Natives Race and Class in the Ruins of Empire / Black Listed / Black and British Quotes

“The government and the education system failed to explain to white Britain that, as the academic Adam Elliot-Cooper puts it, we had not come to Britain, but 'rather that Britain had come to us'. They did not explain that the wealth of Britain, which made the welfare state and other class ameliorations possible, was derived in no small part from the coffee and tobacco, cotton and diamonds, gold and sweat and blood and death of the colonies.”
― Akala, Natives Race and Class in the Ruins of Empire / Black Listed / Black and British: A Forgotten History

“Never mind that Britain has a German royal family, a Norman ruling elite, a Greek patron saint, a Roman/Middle Eastern religion, Indian food as its national cuisine, an Arabic/Indian numeral system, a Latin alphabet and an identity predicated on a multi-ethnic, globe-spanning empire – ‘fuck the bloody foreigners’. Never mind that waves of migration have been a constant in British history and that great many millions of 'white' Britons are themselves descendants of Jewish, Eastern European and Irish migrants of the nineteenth century, nor that even in the post-war 'mass migration' years, Ireland and Europe were the largest source of immigrants. And, of course, let's say nothing about the millions of British emigrants, settlers and colonists abroad - conveniently labeled 'expats'.”
― Akala, Natives Race and Class in the Ruins of Empire / Black Listed / Black and British: A Forgotten History

“This 'if you pull your socks up' trope also ignores the reality that many Britons (and people around the globe) are poor and getting poorer through no fault of their own under austerity - the technical term for class robbery. Can a nurse whose pay increases are capped at 1 per cent - below the rate of inflation - by politicians who have not capped their own pay, change the fact that he or she is literally getting poorer every passing year, despite doing the same bloody hard work?”
― Akala, Natives Race and Class in the Ruins of Empire / Black Listed / Black and British: A Forgotten History

“You see, for much of Britain, America is where racism happens, and Britain is then by definition not racist because, you know, 'it's not as racist as America.' This is a totally moot and rather idiotic point, as no two countries have the same systems of social control, thus no two countries in essence have the same racisms. While British liberals may praise all the Dr Kings in the world, this does not necessarily stop them from reproducing and/or administering the domestic racial hierarchy effectively.”
― Akala, Natives Race and Class in the Ruins of Empire / Black Listed / Black and British: A Forgotten History

“You see, while the people in the colonies were being told Britain was their mother, much of white Britain had convinced itself that these undeserving niggers - Asians were niggers too, back then - had just got off their banana boats to come and freeload, to take 'their' jobs and steal ‘their’ women. Never mind that Britain has a German royal family, a Norman ruling elite, a Greek patron saint, a Roman/Middle Eastern religion, Indian food as its national cuisine, an Arabic/Indian numeral system, a Latin alphabet and an identity predicated on a multi-ethnic, globe-spanning empire- ‘fuck the bloody foreigners'.
Never mind that waves of migration have been a constant in British history and that great many millions of ‘white' Britons are themselves descendants of Jewish, Eastern European and Irish migrants of the nineteenth century, nor that even in the post-war 'mass migration' years, Ireland and Europe were the largest source of immigrants. And, of course, let's say nothing about the millions of British emigrants, settlers and colonists abroad - conveniently labelled 'expats'.”
― Akala, Natives Race and Class in the Ruins of Empire / Black Listed / Black and British: A Forgotten History

“Of course, a few successful black people also do very little to alter the race– class dynamics of the UK and can even help to cement it. These successes can and will be used – even sometimes by the ‘middle class’ respectable black
people themselves – to beat other poor people that ‘didn’t make it’ over the head. They can be used to pretend that the system is just and there are enough seats at the table – ‘if you just work hard and pull your socks up you can be like me’ – rather than simply being honest about the way things actually work. Most people, it seems to me at least, hate poor people more than they hate poverty.”
― akala, Natives Race and Class in the Ruins of Empire / Black Listed / Black and British: A Forgotten History