natives race and class in the ruins of empire review

Largely using informal and accessible language, Natives enables the reader to easily engage with the topics of discussion. “My relationship with my mother was not just the relationship of mother and son, but of a white mother to her black son.” This premature, yet shrewd awareness of race largely stemmed from his experiences of racist abuse throughout childhood, and was compounded by the fact that his Scottish-English mother was separated from their British-Jamaican father, leaving his white mother to raise her mixed-race children alone.Īkala’s thoughts on this situation can be summed up in the following reflection: This educational exploration begins in the author’s formative years, where, as a mixed race boy, he begins to question his personhood in an attempt to reconcile both sides of his identity. Natives is the searing modern polemic and Sunday Times bestseller from the BAFTA and MOBO award-winning musician and political commentator, Akala.Drawing on personal anecdotes and historical accounts to interrogate the ways in which race and class intertwine in a post-colonial world, Akala’s Natives showcases the unique set of challenges faced by working class people of colour in Britain. In this unique book he takes his own experiences and widens them out to look at the social, historical and political factors that have left us where we are today.Ĭovering everything from the police, education and identity to politics, sexual objectification and the far right, Nativesspeaks directly to British denial and squeamishness when it comes to confronting issues of race and class that are at the heart of the legacy of Britain’s racialised empire.

‘I recommend Natives to everyone’ Candice Carty-Williamsįrom the first time he was stopped and searched as a child, to the day he realised his mum was white, to his first encounters with racist teachers – race and class have shaped Akala’s life and outlook. It’s personal, historical, political, and it speaks to where we are now’ Benjamin Zephaniah

‘T his is the book I’ve been waiting for – for years. *RADIO 4 BOOK OF THE WEEK* SHORTLISTED FOR THE JAMES TAIT BLACK PRIZE | THE JHALAK PRIZE | THE BREAD AND ROSES AWARD & LONGLISTED FOR THE ORWELL PRIZE FOR POLITICAL WRITING

Natives race and class in the ruins of empire review