I want to tell you some truths about who we really are as Black Liverpudlians and possibly make you reconsider who you are as a result. Some argue that individuals should have exclusive rights to define their own racial identity from a personal perspective. This is often a sensitive subject and, whilst I am not advocating that we take no account of peoples personal feelings, I believe that useful debates around racial identity are stifled because we are reluctant to challenge people on their professed racial identity. I agree with mainstream scientific opinion that, human physical variability is an obvious fact, but ‘race’ has no biological basis. Furthermore, apart from the female and male division, there is no fundamental, essential, spiritual, or other non-conventional nature that we can identify ourselves with other than our humanity, whatever that is. I consequently, hold that identities that sub-divide that common humanity are conventional.
They are claimed by us or given to us by others for personal, social, historical and political reasons and these identities have intended and unintended meanings, and often practical consequences on each of these various levels. Racial identities change and develop over time, reflecting and creating the complex interplay of power, exploitation and resistance within and between societies. How we define ourselves, also often define the identities we give to others and affect our view of them. So, identity is both important and open to question. I need to make one more significant preliminary clarification before I offer a general definition of Black Identity in Liverpool, I will then mention some ways we are viewed, before mentioning what being Black and from Liverpool means to me personally. I want to attack a practice that is all too common amongst White people in general and many Black people outside of Liverpool. This is the practice of acting as if race and culture are the same, or are always related in a one-to-one correspondence in such a way as to make it possible to simply substitute one for the other. This is simply not true.
You can’t just look at a Black person in Liverpool and say anything about their cultural affiliations with any degree of confidence. For example, we have Black people with darker complexions who are born and bred in Liverpool and are indistinguishable in lifestyle and cultural influences from their White counterparts. Likewise we have Black people with lighter complexions who have strong cultural affiliations with Africa and or the West Indies. We also have everything in between…. This is just one of many reasons why I and other Black people in Liverpool reject being labeled as an ‘ethnic minority’. Ethnicity puts race and culture together.
The truth is clearly more complex than that in Liverpool. Being Black in Liverpool is only contingently related to coming from another culture. I am now in a position to give you a general definition of what being Black in Liverpool means; a definition that is not based on any particular cultural practices and does not give ‘race’ any spurious biological reality. We as Black people, are simply who we say we are, in reaction to what others say we are and the racism that we have to combat, and in the recognition that we are all just people. Many readers may be disappointed by this definition and think it pretty thin material on which to build a positive identity. It might seem that this definition also gives little room for being rationally challenged or for justifiable revision of who we say we are. However, I believe it to be the fundamental truth on which Black identity in Liverpool is founded, and rich enough material to encompass a wide variety of ways to build a rationally defensible Black identity in Liverpool.
It means we can call on many sources to create a culturally diverse and robust Black identity. White Liverpudlians still tend to see the Liverpool Black community as different, foreign and problematic. On an individual level they sometime try to console us by assuring us that we are not like other Black people i.e. the ones they don’t know so well. Those of us with lighter complexions are sometimes granted the dubious privilege of being told we are not Black, but ‘half-caste’. However, this does not get you served any faster in the shops, nor does it help you get a job, stop you from being called a ‘nigger’ or stop people beating you up, or trying to kill you from time to time. What you do get is a degree of pity for being a ‘mongrel’. It can be hard on our White counterparts in the city, when we refuse their misguided attempts to make us identify with them on their terms. What they need to know is that we are them, not some of us but all of us, and we are Black.
It is also true that some Black people in Liverpool don’t know much about ‘racial’ identity and don’t think they have one. However, we are a community rooted in Liverpool and steeped in the life culture and history of the city. We are a community drawn from the many cultures of the African Diaspora. We have dark skin and you may be surprised to hear, we also have white skin and every shade in between. We often have White family members or a White parent. We are proud of being from Liverpool and being part of a wider Black community. We have to think about our racial identity because people presume they know who we are but tend to disagree and presume that it is us, rather than they who are confused. Now here is some of what Black identity in Liverpool means to me.
First, I am not a different kind of Black man e.g. ‘The light skinned kind’. Light skinned or any of its equivalents is not an identity that is of any use outside of its place on the third or fourth layer of a tiered hierarchy with White men on the top and Black people with darker skin on the bottom. That is a picture of human relationships that many white people assume and have tried to instill in me, (even though as mentioned above, race doesn’t work that way in Liverpool). It is refuted by my life experience of strong capable Black role models. Consequently I see myself as a Black man. I have lighter skin than many other Black people, so what? This is 21st Century Liverpool not a 18th Century West Indian plantation. My father is not a plantation owner or a captain of a slave ship off the West African coast, nor am I descended from or heir to the privileges afforded to some of the sons of these people. The lightness of my skin comes from the love of a strong proud working class White mother who has had to deal with more, ‘in your face’ racism, than most people can imagine.
I honor my mother and my White working class ancestors. They too made me who I am. But I have no share in their whiteness, because being White is all or nothing in this city. For me, the identity of a nearly-White person is not one that is worth having even if it could buy you one rung up a racial ladder. The price in self-hatred and hatred of your Black family is not worth selling your human soul for. Far better to break the ladder to pieces and stay Black and avowedly fully human, than accept the label ‘Mixed-Race’ or nearly White man. Some might argue that ‘Mixed-race or Dual-heritage’ etc. are outside of racial categorisation. But this is patently untrue. Always ask yourself who invents these distinctions and who benefits from them. I entirely reject these distinctions between Black people. White people and some unthinking Black people often find this puzzling, especially because some of us look White.
They can’t understand how we can see ourselves as Black. But, if you get away from thinking ‘race’ is about significant physical differences between people and see it as being about focusing on insignificant differences that are used to make significant power differences, then it is easy to see that. Once an individual who could be characterised as having a Black background understands this point, he or she would be better equipped to value their Blackness, especially when we remember that no matter how White you look, to a Liverpool racist, one drop of ‘Black Blood’ makes all the difference. When the rest of Liverpool stops being so White we will stop being so Black.
