About: J Hill
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Black and Asian people are disproportionately targeted by police in a surge of the use of stop and search under counter-terrorism laws in the wake of the failed 2007 London bomb attack, according to official figures published in April 2009. Regardless of what we may wish, the odious goons caught on camera in The Secret Policeman were unlikely to be the most racist officers in the country.
Mixed race people in the UK are in a strange position. On one hand, we are often the victims of hatred and ignorance from both black and white communities alike. At the same time, we habitually find ourselves sanctified, idealised and, inevitably perhaps, commodifed by those who would see us as foot soldiers for some utopian, coffee-coloured future.
An alternative look at the history of the England football team – the greatest black players ever to wear the Three Lions. And in the spirit of diversity, we’ve even thrown in Bobby Robson as a token white manager.
Readers of Empire magazine voted it the fourth best film of all time. Viewers of Channel 4 voted it the best. “As someone who works in a prison, I can’t help but find the fundamental, untruth of prison movies – even the beloved Shawshank – infuriating. Real prison life is not romantic. It is not a backdrop. Prison life is routine and methodical…
It is surely obvious that racism and social inequality are indivisible – they feed off one another creating a web of social exclusion that seems to put black people at greater risk of mental illness than their white counterparts. Or does it?
Cricket has always been a presence in my life. My dad is from Guyana – the country that has produced great West Indies players such as Sir Clive Lloyd and Shrivnarine Chanderpaul – and has an obsession with the game that borders on the pathological.
Roxanne by Sting
