Natives: Race and Class in the Ruins of Empire

by Akala

The fact that the question is even asked, the fact that black excellence in a particular field needs ‘explaining’, tells its own story. I can’t recall any documentaries trying to discover an organisational gene left over from fascism that explains why Germany and Italy have consistently been Europe’s best performing football teams. Spain’s brief spell as the best team in the world, with a generation of players born in the years immediately after Franco’s death, would seem to confirm my fascism-meets-football thesis, right? Clearly this would be a ridiculous investigation – or who knows maybe I am on to something – but the question would never be asked because German, Italian and Spanish brilliance don’t really need explaining, or at least not in such negative ways.

I can’t imagine watching Lord of the Rings and thinking, Oh, white people being excellent again, what a bummer.

The long and short of it is that the master makes himself a slave to his slave by needing that domination to define him.

The word ‘race’ first emerged in France, not in Spain or Portugal. It was not coined to denigrate a despised minority or an alien people with strange skin colour or to justify colonisation or enslavement.