Page 77 - Msingi Afrika Magazine Issue 5

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earn far less than their white on racist assumptions. A recent who asked what I thought at the
counterparts with the same qual- personal encounter serves as time was a very strange ques-
ifications - at every educational an illustration. tion: “Where can I urinate?”…
level. Another research by the She was perhaps strained by
Trades Union Congress (TUC), ‘Where Can I urinate?’ the everyday horror she had
a confederation of unions in Brit- A few years back, I was at a just witnessed. Meanwhile, the
ain,also revealed that there was rundown part of north London, Kenyan man’s “crimes” aside,
a 23% pay gap between black where someone, I suspect, must having emerged from the evils
and white workers. The harsh have told lies about a Kenyan of British sponsored totalitarian
reality concerning such statis- man, for without reason he was and corrupt KANU regimes of
tics on race is that they contain arrested outside a supermarket the past to the current Chinese
echoes of the suggestion that not far from Edmonton Police supported debt-intoxicated Ju-
Africans and other ethnic mi- Station. “You don’t seem to be bilee administration in the East
norities are considered a form of taking this very seriously,” said African state, the poor Kenyan
planetary pollution in a place like the Inspector as we looked on. immigrant discovers that Britain
London. “I won’t say that I regard it as a also offers no respect for cul-
joke”, the Kenyan man replied ture, diversity or justice.
Race and the Brexit Crunch dismissively. “It must be a mat- One thing for certain though, is
Subsequently, the recent hound- ter of unimportance because I that the tensions that current-
ing of the American Actress cannot recall the slightest of- ly exist between the police and
Meghan Markle as the former fence that might be charged black communities are not a
Duchess of Sussex together against me,” he added. “We are recent phenomenon. Indeed,
with her husband Prince Har- mere servants of the law” the since the 1950s, successive
ry from the British royal family Inspector said, “so I can’t con- generations of black people in
came as no surprise to most of firm if you are charged with an Britain have felt under-protected
us. Meghan’s decision to join the offence; only that you are under as victims and over-policed as
family that is the symbolic heart arrest. Proclaiming your inno- suspects. Although it can be ar-
of the British Empire responsible cence does not redound well gued that the apparent over po-
for the troubled colonial past and upon you”. The crowd made licing of black communities can
the present post-colonial mel- up of mostly African and Asian be justified as a response to the
ancholy of a continent such as immigrants stared helplessly at disproportionate involvement of
Africa was perplexing to many the Inspector and his regiment black males in particular forms
black people, as we wondered as they dragged the poor man of criminality, what cannot be
whether she fully appreciated facing what seemed obvious- ignored is that racism, whether
the institution she had entered. ly an episodic inevitability. As I institutional or that of individual
The former ‘royals’’ troubles waited for my Enfield-bound bus officers, has played a central
aside, today in Britain, the con- alongside the crowd, I was ap- role in shaping the relationship
tinuing refusal to think about rac- proached by a Ghanaian woman that black people have with the
ism as something that structures
the life of the post-Brexit crunch
polity is associated with what
has become known as a morbid
fixation with the fluctuating sub-
stance of national culture and To counter this destructive
identity. For instance, the way
in which British Police operate objective, Afrikology therefore calls for
is still clouded with certain fixed the need for Africans to redefine their
expectations and stereotypes of world, which can enable them to
the nature and location of ‘crim-
inals’ and the manner in which advance their self-understanding and
they exercise discretion in mak- the world around them based on their
ing arrests or in deciding wheth-
er to prosecute, is often based cosmologies.

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