The Guardian Must be Challenged for Whipping up Ethnic Animosity Against Mulattoes in the Name of Colourism?
The Guardian is considered by many to be a progressive newspaper but I am becoming increasingly disturbed at the way in which The Guardian is working to stir up ethnic animosity against mulattoes and their families.
Yesterday, The Guardian published an article tackling the issue of “Colourism” which I believe to be conspiratorial and written to whip up ethnic antagonism against mulatto people. The article written by black presenter, Candace Braithwaite, claims that there is systematic racism that favours mulattoes over blacks. That there is a conspiracy by mulattoes and whites to eradicate black faces from the media landscape. She claimed that she has been experiencing this since the 1990’s in Brixton.
The article is a weak argument and sloppy journalism designed not to highlight authentic issues but to whip up hatred against the tiny mulatto population in Britain and across the world. Braithwaite does not seek to attack the white institutions that she claims refused her work in favour of their mulatto darlings but she focuses her attack on mulattoes. This type of literature is prejudiced, racialised and not acceptable and I am calling on The Guardian to stop promoting ethnic arguments that attack the mulatto community under the guise of “colourism”, placing mulattoes in danger of physical, verbal and psychological abuse and being pushed out of British institutions.
Braithwaite claims she was in Brixton in the 90’s when she first was confronted by colourism. I grew up in Brixton in the 90’s and I can categorically state that colourism against dark skinned people was non existent amongst mulattoes. The Mulatto community was tiny and made up less than 10% of the population. There was no way possible that the tiny mulatto community could have bullied the larger negro community.
There was no way that mulattoes could have made blacks feel uncomfortable about their skin colour or racial heritage. Mulattoes were in the minority and never had the power to impact the way that Black Britain feels about itself.
When I was growing up, it was rare to come across a mulatto and not rare for a mulatto to be mercilessly bullied by black boys or girls because of the colour of their skin. I have been attacked physically, called “Red boy”, “Yellow Baby”, “Half-Caste” and “Mongrel” and experienced every negative comment that can be directed at mulattoes. I am not the only one who has had this experience and I can draw for numerous witnesses.
In Black Britain, darker skinned blacks are dominant. Most Black Britons shared the same skin tone as the dominant black celebrities at the time. Shabba, Ninjaman, Bounty Killer, Biggie, Tupac, Denzel Washington, they were all 1990’s icons who are black. I can tell you that I only came across mulatto heroes from reading historical literature about African-Americans such as Frederick Douglass, Booker T Washington, Dubois, Malcom and Newton and it was not until the coming of Barack Obama that I really saw mulatto heroes on TV on a regular basis.
In the 1990’s when Malcolm X the movie came out, many even believed that Malcom X was black rather than a mulatto, because of the performance by Denzel Washington. I do not remember at the time anyone of light complexion even mounting a criticism of the depiction of a mulatto, raised by a near white, straight-haired Mother, being depicted as a dark-skinned black man. There was no argument about the revisionism that was taking place.
As a child in order to increase my confidence and to avoid the narrative of the tragic mulatto, my Mother set up a group called the “Mixed-race” group so that I could be around people that looked like me; that was the extent of the prejudice and difference that mulatto people were experiencing at the time.
Braithwaite claims that when she was growing up there were no black people on TV or in movies. Anyone with a bit of objectivity will know that the narrative is a downright fabrication. In the 90’s; Mica Paris, Karen Wheeler, Whoopi Goldberg, Lauryn Hill and Whitney Houston were famous and popular. On TV there were programmes such as Desmond’s and the Real McCoy, programmes with an all black cast, programmes that were depictions of black families and not mulattoes. Two of the daughters of the Huxtables in the Cosby Show were black Vanessa and Rudy. The newsreader in the 1990’s that Britain watched every night was Trevor MacDonald, a black man.
In her article Braithwaite tells two stories of her experience of colourism. In the first story; a friends black Mother advised her to bleach her skin to be accepted. The second story was a story of a black man who had told her that she was lucky to get thus far in her career considering how she looked, which Braithwaite considered to be an attack on her skin colour. Although, it could have simply been that the black man never found her attractive. Nothing to do with her skin at all. Maybe to do with her personality or ethnic obsession or just the shape of her face or something.
Both of the examples of colourism that she used were instigated by black people. If you are aware of the mulatto contributions to black thought; from Washington to Dubois to Malcolm, Huey and more recently Obama, there has never been a collective of mulattoes encouraging blacks to bleach their skin.
There was no significant colourism going on in Lambeth or on British television that was targeted at black people. When Buju Banton released the one song, “Browning”, sharing his love for mulatto women, he was attacked and forced to make a song that reflected his love of darker skinned black women or face a career ending boycott. The animosity was real, even though mulattoes have accepted a black identity at the expense of a significant part of themselves, the anger that it aroused indicated that colourism was nothing to do with mulattoes but to do with how black people feel about themselves and their own identity crisis that arises out of their Double Consciousness.
Today, it is still quite rare to see mulattoes on television. Most of the MP’s that get coverage are black, dark-skinned people. Many of them such as David Lammy, Diane Abbott, were in parliament during the 90’s. Bernie Grant was a MP during the 90’s and he was black. He married a white woman and chose to create a mulatto family. He was not forced by mulattoes to marry someone white.
Badendoch, Kwarteng, De Cordova, Osamar, Afolami, Eshalomi, Henry, Oppong-Asare, Owatemi, are all MP’s, they are all black and they appear on TV often. Emma Willis is the presenter of Loose Women and she is black. Her recent, highly praised, all black panel did not include any mulattoes.
The new presenter of Loose Women is black, one of the leading academics, who appears regularly on GMB, the excessive race baiter, Dr Shola Mos-Shogbamimu, is black. Cyril Myrie is black and he presents the BBC news and has just won an award for his presenting. The series of Steve McQueen films aired on the BBC earlier this year were not a reflection of mulatto life and Steve McQueen is black. As is also Alex Wheatle, the Brixton based author who had his story told in the series of films. John Boyega who played the role of black police officer, Leroy Logan, is black. The Conservative candidate for Mayor of London is a black.
The fact is that even in movies that have depicted mulattoes such as Malcolm X or Obama, have depicted them as dark-skinned people which can be considered, revisionism, abuse of power, or even more sinister as a form of racial oppression designed to write the mulatto experience out of history.
The argument for colourism is a fabrication being used to stir racial animosity against the mulatto population.
I have a black Grandfather who was seriously angered to have a mulatto in his family. Until the coming of myself, his lineage had looked like Marcus Garveys. He was not happy to have a Malcolm X born into his family. His words were, “mi nuh waan no half-breed daughter-in-law”. His animosity towards my Mother was real. I have been chased by gangs using racial slurs against me on more than one occasion. I have experienced ridicule at the expense of lots of black people. I have been called a mongrel in the workplace by black people. It was not whites that called me these terms or attacked me. Although I have also had a similar experience of being taunted as “half-caste” by whites.
The story of Bob Marley told by black people such as Bunny Wailer, tells the tale that Bob Marley received reproach from blacks and whites for being a mulatto. It is well-known in Jamaican history, that Marley faced a serious identity crisis and struggle growing up that never left him even in adulthood.
If I have been told once, I have been told a million times that I am not black. There is no way that the mulatto population have the power to impact the way that black people feel about themselves. Dr Mos-Shogbamimu argues that racism is about power. It is a fact that there are places where black people have power and can become engaged in ethnic genocide activities. In the context of blacks and mulattoes, blacks have the dominant hand. If we use the logic that many black academics use to discuss race, it is clear that mulattoes don’t have the power to force racism onto black people. Mulattoes do not have the power to impose colourism onto black people in the way that blacks and whites have the power to impose colourism onto those that have the blood of both Europe and Africa and beyond running through their veins.
History will show that there is no alliance between whites and mulattoes, unless they are whites who are part of mulatto families. In Louisiana for example, people have found that mulattoes were enslaved as much as blacks. Frederick Douglass, the son of a European and an African born in the US was born into slavery. He was not party to the “house negro” treatment that many want to place upon mulattoes. The whole story of mulatto house negroism is a fabrication on the whole. It is a way for many to direct the anger they have against white western civilisation onto an easy target that is not being given adequate protection from black or white supremacists.
If the Guardian and others do not stop providing a platform for blacks or whites to expound on racist mythology about mulattoes and stir up unfounded ethnic animosity against mulatto people in the style of Adolf Hitler and the NAZI party. We are going to march on your offices.
ALT
