Black Youth in Crisis (Routledge Revivals)

E. Cashmore, B. Troyna

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781135072698
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Black Studies
• Index: Social Sciences

First published in 1982, this book considers the position of young Afro-Caribbean people in Britain, in the 1980s. It looks at how, at the time, this group of young people were disproportionately hit by growing unemployment, seemed to be over-represented in crime statistics and were often disadvantage at school. The authors of the book analyse the struggles of the time and look at the reasons for their existence.

1  Black Youth for Whites

ERNEST CASHMORE

One evening in late 1980, I watched a game of amateur soccer under the floodlights of an Islington stadium. With me stood a Jamaican-born man in his mid-20s who had been educated up to the age of 9 in Jamaica before moving to Leeds and then London. I had been introduced to him by one of the football team’s captains as ‘Ernest Cashmore – he’s down here doing a project on black sportsmen and he’s speaking to us, getting to know what we’re about. I’ll leave him with you.’

For ninety-odd minutes I chatted with Sydney Grant about football, about universities, about black people, about whites – and many more things. We exchanged opinions frankly and, for my part at least, without inhibition. I told him that I worked at the University of Aston and had previously been at the London School of Economics where I had done research on the Rastafarian movement.

‘Why?’ he asked me.

‘Well, I have an intrinsic interest to begin with’, I answered. ‘I was brought up in Handsworth and so am very aware of the situations and problems of living in such an area. I know a lot of black guys and like to think that I’m sensitive to the kinds of difficulties they face.’ I could remember answering similar types of question in exactly the same fashion many times before. ‘On top of that, I have a commitment to the improvement of race relations and I feel that the only way to move away from what must be a deteriorating situation is by understanding the views, experiences, problems of other groups. The Rastas were one such case.’

Grant kept his gaze fixed on the match, clearly unimpressed by my reasons. ‘Tell me, who did you write it for?’

Wat had started as an interview of sorts in which I was supposed to be getting information about him was developing into an intellectual inquisition. I drew breath impatiently and replied: ‘Well, I didn’t particularly have an audience in mind when I began the project and, when the book came out, I still had ambitions that it would be read by as wide a span of people as possible; not just other academics or social workers, etc., but everyday guys who are seriously interested in the race-relations scene.’

‘You mean whites?’

‘No. I mean anybody who’s interested; blacks as well as whites.’

‘But you are writing for whites,’ he insisted.

Once more I countered: ‘Why should you think that? What makes you think that there aren’t any blacks who are concerned about these types of issues and want to commit themselves?’

‘There are’, he answered. ‘But they know what it’s all about already without reading your book. They know ‘cause they’re black and know what it’s like to live as a black person. You don’t, so what can you tell them? You’re writing for whites.’

When Barry Troyna and I got together to plan this book, we were both ‘veterans’ of one major piece of research on race-relations issues apiece. Not many months had passed since I had completed my work on the Rastafarian movement in England and Troyna his on the impact of reggae on the identities of young blacks in London and Midland schools. In our own ways, we felt that we had made finite, but hopefully valuable, contributions to the appreciation of blacks and, therefore, to the improvement of black-white relations. The conviction with which we made the link between the two was to be shaken.

At the time, we were both self-assured and confident enough to approach people whom we regarded as the foremost, distinguished commentators on black youth.

Our publishers endorsed the proposals and we proceeded to write, compile and edit a book which we felt would be the definitive work on young blacks in Britain in the late 1970s/early 1980s.

With our research backgrounds, we thought our ambitions were not extravagant, though not, of course, ultimately unchallengeable. ‘Cocky’, was how I was described by one reviewer of my book on the Rastas!

Throughout the initial period of assembling the chapters, neither Troyna nor myself ever questioned the validity of our enterprise. We strained to encompass perspectives by incorporating the views of people whom we felt to be, if not hostile, suspicious of such a venture (see Chapter 9). Independently, we moved in different research directions: Troyna on how the media structure perceptions of the National Front, and myself on why blacks get involved in sport and what social effects this will have. Neither of us felt insecure about our projects. We worked in the same orbit, sharing similar commitments and, we understood, holding the same sets of values (see Cashmore and Troyna, 1981).

The rationale behind our work, generally, and the Black Youth project, in particular, was an attempt to broaden understanding. Concealment has never been one of my vices. When I began establishing contacts with Rastas in early 1977, I disclosed myself as a student from the LSE doing research on the movement with the intention of understanding the movement ‘from the inside’. For the most part, the words reached receptive ears. After all, the movement had been given a toughish time by the media. One provincial paper had labelled it a ‘mafia-style’ organisation dealing in prostitution and dope, others had depicted it as a black power party or a ‘lost tribe on the warpath’. The writers behind such stories had no doubt extracted their copy with the use of such questions as: ‘What are the main beliefs of the movement?’ ‘Are you religious or political?’ ‘When did you become a Rasta?’

My approach was different: I encouraged Rastas to talk about things they were interested in and always tried to trade with them on level terms, offering my often contradictory opinions, but never condescending. The method produced bewilderment and perplexity at first, but the end-product was, I am led to believe – by Rastas – more satisfying than a great deal of other works. I offered neither conclusions, nor recommendations. My job, as I saw it, was to present the results as a way of understanding and letting the reader decide. I now believe that this was naïve, but have yet to come up with a solid alternative.

Whilst engaged on the black sportsmen project, I was asked by a white boxing coach whether I thought I could really get anything out of blacks which would tell us something new. He argued, very plausibly: ‘No matter what you try to do, you’re always talking at them.’

I disagreed, at first, and he went on: ‘When all’s said and done, you’re white, you’re educated, you work in a university and your future is going to be a lot different from these guys here.’

Obviously, I had confronted these objections many times before: after every public talk I have ever given, I have been made to answer for my temerity – a white man studying blacks, the very idea!

Rastas, of course, were similarly cautious about my pretensions to understanding from the inside, but they were prepared to suspend judgement until the finished product was available. I had always told them, somewhat haughtily: ‘We need something positive written on the movement which people will take notice of. If we wait for a Rasta to do it, we’ll be waiting forever.’

In my zeal, I had missed what was possibly one of the most important reactions to this manner of reasoning. When I had justified my research, one Rasta merely retorted: ‘Me no want you to understand Rasta; it is I’s faith, it is my life.’

And, on another broadly similar occasion, a rather angry Rasta cut deeply: ‘What you need to know about Rasta? Him no want to know about you, so why you interested in him.’

I confess the relevance of these statements was lost on me at the time. So searching was my commitment and so pressing were my practical problems that I had little time to consider the ramifications. They were not at the forefront of our minds when Troyna and I conceived our Black Youth project. But, as we now put together the final package, uncertainties make us doubt the validity, worth and, indeed, morality of the whole enterprise.

The two unsettling contentions I encountered from the white coach and the black footballer have made me think that the waters in which Troyna and I thought we were steering our craft are unnavigable. We had earned our intellectual compasses and were at the ready to sail amidst turbulent conditions to the shores of understanding. It was a chancy voyage, anyway, and even the hardiest and most willing of seamen can lose direction or sail round in circles.

Whether our project is a circular one, I still do not know; but I am wiser in many respects. I realise that the social gulf which lies between white academic researchers and young blacks is precarious. The reader may feel, even at this point, that the book Black Youth is already plummeting to the bottom of an abyss.

Young blacks did not write this work, so one is faced with the fact that it was written in a variety of different perspectives, none of which may do much justice to the views of the youngsters themselves. The book is a collection of guesswork. Systematic, informed and well-articulated guesswork, but guesswork nevertheless. And for this reason alone I would suggest that the reader retain a certain dubiety when digesting the chapters.

Also, young blacks may not read this book and, as both Troyna and I are aware of this – and were always aware of it – we are guilty of trying to produce a work to be read by people who want to understand black youth. As I was forcibly reminded, ‘blacks know about what it’s like to be black’. So is it important to write a book about people simply to facilitate understanding, appreciation, perhaps to promote sympathy and even to pave the way to helping them? We are, of course, imposing our will on young blacks. We believe – and, as professional researchers, have an interest in believing – that knowledge in itself is a valuable commodity, as nuclear physics and microtechnology are valuable. The purposes knowledge is made to serve may not be so valuable and, on occasion, may be destructive.

This point was underlined in what I thought was an exaggerated way by a black sportsman, who speculated on the results of my research and how they might be employed: ‘All you’re doing is giving whites the means to keep the blacks down. It’s understanding, all right; but it can be used to control.’

Knowledge is a form of control, of course, and, really, social scientists who challenge their world by seeking out new ways of understanding it are increasing the sophistication of control, albeit inadvertently. It is an inescapable trap that even the most critical, emancipatory knowledge can be put to purposes quite at variance to the original schemes of its conceivers.

The knowledge that we proffer in this volume carries no guarantee that it may not be used for manipulative purposes. We accept that responsibility and qualify it simply by stating at the outset that we harbour involvements with the betterment of black youth. We believe that there are problems unique to young blacks and this work is about exposing these problems. In this way, we contend, improvements can be made. They can; we do not have the knowledge to suggest whether they will or not.

So: we proceed, imposing our fundamentally different values on others, engaging ourselves in the expansion of a consciousness others might prefer to see contracted. Presumably, black youth want their life-chances improved; so we do share something in common. For all its faults, Black Youth is, at least, a start.

‘What will you do next?’ a black youth recently asked me. ‘I suppose you’ll finish this project and then look around and think, “oh yes, there’s the Asians, they’ve got a few problems. I think I’ll go and study them.”’ His remark was intended to undermine, even devastate, my whole commitment to the area of race relations, a term I find increasingly restrictive. He was indicating – not unreasonably – that my work was futile.

I took his point and could offer him no convincing evidence to the contrary. Only that I am more comfortable in a world in which futile attempts at improving race relations are made than in a world in which there are no attempts at all.

2 Black Youth in Crisis

ERNEST CASHMORE and BARRY TROYNA

So Long as You’re Black

As the 1970s drew to a close, apprehension mounted in regard to black youth in England. Maybe they were expected to exhibit docility, indifference to what was going on about them, resign themselves to social circumstances. If there was optimism about their ability or inclination to integrate fully into the society which had played host to their parents, it faded as the years passed by. The society did not seem to accommodate their often bizarre needs and if there was a script complete with roles for young blacks, the youngsters themselves clearly did not read it, less still comply with it.

Instead of dutifully bowing to the liberal requirements of a multi-ethnic society, black youths reacted in a volatile fashion: collectively, they promoted a social problem the likes of which had not been provided by any group in the history of migration to England. The futility of technical measures directed at avoiding the type of furores caused by blacks in the USA in the 1960s became apparent as unemployment grew disproportionately amongst this group, street offence and theft convictions spiralled ominously, feelings of disengagement intensified (see Chapters 5 and 6). From the ghettos, emerged a special group, a group which did not regard itself as having a problem, not one which could be resolved through conventional measures, anyway.

Black youth became objects of consternation: accounts of fecklessness, improvidence, violence, laziness and dishonesty were not uncommon and there were indications that West Indians did not bring up their children in a completely satisfactory manner with dire consequences for subsequent achievements at school.

Perspectives on the problematic nature of young blacks were provided by simple comparison with another major ethnic group–Asians. Studies suggested that the first wave of Asians to England were materially in much the same position as West Indians; further, they housed similar expectations as to what they might get out of the new society: a relatively smooth reception, better living conditions, possibly an accumulation of wealth followed by a return to the homeland (see Daniel, 1968; Lawrence, 1974). Objectively, the position of Asians was in alignment with that of West Indians: both groups crystallised in the less salubrious regions of urban centres where housing was most available but least desirable.

Discernibly, the Asians made most inroads in the commercial sphere, establishing small businesses, retail outlets, wholesale and manufacturing services, and many grew to prosperity. West Indians, on the other hand, seemed anchored. Young Asians, highly motivated by their parents to work steadfastly at school and maximise the benefits they might receive from formal education, improved quite dramatically. The emphasis on education in Asian culture had its effect on them and, by the late 1970s, they were comfortably in range of white schoolchildren in terms of actual achievements. Educationally, they were unquestionably well equipped and, in our view, poised to outstrip young whites in attainments (see, for example, Taylor, 1973).

The picture was very different for black youth, very, very different. Study after study (with one conspicuous exception – Driver, 1980) led to the depressing conclusion that young blacks were making little or no impression. Continually, they achieved less than both whites and Asians and there were utterly no grounds for expecting a change. If anything, black youths seemed to be reinforcing their own lack of achievements by consciously promoting an attitude of rejection of education. Whether the lack of achievement bred the loss of affiliation or vice versa is a chicken-and-egg conundrum; for the moment, however, we rest with the observations that young blacks did not do well at school and their orientations to education were such that they gave no cause for believing they would do better in the future. In brief, they did not want to know.

Depicted is a scene where Asian youths, supported by their parents, entertained positive orientations towards education and improved steadily in terms of actual achievements. The importance of formal education as a route to social mobility and material gain was not lost on Asians as it seemingly was on blacks. Their collective attitudes towards education was captured nicely by a black youth whom one of us encountered whilst engaged in research in the late 1970s: ‘Education. What good is that to the black man? Qualifications? Them mean nothing so long as you’re black.’

‘So long as you’re black’: the germinal insight into the disaffiliation, perhaps? Certainly, we would contend that the social separation of young blacks in the period in question was fomented by the awareness of being black, of being a different colour to the majority of the population and, critically, realising that the blackness could be used as a basis for exclusion. Once this awareness had been broached, the quality of blackness was fused with new significance; it was no longer a superficial, unimportant, what biologists would call ‘phenotypical’, characteristic. On the contrary, it took on social s...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Introduction by ERNEST CASHMORE and BARRY TROYNA
• 1 Black Youth for Whites by ERNEST CASHMORE
• 2 Black Youth in Crisis by ERNEST CASHMORE and BARRY TROYNA
• 3 The Manufacture of Marginality by MALCOLM CROSS
• 4 West Indian and Asian Youth by JOHN REX
• 5 Growing Up in Babylon by ERNEST CASHMORE and BARRY TROYNA
• 6 Young, Female and Black by MARY FULLER
• 7 The Debate on ‘Sus’ by BRIAN ROBERTS
• 8 Social Policy and Black Youth by GEORGE FISHER and HARRY JOSHUA
• 9 Confusing Categories and Neglecting Contradictions by SHEILA ALLEN
• The Contributors
• Bibliography
• Index