Oral History Interview - Lee Lindsay
Object
Audio file
Production date
1998
Object number
2016.45
Physical Description
Audio recording of an oral history recording with Lee Lindsay, who was born in London, in which he discusses his Caribbean identity and racism.
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No
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[PARTIAL TRANSCRIPT OF INTERVIEW WITH LEE LINDSAY]
Lee Lindsay (LL). …Y’know, that your black or whatever. But I think that with the same token, the coup is simply this. If you want it bad enough you simply go and get it. I know that much. But I, one thing I always remember quite strongly is because we weren’t in line with, the thinking was, because my father wanting to you do, y’know, this or that. I think they didn’t give you the push that you needed. Whereas I go home with my friends, or I’d go to my friends’ houses who were African, and their parents would kill them to study, “Study, Study, Study! You’re going to be a lawyer, a doctor mate” Don’t worry about it” Then they wouldn’t say “Go on, you’re going to be a motor mechanic.” Typical of all my friends, a couple of them with stuff like this were Caribbean. A lot them their fathers were similar to my own “Yeah, get a trade, that’s what you want” Y’know, its very solid, its very dependable.
But these were the African families. They would beat their kids up to make sure they were lawyers and stuff like this. Whether they were or not is another thing. They were really, really, very strongly on the ambitions for their children. They didn’t kind of love at this country, or the people here, in exactly a similar way as the Caribbean’s did. And to a certain extent, my friends who were African now, you can almost smell that on them. That idea here is that…their much more at ease, much more ready to be part of…willing to embrace it all, y’know, the things that they want, much more than Caribbean ones. And that is very odd. I’ll never forget that.
My mother was always very different. She always was very typical, in the kitchen, not very pushy. And my Dad was like “If it’s not a trade, I’m not interested mate”. If I said I wanted to be a lawyer he would think you’re mad, that’s not going to happen. If you want to be an architect, that’s not going to happen. If you want to be a carpenter, now, yeah he would give you all the push you want. And I find that quite frustrating when your own family, you know, the people that you love, they love you and shit…You realise that everything is there, everything is open to you. And the people that are closest to you don’t even have, don’t even have an inch of giving you a bit of a [G/gee?] up to go for it. They are kind of negative. And I think to a certain extent that in, say, our community, its still the same. Its still similar. If you look at, like, a generation even younger than me, its still very similar. Look at the colleges. Colleges are full of Indians and Africans. You see some Caribbean’s, but you see more Africans, you can see more Indians. Not many whose parents are from Trinidad or from wherever. Its like their parents have given up before they’ve even got it together. And I hated that from my own parents.
Q. Can you say your name and where you were born?
LL. My name is Leroy Lindsay and I was born in North London.
Q. And your parents are Jamaican.
LL. Yeah.
Q. Given that you were born here, how much do you consider yourself essentially British, and essentially Jamaican and Caribbean.
LL. I have to think, how do I answer this one? I am obviously Emglish, its like all the traits, all the, um, baggage that you have when you are born in one place rather than the other. At the same time, I have all the, I also have all the idea and the feelings which are from somewhere else. Although I’ve only been there twice, from the moment you’re born, from the moment your parents are from somewhere else, wherever that they’re from its very strong in your own household, you know something that you would learn? Its very strong, from the food that you eat to the smells that you have. The things that you see, your family you know? It’s a very very strong thing.
Its actually quite strange that you are essentially English, with all what that brings, and there’s obviously a bit of Jamaican in you as well. Even though you’re [to interviewer] born there and you’d probably say ‘Nah, you’re having a laugh mate’ but its actually quite true, you do have a little bit of it. Obviously not as much as you ‘cos you’re born there but there’s something of it that you do have.
Q. So you are essentially British?
LL. Course mate! If I was born in French I would be a bit more French. Nah, of course you are, everything.
Q. So you grew up in the city.
LL. Yeah.
Q. How much do you miss this thing [?]
LL. A lot.
I don’t work, leisure, friends…
You don’t have this island mentality that is quite typical of people of this country. Lots, most of my friends are born here. A lot of my friends are born here or [?] English.
Q. But what about the English people themselves? Are they among your friends?
LL. Yeah. Absolutely. I’ve lots of friends that are English.
Q. So what kinds of settings do you meet those friends?
LL. Um…work. Um…playing together, leisure. Everything. I mean, obviously (well not obviously but) if you’re born here and you are part of what is here and its not something which is part of, that you can distinguish, the people who are your friends are your friends because you like them, not because they’re Caribbean or not because of something else or not because your non-English. You like them, and obviously because you are here there are a hell of a lot of people and a hell of a lot of people that you are going to like. They might be English, or they might be white, or whatever. At least half my friends are English, white or Irish, or Scottish, or whatever. At least half.
Q. More than your own parents?
LL. Yeah. Its funny. Even though, not even my parents, I have cousins who have no English friends whatsoever, who are similar ages to myself. And there friends are always invariably be either Black British or Caribbean, and that’s it.
After that, it doesn’t go any further. And it was probably similar to my parents. Other than the neighbours, who were {???}, their friends always tended to be people who were from, you know, their own country or friends, who they met after being here such a long time, from the other islands. But as for having friends that were English, white and traditional Anglo-Saxon stuff, nah they didn’t I don’t remember them having.
Q. So today in 1998 do you think people are integrated?
LL. Its kind of yes and no. On one level there a lot of…On one level there is kind of, how do you say? To be perfectly honest I think if you’re going to take everything as a whole, a whole community as such, if I think whether we all were integrated enough I would probably say no. The simple reason being that, you’re in Rome man, you know? Act like the romans mate. Do the dirty and get what you need.
To a certain extent I think, as a community, what we do, is we kind of cut ourselves off to some extent. And it doesn’t exactly help us with whatever it is that we might want, or, you know, you’re here, so there is obviously something that you want and need for your lives, for your family’s lives. Its actually far easier, obviously just common courtesy to take part in what’s here. And I think we don’t do it enough to help ourselves as a community.
The only thing that we have that we probably participate with fully with everyone else is the carnival. Now if you’ve been here for so long mate and that’s all you offer then that ain’t much.
Q. In your experience, how easy has it been to find work?
LL. It’s not really been difficult. I think a certain extend most of the problems have, any problems are stemming from my personal self, from my personal problems.
But on saying that you always have this underlying thing which never leaves you, and never will leave me. You know, that there are times when it’s very helpful when you, for example, if you say have a friend who can give an introduction to work or something like that. Because if going in blind, and Black, sometimes it gives you this odd feeling that you might lose out, not for anything else other than your colour is a bit wrong mate. And that’s a fact. It isn’t something which you can use as an excuse as such, because you never really, really know. No one is exactly going to put it on a t-shirt for you. But it’s there. So you, it’s something that you always have at the back of your mind.
So there’s obviously been times when I’ve had a job, and they might have had me down for that reason, or possibly for something else. Because you can smell that…All the times that I’ve looked for work, or even in the future that I might look for work, it’s always going to be there. It’s always going to be part of it. This one little thing. You can hang about, go for the job, think yeah I will give it my best shot, but maybe you know, that one thing might go against you. But there’s nothing you can do about it.
Q. So what kind of jobs have you done?
LL. Estate agent. Civil servant; minor junior civil servant. Bar work. I had a stall in a market, I had my own stall. Insurance, which was incredibly crap. I think that’s about it. Oh yeah, shops.
Q. So you’ve really moved around. Why is that?
LL. You know what it’s like. You go into things, all the best intentions in the world, and you just get bored, you know what I mean? Who wants to be a minor junior civil servant for the rest of your life? You’re having a laugh! Yeah right mate I work at the DHSS but my ambitions only climb to a minor supervisor somewhere stamping dole claims. I think its boredom and your own ambitions, really. You want to get into things which are what you enjoy. You want to get on and earn some money, boom boom. And you find that various stages you move means something else. You try other things you might like as well. Other than that…
Q. So what else have you moved on from? Discrimination or racism…
LL. Alright. When I was for example working for the Department of Employment, it’s basically the place where you sign on and stuff, when I was working there I was probably about 18 years old. It was one of my first jobs that I got into. And I thought I was very good. I thought I worked really hard. I thought ‘it’s one of your first jobs, the money was OK, your parents are incredibly proud’. I’m not a motor mechanic and shit but working in a dole office is the next best thing as they’re concerned. At the end of the day what you realise is that you ain’t really gaining much, you aren’t going far in this kind of thing.
Its so typically civil servant. Its like you go up a few rungs and that’s your lot. You’ll hang around here for a good few years but you ain’t going any further than that. I’m not sure that’s it’s the sense of…a large organisation, it’s very bureaucratic. It’s also very middle England-ish at a certain level. I’m not sure whether it is necessarily is the fact that I thought “I’m definitely not moving because I am Black.” I’m definitely not moving because it’s very old school, you understand? There’s nothing loose in organisations like that. And especially not at that time, when I was 17 perhaps 18. Now it’s probably still quite similar. It’s very old, and nothings really going to happen. I’m not really sure that I moved on because of the colour thing or if it’s because of that.
I suppose to a certain extent I could say the same for most of the other jobs as well. Except for one. I did one job, I was a bartender in a club. And I was only the second Black person who was ever employed behind the bar there. Which was a bit strange right? But I don’t that the owners or managers were willing to push you any further. I thought I was really good again, did alright, but you smelled that ‘Nah, it ain’t happening for you mate’. If you’re white with big tits you can go far, but yeah your black and not so heavy tits and you’re a geezer…so I kind of moved on from there.
In general I haven’t moved on because of my colour. Once you’re in you’re in.
Q. But what about getting in? Have you ever been for a job and not got the job and felt very stognly that it was because of the colour of your skin?
LL. Not really. For the simple reason being that it’s a really difficult thing to, um, no one’s ever going to tell you that’s the reason why they’re not employing you. Although you might have a sense of it, or a smell of it, it’s difficult to prove it. One or the other, it’s very very hard, so…If you find yourself in that position what you tend to do is, you know something doesn’t smell properly there. If you actually have the idea that’s what it is you tend to be incredibly negative and go to other jobs. You immediately [think] yeah, I’m not going to get it because of that problem.
You kind of know it’s a strong possibility but you’re never sure, are you? And there’s nothing you can do about it. You just kind of thing, well, that’s life, boom. And you move on, get another. But it’s obviously a fact, it happens. Whether it’s exactly happened to me I couldn’t tell you yes or no, probably yes.
Q. And to what extent do you feel that you and other Caribbean people were accepted in the past?
LL. Nah, that’s not happening mate. I think the English have a very strong Island mentality. And I think that when you look at how they view Europe, for example…and imagine our arses coming all the way over from the Caribbean, or from Africa, thinking that we’re going to be accepted in a very short space in time. Also the fact is we are two very extremely different cultures. And the English are kind of…they’re not great assimilators as it is. And I think that we’ve not exactly assimilated…we’ve not been smart, is what I’m trying to say. You know, if you’re here, get what you want to get, do what you want to do, and but go and give it the posture and get nothing…You can stand there and look good, make it all look good, and you’re getting nothing. It doesn’t do anything for you. But if your actually taking part, getting what you want, and have what you want, then you can give it the posturing and then be yourself, be something very strong to your own community.
But I don’t think we’ve assimilated very well as a community. So nah, I don’t think we are accepted. If you look at the Indians for example, they at first, when I was growing up I remember, they had an enormous problem with people beating them up or calling them names. Similar things happened to us. But they…it’s not so much that they accepted it, but they weren’t, they didn’t seem to stand up enough for themselves physically. What they did definitely do is they got their shit together, they worked really hard, got a very strong education in the sense of the community, for their children, stuff like that. And they moved forward. They, like, leaped a huge generation. Bang. One minute their just sitting there, taking all the shit, no jobs and stuff like this. Next minute they’re running the country mate. Boom.
Whereas what we’ve done is, we seem to be sulking, going ‘everything is really bad for us, no one is going to help us...’ Nah mate, get out there, get it done, get what you need mate. You know?
Q. And you think that the Asian …African [inaubible]
LL. Yeah, I think the Africans, I think they do. Probably not as strongly as the Asians. I think they do. Defiantly, in my opinion, a bit more than the Caribbean’s. But to be honest I’m not sure why, I couldn’t tell you why. I think that their qualities are, and it’s a very strange thing, if you’re walking down the road, yeah? And you see two Black people coming towards you, you’re Black, and you see two Black people coming towards you. Nine times out of ten you can tell whether they’re African or whether they’re Caribbean. Something about features, or look or something…you usually can tell. But other than that there’s hardly any, there’s no difference between, say, the African community and the Caribbean community. There’s no difference whatsoever. You’re here, you’re not sitting in Africa or sitting in the Caribbean, or somewhere else. Your life is here. You get on with it here.
So for them to actually push that much further, I can’t tell you why, I don’t know why. The only one reason that I think it possibly might be is that their parents, as opposed to my own parents or some parents of people from of that generation, tend to have a slightly different attitude. Their attitude is more ‘Yeah, let’s go get what we want’ not ‘let’s go get a little bit. Let’s get something’. More let’s get all that we want.
Q. One of the things that happened, especially during the 1960s, is a sense of ‘Black consciousness.’ Do you feel that is important to you? Your sense of being a Black person? What role does that play in your life? [23m 30s]
LL. Not really. Not in that sense, not in that way. The simple reasons being that…if I sit down, most my uncles in Jamaica, nine or ten uncles from Jamaica, I’ve only got one of them here. If I sit down with them and have a drink or whatever, it just brings it home to you straight away. You ain’t English, you ain’t Irish, you’re not this, you’re not that. What you are, it’s very , it’s far too obvious to circle it and wear a big sign walking down the road. I don’t really look at it that way.
Being Black is all that it is. Being Black, that’s it. If you want to be politicised, or if you want to have some kind of economic clout or whatever, that’s a different thing altogether. But to have those things, means other things. It doesn’t mean just simply having a little organisation and thinking OK, we’re going to have a pop in that way. You have to have it by a simple way of being powerful by what talks for everyone which is money. Nothing else.
Q. Ok, well, one thing people have been talking about is the difficulties that black people, especially black boys have, with authorities. Tell me about your own experiences. Let’s start with the schools. What has been your relationship with authorities in this country? Starting with the schools… [25m 22sec]
LL. I don’t necessarily agree with the idea that Black youngsters can definitely, or can tend to have a problem with that sense of authority. I think it’s just the fact that, what tends to happen is that in the Black community as a whole, the father figures in the Black community tend to be…what’s the word? They tend to be quite strict or quite strong with their children. And I suppose that might of happened, I suppose my parents’ generation and going right back to [?] What’s happens is that they’re outside of those figures, it’s not just the father figures its father and mother figures, are really quite strong, quite strict. What happens is when they are outside of that, when their children are outside that environment, they find that the authority figures here can tend to be quite passive, do you know what I mean? They find that, hang about, I’m not going to get into trouble for this or that, but outside of that it’s a completely different environment. [27m 30s]
[TRANSCRIPT INCOMPLETE]
Lee Lindsay (LL). …Y’know, that your black or whatever. But I think that with the same token, the coup is simply this. If you want it bad enough you simply go and get it. I know that much. But I, one thing I always remember quite strongly is because we weren’t in line with, the thinking was, because my father wanting to you do, y’know, this or that. I think they didn’t give you the push that you needed. Whereas I go home with my friends, or I’d go to my friends’ houses who were African, and their parents would kill them to study, “Study, Study, Study! You’re going to be a lawyer, a doctor mate” Don’t worry about it” Then they wouldn’t say “Go on, you’re going to be a motor mechanic.” Typical of all my friends, a couple of them with stuff like this were Caribbean. A lot them their fathers were similar to my own “Yeah, get a trade, that’s what you want” Y’know, its very solid, its very dependable.
But these were the African families. They would beat their kids up to make sure they were lawyers and stuff like this. Whether they were or not is another thing. They were really, really, very strongly on the ambitions for their children. They didn’t kind of love at this country, or the people here, in exactly a similar way as the Caribbean’s did. And to a certain extent, my friends who were African now, you can almost smell that on them. That idea here is that…their much more at ease, much more ready to be part of…willing to embrace it all, y’know, the things that they want, much more than Caribbean ones. And that is very odd. I’ll never forget that.
My mother was always very different. She always was very typical, in the kitchen, not very pushy. And my Dad was like “If it’s not a trade, I’m not interested mate”. If I said I wanted to be a lawyer he would think you’re mad, that’s not going to happen. If you want to be an architect, that’s not going to happen. If you want to be a carpenter, now, yeah he would give you all the push you want. And I find that quite frustrating when your own family, you know, the people that you love, they love you and shit…You realise that everything is there, everything is open to you. And the people that are closest to you don’t even have, don’t even have an inch of giving you a bit of a [G/gee?] up to go for it. They are kind of negative. And I think to a certain extent that in, say, our community, its still the same. Its still similar. If you look at, like, a generation even younger than me, its still very similar. Look at the colleges. Colleges are full of Indians and Africans. You see some Caribbean’s, but you see more Africans, you can see more Indians. Not many whose parents are from Trinidad or from wherever. Its like their parents have given up before they’ve even got it together. And I hated that from my own parents.
Q. Can you say your name and where you were born?
LL. My name is Leroy Lindsay and I was born in North London.
Q. And your parents are Jamaican.
LL. Yeah.
Q. Given that you were born here, how much do you consider yourself essentially British, and essentially Jamaican and Caribbean.
LL. I have to think, how do I answer this one? I am obviously Emglish, its like all the traits, all the, um, baggage that you have when you are born in one place rather than the other. At the same time, I have all the, I also have all the idea and the feelings which are from somewhere else. Although I’ve only been there twice, from the moment you’re born, from the moment your parents are from somewhere else, wherever that they’re from its very strong in your own household, you know something that you would learn? Its very strong, from the food that you eat to the smells that you have. The things that you see, your family you know? It’s a very very strong thing.
Its actually quite strange that you are essentially English, with all what that brings, and there’s obviously a bit of Jamaican in you as well. Even though you’re [to interviewer] born there and you’d probably say ‘Nah, you’re having a laugh mate’ but its actually quite true, you do have a little bit of it. Obviously not as much as you ‘cos you’re born there but there’s something of it that you do have.
Q. So you are essentially British?
LL. Course mate! If I was born in French I would be a bit more French. Nah, of course you are, everything.
Q. So you grew up in the city.
LL. Yeah.
Q. How much do you miss this thing [?]
LL. A lot.
I don’t work, leisure, friends…
You don’t have this island mentality that is quite typical of people of this country. Lots, most of my friends are born here. A lot of my friends are born here or [?] English.
Q. But what about the English people themselves? Are they among your friends?
LL. Yeah. Absolutely. I’ve lots of friends that are English.
Q. So what kinds of settings do you meet those friends?
LL. Um…work. Um…playing together, leisure. Everything. I mean, obviously (well not obviously but) if you’re born here and you are part of what is here and its not something which is part of, that you can distinguish, the people who are your friends are your friends because you like them, not because they’re Caribbean or not because of something else or not because your non-English. You like them, and obviously because you are here there are a hell of a lot of people and a hell of a lot of people that you are going to like. They might be English, or they might be white, or whatever. At least half my friends are English, white or Irish, or Scottish, or whatever. At least half.
Q. More than your own parents?
LL. Yeah. Its funny. Even though, not even my parents, I have cousins who have no English friends whatsoever, who are similar ages to myself. And there friends are always invariably be either Black British or Caribbean, and that’s it.
After that, it doesn’t go any further. And it was probably similar to my parents. Other than the neighbours, who were {???}, their friends always tended to be people who were from, you know, their own country or friends, who they met after being here such a long time, from the other islands. But as for having friends that were English, white and traditional Anglo-Saxon stuff, nah they didn’t I don’t remember them having.
Q. So today in 1998 do you think people are integrated?
LL. Its kind of yes and no. On one level there a lot of…On one level there is kind of, how do you say? To be perfectly honest I think if you’re going to take everything as a whole, a whole community as such, if I think whether we all were integrated enough I would probably say no. The simple reason being that, you’re in Rome man, you know? Act like the romans mate. Do the dirty and get what you need.
To a certain extent I think, as a community, what we do, is we kind of cut ourselves off to some extent. And it doesn’t exactly help us with whatever it is that we might want, or, you know, you’re here, so there is obviously something that you want and need for your lives, for your family’s lives. Its actually far easier, obviously just common courtesy to take part in what’s here. And I think we don’t do it enough to help ourselves as a community.
The only thing that we have that we probably participate with fully with everyone else is the carnival. Now if you’ve been here for so long mate and that’s all you offer then that ain’t much.
Q. In your experience, how easy has it been to find work?
LL. It’s not really been difficult. I think a certain extend most of the problems have, any problems are stemming from my personal self, from my personal problems.
But on saying that you always have this underlying thing which never leaves you, and never will leave me. You know, that there are times when it’s very helpful when you, for example, if you say have a friend who can give an introduction to work or something like that. Because if going in blind, and Black, sometimes it gives you this odd feeling that you might lose out, not for anything else other than your colour is a bit wrong mate. And that’s a fact. It isn’t something which you can use as an excuse as such, because you never really, really know. No one is exactly going to put it on a t-shirt for you. But it’s there. So you, it’s something that you always have at the back of your mind.
So there’s obviously been times when I’ve had a job, and they might have had me down for that reason, or possibly for something else. Because you can smell that…All the times that I’ve looked for work, or even in the future that I might look for work, it’s always going to be there. It’s always going to be part of it. This one little thing. You can hang about, go for the job, think yeah I will give it my best shot, but maybe you know, that one thing might go against you. But there’s nothing you can do about it.
Q. So what kind of jobs have you done?
LL. Estate agent. Civil servant; minor junior civil servant. Bar work. I had a stall in a market, I had my own stall. Insurance, which was incredibly crap. I think that’s about it. Oh yeah, shops.
Q. So you’ve really moved around. Why is that?
LL. You know what it’s like. You go into things, all the best intentions in the world, and you just get bored, you know what I mean? Who wants to be a minor junior civil servant for the rest of your life? You’re having a laugh! Yeah right mate I work at the DHSS but my ambitions only climb to a minor supervisor somewhere stamping dole claims. I think its boredom and your own ambitions, really. You want to get into things which are what you enjoy. You want to get on and earn some money, boom boom. And you find that various stages you move means something else. You try other things you might like as well. Other than that…
Q. So what else have you moved on from? Discrimination or racism…
LL. Alright. When I was for example working for the Department of Employment, it’s basically the place where you sign on and stuff, when I was working there I was probably about 18 years old. It was one of my first jobs that I got into. And I thought I was very good. I thought I worked really hard. I thought ‘it’s one of your first jobs, the money was OK, your parents are incredibly proud’. I’m not a motor mechanic and shit but working in a dole office is the next best thing as they’re concerned. At the end of the day what you realise is that you ain’t really gaining much, you aren’t going far in this kind of thing.
Its so typically civil servant. Its like you go up a few rungs and that’s your lot. You’ll hang around here for a good few years but you ain’t going any further than that. I’m not sure that’s it’s the sense of…a large organisation, it’s very bureaucratic. It’s also very middle England-ish at a certain level. I’m not sure whether it is necessarily is the fact that I thought “I’m definitely not moving because I am Black.” I’m definitely not moving because it’s very old school, you understand? There’s nothing loose in organisations like that. And especially not at that time, when I was 17 perhaps 18. Now it’s probably still quite similar. It’s very old, and nothings really going to happen. I’m not really sure that I moved on because of the colour thing or if it’s because of that.
I suppose to a certain extent I could say the same for most of the other jobs as well. Except for one. I did one job, I was a bartender in a club. And I was only the second Black person who was ever employed behind the bar there. Which was a bit strange right? But I don’t that the owners or managers were willing to push you any further. I thought I was really good again, did alright, but you smelled that ‘Nah, it ain’t happening for you mate’. If you’re white with big tits you can go far, but yeah your black and not so heavy tits and you’re a geezer…so I kind of moved on from there.
In general I haven’t moved on because of my colour. Once you’re in you’re in.
Q. But what about getting in? Have you ever been for a job and not got the job and felt very stognly that it was because of the colour of your skin?
LL. Not really. For the simple reason being that it’s a really difficult thing to, um, no one’s ever going to tell you that’s the reason why they’re not employing you. Although you might have a sense of it, or a smell of it, it’s difficult to prove it. One or the other, it’s very very hard, so…If you find yourself in that position what you tend to do is, you know something doesn’t smell properly there. If you actually have the idea that’s what it is you tend to be incredibly negative and go to other jobs. You immediately [think] yeah, I’m not going to get it because of that problem.
You kind of know it’s a strong possibility but you’re never sure, are you? And there’s nothing you can do about it. You just kind of thing, well, that’s life, boom. And you move on, get another. But it’s obviously a fact, it happens. Whether it’s exactly happened to me I couldn’t tell you yes or no, probably yes.
Q. And to what extent do you feel that you and other Caribbean people were accepted in the past?
LL. Nah, that’s not happening mate. I think the English have a very strong Island mentality. And I think that when you look at how they view Europe, for example…and imagine our arses coming all the way over from the Caribbean, or from Africa, thinking that we’re going to be accepted in a very short space in time. Also the fact is we are two very extremely different cultures. And the English are kind of…they’re not great assimilators as it is. And I think that we’ve not exactly assimilated…we’ve not been smart, is what I’m trying to say. You know, if you’re here, get what you want to get, do what you want to do, and but go and give it the posture and get nothing…You can stand there and look good, make it all look good, and you’re getting nothing. It doesn’t do anything for you. But if your actually taking part, getting what you want, and have what you want, then you can give it the posturing and then be yourself, be something very strong to your own community.
But I don’t think we’ve assimilated very well as a community. So nah, I don’t think we are accepted. If you look at the Indians for example, they at first, when I was growing up I remember, they had an enormous problem with people beating them up or calling them names. Similar things happened to us. But they…it’s not so much that they accepted it, but they weren’t, they didn’t seem to stand up enough for themselves physically. What they did definitely do is they got their shit together, they worked really hard, got a very strong education in the sense of the community, for their children, stuff like that. And they moved forward. They, like, leaped a huge generation. Bang. One minute their just sitting there, taking all the shit, no jobs and stuff like this. Next minute they’re running the country mate. Boom.
Whereas what we’ve done is, we seem to be sulking, going ‘everything is really bad for us, no one is going to help us...’ Nah mate, get out there, get it done, get what you need mate. You know?
Q. And you think that the Asian …African [inaubible]
LL. Yeah, I think the Africans, I think they do. Probably not as strongly as the Asians. I think they do. Defiantly, in my opinion, a bit more than the Caribbean’s. But to be honest I’m not sure why, I couldn’t tell you why. I think that their qualities are, and it’s a very strange thing, if you’re walking down the road, yeah? And you see two Black people coming towards you, you’re Black, and you see two Black people coming towards you. Nine times out of ten you can tell whether they’re African or whether they’re Caribbean. Something about features, or look or something…you usually can tell. But other than that there’s hardly any, there’s no difference between, say, the African community and the Caribbean community. There’s no difference whatsoever. You’re here, you’re not sitting in Africa or sitting in the Caribbean, or somewhere else. Your life is here. You get on with it here.
So for them to actually push that much further, I can’t tell you why, I don’t know why. The only one reason that I think it possibly might be is that their parents, as opposed to my own parents or some parents of people from of that generation, tend to have a slightly different attitude. Their attitude is more ‘Yeah, let’s go get what we want’ not ‘let’s go get a little bit. Let’s get something’. More let’s get all that we want.
Q. One of the things that happened, especially during the 1960s, is a sense of ‘Black consciousness.’ Do you feel that is important to you? Your sense of being a Black person? What role does that play in your life? [23m 30s]
LL. Not really. Not in that sense, not in that way. The simple reasons being that…if I sit down, most my uncles in Jamaica, nine or ten uncles from Jamaica, I’ve only got one of them here. If I sit down with them and have a drink or whatever, it just brings it home to you straight away. You ain’t English, you ain’t Irish, you’re not this, you’re not that. What you are, it’s very , it’s far too obvious to circle it and wear a big sign walking down the road. I don’t really look at it that way.
Being Black is all that it is. Being Black, that’s it. If you want to be politicised, or if you want to have some kind of economic clout or whatever, that’s a different thing altogether. But to have those things, means other things. It doesn’t mean just simply having a little organisation and thinking OK, we’re going to have a pop in that way. You have to have it by a simple way of being powerful by what talks for everyone which is money. Nothing else.
Q. Ok, well, one thing people have been talking about is the difficulties that black people, especially black boys have, with authorities. Tell me about your own experiences. Let’s start with the schools. What has been your relationship with authorities in this country? Starting with the schools… [25m 22sec]
LL. I don’t necessarily agree with the idea that Black youngsters can definitely, or can tend to have a problem with that sense of authority. I think it’s just the fact that, what tends to happen is that in the Black community as a whole, the father figures in the Black community tend to be…what’s the word? They tend to be quite strict or quite strong with their children. And I suppose that might of happened, I suppose my parents’ generation and going right back to [?] What’s happens is that they’re outside of those figures, it’s not just the father figures its father and mother figures, are really quite strong, quite strict. What happens is when they are outside of that, when their children are outside that environment, they find that the authority figures here can tend to be quite passive, do you know what I mean? They find that, hang about, I’m not going to get into trouble for this or that, but outside of that it’s a completely different environment. [27m 30s]
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