“Babylon Awards”.

 

Been thinking a lot, this time of year does it to you. Years gone, years to come, Queens speeches and golden pianos and then the list… I often wondered what it would be like to refuse an OBE or MBE? I couldn’t accept something with the word ‘Empire’ in it. And I still feel as though it’s a misunderstood, harmful and desperately out of touch word that means one thing to one people and another to the people that suffered empire. Because that is what it means. Deep sufferation, death and brutality, erasure and enforced silences, military and otherwise, torture and land grabs. The past has always been a commodity, repackaged and rebranded, conveniently omitting the continued harm and trauma of empire. Empire means that only certain peoples were allowed the status of human, that the imagined difference made it right to subjugate the ‘other’. Empire continues to mean that lack of recognition. Reading what others think of being offered an MBE or OBE, listening to them feeling like it’s a reflection of our ancestors sacrifice I couldn’t disagree more. We pick and choose which parts of history to reflect on and which parts we want to acknowledge.

 

Yet more articles that the mainstream media seem so happy to push out by high profile Black personalities defending their acceptance of an award, two in the last week and to my knowledge none countering that stance. Funny that. Is accepting an award one in the eye for Racism? It depends on what definition of Racism you choose to adhere to. Racism, as a huge pervasive structure cannot be tackled just by representation, when we understand that representation is ineffective, hollow and based on unhealthy ideals that are discriminatory. Representation, doled out by oppressive powers can also be easily manipulated, controlled and used as a way to justify the shutting down of any critique about Racism because look, we’re on tv or in a film or writing a piece for The Guardian. But like “Highlander”, there can usually only be one and that one has to represent ALL. We don’t ask this of whiteness. And crucially by taking a component of Racism, like the lack of representation, ends up leaving out huge parts of experience and knowledge that lead to continued and maintained silences, a complete lack of ‘intersectionality’ (shudder), ignorance and ultimately failure. It’s the system that needs to change and the change comes from collective work, not individuals that might like something on the mantelpiece. The Black celebs have felt it necessary and are lucky enough to be given a platform to lay out their carefully considered reasonings for accepting an award.  That accepting them somehow highlights the issues that Black and Brown diasporic peoples have to deal with in this country. (Highlighting to whom? Most of us know) But them not accepting an award, as others have done and laying out their reasons as to why they haven’t could also highlight those issues. There is more than one way to look at a crown.

My Grandad proudly proclaimed that he didn’t come on no boat, he came by plane, because England needed him to drive a bus. This generation were the first to encounter British racism on mass, the writings of Sam Selvon illustrate the shock and loneliness of expectations unfulfilled. My Grandad, a man who hated government and bosses, had pictures of the queen on his walls. That cantankerous, loud mouthed, sweary man felt it ok to have the icon of Empire, in his time anyway, in his home, alongside the coloured fish and the felt map of Jamaica. I didn’t like this white woman in a crown, looking at me as I drank my foamy hot chocolate out of the type of enamel cup that has since become so trendy. I didn’t know her and owed her nothing. I still don’t. Even then, knowing that what she wore on her head had a diamond on it that was called the star of India and the fact that she was not Indian made me even more suspicious. I don’t give love lightly and it’s perhaps one of the most insidious parts of the maintenance of Empire, that unearnt love is demanded and expected. Abusers do that. She remains a symbol of that commodified history, a whitewashing of the pain of Empire, the cozy face of destruction. She bothered me. I complained.  She wasn’t a part of our family, she was no great grandmother or auntie, she was a random white woman that wanted me to love her for no reason. I harangued him and eventually I muttered into my hot chocolate under the threat of a beating. Finally one day she was gone, the space filled with an out of date calendar with pictures of Barbados beaches, because of my mouth I was told… I counted my small victory. Thinking about his sacrifice, his determination, his argumentative nature, thinking about who he was, I try to imagine the conversation we would have. If an award was offered to me and I said no I think he’d be proud that I was offered one, no doubt. He’d be puffing out his chest and claiming me to his mates in the pub. I also think he would be proud that I found a voice to represent the dissent that he couldn’t. And maybe I’m picking and choosing what I think he might say, he’s been dead some years now, but I do know that I and many of us have had to educate the people around us. Younger generations had to tell their forebears about the violence of the police, the Racism they suffered in schools, they had to be taught that the beatings didn’t make anyone better, that good children weren’t just quiet ones, that mental health issues were real, that Black and Brown women were not just about fulfilling male need, that thing that Black women have felt for years that makes you heart heavy, that’s mysogynoir and I experience it too. I understand that hindsight is a privilege and most of them were busy surviving and didn’t have the time to reflect on Empire cos the livity was and still is difficult out here.  But I’m doing it, I’m reflecting on Empire and its very real life impacting legacies. They’re courage and sacrifice has allowed me to do it and that’s what they fought for too.