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With much of community still trying to get to grips with the Grenfell Tower tragedy, Forest Gate in east London was up in flames and up to six police officers were injured during a protest against the latest Black Death in Custody – Edir ”Edson” Frederico Da Costa, who died in hospital six days after being arrested in Beckton. Bro. Edson’s family allege that his “neck broken in two places.” However, the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) who investigating the case said: “The pathologist concluded there were no injuries to suggest severe force was used.” (1)
Although the anger is entirely understandable, the inclination towards cynicism is a pervasive impulse given that Bro. Edson is perhaps just the latest of the Afrikans that make up a significant portion of the more than 500 so-called “BME” deaths in police custody over the last two and a half decades for which not one officer has been convicted. (2)
Yet it appears that even avoiding death in custody fails to bring any respite to Afrikan people. There is a litany of ailments that disproportionately affect Afrikans in the UK. For example, young Afrikan women are more likely than their white counterparts to develop more aggressive breast cancer with larger tumours two decades earlier and with a poorer prognosis, including a higher risk of recurrence. (3) Moreover, Afrikans are twice as likely to have a stroke (and at a younger age) and Diabetes is up to three times more common than in other groups. (4)
Our young people do not escape. Generations of settlement leaves children of Caribbean heritage languishing ten points below the national average in academic attainment. While those from the Motherland are just about average. (5)
UK schools continue to present a range of challenges to the value systems of many Afrikan parents. Few seem more ominous than the advance of the so-called LBGTQ agenda being pushed through the school system especially through “Sex and Relationships Education” (6)
Conversely, even defining community will become less definitive as times passes. According to census figures, although the “Black Caribbean has stabilised at 1.1 percent, increasing nominally by only 29,204, the Black African population has doubled from 0.8 percent to 1.7 percent, or from 484,783 to 989,628 and those who identify as Black Other increased from 0.2 percent to 0.5 percent, with a total population of 28,437.” (7) An additional factor to take into account are the “massive levels of inter-racial relationships” which, going forward, is likely to boost the “Black Other” while having an inverse effect on the hitherto more established “Black” categories. (8)
As a mere snapshot of the state of Afrika UK, the above does not represent the most constructive prognosis. The lack of visible activity to address these issues only promises more and steeper decline.
Taking the education situation as an example, one way to address the decades old legacy of underachievement (as well as the newer attacks on values) would be independent Afrikan education institutions. But as academic and activist Dr Kehinde Andrews observes “The ultimate Black radical goal of Black independent schools… (is) …nowhere on the horizon…” (9)
Renowned author and activist Bro. Paul Ifayomi Grant has analysed some of the organising tendencies within the ‘Conscious Community’ and the Afrikan community at large and had identified some of the shortcomings. In terms of the former he notes:
– Trying to build from the top down
– Don’t show me the money
– Small numbers
– Poverty Mentality
– Preoccupied with cultural nationalism
– Getting Old
– Viewed as irrelevant
– Caribbean dominated (10)
In the wider community he also cites several tendencies “which make community development nigh on impossible in the UK”:
– Obsession with ‘social integration’ and acceptance
– Massive levels of inter-racial relationships (particularly for young African-Caribbeans) – – The idea that inter-racial sex is some sort of barometer of racism or the absence thereof, is so widely accepted in the UK that it is hardly worth expending the energy to point out the lack of logic underpinning this notion. Despite all of this inter-racial coupling; the position of Afrikans in the UK is pretty much where it has been for the past 70 years i.e. at the bottom of the socio-economic ladder (see later test).
– Widespread disinterest in business ownership
– Extremely high levels of households with children; headed by a single parent (particularly for African-Caribbeans), which amongst several negative consequences increases economic vulnerability
– Extreme religiosity and a belief in supernatural causation and solutions for human made problems
– A deep seated Inferiority complex
– Extreme individualism (11)
One of the slogans from the original National Black People’s Day of Action was the defiant cry: “Come what may we’re here to stay.” (12) Yet classical Black Nationalists from Martin R Delany and Edward Wilmot Blyden through to Marcus Mosiah Garvey and up to the Rastafari Movement always maintained a prominent “repatriation” element in their programme. Arguably, many of the conditions of oppression that thrust their work forward persist today. (13)
(1) Steve Robson (23/06/17) Dad dies after police use ‘force’ and CS spray during arrest – family claim neck broken in two places. http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/justice-for-edson-metropolitan-police-10672926
(2) Mark Townsend (21/03/15) No convictions over 500 black and Asian deaths in custody. https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/mar/21/500-black-asian-deaths-custody-no-prosecutions
(3) E Copson, T Maishman, S Gerty, B Eccles, L Stanton, R I Cutress, D G Altman, L Durcan, P Simmonds, L Jones, W Tapper, POSH study steering group and Diana Eccles (22/10/13) Ethnicity and outcome of young breast cancer patients in the United Kingdom: the POSH study. British Journal of Cancer. http://www.nature.com/bjc/journal/v110/n1/full/bjc2013650a.html
(4) Stroke Association (February 2014) Reducing your risk of stroke: information for black African and black Caribbean people. https://www.stroke.org.uk/sites/default/files/reducing_your_risk_black_african_and_black_caribbean_people.pdf
(5) Elizabeth Pears (07/02/2015) African Pupils Excel While Their Caribbean Counterparts Sink. http://www.voice-online.co.uk/article/african-pupils-excel-while-their-caribbean-counterparts-sink. National average – 56.6% A*-C grades, including maths and English. “African” – 56.8%. “Caribbean” – 47%.
(6) Robert Long (26/07/2016) Briefing Paper Number 06103: Sex and Relationships Education in Schools (England). House of Commons Library. p. 5
(7) Elizabeth Pears (12/12/12) 2011 Census: British Africans now dominant black group. http://www.voice-online.co.uk/article/2011-census-british-africans-now-dominant-black-group
(8) Paul Ifayomi Grant (August 2015) The Navig8or Newsletter. http://houseofknowledge.org.uk/newsite/index.php/contact-us/navig8or-newsletter
(9) Kehinde N. Andrews (2010) Back to Black: Black Radicalism and the Supplementary School Movement. PhD Thesis. p. 137
(10) Paul Ifayomi Grant (August 2015).
(11) Ibid.
(12) Bro. Ldr. Mbandaka (2011) Commemorate, Evaluate, Organise to Liberate. The Whirlwind. pp. 2-3
(13) Wilson Jeremiah Moses (1996) Classical Black Nationalism: From the American Revolution to Marcus Garvey. New York University Press. p. 35
we ask the question:
Do Afrikans really have a future in the UK?
1. Can we see any realistic respite from the ills that plague the Afrikan community in the UK?
2. Even if the shortcomings of our organizational capacity were reversed, would our structures be viable in this environment?
3. Is repatriation realistic in an age of globalization?
4. Are we too comfortable to challenge the status quo?
5. Or are things really not as bad as the ‘naysayers’ make out?
Our very special guests:
Bro. Ldr. Mbandaka: Resident guest who is Spiritual Leader of the Alkebu-Lan Revivalist Movement and UNIA-ACL Ambassador for the UK and national co-Chair of the interim National Afrikan People’s Parliament. Bro. Ldr is a veteran activist of over 30 years standing, a featured columnist in The Whirlwind newspaper and author of Mosiah Daily Affirmations and Education: An African-Centred Guide To Excellence.
Bro. Paul Ifayomi Grant: in addition to operating his own consultancy firm Paul Grant & Associates Ltd, Bro. Ifayomi is the author of a number of exciting and dynamic books ‘Niggers, Negroes, Black People and Afrikans’ and ‘Blue Skies for Afrikans’, ‘Saving Our Sons’, ‘Sankofa the Wise Man and His Amazing Friends’, ‘Why Willie Lynch Must Die’ and ‘Buy Now, Pay Later’. He is an active member of the Afrikan community and is involved in a number of community groups some of which he founded or co-founded:Nubian Link www.nubianlink.org.uk a community education group, ABDF Ltd (www.abdf.co.uk), a community economic development company, Nottingham Black Families in Education Parent Support Group and Brother II Brother an Afrikan men’s group. He is an executive member of the Foundation for the Sustainable Development of Africa (FOSDAF) www.fosdaf.org an international group promoting grassroots Afrikan economic empowerment. In addition to his www.houseofknowledge.orkuk that houses writings, information and resources, Bro. Ifayomi has also launched a the website: www.blackfinancialfitness.com as a learning platform to facilitate economic empowerment.
Hear weekly discussions and lively debate on all issues affecting the Afrikan community, at home and abroad. We talk it straight and make it plain!
ASwA Hosted by Sis Kai Ouagadou-Mbandaka and Bro ShakaRa
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