Taking part in the black struggle

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/nov/06/taking-part-in-black-struggle

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I enjoyed Aditya Chakrabortty’s thoughtful historical overview of the use of the word black (I’m Bengali and I’m black – in the same way that my parents were, 31 October). It reminded me how in the 1980s there was a mantra that “black is a political colour”, which encompassed “blacks” from Africa or the Caribbean along with “Asians”, whether from the subcontinent, Africa or the West Indies, plus Irish people who had also long experienced widespread discrimination.

Although the slogan usefully facilitated the creation of alliances against the common enemy of racism, it always struck me as a negative approach, emphasising oppositional politics along ethnic lines, rather than appealing to the positives of wider solidarity in demanding civil rights and social justice for people of all classes. While it is surely right, as Aditya says, to reaffirm notions of a shared black identity in order to reactivate the head-on struggle against racism, I hope that will be part of  a much wider realignment of politics on the progressive left.Giles OakleyLondon