The Voice -
Written by Dotun Adebayo
Is it because Shakespeare is not black? And why should black have to be white to be valid Professor Paul Gilroy once noted that we reject the black “in the Union Jack” at our cost and peril. When Elvis embraced the black “in the stars and stripes”, American culture conquered the world.
When the Fab Four embraced Motown they put Liverpool on the global map and we are still earning from it. But when that historic migrant boatload of 491 men and one woman arrived from the Caribbean 70 years ago this June, Britain in the main was disinterested in the colonial swing that the greatest calypsonian ever (Lord Kitchener) landed at Tilbury Dock, when he disembarked the Windrush.
With the notable exception of Her Majesty, who has booked the BT Steelband a dozen times, Britain wasn’t dancing to the culture that post-war immigration brought. Like I say, things are changing, but until we put authentic black British culture back where it belongs from cradle to the remarkable black funerals that the photographer Charlie Phillips has captured in his book How Great Thou Art, and until it is in the school curriculum with GCSEs and A-levels in rap (yes, and why not a degree from Oxbridge in it?) and until we are able to shed our own prejudices about black British culture, Britain is no country for children of any colour.
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