Thinking about Race: Should we hear the voice of the underclass or the middle class? A polemic!

My politics is not just about policy but cultural politics. Part of my mission is to transform the look, sound and feel of the political landscape. To stretch the parameters of the type of person that is acceptable in British public and political life. 

I consider myself to be situated politically in what I term the "underclass" and what we refer to colloquially as the "endz". For me it is important to be who I am; to walk, talk and communicate in a way that is authentic to my social roots. To show my peers that being who we are and sounding and walking and talking like we do is not something to be ashamed of; to show them that the body language and spoken voice that we have adopted from our social background should not be considered a barrier to participation in British public life or reaching the highest echelons of British society. It is from this perspective that I want to begin this reasoning.

In the media in the last few days there has been a conversation about "race" instigated by Trevor Philips' controversial programme on the issue that was aired on Thursday. I have made my opinions on the ideas that Philips espoused in the programme clear and disagree with the conclusions that Mr Philips has drawn. I have also read and heard other peoples responses to his comments that have echoed similar sentiments as myself. 

I disagree with the conclusions that Philips has drawn but I think that now is an opportune moment to discuss "race" in the context of my social roots and class affiliations and to also discuss some of what I have disagreed with in the responses of others and my general inclination towards "race" politics today. 

Today I believe that "race" politics and race-relations misses the mark and does not speak to or for those people of colour that are truly disadvantaged. I believe that "race" politics has become the realm of a middle class elite whose lives and experience' are at odds with the many people of colour that make up the "underclass" that occupy the imagination of the public as violent and disorderly criminals. The grand middle class elite struggle to tell a political story that resonates with that experience and I believe that they are more or less in the business of race. 

In a recent video montage on The Guardian site rapper Akala spoke about "everyday racism" and argued that "race is a business", this I believe to be the truth but I believe that it is a business of a small "black" elite who promote and discuss "race" politics at the expense of those that are truly disadvantaged and occupy the public imagination in the ways I have outlined. For me the conversation about "race" becomes ever more frustrating because it does not get to tackle the problems that affect the growing underclass that includes a disproportionate amount of people of colour; it does not speak to those that US academic William Julius Wilson referred to as the "truly disadvantaged". 

William Julius Wilson transformed the conversation about "race" in the US when he identified that in understanding racism in the US today it was important to recognise that there was a growing African-American middle class that were able to succeed and integrate in the global elite and the middle classes. He identified that in the areas where there was the greatest deprivation with dynamics that played themselves out racially "race" was not the defining factor. He argued that there was a growing gap between those African-Americans that came from middle class homes and rich families and the swelling ranks of the African-American "underclass". For Wilson the conversation around "race" could no longer focus on skin colour per se but on tackling the social conditions of those people of colour that were struggling to integrate into society and developing a culture at odds with the culture of the conservative African-American middle class. The people of the projects; the people in the ghetto.

Today in the UK I believe that we are having a similar experience. There is a growing middle class elite that speak of structural racism; they speak of "race" politics in the context of skin alone and because of their social roots in some cases or because of the trajectory of their lives in others have no self-interest in starting a new conversation that brings those that want to discuss the immediate issues of people of colour in inner city housing estates to the table.

In 2011 many of those young people of colour that share my social roots took to the streets in protest at the lack of respect given to them by the wider society both "white" and "black".  Those that have been socially excluded for so long rose from the shadows to bring their invisible lives to the forefront of the political arena. Yes; maybe they went about it the wrong or used crude methods but it was a cry to put their issues into the political mainstream. They may not have articulated the issues clearly or in any type of political context but to me it doe's not take a genius to recognise that it was a political act that simply lacked political sophistication and theory.

Today I believe that there is a "black" middle class; an elite who are not affected by the issues that impact the burgeoning "underclass". For me their constant reference to "race" and the negative impact it has on their lives is not important to me. I don't believe that they experience anything as near as the disregard as those that hold the dominant voice in "black" urban popular culture.  I do not believe that they can speak to that experience that transcends the racial parameters that were part of the debate in earlier years. The calls for positive action and for a few more of the "black" middle class such as Trevor Philips in race-relations or academic posts is not going to speak to the issues and the people that they are technically making money from. It will not change the new "underclass" politics that plays itself out racially.

The demands of the "black" middle class are not the demands of those that occupy the public imagination as criminals and drug dealers. I do not believe that people think that the public intellectual Ekow Eshon is a criminal or that Oxford educated UCL academic Nathaniel Coleman is styled as a gang leader on a regular basis or Cambridge educated lawyer Kevin Bismark Cobham considered a coke dealer. I do not believe that they are excluded from consumption; so they struggle to speak to this politics. I appreciate that they have risen to the highest levels but I don't think that an excellent education alone makes one a credible voice on the issues that those in the "black" poor experience. I do not believe that left-wing academic conversations about "structural racism" do anything but add some nice theories to the canon of left-wing thought to sit on the shelf so the next generation of "race" men can sit down and pontificate on them; in libraries, lecture halls and at Pan-Africanist intellectual gatherings. 

The urban "underclass" need politics and policy that is realistic and improves their day to day lives like the raising of the threshold on personal allowance; prison reform; legalisation of cannabis and decriminalisation of drugs; an overhaul of stop and search; funding for legal aid; mental health funding; large scale investment in social housing; digital inclusion and living wage jobs in our inner cities. We are not interested in another ideological; theoretical fairytale but some intelligent policy that tackles the issues rather than a simplistic request for positive action that will fundamentally expand the gap. "Race" politics is the home of the "black" middle class and not those down to earth folk struggling on the breadline from one day to the next.

Yesterday, I watched a recording of a debate at London South Bank titled "being a black man" and one of the panellist' spoke about people not thinking he was "black" enough because he spoke well; didn't smoke weed; have children for different women and was gay. This man exemplified the struggle of many in the "black" middle class that are aware that they are treated differently from the black "underclass" that occupy the public imagination but sometimes seek solidarity and recognition of their blackness by playing the "race" card in a way that is as odd as Cameron and Osborne's "we're all this together" slogan. I believe that there is a recognition amongst the middle class of who "race" really impacts negatively but "race" is used to secure a career as the next Al Sharpton or Cornel West whilst the "endz" is looking for a Bob Marley or a Huey Newton. 

The mantra is that there is a need to talk about "race" and in many ways I agree but I want to talk about it in a different way that I have outlined previously but I also want to add the voice and experience of the weed smoking, broken English speaking, single-parent, multiple children having, council estate living constituency that I am a product of. To inject that voice into the British political landscape, public life and the conversation about "race" without causing a riot. Should I be ashamed of my roots?  

New Britannia: The making of a post-racial British identity

One of my most important missions in British politics is to work toward's a New Britannia. A new British identity that is not dependent on the traditional nation state demands of blood and soil. To imagine a new nation that transcends the limitations of "race" and seeks for an all-inclusive post-race nation where values and citizenship define who we are rather than "race". 

Some may question whether this is even possible, to them I say that if Christianity and Islam were able to create cultural movements that transcend racial categorisation and put a wide array of hues under one set of values then it is more than possible for us to build a New Britannia and become a beacon of light to the world. In order to begin to work towards a New Britannia I believe that we need to begin the history of Britain with the birth of the British Empire and its fallout and how the British Empire transformed Britain from a mono-racial and mono-cultural society into the multi-racial and multi-cultural society that it is today.

Britain was once a small island with minimal power in the world. With the coming of the industrial revolution Britain was transformed from a small powerless island into the largest Empire that the world has ever seen covering 1/3 of the peoples on the planet. The Empire stretched across 5 continents and there were not many parts of the world that were left untouched by it. Because of it's colossal size the Empire was referred to as "the Empire where the sun never sets" because there was always a time when there was daylight in one of the colonial outposts of the Empire.

The British Empire like other Empire's made all colonies under it's servitude and made all colonials subjects of the British Crown. The Empire was not discriminating with who became part of it and colonised black, brown, yellow and white (Irish) people without partiality, making them all subjects under the Crown. The birth of the British Empire transformed how Britain looked and gathered many cultures into one body politic in a way not seen since the days of the Roman Empire.

The process of colonialism aimed to make British subjects into British persons and accepting of British values as their own; modifying or doing away completely with their traditional values and way of life or sometimes reducing traditional ways of life to a type of "Orientalism" for the entertainment of the British Aristocracy. In the process of colonialism the many colonial subjects across the world accepted the British Aristocracy and the Crown as their own; the Head of State of Britain became the Head of State of all the colonial outposts across the world creating a New World Order.

In becoming part of the British Empire the colonial subjects became something new; some but not all as in the case of India adopted British names and ways of dress. Some were sent to be educated in the "mother country" and were given jobs in the colonial administration. Though there was some obvious coercion many adopted the British values and way of life because they believed that it was superior to their own cultural tradition or offered improved material and intellectual development. The British Empire was hegemonic; it dominated the other cultures but the concept of hegemony holds at its heart the idea of unspoken consent on the part of those who are dominated.

The British Empire existed at differing degrees from the 16th to the 20th Century but was at it's height during the "Imperial Century" from 1815 to 1914 when it comprised more than 400 million people; all of whom were British citizens. When WW1 broke out citizens from across the Empire were enlisted to fight in a multi-racial, multi-cultural army that included African's, Indians, Pakistani's, Caribbean's and others. The same thing happened in 1939 at the outbreak of WW2. After the war Britain recruited amongst its colonial citizens for workers to rebuild Britain.

When the first set of British colonials arrived in Britain from Jamaica in the 1940's they were British Citizens. They technically had the same rights as all other British Citizens wherever they were in the Empire. Reports by Pathe News covering the arrival stated that though there was anger amongst the British working classes there was nothing that they could do about it. It was a situation not dissimilar to the experience of EU migrants today whose membership of the EU allows them legally to live and work in the UK.

In the mid-20th Century the winds of change began to blow and colonial subjects began to seek independence; with India, Pakistan and others gaining independence in the 1940's followed by the independence of the first African nation Ghana in the 1950's. Others such as Nigeria would follow and the Caribbean in the 1960's and the British Empire arguably ended in the 90's with the independence of Hong Kong. 

I believe that we can tell a new inclusive story of Britain that begins with Empire and includes all of those that were once British Citizens but engaged in decolonisation struggles and dismantled the British Empire giving birth the Commonwealth. I believe that if we shape the modern British identity around the British Empire and its fall out then we can tell a different story about Britain that includes the descendants of those more than 400 million British colonials that many British citizens descend from today. By beginning the history of modern Britain with Empire and it's fall out, our heroes become many of the heroes that struggled for human rights and anti-racism across the world. 

The heroic stories of British-English subjects such as Wilber Wilberforce would now be accompanied by the heroic stories of Gandhi; Nkrumah; Azikiwe; Garvey; Marley and others who were citizens of the British Empire. By beginning Britain's history with Empire we start to build towards a new way of thinking about British identity and the issues of race, ethnicity and identity that occupy the media at present. Britain becomes then not the story of "white" people but the story of the world's biggest multi-racial and multi-cultural Empire. 

The Britain today that speaks of "two wars and a world cup" will now be replaced with a different tale that recognises the heroics of those that fought for decolonisation as part of our own story of change and transformation; that recognises that we could never tell the story of modern Britain without understanding the struggles of those mentioned above in a British context and how they shaped modern Britain with their overseas activities and their activities on British soil.  The struggles of those heroic figures should become a part of British public life just as in the US the struggles of Martin Luther King Jnr and the Civil Rights movement or the story of the Underground Railroad are recognised in US public life.

I believe that viewing Britain through the lens of my argument will give recognition to those that made Britain better by rejecting the politics of domination; that by putting the stories of these individuals into our schools, universities and public life we will recognise that the values that they stood for - liberty, fraternity and equality - are the values that we as British citizens should hold dear today regardless of our hue. So I say without apology that Gandhi; Nkrumah; Azikiwe; Garvey and Marley are part of the British story a story that connects us to the heritage of 1/3 of the planet; that's a big deal!

So let us think of a different Britain; not the Britain of UKIP or the Conservative Party but a new Liberal Britain that welcomes the diversity of our past; that accepts the heroic defence of British values by those mentioned above; that recognises that there is no way modern "white" British citizens can go back 400 years to the mono-racial and mono-cultural society (that never really was...) that existed before the birth of the Empire and there is no way that people of colour can avoid the impact that the British Empire has had on their heritage, culture and family history and return to a pre-colonial Africa.

Liberal Democrats or Labour? The politics of the Hip-Hop Generation or the politics of the Black Labour movement? Part 2

In the 70's and 80's the Black Labour/Power Generation set the parameters of political philosophy in "black" politics in Britain. Their philosophy was rooted in revolutionary but democratic socialism and their intellectual companions were Marx and Walter Rodney amongst others. Bringing together the two thinkers they developed an analysis that was a hybrid of the two and offered a way to connect "race" and "class" politics. They sought racial as well as class equality and added an extra dimension of identity politics to the traditional Marxist ideal. The racial equality element was about getting political representation; anti-race discrimination legislation and making the "black" community more visible in local authority. Much of which they succeeded in achieving. 

But there still existed issues around economic and political philosophy. The political philosophy of the Black Labour/Power Generation was a traditional Marxist analysis. They believed that the engine driving human society was class struggle; they argued for big socialist government as the answer to Britain's economic problems; they called for a dictatorship of the workers and for the means of production to be placed into the hands of the working class. 

In the 80's when the uprisings in Brixton and across the country took place; though they were not Marxist protests the language and rhetoric of revolutionary socialism was in the air. Darcus Howe; A. Sivandan; Paul Gilroy; CLR James were all steeped in the theory and militancy of revolutionary socialism. 

Though the Brixton riots were not an attempt to overthrow capitalism; the spirit of the time was that the riots were some kind of mini-revolution against the forces of Thatcherite capitalism. Those that grew up in that time still make references to the "bourgeoisie" or assume that a new generation of politico's would automatically fit into their dichotomous understanding of the world. I can remember being invited to meet with a prominent figure in "black" politics who asked me on arrival; "So what are you then? Trotskyite; Leninist or what?" On hearing that I was not either they became particularly dismissive of my political endeavours even though it was clear that they were not socialist in practice. 

In "black" politics, just like in mainstream politics, the ideas of socialist class politics are very well known. Socialist ideology pervades in academia. Most university graduates in the social sciences can outline a basic socialist set of ideas and understanding the radical left is part of the indoctrination. Even a member of the public with the most rudimentary political science tools is normally aware of a basic socialist analysis and feels obligated to agree with the ideals because they may not have engaged with any other political philosophers work and have no other theoretical tools.

During the riots in 2011. The Black Labour/Power Generation experienced those riots through the eyes of the politics of the 70's and 80's and depicted the riots of 2011 as non-political. The same old faces were rolled out in the media and the general consensus was that these youthful rebels were not Marxists or socialists so they must be apolitical. They have no class analysis so they are just greedy materialistic youth - capitalists! The cry was for these rebellious youth and others to feel the strong arm of the law because these youth had no political cause. They were not connected to the Labour Party; they were not socialists so they were not political prisoners but simply petty thief's. Unlike in the 80's there was no funding given out; there were no press conferences with this new generation; there was no effort made to find a voice that could articulate the politics of this new generation; they were faced with the full force of the law because they could not put their feelings and desires into a political philosophy. At the same time, free education was not available for this generation to get to grips with political philosophy like there had been for the Black Labour/Power generation.

Hip-Hop Generation politician David Lammy was looked to to make sense of things and he simply reproduced the party line - these rebellious youth are materialistic and greedy. He did not offer any analysis or try to articulate a new politics but was his usual non-intellectually challenging self. He was given the opportunity to be the voice of a new generation but did not know what to say. He wrote a book Out of the Ashes that aimed to attack the rebellious youth by telling his story of winning a choir scholarship; going to Harvard; becoming an MP and buying a house at the age of 27. He implied that the rebellious youth should just be "good boy's" and that would solve all their problems. 

But I know that there was politics behind the uprisings of 2011. I know some of the people involved. They are youth that have been let down by the world; who cannot see a better future; without support systems and who have emotional problems that have led to their exclusion from school and mainstream society. For them happiness is more likely to come from consumption than community; they see that their own and their families social position in life is wrapped up in whether they have the opportunity to consume or not. For them change will only come with money and utopia is a world of consumption that they can participate in. It's that simple.

Is there a politics behind the 2011 uprisings? I believe so. It is the politics that I want to talk about. The politics of the Hip-Hop Generation and Urban youth.

If the philosophy of the Black Labour/Power Generation was socialist and they wanted to control the means of production the politics of the Hip-Hop Generation is liberal and wants to control the means of consumption - money. The Hip-Hop generation are not Thatcherite capitalists but want a new and improved version of capitalism that demands more Keynesian intervention to enable the state to enable people by creating opportunities. They do not want big authoritarian government that seeks to destroy the free-market but to make the free-market the servant of the multitude. A tool for improving the lives of humanity. If the Black Labour/Power Generation wanted national socialism the Hip-Hop Generation want a global free-market; if they wanted to smash capitalism; we want to harness it's power for the common good. If they demanded socially conservative values we demand socially liberal values. If they spoke of the activist we speak of empowering the social entrepreneur that can innovate and make the world. If they spoke about workers cooperatives we speak of social enterprise. If they spoke about the value of the community we speak about the power of an individual to change the world - citing the likes of Mark Zuckerberg. If they demanded full employment we are calling for a better work life balance and for less employment. If they demanded centralisation we want de-centralisation and localism; if they spoke of "race" we are demanding cosmopolitanism. If they spoke about production of goods we are speaking about production of social life itself. If they demanded equality of outcome we are demanding for equal opportunity for all!

Hard for some? Welcome to the politics of the Hip-Hop Generation!

Liberal Democrats or Labour? The politics of the Hip-Hop Generation or the politics of the Black Labour movement? Part 1

Huey Newton once wrote that revolution is a struggle between the old and the new; he argued that there is a constant generational struggle where the youthful eventually replace the esteemed incumbent leaders by interjecting new ideas and practices that change the power balance between the powerful and the youthful. 

Today I believe that Black British politics is in a state of revolutionary struggle; it is a struggle between the socialist inspired identity politics of the traditional Labour Party that was adopted by the generation that founded and struggled in the Labour Party Black Sections and birthed Britain's first "black" MP's who I refer to as the Black Labour/Power generation and the Liberal Democrat inspired Hip-Hop Generation that my politics responds to. 

The Black Labour/Power generation were instrumental in shaping "black" politics in Britain and giving it a particular socialist interpretation. They interpreted the term "black" to include not only people of African descent but also those of South Asian descent and created a political bloc that was like a collection of the formerly colonised. They argued for big government; nationalisation and championed the Labour Party as the natural party of "black" community politics. They created a nationalistic wing within the party and sought to further the careers of the parties "black" members. The struggle of the Black Labour/Power generation was a success and produced the Labour Party and Britain's first "black" MP's and Councillors; Bill Morris the Trade Union leader and spawned a generation of intellectuals and activists that are prominent in British politics today particularly in the area of race relations. They were able to produce a 500-fold increase in the amount of "black" candidates in Town Hall's across the country and changed the racial landscape of British politics. 

The Black Labour/Power generation with political giants such as Bernie Grant in Tottenham were able to cement the socialist ideal of the Labour Party into the imaginations of grassroots movements as well as inspire the creation of other self-organising organisations in the police force and amongst lawyers and others. The generation of Bernie Grant and others were instrumental in making the socialism of the traditional Labour Party the default political outlook of the "black" community that still exists to this day.

Recent statistics show that 64% of BAME community members vote for the Labour Party which means that the Labour Party is the most popular party amongst BAME communities. British politics and economics is dominated by the over 50's who are more consistent with voting and have available finances to back political parties. Politics in the "black" community is no different from mainstream politics in many ways and therefore the Black Labour/Power generation hold the balance of power. Today they still hold onto the socialist values and ideology that became popular when many were up and coming politicos on the left and now these ideals have become the communal intellectual status quo; at least ideologically and definitely not practically.

In many ways the Black Labour/Power generation were a product of the wider politics of the time where socialism and militancy were very much on the agenda in Britain and other parts of the world. In the 80's the dream of a socialist world was still a force to be reckoned with, but by the 2000's things had changed considerably. Today there is no outside of capitalism; there is no functioning socialist movement. Old Labour politics is no longer a credible fixture in mainstream British politics. Although there has been a rise in Green Party membership and the Respect Party have been able to gain one seat in the House of Commons their movements are not a threat to the mainstream Labour Party who have fundamentally abandoned the hard-core socialist ideas of the 1983 General Election for something that looks quite different.

So today socialist and far-left politics is in tatters. The few Labour politicians and figures that came to prominence on the back of such politics have more or less abandoned their socialist principles and become middle class and disconnected from a more youthful and disenfranchised generation who have not lived through an era of radical socialist politics but have largely existed in a capitalist society where there has been no viable alternative model and there is no foreseeable possibility of a socialist utopia. Today, still; the Black Labour/Power generation embrace a socialist ideology intellectually but of course their livelihoods and lifestyles depict a different picture. If put under pressure to explain their politics, this generation of politicos more often than not reaches for its default ideological setting regardless of the conditions within which they now live or the compromises that they make in their day to day lives. 

The Black Labour/Power generation including the likes of Dianne Abbot and Trevor Philips have been charged with hypocrisy for sending their children to private schools. Other's have accepted powerful jobs and faced ridicule for "selling out". It is clear that for a new generation of politicos to avoid these charges of political inauthenticity it is time to adopt a different type of politics that is authentic and possible and not the result of ideological inertia or stagnation.

There are some from the Hip-Hop Generation who have embraced the quasi-socialism of the Labour Party such as David Lammy and Chuka Umunna and again are confronted with questions of inauthenticity and "Champagne Socialism" that some of the previous generation have also experienced. Neither Lammy or Umunna could be considered working class. Lammy may have lived near to a council estate but the trajectory of his life makes his working class authenticity questionable. Umunna is a product of the middle and upper classes and an attempt to style Chuka as a working class hero is unthinkable.

What we need today is a politics that is authentic to the Hip-Hop Generation that have grown up in a post-socialist world. It is clearly inauthentic to champion an ideological stance but not live it; this results in the public's disengagement from the Labour Party and fundamentally the political mainstream altogether because of what they consider to be hypocrisy by politicians who do not have an authentic or clear set of political ideals because the party has abandoned it's traditional political practice for pragmatism and is in ideological no man's land and struggling to be coherent and match theory and practice.

The struggles of the Black Labour/Power generation that included securing "black" political representation and enshrining race equality legislation in law amongst other things have largely been won and now the politics of struggle is becoming incoherent. The conversation is still around a certain type of race equality that enables the functioning of a middle class that Trevor Philips is part of; there are still go to "race" men and women then articulate the racial problems and initiate communal race relations and the states relationship to "race" of which Trevor Philips is one. Now that the revolution is over the likes of Trevor Philips struggle to articulate issues around "race"; they do not have the focus of creating legislation and demanding race-equality in local government or making the first "black" MP's.

However it is clearly obvious that the politics of the young politicos that became middle class are irrelevant and totally disengaged from the issues today that impact on a growing number of people of African and Asian descent. They struggle to make sense of things when drawing upon their theoretical tools because they came of age when certain ideas were popular but are now discredited or have come to fruition and now they are not sure what to say. Philips is clearly struggling to figure out something new and important to say about "race" and so are many others. We are waiting for someone who can articulate the way that "race" operates today and some of the issues that are symptoms of "race" inequality. 

But it is clear that today we cannot look towards the Labour Party or the Black Labour/Power generation for a politics for the Hip-Hip Generation and that we should begin to look elsewhere to a fresher and more clearer politics that is practically authentic and does not cause the participants to be in a state of cognitive dissonance and existential crisis most of the time. 

That is why I am a Liberal Democrat. I want to be authentic in my politics. I am not a revolutionary anti-capitalist and there is no way that I could ever be in our political climate and the economic conditions. I am not directly a "black" politician because I was not part of the Black Labour/Power generation where "black" really meant something and was a political rallying call.  The only way that I could embrace such a philosophy would be through nostalgia but there is no way that I could embrace that politics with sincerity today no matter the demands of the older generation. I look upon the politics of the Black Labour/Power generation with pride. I enjoyed reading the literature that that generation lived on intellectually; Huey Newton; Angela Davis; Elaine Brown; Maurice Bishop; Walter Rodney; Trotsky and Marx. It shaped my desire to do politics and philosophy but it is not my politics or my political philosophy. It is my inspiration; but not my politics. It is impossible for me live the politics of those previous decades with a sense of passion and urgency because it is not alive amongst my peers.

For me today the new black politics will arise out of the Liberal Democrat party political philosophy of anti-authoritarianism, liberty and freedom of thought. The new "black" politics will be firmly focused on the promotion of civil liberties; drug policy and prison reform; mental health; overhaul of stop and search and free education. These are central Liberal Democrat policies that speak to where the struggle for race-equality exists today. The struggle lies in places where the likes of Trevor Philips; Dianne Abbot and their heirs Umunna and Lammy cannot reach and in policy areas that they have not made important in their work.

In taking up this new politics it is clear that the language of "race" alone is not adequate to tell the whole story because there are distinctions; and it is not the only way that arguments for race-equality can be framed. Today to be a race-equality campaigner is to embrace policy that is not race-specific but fundamentally impacts on race-equality issues such as prison and drug policy reform to deal with the disproportion amount of African-Caribbean boys in prison and with drug convictions; or civil liberties that tackles issues around detention of migrants and excessive monitoring of Muslims by the security services; or mental health funding that can support disenfranchised communities to deal with the mental health issues that follow from social isolation and the identity crisis that can engulf visibly different members of British society when they are not invited to participate fully in the social world or develop inferior complexes because of what they perceive as "institutional racism".

It is my belief that if we want to have a new "black" politics then we have to embrace new ideas and ways of doing things as well as a new focus on what needs to be done and how. I don't believe that any serious politico has ever sat back on their laurels and just repeated and regurgitated the politics of a previous generation. That is not inspirational or transformational politics... 

But finally; we must remember that a new generation may not use the term "black" to describe our new "black" politics because the term does not have the same meaning or depth of feeling and identity that it once had. It does not stir up the same passion and any serious political thinker and organiser from the previous generation should be more than aware of that. For me; today, I am not "black" politics but "street" politics. I am not a socialist but a liberal. I hope that the community open their ears and hearts and challenge ourselves to become something new...

That is my story and I'm sticking to it!

Dreams of my mother...

It's October 1959; Paddington station is busy... Scanning the departures board for her train a nervous looking woman hurries towards the platform. In one hand she carries a suitcase and holding her other hand tightly is a pretty 2 year old; a mixed race child. The girls's name was Rosemary Walter and the journey she was about to embark on would change her life forever. She could not have known it off course but she was being rejected; hidden. You see Rosie's mother, a white woman married to a white man had had a black lover and Rosie was living proof of a relationship that was not just illicit but in those days deemed utterly shameful...

These are not my words but the word's of George Alagiah narrating the three part series Mixed Britannia. The little girl in the story is my mother; this was the tale of the early years of my mothers life...

My mother was born in 1957 to a white mother and a Jamaican father; in 1959 at the age of two she was handed over to the National Children's Home and transported from London to Wales; she would spend the next 16 years of her life in children's homes across the country.

The world that my mother inhabited in her youth was not like today; there were not as many black people in the country; there was no noteable mixed race population and Wales was more or less a white's only territory. Wherever my mother would go she would not fit in. Her hair was too frizzy, she had big lips and a big nose; there was no way that she could "pass". She was clearly an object of curiosity to the people that she met who had never interacted with a "darkie" before. On holiday's such as Christmas unlike the other children my mother did not have a family that would come and take her back to the family home; she would spend the holiday's with kind Welsh and English families doing a good deed.

My mother spent most of her time in care in Wales; she was sent to London, Brixton at the age of 14 to be with her "own kind" as Brixton had become known as a place where the West Indian community congregated together and it was also where her mother lived who had become an honorary Jamaican. It was the thinking of the children's home that as she was getting to the age of having boyfriends she should be around her own kind for mating purposes. 

For my mother Brixton was as much a culture shock as Wales. My mother had a Welsh accent; she was mixed-race and had never met her Jamaican father. Although she had always sympathised with African-American struggles and her obvious "otherness" made her desire to understand that part of her she knew nothing about; she was not a part of the Jamaican community.

My mother faced as much isolation in her early day's in London as she had faced in Wales; she was different; a "red gyal" with a Welsh accent and a lack of understanding of Jamaican culture. She was not accustomed to the ways of the big city and she was alone... 

Gradually my mother began to fit in; she learnt the cultural codes; she began to make friends, kind friends that took care of her because they empathised with her life circumstances. Not long after arriving in London my mother ran away from the children's home to stay with a school friend. Her friend had brothers and at the time Rasta was dominant in black youth culture so my mother became aware of it; the young Rasta men were protective of my mother and ensured she was treated with respect and dignity by the more unrespectable men. Eventually my mother would return to the children's home but maintained the relationships that she built whilst away.

I was born when my mother was 17. She was technically still in care. She had met my father at a wedding. He was a handsome "Shaft" looking guy who wore fancy clothes and had a nice car, he was an ambitious person but perhaps not emotionally equipped to have a relationship with someone who had experienced the trauma of detachment from such a young age.

By the time I was 12 my mother was a single parent with 3 children; a care-leaver with no solid family relationships and a limited education; the odds were stacked against her. She seemed destined at the age of 30 to become another statistic but things changed...

My mother's life experiences had filled her wit a burning desire to help people to do something good and to support people like herself. My mother had always been unbelievably sympathetic to the plight of down and outs and saw herself in them. So she set out on a journey to do something positive in the world and to one day tell her story. She enrolled at university; she struggled every year to make the grades; she struggled with depression and poverty whilst dealing with a son involved with youth-crime and detained in police stations across London but she was able to find the strength to make it through and get the grades. I remember her watching the movie "Educating Rita" over and over again. I think she saw herself in the character "Rita" and it inspired her to become something more than the statistic that she might have been.

My mother's years of study are what inspired me to want to read; go to university and to think about politics and civil society and change the world... Today my mother is a team manager in social services and a qualified social worker; she has escaped the trap of so many care-leavers and is able to support other's whose lives are damaged but she never forgets the struggle that she has been through and still has a burning passion to make the world a better place. A passion that she has passed onto me.

The narrative that I began with has been the culmination of my mother's rise from abandoned child to matriarch; the telling of her story on national TV! It is a story of overcoming struggle and adversity in order to become a change maker; a story of identity that I want to continue. In my work I am not pursuing the "dreams of my father" like Obama but the "dreams of my mother"...

Nightmares of my father...

Not everyone can be a saint; not everyone can be a winner; no matter how hard they try. Life is not easy by any stretch of the imagination.

My father Aston Anthony Thomas was not a saint; he was not one of the few winners in life; he died on Valentines day 2014, penniless, in a sheltered unit surrounded by beer cans. He was an alcoholic and a recovering crack smoker; a 59 year old with a zimmer frame which he had acquired through persistent alcohol abuse that had led to the destruction of the nerves in his feet a problem that is well known among alcoholics.

Death is always an unhappy occasion for family members; but the pain can be further inflicted by the circumstances surrounding the person's death. For me the circumstances have been the hardest to come to terms with; the circumstances that led to an ambitious man of African descent dying with one friend in the whole world; the circumstances that allowed an aspirational man of African descent to go under the radar without even the concern of his estranged family or the community with really only alcohol by his side.

My father came to Britain from Jamaica in 1960 as a 6 year old boy with his mother and father and his elder brother; first settling in Swindon then eventually moving to London. My father had the spirit of a migrant; that Scarface spirit; he wanted to succeed. He did not want to succumb to the 9-5 regime or minimum wage. He believed that he could be something more; he wanted to make something of himself; to be somebody; we can all relate to that right?

My father wanted to be a "big man", an entrepreneur; he never believed in any of the stuff I believed but thought that black men should pursue making money; We would debate every time I saw him and he would say "Me nah know 'ow yuh get inna dis politics business". He was a pork eater - I even found one big piece of pork in his fridge when I was clearing out his stuff; I said to myself, "Selassie I, that mussi why him drop out, him mussi eat one piece a pork and it choke 'im to raatid!"

My father did not get off to a good start; as a youth he spent some time in borstal after participating in an armed robbery with my uncle and a friend; my father was the get away driver... On release my father met my mother and subsequently became a father.

My father did not stick around for very long maybe 3 years or so; he was a chronic womaniser and struggled to settle down. After leaving the family home I saw my father periodically then from the age of 7 I never saw him at all until I was 14.

One day he turned up at my mother's house. I had not seen him for 7 years. He explained to me that he had a new family and was now living in Stockwell on Studley Estate. I was familiar with the estate and was frequently in that area visiting the adventure playground. It seemed strange that for the last 3 years I had played just moments from my - at the time - missing father's house...

I was excited and the first opportunity I got I visited my father and met my siblings, his new wife and her family. They were not the best family to be introduced to and those introductions led me to many escapades that I hope I will write about one day.

My father tried lots of businesses; selling clothing on Northcote Road in the days before he became "posh"; managing music artists; selling food and a cab service. They were not successful businesses but they definitely provided us with some good comedy material. He would try to rope his whole family into his big ideas, he had all of us working for him, he was like the black Del Boy and we were the Rodney's. He never paid us and could find a million excuses to avoid paying for things. My father was a student at William Penn School; no wonder he was such a "teef".

I remember when my father was setting up a food shop in Peckham Market. He piled up food in the front room for months. He would stare at it with pride! Moving things around; bringing the cornflakes to the front; deciding whether to put the beans on top of the corn beef or vice versa; all deep stuff! You would have thought he was going to be the next J. Sainsbury, such was his ambition.

In my later teenage years I remember visiting my father 3-4 times a week on Studley Estate. I would visit with my friends; my father was very liberal so we drank and smoked weed. I remember turning up at my father's house drunk to the point of near paralysis and my father never batted an eyelid. He had an old creaky microphone and a sound system and thought he was a music mogul. He would get us to "toast" lyrics whilst he "cracked up" in stitches at our lyrical content as we boasted about how many girls we had and how big our private parts were! He never tired of it and always responded with rawkus laughter.

When I used to get in fights with older boys that I could not handle I always used to go for him to come and defend me but he never complained or told me off; he just obliged. He was never angry. He would do security for my sound system when we had a gig and never judged.

I had a good relationship with my father, when I saw him. We were born one day apart; he was good to talk too. Whenever I went to visit him I would tell my kids that i'd be an hour and end up spending the whole day "reasoning". During the time there would be no awkward silences; we spoke incessantly on a wide range of topics. My father was not only a parent but a friend...

But things were not idylic; my father's businesses never made him any money; he lived in low income housing with 5 kids and largely survived working as a local cab driver. He was trapped in a cycle that so many men of African descent are trapped in; poverty! From a young man my father struggled with alcohol. He would get further convictions for drinking and driving and crashing his car in his older years. Whenever my father got a moment he wanted to have a drink and it got worse. Throughout his life whenever my father faced tribulation; the break up of a relationship; the collapse of a business he would become deeply depressed and turn to drink.

After my father divorced from his wife and left his family; he sunk into a spiral of despair. He was homeless for 6 years and I never really saw him often. For a short time he stayed with a friend. One day the police knocked on my door to tell me that they were looking for my father as a suspect as the friend had been murdered and had his head cut off whilst my father was staying with him. It was a harrowing tale; I was terrified. My father was cleared but it deepened his depression. When I did see him he would tell me stories of crack houses and crack addicted women. After his mother died my father told me that he had spent all the money that his mother gave him on crack; he was going under...

Once, I had not seen my father for a year or so. I was walking past Brixton Ritzy, in the area where all the crack and alcohol addicts and the homeless, mostly black men congregate. I saw a dark skinned man with a woolly hat standing with a large Cider bottle supported by a crutch; he looked like a tramp; someone who you may walk past; as I moved closer I realised it was my father. It was embarrassing. I knew the jokes that people made about the people that congregated there and I was with a friend; the last thing I wanted him to know was that my father was a drunk, homeless, crack smoker! But who could ever ignore their parent? I saw him and hugged him; he could hardly walk and more shuffled. I could not believe that the ambitious man I knew was now a "shuffling Negro". He was homeless and sleeping on the streets; I told him that I would return to sort him out. In shock I told my mother who is a social worker and she made phone calls so that support workers contacted him on the streets and he was eventually housed in a temporary sheltered unit with recovering crack and alcohol addicts. He was not an old man. He was 50 years old but looked like an 80 year old man.

Whilst at the temporary sheltered unit my father tried to give up alcohol; he was no longer smoking crack but he had a fit which led to a brain tumour that he had an operation to remove. He was found collapsed on the floor fighting for his life.

After some time my father acquired permanent living space at an old peoples home. He was in his early 50's but had a zimmer frame and his body was battered by drugs and alcohol. I would visit him and he would tell me he was drinking 14 cans of cider a day. He would ask me to go to the shop for him to buy these beers; I wanted to refuse but what could I do? My father had given up and decided to commit what Huey Newton termed "reactionary suicide". Whilst at the elderly home my father broke his hips from drunken falls but they could not heal properly as the medication never worked well with alcohol. Sometimes I visited my father at 9am and he would be visibly shaking because he needed to drink and those shakes only stopped when he had consumed a certain amount of alcohol.

However through all this my father maintained that he was the "girl's dem sugar". One of the last times I saw him I asked what he had been doing and he replied "outta road, a check gyal". This was a 59 year old man with a zimmer frame. Most other people would have given up but he was still trying to get it on; chatting up his carers. He told me he had met a lady friend; she had stayed the night; I could not believe it! I just thought this guy is a "G".

It was only fitting that my father passed away on Valentines Day; he always though he was Mr Loverman. I think he would have found it funny... He passed away with Marvin Gaye's CD Lets Get it On in the CD player; surrounded by beer cans with a saucy lighter shaped like a topless woman in his hand; waiting for his kind new friend...

His passing was not a big event; my father's day's as a big shot were long over; his dreams shattered and body battered his funeral was not a community affair. Most people had not seen him in years; they mostly attended for my own sake; they did not see my father's struggles...

My father had dreams but I don't want to write about dreams today. I want to write about nightmares, nightmares of my father...