Racial Justice for the Windrush Generation in Great Britain

Abstract

AbstractThis article argues that the experience of the “Windrush generation,” Black Caribbean post–Second World War migrants to the UK, has been one of constant struggle for racial justice. Living in Britain has been undertaken against the backdrop of a Mission Christianity that has exuded a distinct anti‐Blackness in its relationship with Black bodies across four centuries. This particular dynamic of “Christian Britain” has created a framework that has helped to shape the agency of Black bodies, essentially marking them as “less than.” This theo‐cultural framework has led to a racialized existence for Black British people of the Windrush generation and their descendants. The Christianity that has emerged from the Black Caribbean experience constantly challenges White British Christianity to express an anti‐racist and more inclusive model of liberative praxis. This paper is written against the backdrop of the Brexit furore in Britain and the xenophobia and rise in racist attacks that have underpinned the rise in White British nationalism.