police racism | Pandaemonium

FROM PETERLOO TO THE MANGROVE NINE

October 13, 2020 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on Steve McQueen’s new film Mangrove and “black history”, was my Observer column this week. (The column included also a short piece on the public being more liberal than the government on immigration.) It was published on 11 October 2020, under the headline “Mangrove isn’t simply a ‘black story’, but central to our country’s history”. “It’s quintessentially a piece of British history. It is about British citizens who dealt with injustice and triumph.” So says director Steve McQueen about his new film, Mangrove, which […]

Categories: Culture & Books, History, Race & Immigration • Tags: black history, black history month, bristol bus boycott, british history, clr james, ep thompson, haitian revolution, identity politics, mangrove, mangrove nine, paul stephenson, peterloo, police racism, racism, steve mcqueen, the black jacobins, the making of the english working class

FROM ANTI-RACISM TO PSYCHOBABBLE

July 14, 2020 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on the degeneration of anti-racism into ‘unconscious bias’ training, was my Observer column this week. (The column included also a short piece on Hagia Sophia.) It was published on 12 July 2020, under the headline ‘Enough of the psychobabble. Racism is not something to fix with therapy’. Are you racist? And, if so, how would I know? I used to think that a good gauge may be whether you call me a ‘Paki’, or assault me because of my skin […]

Categories: Politics, Race & Immigration, Science & Technology • Tags: anti-racism, anti-racist training, black lives matter, elisabeth lasch-quinn, iat, implicit association test, police killings, police racism, racism, sivanandan, stop and search, therapy, unconscious bias, unconscious bias training

RACISM IS A PROBLEM, WHITE PEOPLE ARE NOT

June 16, 2020 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on racism and ‘white privilege’, was my Observer column this week. It was published on 14 June 2020, under the headline ”White privilege’ is a distraction, leaving racism and power untouched’. The transformation has been bewilderingly swift. Six years ago, most Americans thought that police killings of black suspects were ‘isolated events’. Now, three out of four accept that there exists a systemic problem. Support for Black Lives Matter has risen more in the past two weeks than over the past two years. And […]

Categories: Class, International, Race & Immigration • Tags: african americans, black lives matter, identity politics, police killings, police racism, racism, usa, white guilt, white privilege, working class

MAKE ME WANNA HOLLER

June 6, 2020 by Kenan Malik

I have published a similar post before, but this seemed a good time to resurrect it. The story of the struggle for black rights in America is intimately linked to the story of popular music. And this is a collection of 12 songs that span the past century and have acted as the soundtrack to the black struggle in America. It is largely chronological and reflects the shifts both in the struggle and in the music (as well as my […]

Categories: Culture & Books, International, Race & Immigration • Tags: african americans, america, anti-racism, black struggle, blues, ferguson, freedom struggles, george floyd, hip hop, jacob lawrence, jazz, police racism, r'n'b, racism, soul

POLICING BY CRISIS

April 18, 2014 by Kenan Malik

This is the full version of my Internation New York Times column on the crisis in British policing, published last month under the title ‘Britain’s Bobbies in the Dock’. I also wrote a subsequent post on the framing of Winston Silcott. In March, Britain’s Home Secretary, Theresa May, announced a public inquiry into claims that the Metropolitan Police had spied on a black family even as the force was supposed to be investigating the racist killing of the family’s eldest […]

Categories: Britain, Justice & Liberties • Tags: britain, irish struggle, lord denning, miscarriage of justice, police, police racism, racism, stephen lawrence, winston silcott

CREATING THE BEAST OF BROADWATER FARM

March 21, 2014 by Kenan Malik

In the Old Bailey in London there is currently a trial that carries with it the aftershocks of the social fractures, institutional injustices and corrupt policing of the 1980s. Nicholas Jacobs is in the dock accused of murdering policeman PC Keith Blakelock, killed during the Broadwater Farm riot of October 1985. Much has been written during Jacobs’ trial about the agony of the Blackelock family in having to wait three decades for possible justice. Almost entirely ignored has been the […]

Categories: Britain, Justice & Liberties, Race & Immigration • Tags: britain, broadwater farm, police racism, racism, riots, winston silcott