Black British Culture and Society: A Text Reader (review)

This substantial collection is divided into two sections: the first consists of eleven essays referring to the forty years following the arrival of the first boatload of Caribbean immigrants in 1948; the second consists of thirty-one essays and interviews almost entirely recorded in the 1990s. In Britain, the category "black" for reasons of political solidarity may include peoples whose ancestral origins are in the Indian subcontinent, and this is reflected in the inclusion of several Asian commentators, notably A. Sivanandan, editor of Race and Class, Rasheed Araeen, editor of Third Text, and Heidi Safia Mirza. However, by far the greater majority of the contributors are of African and African-Caribbean origin.

Kwesi Owusu's introduction locates the origins of cultural studies as a discipline in Britain in the 1950s alongside the sudden increase in immigration from the Caribbean and the Indian subcontinent. Hence, he sees the development of black cultural studies as a significant influence on this growing discipline. The umbrella of cultural studies allows him to include a wide range of concerns: film, clothing, hair styles, black female and male identities, literature and performance poetry, music, the visual arts, health, economics, sport, carnival, the abuse of black women, feminism, black masculinity, political culture and participation. Surprisingly, there is almost no mention of television, journalism, black and Asian comedy, or those least marginal of black and British cultural practices, cricket and football. Owusu rightly foregrounds the crucial leadership of Stuart Hall not only in conceptualizing the interplay intrinsic to the understanding of the role of black culture and "blackness" play in British society, but also in supporting the development of black artistic enterprise, especially film. According to Owusu, the Black British cultural Renaissance reaches its zenith in the 1980s, and all but fades from sight in the 1990s.

To this reviewer, Owusu's narrative of the development of black British culture seems strangely foreshortened. One has only to look at the short lists for the more prestigious literary and artistic prizes in Britain during the 1990s to be aware of the activity and prestige now granted such creative talents as Abdulrazak Gurnah, Chris Ofili, Caryl Phillips, Zadie Smith, Ben Okri, Romesh Gooneskere, Meera Syal, Bernadine Evaristo, to name just a few. And then there are V. S. Naipaul and Salman Rushdie. The latter has not only maintained his prominence as one of Britain's most innovative novelists, but has also been a powerful and incisive commentator on British racial attitudes and on black cultural productions. It is surprising that none of his important commentaries are included in this anthology. One might also question the omission of any essays prior to the 1950s and the very small proportion of texts from before 1980. Above all, it seems odd that C. L. R. James does not appear in these pages, not only because of his early influence as a leading intellectual and commentator on the British scene, black and white, but also because of his role as a brilliant writer on the art and politics of cricket. There is no acknowledgment of the black population that existed in Britain for a good two hundred years prior to 1950, the flourishing of black and Asian political and cultural journals in the earlier part of the twentieth century, the Caribbean Arts Movement in the late 1960s, the role of black publishers in subsequent decades, nor the Asian Women Writers Collective in the late 1970s and 1980s.

Despite the somewhat misleading sense this anthology gives of both the past and present in black British culture and society, this volume nevertheless contains a wealth of material by eminent black scholars such as Paul Gilroy, Stuart Hall, A. Sivanandan, Amina Mama, Carolyn Cooper, and Henry Louis Gates. It is probably the best single source for anyone wishing to gain an intelligent understanding of the preoccupations and debates that currently concern...