Akala – Public Reading Rooms

Akala: ‘As I grew up, I became embarrassed by my mother’s whiteness’

Akala — Sat, 26 May 2018 10:28:39 +0000

Extracted from Natives, Race And Class In The Ruins Of The Empire, by Akala

At five, the hip-hop poet was racially abused at school. Could his mother ever really understand?

One day in 1988, at the age of five, I returned home from school upset. My mum tried to work out why but I was reluctant to tell her. After some coaxing, I told her that a boy in the playground had called me a particularly nasty name. As I was about to spill the beans, a strange thing occurred. I said, “Mum, the white boy… ” and trailed off before I could complete the sentence. A profound realisation hit me. With a hint of terror and accusation, I said, “But you’re white, aren’t you, Mummy?”

Before this, my mum was just my mum, a flawless superhero, as any loving parent is in a five-year-old’s eyes. I sensed that something about that image was changing in the moment, something we could never take back. I wanted to un-ask the question. My mother’s expression was halfway between shock and resignation: she’d known this day would come, but the directness of the question still took her aback.

She thought for a moment and then, using one of her brilliant if unintentional psychological masterstrokes, replied something to the effect of: “Yes, I’m white, but I’m German and they’re English.” It didn’t matter that my mum was not really German – she was born in Germany but brought up in Hong Kong – or that I was technically English: my mum had created a safety valve for me, so that I could feel comfortable reporting racist abuse to her without having to worry that I was hurting her feelings. Even at five, I knew instinctively that whiteness, like all systems of power, preferred not to be interrogated.

I told my mum that the boy had called me a “Chinese black nigger bastard”. I felt naughty even saying the words. My mum must have had to resist the urge to laugh before the anger set in. What a combination of words! We had to give the lad – or more probably his parents – 10/10 for originality.

From that day, my relationship with my mother was not just that of mother and son, but of a white mother to a black son. Race had intervened and now marked our actions and attitudes, coloured our conversations and heightened the usual conflicts, mapping on to them the loss and suffering of the black world at the hands of “whitey” – and the strange mix of guilt, fear and superiority that a great many white people feel as a result, but rarely talk about. It did not matter that my mother’s family was poor by British standards, that they had their own history of horrendous institutional abuse, or even that she was half Scottish: race overrode those nuances.

Education was not particularly encouraged in my mother’s household when she was growing up, and certainly not for girls. Her father was an ignorant, violent, unapologetically racist man. He was also conditioned by the class and gender relationships of his day, so when my mother got the highest grades of her siblings – she had three brothers – he told her she must have cheated. When her teacher encouraged her to go to university, her response was to laugh uncomfortably and say, “No, sir, that’s for posh people.”

However, she made friends with the only black family where she grew up – the family of Uncle Offs, the man who would become my godfather. Uncle Offs’ own father was a university-educated schoolteacher in his native Guyana, and it was expected that his children would get a good education. My mum was encouraged by the family to attend university, and so she did, pursuing a degree in Caribbean history. Her induction into a radical, anti-colonial black politics fundamentally shaped the way she raised her children.

Now race had made itself known to us, my mum did not hold back: my siblings and I would watch films about the civil rights struggle, slavery and apartheid. She gave me a box of tapes of Malcolm X speeches for my 10th birthday. She did everything she could to make sure I “knew myself”.

Yet for all her education and political activity, she was still white; she could never really “get it”. She could never reach her black son in the way other black people could, and we both became painfully aware of this. As I grew into a young man, our conversations became tinged with racial difference and I became embarrassed by her whiteness, drifting deeper into a half-digested black nationalist politics refracted to me through hip-hop and a couple of books I’d half-read.

I saw the pain and uncertainty in her face as I became a teenager and then a black man, her fears for and of my body; the 6ft-tall adult, the scowling brown face that had once been a naive, smiling five-year-old who didn’t yet know that his mother was not a “sister”, but the oppressor.

For a long time, race threatened to wreck our relationship, combined with the stresses of being poor and the more mundane familial resentments; but we survived and, after many, many struggles, flourished.

By the time I realised my mum was white, she knew only too well. She had been called “nigger lover” enough times; she had watched my dad fight the National Front and assorted bigots almost daily, while her own father had disowned her for “getting with a nigger”. People she had grown up with walked past her when she pushed our prams; others refused to believe we were really her children in the culture of the time.

It wasn’t until my late teens that I started to really think about what whiteness means. I questioned how Celts, Saxons, Corsicans and Nordic people had all come to be defined as “white”. “Whiteness is a metaphor for power,” James Baldwin tells us. “Money whitens,” say the Brazilians. South Africans can be found calling rich black people “white man”, and they mean this as a compliment. Or, as Frantz Fanon tells us, “You are rich because you are white, because you are white you are rich.”

The mental and emotional benefits of whiteness are why my grandad – working class, a soldier who had been tortured in battle, an uneducated alcoholic with few serious accomplishments – could still say, “Well, at least I am not a nigger” as often as he did. What did my grandfather understand about whiteness that so many pretend they cannot?

And it’s also why, though my mum was far from rich and had a great many sufferings of her own, she still shared a degree of racial discomfort when faced with the questioning eyes of her five-year-old son. But she sought and led him to answers, and did her best to rise to the challenge

Natives, Race And Class In The Ruins Of The Empire by Akala is published by Two Roads.

By choice, Akala has never voted before. But Jeremy Corbyn has changed his mind

Akala — Fri, 12 May 2017 10:12:08 +0000

Source: The Guardian

For the first time in my adult life, someone I would consider to be a fundamentally decent human being has a chance of being elected.

I have a confession to make: I have never voted in a general election in my life. Despite attending more demos with my parents than I care to remember, I have never yet cast a vote. I can hear the voices of disapproval. Don’t bother; it has been a conscious choice. Many people have been trained to see the Houses of Parliament as the only site of political activity and their vote as their only, or at least primary, obligation. I was, thankfully, not raised with such a narrow view of political engagement.

However, I will be voting for the first time in June and I will – I am shocked to be typing this – be voting Labour. I am not a Labour supporter; I do not share the romantic idea that the Labour party was ever as radical an alternative as some would like to think. Despite building the welfare state, Labour has been an imperialist party from Attlee to Wilson to Blair, thus as a “third world” internationalist I have never been able to vote for them.

So why will I be voting now? Jeremy Corbyn. It’s not that I am naive enough to believe that one man (who is, of course, powerless without the people that support him) can fundamentally alter the nature of British politics, or that I think that if Labour wins that the UK will suddenly reflect his personal political convictions, or even that I believe that the prime minister actually runs the country. However for the first time in my adult life, and perhaps for the first time in British history, someone I would consider to be a fundamentally decent human being has a chance of being elected.

I recognise that Corbyn is an imperfect “leader”. He was abysmal during the Brexit campaign for example. He is a politician, and he will make more mistakes.

We do not need perfect politicians, because we are not perfect people ourselves. As well as his historical stances on apartheid and other issues, Corbyn has consistently voted against the UK’s worst acts of foreign aggression, including being one of only 13 MPs to vote against Nato’s horrific intervention in Libya in 2011 – an intervention that has played no small part in the subsequent refugee crisis and the direct spreading of terrorism.

We keep being told Corbyn is unelectable. Yet we were also told that he would not win the Labour leadership. He may not have the “electric” personality that electorates are concerned about in these days of celebrity culture, but politics should not – primarily – be about personalities; it should be about policies – and Theresea May hardly exudes charisma. Bill Clinton and Barack Obama are probably the most charismatic English-speaking politicians of my lifetime, but their actual policies were horrendous.

I understand that for much of the UK electorate British foreign policy is not a priority. But for those of us that still have family in the global south and/or have political worldviews shaped by ideas of human solidarity, this is a primary concern.

What would happen if at some point in the future the Jamaican (or any other global south) government decided to nationalise what little bauxite (or other commodity) it has left, or to default on its IMF repayments? What would be the US response? Blockade? Invasion? Would Jamaica’s homophobia and police brutality suddenly get bumped up into the “human rights issues” club? Would the positive trends in Jamaican society (such as ranking 32 places above the UK for press freedom or being one of only three countries on Earth where your boss is more likely to be a woman) be ignored by the media so that a one-dimensional, despotic, draconian vision of the country could be drilled into the global psyche in preparation for invasion? Would Britain berate its American ally for its aggressions and force it to seek a peaceful solution to a problem in a Commonwealth country? Maybe ask the Grenadians.

We could ask the same of much more powerful countries, say India; could the treatment of Sikhs, Adivasis, the issues in Kashmir and what Narendra Modi himself oversaw in Gujarat be manipulated to justify war, should India disobey global corporate power? Certainly. It seems increasingly clear that America is preparing for war with North Korea and make no mistake about it – if the Tories get their mandate, our taxes will be right there with them.

These scenarios may seem far-fetched to some, but when we hear these revisionist imperial morons chanting about Empire 2.0 like it’s a new flavour of sugar-free drink what are we to think?

There are a great many other progressive policies that make Corbyn a genuinely different candidate from what we have seen before, but another key area is the NHS. If you want to see what privatised healthcare looks like just ask any American. The ethos behind the NHS is one of the most egalitarian ideas ever: it must be protected at all costs. The Tories have made their intentions in this area quite plain – as has Corbyn.

Let’s be quite clear, I am not suggesting that we cease any other sort of progressive political activity. I simply think we cannot afford, in this very particular set of circumstances, to not vote. You may believe Labour has no chance of winning and therefore it is pointless. I disagree. Let’s at least show how many people need and want the progressive ticket that Corbyn is running on. Then, at least, we have something to build on. Though of course the aim is to win – and there are more than enough people like me that did not vote in the last election to swing it entirely.

Akala: Malcolm Said it

Akala — Thu, 20 Oct 2016 14:07:56 +0000

Malcolm Said It: Lyrics

Malcolm said it
Martin said it
Marley said it
Ali said it
Garvey said it
Toussaint said it
I weren’t there but I’m sure Dessalines said it
Malcolm said it
Martin said it
Marley said it
Ali said it
Garvey said it
Lumumba said it
I weren’t there but I’m sure Dessalines said it

If you ain’t found something to die for
If you ain’t found something to die for, you’ll never live

If you ain’t found something to die for you’ll never live
We might feed and breathe but we never did
Except those with peace and equality
That don’t see what we call authority
Live and speak truth and kill them for
We love them dead when they speak no more
But they will endure, ideas are bulletproof
Tooth of truth it’s impossible to pull it loose
We smother any mouth, they utter it
Folly Fathers fear, we Mother it
We’re lovin they’re corrupt government
So we look the other way when in our name they’re strugglin’
We idolize ’em and we despise ’em
Cos we’re reminded we’re the ones who are silent
So, give a moment for the times we were blinded
Scream at the top of your lungs like a siren

Maybe the wise man has nothin’ to prove
But the one who has nothing has nothing to lose
More things we don’t need will make more thieves
More laws we don’t heed it’s all Siamese
Who leads? It don’t matter, they can’t make change
New driver but we got no brakes
Whatever the place, whatever the face
The master never ever frees his slave
They always knew it
So they pursue it
But we’ve been too divided to ever be guided through it
Gotta stop ’em because they’re rotton from the days of picking cotton
To sell us a love song and we’re so besotted
So confused, we believe their promise
But there are some that lead more honest
They are not forgotten, though they shot’em
So scream to the top of your lungs right from the bottom!

People don’t rebel, the rebels are the tyrants
You are not God, so we are not defying
No human nature, just our behavior
The oppressed wanting their oppressor as their saviour
Around the globe killin’, made to be religion
But the book said they’re sinnin’
And that is just the beginnin’
Now spread democracy by dropping a bomb
On a terrorist with no shoes or socks
I reckon, history teaches us a lesson
The bigger terrorist is the one with the bigger weapons
They talked but we didn’t listen
They spoke and then went missin’
We can’t see all the things that imprison us
Cos we don’t appreciate the freedoms that they have given us
I wouldn’t bet it, that we ever get it
Run, tell your friends that Akala said it

Akala: Find No Enemy

Akala — Thu, 20 Oct 2016 12:35:27 +0000

Racism, sexism and nationality / Just to me it all seems like insanity / Why must I rob you of your humanity / To feel good about mine?

Apparently I’m second generation black Caribbean
And half white Scottish whatever that means
See lately I feel confused with the boxes
Cause to me all they do is breed conflict
It’s not that I’ve lost touch with the reality
Racism, sexism and nationality
Just to me it all seems like insanity
Why must I rob you of your humanity
To feel good about mine?
It’s all about crime
Dehumanizing is how I justify it
So I must keep on lying about the history of Africa
So I can live the with massacres
And repeat my mantra of Muslim and terrorist
So I can sleep at night as bombs take flight
Eyes wide but I’m blind to the sight
Too busy chasing the perfect life
And the working class keep them uneducated
Truly educated men could never be racist
To educate is to draw out what is within
Are we not all not the same under the skin?
I got a heart like yours that pumps blood and oxygen
And insecurities are a whole lot of them I’m scared like you deep down
I really do care that world is not fair like you
But I don’t even believe my own prayers like you
Chasing career going nowhere like you
Lost in a fog of my own insecurities
I hold myself up as a image of purity
And I judge everybody else
By the color of their skin or the size of their wealth
But it’s not good for my health
As the only one I ever really judge is myself
The oppressor must suffer like the oppressed
Though I pretend I’m in control of this mess
By inflating my ego, puffing my chest
I see my weakness, and need to show strength
Or what we think strong is because if we’re honest?
True strength is the strength to be honest
And if I’m honest I am just tired
If I’m honest I am just tired
Tired of everyday filling up my car and knowing that
I’m paying for the bombs in Iraq
Tired of pretending like it don’t hurt my heart
Of wanting change but not knowing where to start
Tired of listening to all the conditioning
And all the forms they have me filling in
Next time you see what is a thug and despise him
Please know I was just like him
Cause I was like eight the first time I saw crack
Same time I first smoked weed choking on blowbacks
First time I saw knifes penetrate flesh
It was meat cleavers to the back of the head
As I grew and teenage years passed
Many more knifes pierced and the shots blast
And I not saying I had the worst upbringing
But there’s a million young men just like me in prison
We complain about racism and elevate clowns
With their trousers down swinging their dicks round
Maybe that is not quite literal
But everything they do is just as stereotypical
To my real fans I feel your pain
And I get the messages, but don’t complain
That we ain’t got more fame for paying our part
They can keep the charts all I want is your hearts
They can keep the charts all I want is your hearts
They can keep the charts all I want is your hearts
Calling it black radio, don’t make laugh
So is black music all about tits and arse?
You don’t represent nothing, you’re just pretending
When was the last time you ever played Hendrix?
Or Miles Davis or John Coltrane?
Or Ella Fitzgerald or Billie Holiday?
We can call it urban to me that’s cool
If urban means street, that includes jazz too
And rock for that matter
Go ask Mick Jagger or Jimmy Page what they were listening to – the blues
Not discrediting, love Zeppelin too, just giving credit where credit is due
That blood soaked word rappers still use
All it really shows is that we still self abuse
That was the word that was used to kill Kelso Cochrane and Emmett Till
That was the word that the conscience eased
And made people pleased to hung you from trees
That was the word that let the whips crack
No matter what you say you can’t take it back
And I can say their black so I feel their pain easier
But 1915 look at Armenia
If the whole world is human stupidity
Though we choke ourselves to death quite literally
And I can talk with my comfortable mouth
With my comfortable clothes and my comfortable house
The tables will turn, we can but stall them
Every empire on this earth has fallen
So unless we can find another way
Maybe not today, but it will come one day
It may sound like I’m bitter but in fact truth be told I am quite the opposite
I wake everyday and am overwhelmed
Just to be alive and be like no one else
And the sheer weight of the thought of space
Is enough to keep my little ego in place
All that we chase and try to replace all along it was right in our face
The only way we can ever change anything
Is to look in the mirror and find no enemy
The only way we can ever change anything
Look in the mirror and find no enemy

Akala: The Thieves Banquet

Akala — Tue, 11 Oct 2016 11:33:52 +0000

Which thief can stake his claim as the greatest messenger of murder upon the planet?

LYRICS

[ Intro: Akala]

Once upon a time in an obscure part of the Milky Way Galaxy
There was a spinning ball of water and rock ruled by the forces of evil.
The Devil himself, proud of the magnificent achievements of his children
Decided to call a special banquet for the greatest thieves in all the land
He sent invites to thousands
Of the greatest murders, rapists and general-assorted scum
Inviting them to attend his palace at the dawn of the new moon
Each thief would be given a chance to stake his claim
As the greatest messenger of murder upon the planet
And the Devil himself would then decide who should be crowned king.
After many days of deliberating
All of the petty thieves, such as street criminals
Have been found far short of the required level of wickedness
And there were just four sets of thieves left in the competition
They were: the monarchs of empire, a cartel of bankers
The heads of religious orders, and the third-world dictators
Each set of thieves appointed a spokesman to give his case to the Devil
We have recorded these events for posterity

Uh, listen
Uh, okay, yo
First up was the thief of the worst reputation
Dictator of a third-world nation
He looked the Devil in the eye as he spoke
In an oh-so-serious tone
[Verse 1: Akala (as the Third-World Dictator)]
Dear Mr. Devil
I am the greatest thief there has ever been on Earth
Please tell me who else more than me personifies your work
I came to power in a military coup, I murdered the elected president
He wanted to use the resources of our country for our peoples’ benefit
I proved to masters in the west
I could kill my own people just as well as the best
So I took over the so-called independent country when the foreigners left
Sent squads of death to those who would suggest
In power should be the one they elect
Erected a statue of the great man
That raped our mothers, stole our lands
That’s how little self-respect I have
Don’t fight slavery, it makes me glad
Account in Switzerland, Rolls Royce
Murder and rape cos I want new toys
Don’t want a portion, but a whole fortune
With that profit, what’s a little bit of torture
Even outlawed my indigenous culture
And language and history
And taught our people to only worship colonizers
And of course, ME!

[Hook]:
Thief!
It’s the banquet of the thieves!
Come and dine with me!
It’s the banquet of the thieves!
The banquet of the thieves…

[Verse 2 Intro: Akala]
The Devil was so impressed with this wonderful man
He almost ejaculated on his hands
But the monarch of the empire said

[Verse 2: Akala (as the Monarch of Empire)]
Excuse me, Mr. Devil, I’d like to speak if I may
Who do you think trained this amateur dictator to behave this way?
Yeah, I’m sure before I came along his country was far from heaven
But look of the carnage I caused all over the Earth, it’s got to be the work of the Devil
Countless deaths, mass enslavement
Deliberate starvation of whole nations
The dictator tries his best, but looking at me, he’s just an imitation
Who do you think pays his wages?
He would love to be trading places
I’ve been doing this ting on the roads
Way back, way back, way back
Since the Middle Ages
Everybody knows he’s a criminal element
They think I’m democratic and benevolent
And that shows that I’m really devilish
Cos people think I’m heaven-sent
I couldn’t care about democracy
You all know no one elected me
The people love me despite my crimes
Sucka MCs wanna bite my shine
So blingin’ out of control you would vomit
Don’t even touch dough, but my face is on it!

[Hook]:

[Verse 3: Akala (as the Head of Religious Orders)]
I’m a pervert who’s in the cloak of the clergy
Yes, I’m a pervert who’s in the cloak
I’m a despicable character
I use my position of authority and spiritual reverence
I’m a despicable character

Mr. Devil, allow me to speak
For all of the religious leaders that leech
In the world of creeps, I’m initiated
I take the peoples’ faith and dissipate it
With false promises, hollow oratory
Don’t need a gun, it’s daylight robbery
Dear Mr. Devil
I thought you would like it
How I use their faith in God to keep them blinded
Put on a nice voice, read them a book
And they believe that I am not a crook
Tell them God will repay them in the next
They give me their life savings so I can buy jets
All the reports about child sex
None of us have ever gone to jail yet
This system of stealing, so appealing
Convinces the victims their lives have meaning
Monarchs boast about conquest
But needed my blessings to get it done
And all of the dictators use my books
Therefore, they are just my sons

[Verse 4 Intro: Akala]
The Devil was sure this was the winner
And was just about to put an end to the dinner
But then the man from the banking cartel
Stepped up and said

[Verse 4: Akala (as the Cartel Banker)]
I think I’m the biggest sinner
All of those three depend on me
All they ever do is defending me
Cos I paid for all of the things they have
Of course, and all of the lives they lead
Paid for the guns, bombs and the tanks
That’s why you see, there is always more
I turned science’s basic appliance
Into a client of weapon and war
Paid for monarchies, armed robberies
I make monopolies out of property
Never shot a gun nor killed anyone myself
But billions die cos of me
Who needs a threat? I make a debt
Out of thin air, just sit back and collect
Every single day, whatever they say
The people need me just to connect it
Yet none of them knows what I look like
Yet all of them spend my money to look nice
They want more, no one’s pure
I hold the keys to every single door
Sell sex and drugs, profit and lies
Earth and skies, I’ll even sell life
I’ll even sell freedom for the right price
But no one is smart enough to ask me nice
So Mr. Devil, give me the medal
Don’t be biased
If you don’t give it to me
I’ll just BUY IT!

[Hook]:
Thief!
It’s the banquet of the thieves!
Come and dine with me!
It’s the banquet of the thieves!
The banquet of the thieves…

Akala: Shakespeare and Hip-Hop

Akala — Sat, 08 Oct 2016 17:51:31 +0000

Artist, writer and historian Akala explores the connections between Shakespeare and Hip-Hop, language and power.

Akala website…