the system, not because of it. Yet the eighties appeared to make an already unequal society even more unfair, even more divided.
Later that evening, while reading Handa’s Surprise* to my son, Turner Prize-winning artist Jeremy Deller’s Joy in People exhibition popped into my head. At London’s Hayward Gallery I had seen, amid the colours and the quirks, amid the joy and the pain, the joy in pain, images of the Miners’ Strike and police brutality. It brought the eighties back to me again and revealed just how many people across the UK Thatcher had displeased. Yet she remained in power for such a long time. Three election victories, remember? Impressive. Why did so many people vote for someone deemed so divisive? Must have found a way to appeal to the true blue within, right? Must have played patriotic games better than any other politician. Enough, therefore, for people to forget what the policies and the economy had really been doing to them all along.
Suddenly I felt guilty and anxious. How could I let Thatcher interfere with this moment with my son? She had already interfered with my childhood. How could such feelings that I thought I had long since buried resurface so swiftly? The thoughts came, they went. They hurt. They died. Like my soul.
My soul finds solace in sport and indeed the success of black athletes. Rio Ferdinand on a football field, as smooth as Rakim on the mic. Lennox Lewis, an under-appreciated champion despite being Britain’s greatest post-war boxer. Ian Wright, the working-class hero who taught everyone that you could succeed with hard work and without compromise. Anthony Joshua, Denise Lewis and Jessica Ennis-Hill, each winning with class. Lewis Hamilton, winning with style. Well, not just winning but transcending. He may be British sport’s GOAT (greatest of all time). Don’t care about their politics. Or how they self-identify. I need sport like I need friendships. I need to see those positive images, because it always feels as if they represent something more than athletic excellence. They represent you. The best of you; the you that the media and history tend to ignore, deny, conceal, suppress, revile.
The reality for people of colour in Britain is that our skin tone is a barrier. It limits opportunities. Things have improved. But for all the success displayed on the field of play, black people remain the poor relations in British society. We are still over-represented in the criminal justice system, in unemployment, in mental health institutions, in school exclusions. We remain absent in positions of power, around decision-making tables, in government. The black athlete may often be triumphant, they may create an illusion that we make up a more significant percentage of the population, but some gross disparities still exist in Britain for black people.
For all our success on the playing field, it is still hard for me to use the word ‘we’ and ‘us’ when referring to my place of birth. Why? Because in so many British people’s eyes, we (black people) remain outsiders, visitors, not the ideal conception of Britishness or Englishness. As a friend once said to me, ‘I only feel English when I’m abroad.’ Another friend recently said to me, ‘The only time I’ve ever seen true diversity on television was during the coverage of the Grenfell disaster.’ So, while sport provides a remedy in the form of positive images of black people, does this also mask society’s deep-rooted rejection and ignorance of Black-Britishness? Can blackness and Britishness ever be compatible?
This book aims to answer these questions. Primarily covering the period between the Brixton Riots (1981) and the Brexit referendum (2016), it looks at ‘race’ and racism in modern Britain through the prism of sport. It explores sport’s role in reflecting, reinforcing or challenging common ideologies about ‘race’.
I use the West Indies cricket team to explore the conflict of supporting colour (shared experiences) over your country (shared birthplace), I look at how London 2012 concealed the racial tensions of the time, I examine the Americanisation of Black-British culture through Michael Jordan and the re-emergence of athlete activism. I profile some of our major sporting heroes such as Lewis Hamilton, Eniola Aluko and Ian Wright. I also revisit major sporting events, such as Lennox Lewis v. Frank Bruno and some of our major sporting conflicts, like Linford Christie v. Lord Coe, and John Terry v. Anton and Rio Ferdinand. In each case, I uncover what these athletes and these events told me about ‘race’ relations in modern Britain.
This is not a history of, or a who’s who, of black people in British sport. It does not attempt to cover every single event and every single athlete. Nor is this an academic study of ‘race’ relations through sport even if, at times, it draws on the excellent work of scholars such as Ben Carrington and Kevin Hylton. This is personal, telling true stories from a black perspective, my perspective, one informed by having worked as a journalist and in civil society for over 25 years. One informed by having loved sport practically all my life, because it is something that has bonded three generations of males in my family.
I cannot be saved. It will always be this way for me. Enraged, caged. Frustrated. Frustrated knowing that ‘race’ does not exist. Knowing it is a social construct. One of the biggest lies in history. That is why I refer to ‘race’ in this way. Cannot give it credence. Yet it is real: real in the minds of people, real in history, real in the way it equates Britishness to whiteness. The Empire state of mind.*
My partner once said to me, the only thing that exists is the way people see ‘race’. See me. Limit me. I’m frustrated knowing that Britishness for many people isn’t blackness. Well, Britishness nor Englishness isn’t blackness. I veer between the two. My experience, the experiences in this book, are English. But the Empire state of mind is British.
Yet for him, my son, ‘race’ will affect his life chances. For him, my son, the playing field will also look extremely different to mine. He does not see colour. But people see his colour. As he gets older, those perceptions of his colour will become more vivid, more twisted, more restrictive.
So how do I prepare him for a society that, on the surface, is great, functions well, provides opportunities; a society I am glad to be in, yet I also understand will disadvantage him due to the colour of his skin? How should I impart knowledge without sinking his confidence? How do I achieve this without giving him my baggage, without afflicting? Without infecting?
How and when exactly do you tell a child that so much of what they will hear in school and read in newspapers is only half the truth; not our truth but a clouded, colour-blind version of the truth? How do I give him the confidence to fight when everyone around him will think that you can’t win with ‘race’, that the only race you can win is on the playing field?
I often struggle to convey this to my white friends with children. We all have our problems. We all have our issues. I understand that. But I also know that they will never have to worry about whether their children will be welcome in some neighbourhoods or not. My white friends are unlikely to teach their kids about how to deal with the police, because their child will less likely be profiled and stopped without reason. They will not have to instruct their kids about the way they walk, through fear that this may reflect badly on how their behaviour is perceived. They will not have to worry about their child wearing a hoodie or having their child’s athletic achievements being attributed to natural ability. They will not have to worry about their child being exposed to an overwhelming number of negative images in the media or having any academic failure implicitly attributed to ‘race’. They will never have to edit their child’s assertiveness in public through fear of their child being perceived as angry or aggressive. They will not have to prepare them for multiple taxis driving past them, low expectations and stereotypes from teachers, or multiple clubs, restaurants and bars refusing them entry. It is unlikely that their children will ever be mistaken for ‘the help’ at fancy gatherings. They will not have to worry about how ‘race’ is represented in school, or if their history is non-existent in textbooks. They will not have to worry about their child’s skin being a determining factor around whether an employer thinks s/he can fit in or not, or whether they are deemed suitable for housing. They will not have to prepare their child for a society where white folks will continually explain how you (as a black person) should feel about racism.
My father grew up in the era of West Indian