A St Leonards exhibition prompted Kent Barker to consider what progress race relations have made in Britain over the past half century.

There have been, please take my word for it, some disadvantages being born white in 1950s Britain. I’m not after sympathy, and I can see how even this statement could be seen as offensive. But a key problem I feel is an inability to fully appreciate the depth of the black experience. 

The thought occurred while looking round the excellent Playing the Race Card exhibition at the Greenhalf Studio in St Leonards. We can respond to what the 26 artists are showing us, but white people can never know what it is really like to be black in Britain.

Shaun Campbell’s Never Shall They Hold the Whip Hand takes my generation straight back to Enoch Powell and his 1968 ‘Rivers of Blood’ speech. Even though he never used those actual words – he was quoting Virgil’s River Tiber ‘foaming with much blood’. But he also quoted a constituent who supposedly told him; “In this country, in 15 or 20 years’ time, the black man will have the whip hand over the white man.” 

Black Lives Matters by Fatima Esayli

A more incendiary phrase – referencing the slave-owner’s whip – is hard to imagine in immediately post-Windrush Britain when, let us not forget, the government had invited West Indians to come to fill vacant jobs in the public service sector. And what has changed in my lifetime? We still do our utmost to keep immigrants (and particularly non-white immigrants) out. Or, if they manage the incredibly difficult and dangerous journey to get here, we inter them in camps, hostels and dingy hotels and threaten to deport them to Rwanda. And this while post-Brexit Britain faces critical labour shortages. 

Like Shaun Campbell, artist Nicole Thornton was also brought up in South London. Her painting, The Game is Rigged echoes my experience of living around Lewisham and Deptford and New Cross before she was even born. The National Front marches; the New Cross fire in which 13 young black partygoers died; the racist murder of Stephen Lawrence in nearby Eltham; the constant harassment of anyone not gleaming white by the police who disproportionately used stop and search, and the notorious ‘sus’ laws that led to the 1981 Brixton riots (cf Chris Udenze’s black brick, Brickbat or Bookend? in the exhibition). As a young radio reporter, I was sent to Brixton the following day and was, frankly, embarrassed by the colour of my skin. Nicole is right. The game is rigged and has been all along. 

And not just in Britain. Fatima Esayli’s intricate photomontage Black Lives Matters portrays another black person – George Floyd – murdered by Minneapolis police. When I first went to the States in 1969 – the year after the assassination of Martin Luther King – the Civil Rights movement was in full swing and the more militant Black Panther movement gaining momentum. Half a century later there may have been a black president but there’s still pervasive, institutionalised racism in the police and many echelons of society.

Shemelle Soyebo’s background and her painting Tick Box widens the discussion of race to Africa, reminding us it was the vortex of the slave trade and the unwilling recipient of Europe’s religious, economic and cultural imperialism. In the four decades since Brixton and Toxteth, Britain has become a much richer racial and cultural melting pot and although some things may have improved for people of colour, an awful lot of old attitudes persist. For some to occasionally ‘play the race card’ would be understandable but is, in my experience, rare. Playing the racist card, sadly, is not.

This venue is to be run by the 20 refugee families who have so far arrived in Hastings as part of the Syrian Resettlement programme, But it is intended to be a place of integration for the whole community through events and exhibitions. At the opening, the venue was packed with barely room to raise a pastry to a mouth. Welcoming speeches, translated into Arabic, were given by Rossana Leal, founder of the Hastings and Rother Buddy Project, by Felicity Laurence, chair of Hastings Community of Sanctuary and by Hastings Mayor, Nigel Sindon. Fatima, the young ambassador for Hastings Refugees, spoke in public for the first time:

Fatima Esayli speaking at Open launch 13th June
PICTURE: Richard Platt

“I came from Lebanon to the UK with my wonderful family and we’ve been in Hastings for seven months. Actually, since I came here, everything has changed. In the UK, and especially in Hastings, I have found great human kindness and deep respect. My family and I now live with a sense of safety and security. I’m sorry to say that, before we came here, we were around people who acted without humanity. They were humans but had no humanity.

When I came to Hastings, my family and I were introduced to four Buddies from the organisation which is opening this cafe, the Hastings and Rother Refugee project. These four are always ready to help us in any way possible. They visited us and now they are no longer guests in our home, but part of our family.

They have listened to my hopes and ambitions for my life. They’ve taken me through the process of applying to universities, including accompanying me to Open Days and interviews. In the Lebanon my course in Interior Design and Architecture was interrupted. I’m happy that I have now been offered places at Brighton and Middlesex to continue my degree.

I am very surprised to find that all this help is done on a voluntary basis. 

If you want to be part of this amazing project of kindness, then I invite you to join us now.”

Rossana Leal arrived in Britain in 1977 at the age of seven with her parents as refugees from General Pinochet’s Chile. Her father obtained leave to enter from a camp in Argentina, and was able to work and study immediately on arrival. 

“I learnt from my own family experience how important it is for refugees to become fully integrated members of the local community by working. We were sent on our arrival to live amongst a mining community in Fife, Scotland. My dad had immediately usable skills as a welder, but Scottish miners understood that he would need formal qualifications here and supported him in getting them.

“Syrians arriving now for resettlement have immediate rights to work and study in Britain. But in my view all asylum seekers should be allowed to work from day one: it’s a human right. A job makes people feel useful, it’s a vital part of life. We should run a system with programmes that looks at their aspirations and helps them to achieve them. But at least those who don’t have these rights yet can volunteer here on the Buddy project – that’s a start.”