Back History Month – am I bovvered?

Are we taking our heritage for granted?


Is there anybody out there - who gives a shit about Ira Aldridge or Mary Seacole? who loses sleep over Olaudah Equiano or Sam Selvon? Who gives meaningful thought (not just hot air) to the issue of reparations and slavery? What about the history of your country of origin? Could you make a list of 100 Great Jamaican’s or Bajans or Ghanaian’s?
The ‘evidence’ suggests that not many black people are interested in history unless it comes ready packaged to their front door like a pizza. The armchair protest for more black programming is deafening but people are not voting for their feet. When you go to 'heritage' events is it not echoingly empty? And are you not more likely to find slightly bemused white people in attendance than black people? All in all its very quiet out there as if 'community' has moved on leaving only a few nutters behind to apply for black history month grants. Many people like to get het up about schools being too imperialist in their education but show little interest in education of any sort until Tyrone is expelled. Then suddenly it’s the absence of all those Marcus Garvey lessons that are responsible for his aggressive behaviour. Is anyone else tired of the empty rhetoric that black history or lack of is behind so many social problems - when so few black people seem sufficiently interested in their own history to support history events?
For some people this is no bad thing, just life, the world, the like-it-or-lump-it status quo. My parents were and still are largely indifferent about their history. They don’t know anymore about their Jamaican history than I do. They can just about remember the names of their grandparents and the parish of their birth. Beyond that it’s all ancient Greek mythology to them and just as irrelevant.
But the legacy of their indifference has often been, unsurprisingly, indifference. I once went on a date with a man whose parents were both from St Kitts. Over dinner I asked him to tell me about St Kitts. All he knew was that the island is shaped like a drumstick (it is). It was clear he would be more able (and willing) to tell me about Kentucky Fried Chicken rather than his country of origin.
We’re not all apathetic when it comes to history. There are plenty of individuals who have thrown their lives into the idea of ‘reach one teach one’ bringing heritage to others via organisations or books. Wake up and smell the Fufu is a wonderful book by the late Njoya Diawara Small - a young man who goes to Ghana to experience the motherland and explore his ancestry. Alex Wheatle’s Island Songs is a rich tale of our parents’ generation and their lives ‘back home’. Sukdev Sandhu’s exhaustive London Calling looks at the presence and contributions of black and Asians in Britain since Elizabethan times.
But it’s an uphill struggle when the average (black) man on the street ain’t bovvered. As a community we are taking our funded heritage events for granted. If/when the Conservatives get back into power it will be the long kiss good night for diversity - more prison and less heritage for our young people. Maybe we will be ‘bovvered’ then – when it’s too late.
Vanessa Walters is currently ‘writer in residence’ for the royal borough of Kensington & Chelsea. She hosts a reading group which focuses on the writings of black british authors and a fortnightly discussion group looking at social issues. For more information on participating in any of these activities, email vanessawalters@hotmail.com