Mike Phillips: As racism fades into my memory, it begins yet again for others
[Mike Phillips is the co-author of Windrush: Irresistible Rise of Multi-racial Britain.]
When the Notting Hill riots started 50 years ago, I had been in a London school for two-and-a-half years. I was 14 and it was probably the biggest, most dramatic event in my life up to that time, but nothing about it was totally astonishing, because it was precisely the sort of event I had been fearing since I arrived.
Today, walking around London with my teenage son, it's hard to explain why it was no great surprise back then, as those first pictures of howling mobs chasing black men through the streets were shown around the world. Struggling to make sense of it, I tell him that I knew what was happening simply because of what I saw and what I felt about all the little things that went to make up our ordinary everyday life then. I tell him that the past is a different country and the differences are most noticeable not in the big changes, but in the small, unremarkable happenings.
Since 1958, there have been laws intended to prevent or inhibit the sort of violent assaults that we saw in Notting Hill, beginning with the draconian sentences handed out to some of the worse offenders. Then came the Race Relations Act followed by various tranches of immigration legislation, followed by new housing provisions and so on and so on. In the wake of all this, myths have grown up around the Notting Hill riots. Explanations for them abound. From the left come cries of poverty and deprivation, housing need and frustration. From the right, the Powellite agenda, which rationalises the riots in terms of liberal bullying of a neglected working class, discredited but still with resonance, resurfacing from time to time in one guise or another. In recent years, another (black) myth has begun to emerge, one that places the riots at the beginning of an official multicultural cause, exemplified by the Notting Hill Carnival this weekend.
All of these are certain to show up in any discussion about the meaning of the Notting Hill riots. In all the commentary, however, there is one element that is routinely neglected. That is about how people feel about themselves and about the undramatic routine of their lives, the everyday events that dictate how happy we can be in our environment. Last week, I went to a supermarket late in the evening. It was all routine. My partner and I were feeling rather giggly, partly because the teenage son was away for the night. Halfway down the first aisle, we encountered a young white woman stacking shelves and she began bantering with us. I don't remember what she said, but we all laughed uproariously. At the checkout, there was an Asian girl wreathed in smiles. It struck me that this was an experience which is absolutely normal, but would have been unimaginable 50 years ago.
Looking back, what I remember is being surrounded by an atmosphere of suspicion, indifference or hostility. In those days, out in public, if you smiled or spoke to a white person you didn't know, the response was most likely to be concern, offence or even physical assault. It was safer not to speak to anyone, because any encounter could provoke a racist jibe. Pick up the local newspaper and you were certain to read reports, features or letters which were offensive or threatening or downright racist. Switch on the radio and you were certain to hear an interview, or a speech or joke, which reminded you that you were the object of your neighbours' anger, dislike or contempt. That was 1958 and that was a different country and there was a sense in which the Notting Hill riots summed up what I could feel around me every time I went out of the house.
I don't feel that today. Nowadays, I am a relatively respectable gent of a certain age and no one has in for me, unless they know who I am. It is easy to note the contrasts with that other time, 50 years ago, in the ease with which most black people navigate the city. This isn't the case only in London. I could say similar things about Leeds or Birmingham or Manchester. In any number of routine encounters, it is easy to appreciate the extent to which the country has changed. Coming back from abroad, I don't feel even the smallest part of the caution I used to. This country is home.
On the other hand, it is impossible to escape the realisation that, for many, more recent migrants, the city offers an experience which feels uncomfortably like the way it was for black migrants in the Fifties...
Read entire article at Observer
When the Notting Hill riots started 50 years ago, I had been in a London school for two-and-a-half years. I was 14 and it was probably the biggest, most dramatic event in my life up to that time, but nothing about it was totally astonishing, because it was precisely the sort of event I had been fearing since I arrived.
Today, walking around London with my teenage son, it's hard to explain why it was no great surprise back then, as those first pictures of howling mobs chasing black men through the streets were shown around the world. Struggling to make sense of it, I tell him that I knew what was happening simply because of what I saw and what I felt about all the little things that went to make up our ordinary everyday life then. I tell him that the past is a different country and the differences are most noticeable not in the big changes, but in the small, unremarkable happenings.
Since 1958, there have been laws intended to prevent or inhibit the sort of violent assaults that we saw in Notting Hill, beginning with the draconian sentences handed out to some of the worse offenders. Then came the Race Relations Act followed by various tranches of immigration legislation, followed by new housing provisions and so on and so on. In the wake of all this, myths have grown up around the Notting Hill riots. Explanations for them abound. From the left come cries of poverty and deprivation, housing need and frustration. From the right, the Powellite agenda, which rationalises the riots in terms of liberal bullying of a neglected working class, discredited but still with resonance, resurfacing from time to time in one guise or another. In recent years, another (black) myth has begun to emerge, one that places the riots at the beginning of an official multicultural cause, exemplified by the Notting Hill Carnival this weekend.
All of these are certain to show up in any discussion about the meaning of the Notting Hill riots. In all the commentary, however, there is one element that is routinely neglected. That is about how people feel about themselves and about the undramatic routine of their lives, the everyday events that dictate how happy we can be in our environment. Last week, I went to a supermarket late in the evening. It was all routine. My partner and I were feeling rather giggly, partly because the teenage son was away for the night. Halfway down the first aisle, we encountered a young white woman stacking shelves and she began bantering with us. I don't remember what she said, but we all laughed uproariously. At the checkout, there was an Asian girl wreathed in smiles. It struck me that this was an experience which is absolutely normal, but would have been unimaginable 50 years ago.
Looking back, what I remember is being surrounded by an atmosphere of suspicion, indifference or hostility. In those days, out in public, if you smiled or spoke to a white person you didn't know, the response was most likely to be concern, offence or even physical assault. It was safer not to speak to anyone, because any encounter could provoke a racist jibe. Pick up the local newspaper and you were certain to read reports, features or letters which were offensive or threatening or downright racist. Switch on the radio and you were certain to hear an interview, or a speech or joke, which reminded you that you were the object of your neighbours' anger, dislike or contempt. That was 1958 and that was a different country and there was a sense in which the Notting Hill riots summed up what I could feel around me every time I went out of the house.
I don't feel that today. Nowadays, I am a relatively respectable gent of a certain age and no one has in for me, unless they know who I am. It is easy to note the contrasts with that other time, 50 years ago, in the ease with which most black people navigate the city. This isn't the case only in London. I could say similar things about Leeds or Birmingham or Manchester. In any number of routine encounters, it is easy to appreciate the extent to which the country has changed. Coming back from abroad, I don't feel even the smallest part of the caution I used to. This country is home.
On the other hand, it is impossible to escape the realisation that, for many, more recent migrants, the city offers an experience which feels uncomfortably like the way it was for black migrants in the Fifties...