Looting For An Identity

I’m sitting in my office in BBC Scotland with my fellow news colleagues watching images of London burning as rioting and looting takes place in Hackney, Tottenham and Brixton. As one of the few Londoners in the office and definitely the only Black person in the office, the question my fellow journalists keep asking is why? They point out that deprivation in parts of Scotland is far worse than anything in London, pockets of youth unemployment in Glasgow is far worse than any black youth unemployment rate, and even life expectancy is worse in Scotland. Yet no one is rioting in Glasgow. Simple liberal explanations of blaming the riots on racism and socio-economic deprivation just don’t seem to explain the full story.

As the apparent sole representation of all things black and London, my answer is “identity”. Specifically, the need for “role-communities” not “role-models”. Let me explain:

I’ve been working in Scotland now for over three years. What I love about Scotland is just how broad Scottish identity is. You can be an intellectual, read ancient Gaelic poetry and love long country hikes and feel very Scottish. At the same time you can enjoy eating deep-fried mars bars, drink buckfast (a potent mix of caffeine and alcohol popular on Glasgow’s streets), and regularly get into fights on a Saturday night and still be 100% Scottish.  It’s equally Scottish to wake up listening to BBC Scotland Radio’s Good Morning Scotland (the Scottish equivalent of Radio 4’s Today programme) or listening to something a little lighter on Radio Clyde. And whether you support Scottish independence or think Scotland should always be part of the United Kingdom, it doesn’t matter to your identity - no one can use that to tell you you’re not a proud Scot.

Scottish identity is a broad church.

So what has this got to do with rioting by black youth in London?  The fact is that black British identity, and more importantly the black British community, is the complete opposite.

Since the 1980s, there has been a great deal of effort to increase representation of black people on TV, Radio, online and in print.  That effort has been crucial.  However, what it has not managed to do is to challenge and broaden the black British identity.

Whether on TV, Radio, online or in print, the Black community is invariably very narrowly defined. It is generally portrayed as a dysfunctional community that is dominated by youth culture, the underclass and constant undertones of criminality.

However as a result of efforts since the 1980s, we now see some successful elements – those great black individuals on screen who have “made it”. The problem is that these black people are not seen as being part of a functioning black community.  They are nearly always portrayed as being fully integrated into the broader white community; islands of success divorced from the gangster laced black community which they managed to escape from, and now might visit occasionally.

The message this sends out to young black kids is dangerously clear, as the riots have demonstrated. They have to make a choice: either be part of a narrowly defined dysfunctional black community (populated with hoodies, grime and undertones of criminality); or leave that community behind and become fully integrated into a functioning wider white community. Choose between a culture of crime or a lifetime of community self-loathing. In TV terms a choice between MTV gangsta rappers or the single black character in a Mike Leigh film. This is a choice that media representations by well meaning liberals of “positive black role models” does not address and can sometimes inadvertently reinforce.

Is it any wonder then, that when someone from the black community is killed, the outcome is a riot? According to the media the dysfunctional black community is populated with potential rioters, all the black youth have done is internalise this identity and reacted accordingly.

That, I believe, is why youth are rioting in London and not in the most deprived areas of Glasgow. It’s a lack of a broader, functional community identity.

In this context, the media has an (if not the) most important role to play in addressing identity, and therefore these riots. Yes, the police need to take action, and re-connect with the black community. That’s necessary. But it’s not sufficient. It is only the media that can really start to widen the definition of black British identity. The havoc being wreaked in Tottenham and other black communities throughout London demonstrates that we need to go well beyond finding a few “positive role models” or teaching our children about individual, one-of-a-kind black heroes from Martin Luther King to Barack Obama. We need to present a black community that these youth want to be part of that is as broad as the Scottish identity – one where Goths and nerds can co-exist with rappers and all feel an equal claim to the term “black”. One where a suburban middleclass black family can feel their community is as “legitimately” black as any inner city black family.  One where black people can do PhD’s without the feeling that they are “acting white”.

These broad black communities already exist; I suspect that a lot of black people in the BBC and other media offices actually do come from these communities. Our job is to stop shining the spotlighting on just a few individual role models from these communities, and broaden our focus to “role-communities”. Only then will we give our children a true choice of what it means to be black, without the need to resort to riots.