On Being And Not Being Brown/Black-British: Racism, Class, Sexuality and Ethnicity in Post-imperial Britain

Abstract

This essay focuses on the forces that have been transforming ethnic identities in Britain in the second half of the twentieth century. In particular, it explores how and why hybrid identities, such as black British and British Asian, have been and continue to be subject to chronic destabilizing currents. In the light of the 1998 Windrush celebrations, recent ethnographic material is used to discuss the ways in which there is defensive as well as proactive resistance from below to any easy assimilation of cultures and identities, thus reinforcing the instability of hyphenated identities in contemporary Britain. Complex imbrications of class, sexuality and ethnicity are shown to be important in understanding how identities have been changing. The essay ends with brief speculations on some possible implications of recent political, socioeconomic and cultural changes in Britain for the future of racism, especially in relation to working-class English identities.