white colonies to trade, and to limit mobility of black slaves, of course. Still, thousands of slaves and indentured servants managed to escape into Spanish Florida, the Appalachian Mountains and the big coastal towns where, “a fugitive could mix into the large populations of free blacks and skilled slaves... (surviving)… much like the undocumented immigrants of today, hated and hunted by white society but useful to small craftsmen and other employers who hired their labor at submarket wages.” (Parenti, 2003)

After the Civil War white slave owners realized that race as obvious criteria for conviction or punishment was no longer “legal” – in theory at least. Slave patrols were officially terminated at the end of the Civil War, but their functions were taken over by other Southern racist organizations. Their law-enforcement aspects; detaining “suspicious” persons, limiting movement, etcetera, became the duties of Southern police agencies, while their more violent and lawless aspects were taken up by militia groups like the Ku Klux Klan.

1800s; The Birth of the Modern Police Departments

Establishing the exact date to mark the beginning of modern policing in the United States is difficult, since the evolution of older systems like the Constables, Night Watches, and slave patrols into the “new police” was slow. However, we can take the mid-1800s as the years in which the present system of law enforcement dependent on a permanent agency with full-time paid officers was first conceived.

Among the first cities in the country to create such agencies were Boston in 1838, New York in 1845, Chicago in 1851 and St. Louis in 1855; and again, the motive behind the creation of these “peacekeeping” forces was the need to control the “unruly” classes as the emerging industrial economy and new Victorian standards of “morals” demanded it.

Starting in the early 1830s, a chain of riots triggered by race, religious and labor disputes, swept across various cities in the northern region of the country and authorities responded by assigning their Night Watch patrols the riot control function, but they soon learned that a volunteer watch system was ineffective. Day watches also proved to be useless. Full-time, police officers were needed.

“The process of capitalist industrialization led to increasing economic inequality and exploitation and class stratification. Rioting became an essential political strategy of an underclass (a surplus population) and a working class suffering this increasing economic deprivation. The modern system of policing evolved to control this riotous situation.” (Eitzen, Timmer 1985)

“New York City had so many racial disorders in 1834 that it was long remembered as the "year of the riots”. Boston suffered three major riots in the years 1834 to 1837, all of which focused on the issues of anti-abolitionism or anti- Catholicism. Philadelphia, the ‘City of Brotherly Love,’ experienced severe anti-Negro riots in 1838 and 1842; overall, the city had eleven major riots between 1834 and 1849. Baltimore experienced a total of nine riots, largely race-related, between 1834 and the creation of its new police in 1857. In a desperate attempt to cope with the social disorder brought about by this conflict, America's major cities resorted to the creation of police departments.“ (Williams, Murphy 1990)

The concept of a professional police force was copied from London’s Metropolitan Police Department which had been established in 1829. These “peace” agents were called Peelers or Bobbies after Sir Robert Peel, founder of the institution. The American version of these agents were known as coppers, because they wore copper stars as badges on their uniforms. They were available 24/7, carried guns and were “trained to think of themselves as better than the working class they were recruited from.”

In order for the police force to be effective, Peel believed it should work under his Principles of Law Enforcement which explicitly stated an ideology summarized in the following nine points:

The police exist to prevent crime and disorder.

Police must maintain public respect and approval in order to perform their duties.

Willing cooperation of the public to voluntarily observe laws must be secured.

Police use of force depends on the degree of cooperation of the public.

The police must be friendly to all members of society while enforcing the law in a non-biased manner.

Use of physical force should be used to the extent necessary to secure the compliance of the law.

Police are the public and public are the police.

Police should protect and uphold the law not the state.

Efficiency is measured by the absence of crime and disorder.

These principles seemed flawless in theory but in practice they would prove difficult to implement in the United States. Soon after their establishment, police agencies were taken over and driven by political forces. Politicians would hire, and appoint police employees and high ranking officers as they pleased resulting in corruption, nepotism and favoritism being common in police departments around the country. Years later, reformers would try to purge these and other dishonest manners from the police of the “political era”.

Being a British model, the new police had a strong Victorian influence which placed yet another burden on the back of those being monitored; namely, the working-class. Victorian morality dictated strict legal definitions of public order and behavior, especially for womyn who already had to cope with gender and class constraints.

“(W)omen were held to higher standards and subject to harsher treatment when they stepped outside the bounds of their role. Women were arrested less frequently than men, but were more likely to be jailed and served longer sentences than men convicted of the same crimes.”

"Fond paternalistic indulgence of women who conformed to domestic ideals was intimately connected with extreme condemnation of those who were outside the bonds of patronage and dependence on which the relations of men and women were based.” (Williams, 2007)

Despotic hierarchical power relations not only between womyn and men, but also between, lower classes and the state itself were further exacerbated by the introduction of this new policing force as “immoral” conduct, other working-class leisure-time activities and poverty were officially criminalized and more arrests were made based on discretion and initiative of government officers rather than in response to specific complaints.

By the early 1900s, the police was well established as the most notorious state authority figure. Government became omnipresent by means of a more sophisticated surveillance system -over extensive geographical areas- that included, motorized patrols, wanted posters, informants, lineups, detectives, and radios.

“The Reform Era”

The 1920s-1930s reformers’ attempt to remove political influence from police – and vice versa- gave way to a more “professional” police, but in principle it remained the same.

A soft approach for restructuring the institution was taken at first. This proposal estimated that police officers could turn into some sort of “social scientist” collaborating with social workers and teachers to understand what the roots of crime and social instability were. In the end, a more enforcement-like strategy, with a “scientific and technologically advanced methodology of social control” which included a “machine-gun” school of criminology and a stricter legalistic framework was developed. In 1934, FBI Director, J. Edgar Hoover, would attach the concept of war to policing when he declared the first “war against crime”.

“Hoover liked to compare law enforcement officers to the soldiers and sailors who protect the state in times of war. Law enforcement was an instrument of law against disorder, a strategic weapon of war to be used against an internal enemy that was to be eradicated as an enemy of state” (Barry, 2011)

This reform coincided with one of the hardest times for the working class in the country. For disenfranchised workers, strikes and riots –especially during and economic depression, became the way to express discontent not just over low wages and working conditions, but over a lack of economic and political power as well. This obviously meant a threat for corporate elitists and their governmental allies, who didn’t hesitate in sending their armies of police officers to break and repress sit-ins and rallies. Soon, the police were on the streets carrying out some of the bloodiest massacres of “enemies of the state” during the strike waves of the 1930s like: The Memorial Day Massacre in Chicago (1937), the Battle of the Running Bulls in Flint (1937), the Battle of the Overpass in Dearborn (1937), and Bloody Friday in Minneapolis (1934) to mention a few.

In the next decades, the police, FBI, DEA and other law enforcement agencies, would repress, infiltrate and destroy organizations like the Black Panthers Party, American Indian Movement, and the Weather Underground, which the state and the owning classes perceived as threats to the capitalist white supremacy.

Law Enforcement In The Present

Based on the experience attained dealing with Indigenous Nations, African slaves and other threats, the state has constantly updated and perfected its strategies. One practice remains untouched in today’s policing and law enforcing methods, though; the tradition of upholding the kind of laws that made possible slavery, racism, segregation and discrimination in the country.

In the 21st century, police attitude towards poor communities of color still resembles that of its precursors 300 years ago. If we substitute the words "slave patrols" for "police departments" and to the list of "Native Americans" and "slaves" we add "undocumented migrants", "Muslims", "political activists", etcetera, we’ll see that the narrative history of our peoples in the United States hasn’t changed much.

Analyzing police slogans like: “To Protect and to Serve” and “Committed to Excellence”, in a historical context, it becomes obvious that they’re not directed at the policed neighborhoods but at those in positions of power, since most of the time interactions and “dialogue” with working class, migrant, and communities of color in general, are reduced to what has legitimated the institution in the first place; abusive behavior and the monopoly of “legalized” violence.

In conclusion, a phrase by Williams Hubert and Patrick V. Murphy is enough to describe the history of law enforcement in the United States:

“Policing by the law for those unprotected by it”

#news #policing #policy #internet surveillance #surveillance state #police state #surveillance capitalism #capitalism #corruption #slave patrol #slave patroling #journalism #history #white history #transatlantic slave trade #slave trade #slavery

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moonfirebrides · 6 years

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‘In this country in 15 or 20 years’ time the black man will have the whip hand over the white man.” ― Enoch Powell, River’s of Blood’ Speech, Birmingham 1968

I don’t normally like explaining my art process, as it can differ according to my mood and the topic of my work. I prefer to leave it open to interpretation but I’ll attempt to just this once. I was asked by Nottingham based magazine Leftlion to create a front cover and middle page poster for their June 2018 Issue. For a while I was wondering what imagery should I create for this cover? I needed to embark on a journey in search of fresh inspiration.

Leftlion Editor, Bridie Squires, sent over a list of some of the featured articles, notably black British poetry legend and activist Benjamin Zephaniah, an article on Female Genital Mutilation featuring Valentine Nkoyo, a feature on artist Jasmin Issaka, Human Rights Lawyer Usha Sood, activist and Jamaican WW2 veteran Oswald George Powe and a play by a local Nottingham playwright Mufaro Makubika called ‘Shebeen‘ about the 1958 race-riots in Nottingham. All of which made for a very culturally important edition of Leftlion. Now, I see myself as being relatively deep, I knew that I wanted to say something colossal and powerful with my art… but what?

Then the news of the Windrush Scandal hit, basically the UK government have been steadily kicking out Caribbean’s who immigrated to the UK in 1948-1971 (of whom were deemed them British Citizens according to the Nationality act of 1948). For more info on the Windrush see link What is the Windrush scandal? How the Windrush generation got their name and why many fear deportation by Ann Stenhouse

My blood boiled after seeing Prime Minister Theresa May and Former MP Amber Rudd’s faces in Parliament drowning over facts, figures, tepid apologies, and pathetic last minute attempts to save political careers. David Lammy MP delivered a brilliantly emotive, soulful, parliament shaking speech and after hearing a tsunami of stories of deportation being reported in the national press and not only in black newspapers such as The Voice, Gleaner or as merely word of mouth amongst PoC communities. I decided that I was going to channel the nauseous concoction of pride and disgust I was feeling into creating a collection of pieces of illustration inspired by the Windrush Scandal.

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The Windrush Generation, Navigating Britain, How to Convey Them Visually

Excited fearfulness, queasy vulnerability, disappointedly chilly, a seasick loneliness, a war torn run down realisation, relieved to be safely on dry land, eyes searching for familiar faces. I have gathered info from the Windrush generation, those that I know personally and have researched in interviews. Above are a few of the emotions that would have been running through the youthful minds of people first stepping foot off the ship Empire Windrush in England, ‘fresh off the boat’.

I decided to base my illustration on a freeze frame taken from footage shot by the BBC of the literal moment that a young black Jamaican man had first laid eyes on England (see slideshow above). He’s a young dark skinned black man, smartly dressed in a trilby, pinstripe suit and bowtie. Though in slight wonderment you can see that he is hopeful.

My parents are a part of the Windrush generation, they came from middle class backgrounds in Jamaica, my dad arrived in 1958, as a detective in Jamaica he was only able to be a Traffic Warden and Bus Driver in the uk. Likewise my mother arrived in 1962 as a teacher and had to start off working in a factory, but why?

Which brings me to what has to be one of the single most cruel plot twists for Caribbean British citizen’s in post WW2 British legislation. My parents had always drilled into me that ‘Education is key’ and that I have to work at least twice as hard as my white counterparts. I later learned why they were so adamant. The British government ran Jamaica’s education system but even so; Britain disallowed by law all the qualifications of Caribbean British citizens (down to age 11). The effect was that it acted to ghettoize; you cannot have access to higher paid jobs, which would afford you better places to live. Even though on average middle-class and many working class Caribbean’s knew a lot more about stuff like… ‘the Queen, Buckingham palace, William the Conqueror, Shakespeare, Sheffield Steel, Clive of India, The Brontës, David Livingstone and how he ‘civilised the savage’ in Africa, industrial revolution’ etc more than your average white working class Brit. To convey this element in my art, I created conflict within each image in terms of their mood. The imagery I created is deliberately jam-packed with contradictory information that my parents and other Caribbean’s had to navigate and survive under.

“White privilege is an absence of the consequences of racism. An absence of structural discrimination, an absence of your race being viewed as a problem first and foremost.”  ― Reni Eddo-Lodge, Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race

Channelling The Caribbean Perception of Post War Working Class White Britain & My Feelings on The Windrush Scandal

‘We were taught that the streets were paved with gold and that most white people were rich ’. Caribbean’s were generally taught whitewashed version of history, religion and a blind allegiance to British nationalism. All of this was a effective tool to insure that many Caribbean’s would

well behaved

subscribe to conservatism, meritocracy, respectability politics

aspire to be like white people

Be non-critical thinking servants at Britain’s beck and call, that would be compelled to come running just like the ‘good old days of Empire and slavery’. Then could be disposed off as the Britain Government and white ruling class saw fit. Though many did not adhere to all of the above and fought against the indoctrination by re-educating, decolonising and rebelling in a myriad of ways. I conveyed the clashing views of the Black British Caribbean self under the narcissistic paternal rule of Britain by using dissonant imagery, such as religious iconography, 19th century etchings of the torture of slaves calling for abolition, photography of Caribbean’s toiling in plantations, Caribbean war veterans both men and women, BlackLivesMatter protests of Nottingham, Nottingham Riots of 1958, interracial couples, the permanent influence of Jamaican culture on popular British culture and the English language, Caribbean nurses, Brexit scaremongering and racist signs.

I incorporated the beauty of paradise, sunsets, palm trees, houses with red tin roofs into my art. I wanted it to represent rose tinted memories of belonging, innocence, the memory of being a part of an ethnic majority and the confidence in ones stride that brings. A saturated use of colour was used to convey paradise and to appear diametrically opposite to the overcast aesthetics of Britain. I tried to convey that Caribbean people comment that they were shocked to find that in reality they found Britain to be smoky grey, old, dirty, dank, shoddy, ignorant, unhygienic, depressing and hostile. Caribbean’s and notably Jamaicans were instantly deemed as troublemakers, criminal, smelly, ugly, noisy and inferior in every way. ‘No, Blacks’ was a regular sign that would be seen in most accommodation available for rent and in places of employment. Most white churches would ask Caribbean’s not to return in a most polite and very British fashion. Many Caribbean people would have to defend themselves from attackers, which helped fuel riots and protests for basic human rights in Britain. I chose to represent these elements by incorporating real newspaper headlines and riot photography slashed into the imagery.

Black British Caribbean women have arguably been the anchor of the Black British families and community, a much needed ‘big up’, acknowledgement and appreciation of the beauty and strength of those women. Hence my depiction of the black caribbean woman as queen, plus I wanted to convey the 2 figures as ‘the Adam & Eve’ of the biggest influx of Black people in Britain since its creation.

Scandal is the word for this malicious act of the British government effectively wanting to get rid of the Windrush Generation now they 50+ and their children and in some cases grandchildren, after all of our great sacrifice, great contributions to Britain I wanted this art to be a visual smack in the face, machete chops and cuss words in visual patois, a beautiful explosion of consciousness.

‘If you are the a big tree, we are the small axe, sharpened to cut you down, ready to cut you down’ – Bob Marley & The Wailers

As big black women of Jamaican descent taking up room in the uk in any sense can be treacherous, often greeted with backlash; be it via my art on the cover of a magazine, singing self penned songs, navigating unemployment, voicing my opinion or merely walking down the street. I have personally have never felt a part of Britain and the recent scandal comes as no surprise to me, is it any wonder why? Most black Caribbean’s seldom talk about the moment they encountered England for the first time. I hope my art can act as a mouthpiece for their feelings, mine and for those no longer with us

The beautiful struggle continues…

If you are interested in buying any of my work please click on this link https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/THEHONEYEFFECT . Feel free to leave a comment and let me know what you think and thank you for reading my blog.

Middle page poster of the June 2018 Issue of Leftlion Magazine

Front cover of the June 2018 Issue of Leftlion Magazine

What To Do When ‘The Mother Country’ Wants To Send You Back On The Windrush: Navigating The Hostile Environment of Brexit Britain ‘In this country in 15 or 20 years' time the black man will have the whip hand over the white man." …

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loudlytransparenttrash · 7 years

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9 Reasons Why Blacks Aren’t Owed Reparations Today

1. There is no single group clearly responsible for the crime of slavery Black Africans and Arabs were responsible for enslaving the ancestors of African-Americans and most people around the world - including white people. Only 6% of African slaves were taken to North America, most slave imports were overwhelmingly taken to South America and the Caribbean. In 1830 there were almost 4000 blacks who owned about 13 thousand black slaves. Are reparations to be paid by the descendants of Africans, South Americans and Arabs too? Or are we just going to keep pretending whites are to blame for it all?

Another argument is that even though a tiny fraction of white Americans were slave owners, all whites still benefited from slavery and still owe reparations. Here’s the problem though: Do you enjoy your phone, your Nike shoes, your clothes, your chocolate or anything battery operated such as electronics or cars? Well you are benefiting from slavery and it’s about time you start paying up reparations. Unless you want to stop being a hypocrite, of course.

2. There is no one group that benefited exclusively The claim for reparations is premised on the false assumption that only whites have benefited from slavery. If slave labor created wealth for Americans, then obviously it has created wealth for black Americans as well.

Black buying power is expected to reach $1.2 trillion this year, and $1.4 trillion by 2020. That is so much combined spending power that it would make Black America one of the largest economies in the world in terms of Gross Domestic Product, the size of Mexico based on World Bank data.

Black people earning $75,000 or more per year are growing faster in size and influence than whites in all income groups above $60,000. American blacks on average enjoy per capita incomes in the range of up to fifty times that of blacks living in any of the African nations from which their ancestors originated. Is it time to check that little thing called privilege?

3. America today is a multi-ethnic nation and most Americans have no connection to slavery We already know only a small fraction of whites owned slaves so expecting every white person 200 years later to provide a black guy with a free sandwich or gift him a job for being black makes zero sense.

Also, let’s remember a lot of “white people” today are recent immigrants. The two great waves of American immigration occurred after 1880 and then after 1960. What rationale would require Russian refuseniks, Armenian victims of the Turkish persecution, Jews, Greeks, Polish, Hungarian to pay reparations to American blacks? Are we supposed to track the ancestry of every white person until we find the ones who had ancestors here in the time of slavery?

4. The historical precedents used to justify reparations do not apply, it is supposed to be based on injury, not race Reparations were meant as payments to Jewish survivors of the Holocaust, Japanese-Americans and African-American victims of racial experiments in Tuskegee, or racial outrages in Rosewood and Oklahoma City.

But in each case, the recipients of reparations were the immediate family or direct victims of injury caused by injustice. This would be the only case of reparations to people who were not immediately affected and whose sole qualification to receive reparations would be racial. It's never been about giving free shit to black people a century or two later and neither should it ever be. That’s just trying to rip off the system and you know it.

5. The reparations argument is based on the unfounded claim that all African-Americans suffer from the economic consequences of slavery No evidence-based attempt has been made to prove that living individuals have been adversely affected by a slave system that was ended over 150 years ago. But there is plenty of evidence the hardships that occurred were hardships that individuals could and did overcome.

The black middle-class in America is a prosperous community that is now larger in absolute terms than the black underclass. Does its existence not suggest that economic adversity is the result of failures of individual character rather than the lingering after-effects of racial discrimination and a slave system that ceased to exist about 130 years before most of Black Lives Matter members were even born?

Look at the earliest Asians to immigrate to America. The “coolies” were imported by the power brokers to work on major infrastructure projects such as railroads and dams. If a coolie was worked to death, employers would unceremoniously toss him aside and bring in another. However, there is no lingering legacy of the coolie system because Asian-Americans have worked hard to put that era behind them. Asian-Americans are now the most successful and wealthy people in the country.

If America is such a white supremacy (well besides the fact it’s been run by a black guy for the past 8 years) then why are minorities such as Filipino, Taiwanese and Indian doing far better than any white person? Why are Iranians and Japanese earning more than British Americans? Why are Syrians and Chinese earning more than English or German or Canadian Americans? Why is Pakistanis, Egyptians, Indonesians and Nigerians earning more than French and Dutch Americans? Everyone has history of slavery and injustice, why are blacks the only ones refusing to move forward and progress after 150 years?

What Asian-Americans have proven is that privilege in America is based not on race but on merit. People of any race can succeed in America if they emulate the approach of Asian-Americans: take education seriously, develop a positive work ethic, obey the rules, respect the laws, and stay together as families. Maybe it’s about time BLM start preaching these principles for once.

6. The reparations claim is one more attempt to turn African-Americans into victims The renewed sense of grievance and victimhood which is what the claim for reparations inevitably creates is neither a constructive nor a helpful message for black leaders to be sending to their communities and to others. To focus your entire mindset and narrative on the past instead of the future probably answers my earlier question about why blacks aren’t progressing forward enough.

Spending all your efforts demanding others to pay you for doing nothing and to give you things for doing nothing, instead of wanting to pay for it yourself or earn it yourself is lazy and regressive. Do blacks really want to take away the reparations from the millions of refugees escaping tyranny and genocide today just because some blacks can't seem to locate the ladder of opportunity that others, many who are far less privileged, seem to be able to find and climb?

7. Reparations To African-Americans Have Already Been Paid Since the passage of the Civil Rights Acts and the advent of the Great Society in 1965, trillions of dollars in transfer payments have been made to African-Americans in the form of welfare benefits and affirmative action programs (employment and education admissions) - all under the rationale of redressing historic racial grievances.

It is said that reparations are necessary to achieve a healing between African-Americans and white people. If trillion dollar restitutions and a wholesale rewriting of American law in order to accommodate racial preferences for African-Americans is not enough to achieve a "healing," what ever will?

The answer is nothing will ever be good enough because if it ever were, then the excuses for personal failure and shortcomings and blaming whites for everything will have to stop. In return, something called accountability will take its place, which even just mentioning the word makes reparation-pushers wince and feel uncomfortable.

8. What About The Debt Blacks Owe To America? Slavery existed for thousands of years before the Atlantic slave trade was born, and in all societies. But in the thousand years of its existence, there never was an anti-slavery movement until white Christians (Englishmen and Americans) created one.

If not for the anti-slavery attitudes and military power of white Englishmen and Americans, the slave trade would not have been brought to an end. If not for the sacrifices of white soldiers and a white American president who gave his life to sign the Emancipation Proclamation, blacks in America could still be slaves.

If not for the dedication of Americans of all ethnicities and colors to a society based on the principle that all men are created equal, blacks in America would not enjoy the highest standard of living of blacks anywhere in the world, and indeed one of the highest standards of living of any people in the world. They would not enjoy the greatest freedoms and the most thoroughly protected individual rights anywhere.

9. The reparations claim is a separatist idea that sets African-Americans against the nation that gave them freedom For all America's faults, African-Americans have an enormous stake in their country and its heritage. It is this heritage that is really under attack by the reparations movement. The reparations claim is one more assault on America, conducted by racial separatists and the political left. It is an attack not only on white Americans, but on all Americans - especially African-Americans.

African-American citizens are the richest, equal and most privileged black people alive - a bounty that is a direct result of the heritage that is under assault. The American idea needs the support of its African-American citizens. But African-Americans also need the support of the American idea. For it is this idea that led to the principles and institutions that have set all of us free.

Our ancestors of all races and ethnicities all played their part in history, none are innocent and all have gone through hell and back. The best part about it? It’s over now, we aren’t slaves, we aren’t slave masters, we aren’t oppressed and we aren’t oppressors. If one is owed reparations, then all of us are owed reparations. Alternatively, we can let go of the victimhood and guilt from the past and continue building the most harmonious, fair and revolutionary future.

That doesn’t mean we should ignore or forget our history, we just need to learn from it, never repeat it and stop using it to profit and get free shit from it.

#BLM #black lives matter #anti blm #anti black lives matter #SJW #anti sjw #social justice #social justice warrior #feminism #feminist #anti feminism #blm1 #racism #blackout #Trump #Donald Trump

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Jeremy Corbyn speech ahead of the UN International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination

Jeremy Corbyn MP, Leader of the Labour Party speaking in Birmingham today, ahead of the UN International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination on Wednesday 22nd March, said:

*** CHECK AGAINST DELIVERY***

I would like to start by thanking Race On The Agenda and the Runnymede Trust for hosting this event today.

And for all the work they do to highlight the issues that impact the Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic Communities in Britain.

Birmingham of course has a long race relations history.

It was in Birmingham almost 50 years ago, that the Conservative MP for Wolverhampton, Enoch Powell gave his notorious ‘Rivers of Blood’ speech. I remember it like it was yesterday as I was living in Jamaica at the time. The outrage on the streets was palpable.

An evil appeal to racial hatred, made just a week before the Labour government's Race Relations Bill 1968, the first legislation in the country to prohibit racial discrimination.

And some of you will remember that it was in 1972, Stuart Hall, a Jamaican-born cultural theorist and political activist became the director of the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies at Birmingham University. I learned a lot from Stuart.

His writing on race, and identity, and the links between racial prejudice and the media in the 1970s, was certainly ground-breaking.

And of course, Birmingham's Handsworth, now a vibrant multi-ethnic commercial area, was rocked by unrest three decades ago following years of social injustice, poverty and racial inequality.

This coming Wednesday, the United Nations marks the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination.

So it’s particularly fitting for me to be here today to set our Labour’s vision on race equality and economic justice for Black, Asian and Minority Communities.

Labour is a party built on the values of social justice, equality, internationalism and human rights. That is why I have devoted my life to it.

Theresa May will tell you she wants a society that works for everyone. But friends, I and many others in the Labour party haven’t just talked the talk; we have walked the walk as well.

I have stood side by side with your communities, to campaign against Apartheid in South Africa, against increasing Islamophobia in this county against Racism and against anti-Semitism.

And under my leadership the Labour party will deliver a credible plan to break the racial injustices in our economy and social institutions.

Now more than ever, we need to celebrate the profound and enriching transformation that the diversity of people in this country, with all the different experiences, talents and contributions has brought.

And we are privileged to have this reflected in the mass membership of the Labour party, now the biggest political party in Western Europe.

In my constituency of Islington North, we are all made better by the dynamism of cultures and languages from Ghana, Somaliland, the Kurdish region, Ireland and many more.

Here in Birmingham, one of the most diverse cities in Europe, people have come to Britain from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.

Birmingham is home to an elaborate variety of ethnic and religious communities:

Kashmiri Pakistanis in Sparkbrook. Bengali Muslims in Perry Barr. Hindus in Sutton Coldfield.

Britain wouldn't be the place it is today, people living and working together side by side, without the contribution of Black and Asian communities.

Following the Windrush Generation of 1948, it was the help of African- Caribbean communities that kept the nation moving. And of course many who came before then.

Asian people in the industrial cities like Leicester and Bradford were recruited to work the night shift when Britain retooled its textile industry after the Second World War.

Today, Britain has the world’s sixth-biggest economy – no mean feat for a small island nation you might think...

That’s partly about inventiveness and organisation, and it’s also the legacy of immigration and an exploitative relationship with poorer nations as an imperial power. The echoing voices of Empire two point zero from this government are rightly making BME people feel very unsettled.

Labour rejects a post-Brexit Britain based on trade deals that profit from the exploitation of the world’s fragile economies.

We remember the great British heroine, the late Mary Seacole, originally born in Jamaica, who set up the “British Hotel” during the Crimean War, providing care for wounded servicemen on the battlefield.

Over 150 years later, and without the contribution of your communities, our health service would struggle to survive.

The NHS was established the same year as Windrush docked. It's our most cherished national institution.

NHS England figures in 2015 show that nearly one in five of all staff were from ethnic minority backgrounds, with over two in five NHS doctors from a non-white group.

And the Tories are squeezing the NHS dry, as they hand over chunks of it to their friends in the private sector, just as they refuse entry to desperate refugees, and allow the migrants, who keep the health service going, to be demonised.

Your communities also play an important role in our civil service, local government and voluntary sector.

Today Black and Asian owned businesses are an important and growing feature of our economy and society.

These businesses are important not just because of their financial contribution; they have also helped transform particular sectors of the economy and in the regeneration of inner-city areas like Birmingham.

In the wake of the Brexit decision, it is vitally important, that we value, celebrate and protect our diverse society.

And that includes the 3 million EU nationals who live and work here, and who have made lives, have families, friends and colleagues here and so are connected to many millions more of us.

Equality is the central bedrock of Labour’s values, and that message must be heard loud and clear, particularly in the current political climate.

However, the challenges remain stark.

It’s indefensible that in Britain today, if you’re Black or Asian you are more likely to be living in poverty than if you’re white.

And that young black men have experienced the worst long-term employment and economic outcomes in generations.

Or the fact that women of Bangladeshi and Pakistani origin are less than half as likely to be employed compared with rates for other women.

How can it be just or fair that black people with degrees earn 23% less on average than their white peers?

And despite significant equality legislation brought in by Labour governments, racial inequality is a routine feature in the British economy.

Why? The political choices of this Tory government are a good place to begin.

Time and time again Theresa May patronises the electorate with empty rhetoric of “building an economy that works for everyone”.

After 7 years in government, the political machine she herself dubbed “the nasty party” continues to pursue an economic agenda that serves the elite at the expense of the majority of the people, including Black and Asian communities in particular.

Let’s just look at the budget her chancellor delivered last week. The biggest losers of this government’s tax and benefit policy are Black and Asian women.

Analysis from the Runnymede Trust and the Women’s Budget Group shows:

Asian women in the poorest third of households will be £2,247 worse off by 2020, facing almost twice the loss faced by white men in the poorest third of households.

And Black and Asian lone mothers stand to lose about 15% and 17% respectively of their net income due to punitive benefit changes.

The Race Equality Foundation showed in 2013 that overcrowding is most commonly experienced by Black African and Bangladeshi groups (with just over a third of households living in overcrowded accommodation).

And sadly, you are more likely to be homeless in Birmingham if you are Black or from an ethnic minority than if you are white.

The government’s own data reveals that a shocking 15 in every 1,000 BME households in Birmingham were homeless in 2015-16, the equivalent figure for white households is bad enough at four per 1,000.

Britain’s housing crisis is at its worst for 20 years and the government are not doing enough to address this problem. The housing minister has ruled out raising the housing revenue account which enables councils to borrow money to build. Councils cannot meet local needs.

Far from building an economy for everyone and helping the ‘just about managing’, this government is intent on the transfer of cash from the purses of poorer Black and Asian women to the wallets of the richest men.

There are also huge health inequalities in this country, particularly when it comes to mental health and social care.

Black British women are four times more likely to be detained under the mental health act than White British women.

Older people from Black and minority ethnic groups are often under represented users of health and social care services, where they do, often receive poorer treatment.

So how can Theresa May justify huge cuts to social care, but a special deal for Surrey?

The people of Birmingham are worth no less and deserve better!

The Tories talk a lot about the need for integration. Let them start by integrating our communities - black and white - into the economy, into secure and well-paid jobs, into the education system, into the health care system, onto a viable transport system.

They say they want more people to speak English and then cut the funding for English courses.

They say they want communities to integrate but then allow schools to opt out and slash the kind of youth services and education funding that would make that possible.

Britain has come a long way. But the journey was not an act of our own genius.

People fought for it … Black and white and Asian, side by side, to build the kind of country that could celebrate our racial differences rather than be wary of them.

But we have a long way to go. Black and Asian people are still more likely to be excluded, stopped, searched, arrested, charged and get longer sentences. Still less likely to go to university, get to the boardroom, the Houses of Commons.

We shouldn't be content with tolerance. You tolerate things you don't like.

We can do better than that. We DO do better than that.

People are right to be anxious. These are volatile times and people feel insecure in their work, about their children's future, about this country's future, they look for someone to blame.

Syrian refugees did not trade in credit default swaps and crash the economy.

East European builders and technicians did not slash funding for children’s centres and libraries.

Since BME communities can be disproportionately found in poor areas, and are more likely to be less well-off, everything we can do to support those families who are struggling to get by, will disproportionately support them.

And everything that is done to attack the living standards of families who are struggling to get by, will disproportionately make things worse.

Enoch Powell was wrong. There have not been rivers of blood. We have one of the highest rates of mixed-race marriage in the western world.

What we need is leadership that does not stoop to preying on those anxieties, blaming people who look differently, talk a different language or dress differently, for the mess that we're in.

Our Labour party has a proud record on race and equality.

Every progressive piece of equality legislation has been delivered by a Labour government:

The Race Relations Act The Human Rights The Equality Act

But these were not gifts from the liberal well-intentioned. They were won by struggle from well organised campaigns from the Black and Asian community in alliance with the wider labour and progressive movement.

The late 1980s saw a concerted push by members of Vauxhall Labour Party, in alliance with other members across the country, to establish Black Sections in the Labour Party.

Black Sections would become self-organised, autonomous groupings within the Labour Party, with the aim of increasing black and minority ethnic representation in the party but also in elected positions.

At the time they were opposed by many Labour Party members are being “divisive” or “segregationist”.

Today self organisation is much more accepted across the Labour movement.

But these important milestones won by your communities are now vulnerable.

Without a mandate, but with a motive, Theresa May seeks a dilution of rights and protections of people in this country.

Threatening to abolish the Human Rights Act.

Cutting to the bone funding to Equality and Human Rights Commission and all its vital work.

This Prime Minister is happy play to the gallery of her backbenchers and media cheerleaders who think your rights are a bureaucratic burden.

While serving as a distraction from the economic failure, the inequality and injustice that six years of Conservative government has delivered to our country and to our Black and Asian communities in particular.

This has serious consequences. Look at hate crimes against ethnic and religious minorities.

We see an alarming rises in racism and anti-Semitism, we are implacably opposed to racism and anti-Semitism in any form.

The party has carried out important work in this regard, both in terms of our policies to advance equality and combat hate crime, and in terms of taking forward the recommendations of the Chakrabarti Inquiry into racism and anti-Semitism.

Just last week, a report from Equality and Human Rights Commission to MPs expressed concern that the start of formally leaving the EU could cause a backlash, similar to the period of increased hate crime that followed the EU referendum.

Any move to tackle such heinous crimes head-on would be laudable, if it didn't come from a government which has actively stoked the fires of frenzied scaremongering as Europe faces its biggest refugee crisis since the Second World War.

"Go home or face arrest" vans, razor wire in Calais and warnings of swarms and migrants flooding our shores throws light on a party much more content to steal the clothes of far-right forces than attempt in any meaningful way to tackle racial and religious prejudice.

The Government strategy for Muslim integration has been through the lens of counter-extremism.

It has confused race, religion and immigration, with alarming consequences.

It woefully ignores the fact that your communities bear the brunt of its own economic choices that fund tax breaks for the richest in our society.

There is a long line of critical reports of the Government’s failing Prevent strategy.

The parliamentary joint committee on human rights has called for a review, arguing that it has the potential to drive a wedge between the authorities and whole communities.

None of these organisations or bodies have any sympathies with terrorism or act as apologists for it.

Anti-terrorism is a serious issue and effective anti-terrorism is always intelligence and community-led.

This must be fully supported and resourced. Prevent is the opposite of intelligence-led policy.

It is time for a major review of the strategy and a fundamental rethink by Government.

The rise of so called populist parties on the right in Europe reinforces how important it is for us to implement policy – both in the UK and internationally - which is inclusive and based on human rights and justice.

We must not allow people’s freedoms to be curbed and must at all times promote religious acceptance.

In this country we have a tradition of acceptance and I am sure many of us will want to maintain that tradition – including opposing any discriminatory bans of religious symbols, whether these be crucifixes, turbans, kippahs or niqabs or any other form of dress.

Friends you know the progress that has been made, but you know too problems that endure, you live these challenges. And you know too the forces that want to turn back the clock.

It is no coincidence that these and the economic injustice faced by your communities have worsened since 2010, when the Tory led coalition government began dismantling social provision.

The truth is austerity has hit ethnic-minority groups the hardest.

When left to its own devices what is called the free market has shown again and again that its impact is racial discrimination.

The loss of more than a million public sector jobs, either disappearing completely or outsourced to the private sector, has shattered one of the few footholds for ethnic minority young people to gain a real stake in society.

I am proud that Labour has the highest number of Black and Asian MPs of any other political party. This year we celebrate the 30 year anniversary of the historic election to the House of Commons of four black members of parliament - Diane Abbott, Paul Boateng, Bernie Grant and Keith Vaz.

Labour will remain the party for aspiring councillors and members of parliament from Black and Asian communities.

As leader, it has been an honour to appoint Labour’s most ethnically diverse Shadow Cabinet, including the first Black woman, Shadow Home Secretary - Diane Abbott.

Labour is proud to have the support of many Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic communities.

I will not take this for granted. I don’t want you to just vote Labour.

I want you to organise, campaign and lead for Labour in your communities and within the party. And to drive us to do more.

But we together must go further.

And address the systematic economic disadvantage and institutional barriers your communities, the forgotten communities face.

If we are to build an economy that delivers for black and Asian people, not the privileged few off the back of you.

The Labour Party is passionately committed to equality and human rights. It has been at the forefront of championing changes in legislation and policy across the UK to combat discrimination.

That is why under my leadership, a Labour government will commit to eliminate racial inequality in our economy.

Work is now less secure and pays less, leaving Black and Asian employees, in increasingly precarious situations.

Labour has committed to introducing a real living wage, of at least £10 an hour by 2020 that will do most to boost the incomes of Black and Asian women.

We will work with businesses, stakeholders, and trade unions to ensure resources are available to investigate and deal with racial inequality in relation to pay, promotion and recruitment.

This is not red tape. It should not burdensome to ensure transparency in equality and diversity policy, or for tenders to demonstrate a zero-tolerance approach to racism.

At the same time as overseeing the proliferation of zero-hours contracts.

The Conservative government has pursued an agenda of removing employee protections, denying access to justice and fairness at work.

One example was introducing a regime of Employment Tribunal Fees in 2013, a financial barrier to challenging employers over equal pay, race and gender discrimination, putting a price on justice

Since the introduction of these charges, cases of race discrimination have fallen by 50%.

The fees brought in just £8.5 million last year. The low level of income from fees shows this was a purely political decision, not an economic necessity.

Labour’s policy is clear: we will abolish these punitive fees, giving employees seeking to challenge racism and discrimination in the workplace back access to the justice system.

A Labour government in a post Brexit Britain will safeguard the rights of all citizens by incorporating the International Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Racial Discrimination into British law.

Just up the road in Stoke last month Labour defeated an attempt by UKIP to divide that community – to whip up hatred and division.

Ukip stood their leader as a candidate, they poured resources into the campaign – but they were emphatically rejected.

The far right and this government seek to divide our communities, the communities of working people.

But we have far more in common than the fake anti-establishment elitists want us to think.

Labour will unite our communities around economic and social justice for working people.

We will create a society where our origins don’t determine our destinies.

A Labour government will break the rigged economy.

End austerity.

And call time on the economic disadvantage faced by black and Asian communities in Britain.

Labour will deliver change.

Yesterday, the world lost Sir Derek Alton Walcott, the Saint Lucian poet and playwright whose intricately metaphorical poetry captured the physical beauty of the Caribbean, the harsh legacy of colonialism and the complexities of living and writing in two cultural worlds won him a Nobel Prize in Literature.

I end with a sentence from his poem about being kind to yourself:

You will love again the stranger who was yourself. Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart to itself, to the stranger who has loved you

Thank you.

ENDS

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