National Black Arts Alliance

Paving the Empire Road (BBC Television and Black Britons)

By Darrell M. Newton

Publisher: Manchester University Press (27 Oct 2011)

ISBN-13: 978-0719081675

This book takes a new perspective on the arrival of West Indians to Britain from 1948 onwards. It concentrates on the portrayal of the influx from a media perspective, which I found fascinating. There is no doubt that the media fashions the ways in which we view our worlds and as such it is a huge responsibility they carry. Newton explores this through the BBC primarily and shows how they were the forerunners for the other networks that featured race-related matters and black people.

Newton’s introduction gives a background to the advent of black people moving to Britain. This is familiar territory to scholars with an interest and indeed for families who lived through those times and perhaps travelled to the ‘Motherland’. The book is referred to as a study, and there’s no doubt that it is highly researched and referenced throughout. However, that does not stop it from being readable and accessible. Newton begins with the influence of radio on BBC television services and the way in which Pathe newsreels enabled news and public affairs that often featured the challenges of West Indian immigration.

The study then follows Black people and the ways in which they were portrayed by the BBC from difficulties with housing and jobs, to famous African American icons and entertainers. There is reference to uprisings and unrests and the way in which they were portrayed by the media. Interestingly the final chapter deals with African Caribbean ‘issues’ that have been portrayed through programmes such as Babyfather, 2001, Shoot the Messenger, 2006, Small Island, 2009. And pertinently Newton states in his conclusion that ‘Our Jamaican Problem’ which was highlighted in 1948 seems to still be represented by the media with little change.

The book is well thought out, and offers an honest look at the broadcasting of ethnic programming. It is not easy reading, in the way that it highlights how black people have been and are still being portrayed as ‘problematic’, but given that the media shapes a country’s view of how ‘others’ are seen it is a necessary study. It maps the attitudes of the BBC directors towards racial programmes and gives an in-depth insight into the workings of the BBC. It is without a doubt an important study for anyone interested in the media and its attitudes.

Muli Amaye

Part 1 Tutor, Creative Writing
Lancaster University

John Amaechi. O.B.E

NBAA colleague, friend and mentor received his 2010 award for his work in the voluntary sector on both sides of the Atlantic.

FREE event but DONATIONS to NBAA are welcome.

Speaker: Anne Tucker, Friends of Platt Fields Park

Tuesday 17/01/12
5.30pm - 7.00pm
New Black Arts Alliance (NBAA)
18 Swan Street
Manchester M4 5JW

A fascinating talk by Anne Tucker, Committee Member of the Friends of Platt Fields, looking at the history of Platt Fields Park as well as Manchester’s past well-being + environmental campaigns.

Also recommended: Rusholme & Victoria Park Archive http://rusholmearchive.org/
Friends of Platt Fields Park http://www.plattfields.org/
The Cafe Historique http://www.meethelocals.blogspot.com/ or http://www.facebook.com/groups/222295496026/

CUSP By Graham Mort

Publisher Seren ISBN-13: 978-1854115485 £8.99

Can you identify a man by his art? I think not.  Mort is a local lad born in Middleton with the deadpan humour that Mancunians are known for. This is also a man who defends human rights and freedom, even if it meant the loss of his own liberty

His aura is one of the guys in the pub telling stories taken from family dinners or from strangers on trains then noted to memory with a point scheme for their punch lines..

Mort the poet is far more complex for here you quickly discover that his writer’s eye has the ability to note the smallest detail, the change in light, the movement of the air dispersed by a bird’s wing.

He forces you to hold your breath so that you travel with him along the intricate placing of each line. Moreover, the word “line” does not credit how he styles each stanza so they appear on the page perfect in their form

In your mind, it is easy to “see” Mort hanging out a hotel window seeing a view for the first time. Or shielding his eyes from the sun as he becomes accustomed to the inhumanity before him.

Black Crow

/…. Black Crow it’s murder on the

Hard shoulder….

airborne litter sad bum  highway trash…/

He has an eerie ability to position himself in the poetic body of his subject.

/a hazel fork rearing his fists,/…

/he never had a job, paid cash or pension;

He loved the ferret smell of cash…/

His final work I defy any reader not to read again and again, faster and faster like a surge of electricity travelling to make light.

Electricity

/You always knew I was well-connected

Didn’t you? Negative or positive/ AC/DC?

Fascist or freedom fighter? Oh! That

Decadent androgyny of mine!…/

THE LADIES ARE UPSTAIRS By Merle Collins

Publisher Peepal Tree Press ISBN: 9781845231798 Price: £8.99

My expectations of a novel full of the sort of laughter that is concealed by a raised hand were not totally      disappointed when I realised that this is a collection of short stories. As a poet, Collins is an exceptional    storyteller. Even so, I found myself leaving the page in front of me to flick through the book trying to  visualise a thread not only between the stories but also with the book title. Returning again to “Rain  Darling” which begins the collection, I found myself unwittingly drawn into the life-disappointment of the  main character, Rain, and then realised that Collins is toying with the phrase what is really myth and what is fiction.

In small places, on small islands, gossip can easily become historical facts that labour on in the lives of the innocent and can release the guilty to foul again.

Whilst women take the first chair in the majority of the stories, men too are bewitched and confused by life and its shadows - so it is best not to read by candlelight.

SuAndi