The Blackwash

Standing Firm in Pride: UK Black History Month

• Kayne Kawasaki • Season 2 • Episode 3

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Greetings and welcome to the Blackwash. I'm excited to share some of my insights into blackhistorymonth.org.uk's theme for this year's 38th UK Black History Month. The theme for this year is standing firm in power and pride. Our episode specifically delves into the concept of pride. So what comes to mind when you think of the word pride? According to blackhistorymonth.org.uk, their definition is it reflects cultural identity, heritage, and the celebration of black excellence. From the art and music to the stories passed through generations, pride is the heartbeat of the black communities worldwide. It's about knowing where you came from, embracing our history, and walking boldly into the future without compromise or apology. Pride is a declaration of the beauty, the resilience, and the unmatched contributions of black culture to the world. Or to summarize, as my granny would say, show it to the world. I've broken pride into four key Ps, starting with passed through generations. So for the context of that sentence, it says, from the art and music to the stories, passed through generations. Pride is the heartbeat of black communities worldwide. So of course we have our own individual family stories, but collectively, what stories of pride are we passing through generations specifically for UK Black History Month? I've chosen three powerful examples that highlight the importance of cultural institutions that we as a community have built and sustained. In no particular order, Notting Hill Carnival, celebrating its 60th anniversary in 2026. It is a vibrant testimony to our cultural resilience and what we did to heal race relations in West London. Black Saturday schools. Dating back to the 1970s, these schools have been crucial in providing supplementary education and fostering cultural identity, especially against the backdrop of educationally subnormal schools. And lastly, the voice newspaper, now 43 years old. This publication has been a vital voice for black communities in the UK since 1982. These institutions not only have rich histories but are also actively making a tangible impact today. For Black History Month, I encourage everyone to show pride and power by supporting them. This could mean buying the October edition of The Voice. It could mean sending your children to supplementary schools if extra support is needed, volunteering, donating, or simply spreading the word to ensure that these stories are passed down through the generations. For more on Nottinghill Carnival, you can listen to my previous episode, Kelso Cochrane. And for the voice, you can listen to my previous episode, Ethnic Ethics. Going back to our official definition from blackhisturymonth.org.uk, it says it's about knowing where we come from, embracing our history and walking boldly back into the future. The second P in pride is past and present. This year, we are celebrating 60 years since the Race Relation Act of 1965. The first UK legislation to ban racial discrimination in public places. For context, the UK saw an influx of economic migrants after World War II, many from British colonies or former colonies. The Museum of London states that casual colour prejudice was a part of daily life for many. As a result, the left-wing MP Fenner Brockway had introduced a bill to stop racial discrimination eight times from 1956 to 1964. In 1958, London saw the Notting Hill riots, where a mob of three to four hundred white people was seen attacking the houses of West Indian residents. And in 1963, the Bristol bus boycott occurred, which saw the local company refuse to employ black or Asian bus crews. By 1964, the Labour Party, led by Harold Wilson, came to power with a slim majority in the House of Commons. Wilson had promised the leader of the Bristol bus boycotts, Paul Stevenson, RIP, that when a Labour government came into office it would pass a law against discrimination. Wilson's government, along with all of the other players that I just mentioned, played a pivotal role in reforming race relations in Britain. But they had to wait an extra two years before there was a change in the law. By the time the 1965 bill was introduced, there was a population of almost a million economic migrants living in Britain. As you can imagine, these workers were thankful for the change in the law. But that wasn't it for the Race Relation Act as it has been amended four times. In 1968, the Act was widened to include housing, employment, and service provision. However, the Act still didn't apply to the police force in its duties. In 1976, the Act finally extended the definition of discrimination to include indirect discrimination, any practice that disadvantaged a particular racial group. Individuals who felt like they had been discriminated against could take their complaints to the courts or industry tribunals. But despite all of these amendments in the act, there was still no law against racial discrimination by the police in the conduct of their work. It wasn't until 1999 with the MacPherson Report when that concluded that the Metropolitan Police Force was institutionally racist. Following this report, a new act was passed in 2000, and this act brought the police into the scope of race relations legislation. So as the initial paragraph for blackhistorymonth.org.uk says, it's about knowing where we came from, embracing our history, and walking boldly into the future without compromise or apology, knowing both the past and the present, and knowing that as recent history has shown, there is still a way to go regarding race relations in Britain. The third P is parts. All parts. The definition says pride reflects cultural identity, heritage, and the celebration of black excellence. So while UK Black History Month is rooted in black British experiences and history, it's essential to embrace the broader diaspora. As Akiaba Adai Sebo, the founder of UK Black History Month, states, it's about understanding Africa, and that's a continent, by the way. Africans, people of African descent, their contribution to world civilizations from iniquity to the present, especially to the growth and development of the UK and Europe. Unlike ethnicity, race, nationality, which can sometimes be limiting or leave some people confused about the differences, I like the term that they used, cultural identity, because it's holistic. It combines national, political, cultural, religious, family factors, etc. Essentially everything that shapes one's identity. I advocate for understanding what I call the triality of transatlantic blackness. So let me paint a picture. For someone of Caribbean heritage like myself, picture a circle in the middle that represents me, it's you, it's I. Then three other circles surrounding that me. In those three circles are Black British, which arguably is my race, black, my nationality, British, in another circle, Caribbean, my heritage, Caribbean is well, Jamaican is my ethnicity, it's also the home of my forefathers for many generations, and in the third circle, Africa, my DNA, my ancestral home. So essentially, I'm Afro, and when I say Afro, I mean African origin, Afro, Jamaican, Black, British. Now, I know that that is a mouthful, and believe me, I'm not going to write that on every application form, of course not. This is for deeper conversations around cultural identity. But it's about acknowledging all parts of our pride. Even if you aren't any of those things, in order to understand Britain and how it dealt with the black diaspora, you need to understand the triality of the transatlantic blackness. This Black History Month, I encourage you all to explore something about Africa, the Caribbean, and Black Britain to understand the full spectrum of our power and pride. So, for example, currently I've read a book that focuses on Africa, a book that focuses on the Caribbean, and a book that focuses on Black Britain. Do what you do. It may be a podcast, it may be different films, it may be different art exhibitions. Do you, but make sure that you're exploring the triality of transatlantic blackness because we can't leave elements of our pride by the wayside. If I use myself for example, some may classify me as black British, as in my race is black and I was born in Britain. However, Black British was first used officially on the 2001 census. I had a life before that. Who or what was I before that? And what that says to me is that the roots aren't deep. So I question if we're standing firm in power and pride if we merely identify our cultural identity as being just black British. Yes, we're standing, most definitely, but firm? I question. So for example, our Black Saturday schools are typically experiencing less attendee numbers. The voice newspaper, in my opinion, has been slow to adapt to the changing social media landscape. And Notting Hill Carnival has experienced disproportionate police and media scrutiny since the 70s. So once again, I question how firm we are standing, and I implore you all to get involved in any way you can. Not just cuss and discuss, but get involved. Because God forbid any of those three cultural institutions go and we'll have to start again. And I don't know about you, but how many times are we going to start again and continue to divide our generations? So at one point, my people were West African, they were from present-day Nigeria, they were brought over to Jamaica. That's a reset, having to start again. Learn and gain a whole new cultural identity. Now, the majority of my family reside in Britain. Once again, we're encouraged to change. Black British. But who knows what the future holds and if black British is going to change. We saw Bain change, for example. So each time there's a reset on our cultural identity. So why is it that we're so easy to identify with black British when it was only officially used in 2001? But then when I was growing up as a millennial, we were really quick to disassociate ourselves with our ancestral home, which is Africa. The triality of transatlantic blackness is about acknowledging all parts of our cultural identity. Moving on ever so slightly, question When was the last time I, you, was standing firm in power and pride of our cultural identity? So bearing in mind myself, Afro-Jamaican, black British. For me, it was Jamaica most recently in the world athletics, you know, Tallowa, all of them things there, Christiane Seville won gold and silver in a hundred meters, and Tina Clayton won a silver, as my grandma would say, Jamaica to the world. I asked myself the same question. When was the last time I was standing firm in power and pride in my cultural identity of being British or black British? I asked my followers on the live, I asked my mum, I asked my friends, and we struggled. Some pointed towards 2012 Olympics, but outside of that I can't think of anything else. Just a note, I don't watch football, but still, we shouldn't be restricted to sports. And the fact that we struggled, some mentioned clapping for the NHS, but obviously that was off the back of COVID. So we really struggled, and that struggle made me realize the importance of highlighting for Black History Month and beyond standing firm in power and pride. Because collectively, we shouldn't be struggling to identify something outside of sports. Finally, the fourth P is reactionary pride. As reported by The Standard last week, Central London saw a huge turnout for far-right marches and anti-racism counter-demonstrations. London police deployed more than a thousand officers to prevent clashes as thousands attended the Unite the Kingdom march organised by Tommy Robinson. In politics, a reactionary is a person who favors a return to a previous state of society which they believed possessed positive characteristics absent from the contemporary. It describes points of views and policies meant to restore a status quo. The reason why I bring this up? Because seeing those images, I question to myself, is that White Britain standing firm in power and pride? My answer to that question would be no. Because they are standing firm in power, so they've got the influence, they've got the amount of bodies, but they're standing in reactionary pride. Cuss and discuss wrong and strong reactionary pride, which I firmly reject for UK Black History Month and our cultural institutions. Looking inward now, recent events have highlighted the need to proactively build and celebrate our cultural identity rather than only reacting to negativity. We must be standing firm in power and pride. And this includes rejecting any forms of disdain within our community, such as the emerging what I call black incel type culture that shows hatred towards black women. Pride, as defined by blackhistorymonth.org.uk, is a declaration of the beauty, the resilience, and the unmatched contributions of black culture to the world. Hear me on this. We cannot be standing firm in power and pride and show disdain for black beauty and black women. In regards to our cultural institutions, once again I reject reactional pride. Hence why I passed the story of Kelso Cochrane through the generations via the Notting Hill Carnival historic billboard takeover this year. People need to know, otherwise, Carnival will go, get moved to a park, and then we'll be left with that reactionary pride. So to summarize the theme of standing firm in power and pride, I broke pride down to four Ps. Who remembers the first one? Passing down our stories. Kane, what stories? Our stories of Notting Hill Carnival, our Black Saturday and Supplementary Schools, and the Voice newspaper, cultural institutions that we built and that we are sustaining. The second P past and present. Acknowledging and knowing, despite being told otherwise, that Britain has had its Race Relation Act in place for 60 years. It's about knowing the past and the present. The next P what parts of black history do we celebrate in Britain? All parts. We acknowledge the triality of the transatlantic blackness, what that did to us as a people. And the last P is saying no to reactionary pride. Our pride is not reactionary. Thank you so much for checking out this episode. I'm Ken Kawasaki, and let's continue to stand firm in power and pride for the 38th UK Black History Month and beyond. Thank you for listening to the Blackwash.