We live in an age when self-identification is all the rage. And yet, for many years, there has been a storm growing in sound and fury about the use of the label ‘Black’ by racialized minorities in the UK. It is a Very British Debate which even our US cousins struggle to understand. I say ‘even’ because of the disproportionate influence that American ways of thinking about race wield in this country. The US failure to understand the debate implicitly dismisses the significance of it within the British context and can undermine it, particularly for younger activists.
We both crave and shun labels. We crave them because we want to control our own narratives. We shun them because they can be reductive, particularly when imposed by others. But the history behind the label ‘Black’ is infused with political struggle. Many of the younger people who find the concept of ‘political blackness’ irrelevant to their activism today complain that there has been very little handed down to them about that history. I hope to unpack some of that history.
