The Black Cultural Archives In Brixton #RayRecommends

Today I visited the Black Cultural Archives in Brixton, a fascinating insight into some notable African and Caribbean descended men and women in Britain. 

Calling these people "survivors" is an understatement

After reading through the archives and browsing through books such as Staying Power (The History Of Black People in Britain) by Peter Fryer, Capitalism and Slavery by Eric Williams, Discourse on Colonialism by Aimé Césaire. Also, the testimonies about the experiences of slaves in Britain such as Mary Prince and Olaudah Equiano. It's hard not to feel how severe the injustice is, not just in this particular part of history, but in the re-telling or in this case, the convenient- under-telling of this colonial shame in History classrooms to this day. 

Eric Williams

There were many slavery abolitionists (white and black) who campaigned for hundreds of years and this shouldn't be overlooked, but anyone studying economics should be under no illusion that slavery was abolished not only because of slave rebellions and the slave-owners difficulty in sustaining their slaves with housing, food, clothing, education etc. Many of them were dying from disease and ill-treatment or rebelling and ending up whipped and shot to death. Capitalism needed to adapt new systems. 

The idea of building factories and cramming people in sweatshops is the re-modelling of what is still a despicable example of human exploitation, which we, in the west are still pedalling as a viable economic system. We still live in a society where money is valued higher than life. The most direct example of this is in the food industry,we're being poisoned (nutritionally and psychologically) by the corporates but that's another story, just follow "March Against Monsanto" on facebook.

Anyway, I digress, I firmly believe that teaching black history and colonialism is a minefield, particularly if you're Conservative (or as I call them, Preservatives). Look head on at this history with just an ounce of compassion and it's unjustifiable, the idea that "well that was the mentality of the times" doesn't cut it. (Read Chinua Achebe's essays in 'Education Of A British Protected Child' for an eloquent take on this)

I walked out of the Black Archives Museum today feeling let down by the education system in England. I remember my history teacher at my secondary school in Muswell Hill describing the English as having "the greatest history in the world", he barely skimmed over slavery with an insensitive naivety. He sat on the desk with a diagram of the insides of a trans-atlantic slaveship projected brightly behind him as he said, with his chin held too high, "slavery was bad but at least everyone is equal now".

That is the failure. If every young person in the country had access and meaningful engagement with history, which is accessible at the Black Archives Museum, I believe we would be working towards a cultural shift for better understanding of each other. I think there would be less undermining of each others pain, still raw beyond plantations, unlawful deaths in police custodies, random-stop and searches and the backward connotations of black skin and poverty.

After all, history offers perspectives.

Visit the Archives, the exhibition on black women in Britain feels too brief but there's still a wealth of information to take away and do your own reading on.

Mary Seacole

http://www.bcaheritage.org.uk/

Here are more blogs and facebook pages I have found equally educational. 

People Of Colour In European Art - http://medievalpoc.tumblr.com/

Black History Walks - https://www.facebook.com/blackhistorywalks

Atlanta Black Star - http://atlantablackstar.com/2014/06/26/5-ancient-african-empires-besides-egypt-that-europeans-and-arabs-tried-to-claim-as-their-own/

Follow me on Instagram to see more - http://instagram.com/raymond_antrobus

Before I Write, I Dance...

These are my pump up songs before I hit that desk. Love them.

Smile Jamaica




Gimme Likkle One Drop




When I Find That Girl



Stayceyann Chin... Hear her out...

What We Learn & How We Learn

This past weekend I performed in front of two thousand people across three different stages at Wilderness Festival. One of my favourite support teachers from my school days was in the audience for the show I did with Tongue Fu. We hadn't seen each other for eleven years, she saw me through so much growing up. She is one of the main reasons I left school with at least one B. I thought about her throughout my first year teaching, telling myself that I want to give my students something equal to the power she gave me. Acknowledging the impact she had on my life as I came off stage (in front of one of the largest audiences I've had) was a privilege and testimony to the power of what we learn from speaking and listening to our best teachers.

Black History Second

Sylvester Williams, a Trinidadian who became a qualified teacher at 17, studied and taught in New York before moving to Hackney, East London in 1879 at the age of 22. He was the first black person to speak in the House Of Commons and founded the African Association, here is an extract written by Sylvester about his aims of his group:

To encourage a feeling of unity to facilitate friendly intercourse among Africans in general; to promote and protect the interests in all subjects claiming African descent, wholly or in part, in British Colonies other places, especially in Africa by circulating accurate information on all subjects affecting their rights and privileges as subjects of the British Empire, by direct appeals to the imperial and Local Governments.

… and over a hundred years later Hollywood, America's greatest propaganda machine, gets away with making casting decisions like this in a film about an ancient African civilisation.

https://medium.com/@DavidDWrites/you-probably-shouldnt-go-see-ridley-scotts-pretty-racist-exodus-movie-37471c4d7628

If you think that's cutting, wait until you see the cast for 2016's Gods Of Egypt staring Gerald Butler

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2404233/

One of the reasons I teach is because I believe in the power of modelling truth. Art is a good way to look at it. If you see European art from the 1500's and the appearance of non-white faces surprises us because we are so used to our own non-presence, what has been communicated through these selective historical narratives? Africans and other non-Europeans had a presence in Europe thousands of years before slavery. In England there is a burial site of African Roman soldiers believed to date as far back as 42AD. Because that surprises so many people, we ought to have appropriate telling of culture and history so we can truly learn from it.

Often, as a poet I ask myself, "what are we not listening to that we should be?" and I keep hearing myself say, "our stories".

Chill Pill at Wilderness

come see us!

In other news, Camp Bestival with Chill Pill and Sabrina Mahfouz was mega fun... as you can see...

Chill Pill & Sabrina Mahfouz

this song is called "SOMEBODY PLEASE HELP US!"

Also, Glastonbury was pretty cool, even collaborated live on stage with Andy Craven Griffiths...

Although my festival highlight was Latitude… to see the last few minutes of my set see FB link below 

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10152291263641235&set=vb.510921234&type=2&theater

This Week #RayRecommends The History Of The N - Word on Radio 4, Adam Kammerling & Out-Spoken

Ellah Allfrey at 8pm this Saturday (21st June)

There are some words in English that are so controversial that they are shortened to a single letter lest they cause offence. Perhaps the most inflammatory is the N-word. The proxy barely disguises the racial insult, "nigger", which has topped lists of ugly and hateful words since it was first uttered in the seventeenth century. It has regularly wounded black people, its target, down the ages. When, for instance, the African American boxer, Muhammad Ali, was asked why he resisted the draft in the Vietnam War, he is alleged to have said: "No Vietnamese ever called me nigger."

Ellah Allfrey looks at its evolution from its origins as a mispronunciation of the Spanish "negro" in the 17th century. She illuminates how and why the capitalised "Negro" became the more acceptable version of the word in the 1920s (the landmark adoption of Negro by the New York Times was in 1930); through to the subsequent re-appropriation of the N word in rap and hip-hop culture. But even when coming from the mouths of black people the N word continues to cause offence. There have been calls for the word to be banned. But is this possible or desirable? - http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0474xdk

#RayRecommends Adam Kammerling

Adam Kammerling has been grafting lately, winning his last Don't Flop battle, dropping a brilliant album and spitting bars like this -- there is no stopping him!

LOOK AT THAT LINE UP AT OUT-SPOKEN! #RayRecommends

Musa Okwonga's poem, Monotony about Drones is powerful and disturbing, haven't got it out of my head.

Lastly, this article is essential reading for native Hackney residents and gentrifiers alike.

http://www.standard.co.uk/lifestyle/esmagazine/meg-hillier-hackney-may-be-achingly-cool-but-its-also-achingly-poor-9531697.html

Raymond Antrobus at Glastonbury, Latitude and more...

I'll be appearing at Tagore Festival this month with One Taste, celebrating one of India's most renounced and profile poets, Rabindranath Tagore.

20th - 22nd June

Chill Pill's Deanna Rodger is Poet in Residence at Glastonbury this year and has just announced my appearance alongside Rob Auton, Chris Redmond, Sally Jenkenson and more...

25th - 29th June

http://poetryandwordsblog.wordpress.com/2014/05/28/the-first-famous-for-being-fantastic-five/

I'm also excited to be appearing alongside Michael Rosen and Scroobius Pip at Latitude Festival.

17th - 20th July

For Chill Pill festival dates of Camp Bestival, Now Festival, Hamswell and Wilderness check our site -

http://chill-pill.co.uk 

Poetry As A Tool For Campaigning & Asking Who Named The Sky? (w. Rafeef Ziadah & Rob Auton)

Spoke to Palestinian poet, Rafeef Ziadah and Rob Auton after their moving performances at Chill Pill, Soho Theatre last month. Listen to their poems 'Shades Of Anger' and 'Season Family' below, or subscribe to the indiefeed poetry podcast - http://www.indiefeedpp.libsyn.com

Rafeef Ziadah

http://ec.libsyn.com/p/c/a/1/ca1e1fb446e36d92/indiefeed_rafeefziadah_shadesofanger.mp3?d13a76d516d9dec20c3d276ce028ed5089ab1ce3dae902ea1d06c88633d5ce591715&c_id=7220812

Rob Auton

http://ec.libsyn.com/p/f/4/9/f49c9bc88e6a793f/indiefeed_robauton_theseasonfamily.mp3?d13a76d516d9dec20c3d276ce028ed5089ab1ce3dae902ea1d06c88633d5c15f64a2&c_id=7220810

Dear Michael Gove - Educating The Mind Is Not Colonising It

Michael Gove has removed Of Mice and Men and To Kill A Mocking Bird from the National Curriculum. The two texts that explore race politics in the classroom. On a day when Right Wing political parties are winning seats in the European Election it's hard to pass off Gove's agenda as sheer naivety, this move is suspiciously political. Classrooms are one of the most influential avenues for transforming the attitudes of society.

I work four days a week as a poet in residence at an East London school. Most of the students are second generation African and Caribbean British. While reading 'Of Mice & Men' to a year 11 class, one student responded powerfully to the treatment of Crooks, (the novels only black character who is repeatedly referred to as a "nigger)", by throwing the book across the room and stamping on it. The following day we had an in class debate about the use of the word, to gauge how teachers (who are mostly white) can engage with their black students sensitively. This persona piece is inspired by the views expressed by the students.

The next question is what texts will replace Steinbeck and Harper Lee? How subversive will they be in their ethnic and gender representation? Dickens, Shakespeare, Shelly and Keats have numerous subversive representations of women in their work, other minority groups, not so much. Granted that Shakespeare's imagination was informed by his knowledge of Africa, ("she hangs upon the cheek of night like a rich jewel in an Ethiope's ear") and the Middle East ("I know a lady in Venice would've walked barefoot to Palestine for a touch of his nether lip"). 

Educating the mind is not colonising it.

UPDATE

"Some of you will be aware that Michael Gove has denied narrowing the curriculum. Let's address this and keep fighting.

No matter how he is choosing to spin it in the wake of popular opinion the GCSE curriculum has been narrowed and made more anglocentric. If students are ALL to be examined on Romantic Poets, a 19th century novel, a Shakespeare play and a British (why British?) text since 1914 then the curriculum is being limited not expanded. His claim that "If they wish to include Steinbeck – whether it's Of Mice and Men or The Grapes of Wrath – no one would be more delighted than me" is a nonsense similar to his assertion* about averages. Teachers will be unable to do anything extra, they'll be busting a gut to make these difficult texts appealing. Keep the pressure on, please!

*Q98 Chair: One is: if "good" requires pupil performance to exceed the national average, and if all schools must be good, how is this mathematically possible? Gove: By getting better all the time."

Source: https://www.change.org/en-GB/petitions/michael-gove-reconsider-the-changes-to-english-literature-gcse

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/10857133/Michael-Gove-Kill-a-Mockingbird-Id-never-dream-of-it.html

http://www.spectator.co.uk/features/9158241/the-disturbing-certainty-of-michael-gove/

Great Reads #RayRecommends

I am currently in the process of drafting my third collection of prose and poetry, entitled, 'The Island That's Hard To Find In English'. Given that I have been a part time Masters Student (in Education Theory and Spoken Word Education) these past two years, as well as working as a full time Poet In Residence at Cardinal Pole Secondary School in East London (same neighbourhood I grew up in), my creative output has been slow but I've been immersed in reading these past months and thought I'd recommend these books as they've informed some of the direction my new writing is going in.

Martin Espada

Andrew Salkey

Sherman Alexie

Arundhati Roy

Monique Roffery

I have attended numerous teacher seminars recently about the reformed UK National Curriculum. Michael Gove is only allowing the teaching of literature published in a country that's been colonised by the British, (The British Isles). To counter this I've made a personal investment to stay in touch with all the reasons our Government would rather pretend certain things didn't exist.

This speech by the great Arundhati Roy (author of one of the greatest novels ever written IMHO, 'The God Of Small Things') should be on every National Curriculum in the world.