Last month I was called by a researcher working on a forthcoming BBC documentary about immigration. They wanted a ‘community’ view on Bulgarians coming to the UK and comments on how African migrants in the UK had contributed to British culture. I politely declined stating I wanted no part in contributing to the UK’s anti immigrant climate by attacking another minority group. They were persistent in chasing me but they eventually gave up.
Ironically, it was a few days ago whilst my family and I attended the Mark Duggan Vigil in Tottenham that an excitable brother named Clive came up to me. He shook my hand and gave me his business card. It described him as a ‘Community Relations Officer’ for the UKIP party. I have since found out that he is a former Labour councillor.
His polite manner yet membership with such an odious political party that has a history of racist extremists contradicted themselves. It made me think of the politician, David Lammy. The Labour MP for Tottenham chose to ignore the needs of his constituents and snub the vigil claiming that he “will not share a platform with anarchist groups and people that do not accept that a jury laboured and reached a verdict”.
His actions and strange choice of words were baffling considering that days before Lammy had stated he had found the same jury’s verdict of a ‘lawful killing’ as ‘perplexing and seemingly contradictory’.
I alongside many people felt he was being disingenuous, on one hand trying to claim he supported the Duggan family’s search for justice whilst on the other seeking to maintain his poster boy image of gentrified ‘black’ Britain for the middle classes. Sadly, these contradictions which disqualify him and other ‘post-racial’ politicians like Chuka Umunna from representing African people with any authority are ignored by the media. Instead, politicians, the very people who by definition are typically (there are exceptions) the opposite of ‘community’ are not presented as agents of the state but instead leaders.
Lammy, Umunna, Kwarteng, Afriyie, Bailey, etc all serve as our own pre-kidnapped Solomon Northup role muddles. Men living a privileged life totally disconnected from the daily experiences of their community until the ever present presence of racism slaps them in the face or leads to their inevitable fall from grace.
It is this anomaly in the representation of British Africans that has led to me writing this article.
You see if there is one issue that annoys many African people in Britain is not just being labelled in the media as a so called ‘black’ community or ‘black communities’ but also being told by the media who our ‘community leaders’ are. The constant attempts to divide Africans with Caribbean heritage into so called ‘west Indians’ and Africans with Continental heritage into ‘west Africans’ and refer to Somalis as if they were a different ‘race’ is annoying.
Unless a production crew deliberately seeks to find and interview someone from the vast number of articulate and politically literate Africans on the street, journalists invariable seek and even pay/bribe rough and ready ‘man on road’ voices in an attempt to ‘keep it real’.
These voices alongside those selected for us from a pool of ‘safe’, ‘fiery but safe’ or ‘fiery, entertaining but incoherent’ candidates rarely represent their own concerns let alone ours as a collective.
Speak to us direct and many of us will admit that we don’t even know what most of these media appointed ‘community leaders’ do if indeed we know who they are.
Yet despite them being irrelevant to us the media makes sure they keep on popping up on our screens, in newspapers and on the radio. They are presented as if they speak for us with authority and credibility.
They don’t.
There are many reasons for this. The first is that the media which is largely interested in sensationalist stories doesn’t actually know who our true leaders are and even when they find them, many often refuse to take part.
The second is that a great many of those working to empower ‘the community’ are pretty humble people who do not regard themselves as leaders despite their long term commitment to addressing issues on social injustice and inequality.
Most are parents, educators, healers, artists, activists, advocates, archivists and students.
Many volunteer to work with community organisations and projects without fame or glory. Others help by sharing information or simply building healthy community relationships through events and cultural media.
Some are long standing activists like Prof Gus John who turned down trinkets of state approval (OBE’s) in favour of being free to speak truth to power with moral authority and integrity. Others like Dr Ama Biney, Dr Hakim Adi, the late Dr Abiola Ogunsola and Dr Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem, Dr Kwadwo Osei-Nyame Jnr, Sis Dr Sandra Richards, Prof Ben Bowling, Dr Sue Palmer, Dr Paul Gilroy and Dr Kimiani Nehusi educate through publishing journals, books or teaching at university’s offering academic vigour to history that is often dismissed as ‘conspiracy’ theories.
There is also a wealth of grass root workers-activists from Mayor Nana Asante, Sis Ama Biney, Sis Maame Oforiwaa, Bro Glenroy Watson, Sis Amma Fosuah Poku, Sis Lorna Jones, Bro Kwaku Boateng Olaleye, Sis Jendayi Serwah, Bro Jules Jack, Bro Onyekachi Wambu, Bro Kubara Zamani, Sis Ankhobia, Sis Dawn Amos, Sis Toyin Dania, Bro Trevor Hakim, Sis Joy Francis, Bro Colin Prescod, Bro Christopher Icha, Bro Andrew Muhammed, Bro Kwaku & Sis Awula Serwah, Bro Tony Warner, Bro Mark and Sis Charmaine Simpson, Bro Cecil Gutzmore, Bro Minkah Adofo, Sis Ngozi Fulani, Sis Saynab Mahamud, Bro Trevor Hakim, Bro Colin Pryce, Sis 'Juju' Fuller, Sis Pam Fraser-Solomon, Bro Nia Imara, Bro David Neita, Sis Jedidah and Bro Seobo Idrisu, Bro Patrick Vernon, Sis DebRose SearchWell, Bro Arthur Torrington, Dame Betty Asafu-Adjaye, Sis Andrea Enisuoh, Bro Macka B, Sis Del White, Sis Cargil, Sis Marcia and Samantha Rigg, Bro Omowale Rupert, Sis Cindy Soso, Bro Charles Thompson, Sis Ama Gueye, Sis Mandisa Gordon, Bro Onyeka Nubia, Sis Njeri, Bro Richard 'Fluid' Smith, Sis Rosanna, Sis Lenéa Herew, Sis Janet Alder, Bro Jake Ferguson, Bro Jaiyeola Bagbansoro, Jak Beula, Bro Frank Owuasu, Sis Lekia Lée, Sis Asher John-Baptiste, Bro Menelik Shabazz, Sis Ivie Zawditu, Bro Marlon Palmer, Bro Kehinde Ogunlabi, Bro Explo Nani-Kofi, Bro Neil Mayers, Sis Nadia Denton, Bro Ngoma Bishop, Bro Orin Lewis, Sis Toyin Dania, Bro Bini, Bro Pablo Reid, Sis Bellavia Ribeiro-Addy, Sis Sylvie Aboa-Bradwell and Bro Garry Green.
Likewise there are many underfunded smaller but relevant organisations from the PASCF, AJAMU, NABBS, ADAP, Yemenja, Taui Network, DFIN and African Sons and Daughters to the wider known Black History Walks, Black History Studies, 100BMOL, AFFORD, BCA, GPI, Friends of Huntley Archives, to name a few in London alone.
And then there are those people already with a proven track record in the media eye such as the always on the pulse Henry Bonsu, Gary Younge, the human rights barrister Matthew Ryder, Sis Ekua Stanford-Xosei, Courtenay Griffiths, the blunt speaking Stafford Scott, Afua Hirsch, Bro Mandingo, Bro Kwaku Bonsu, Sis Afiong, citizen journalists Marc Wadsworth, Matilda MacActramm, Olu Alake, Lester Holloway, Joseph Harker, Michael Eboda, Tetteh Kofi, 'bridge maker' Simon Woolley, controversial elders like Darcus Howe, Claire Andrews and the venerable Linton Kwesi Johnson.
We must also not forget trend setting publishers like Margaret Busby, Verna Wilkins, Michael Williams, the late Jessica Huntley and her husband Eric, lawyers like Peter Herbert, to younger while inspiring voices like the powerful artists/writers - Akala, Soweto Kinch, Adisa, George the Poet and the Best Kept Secret Collective. Writers like Malorie Blackman, Courttia Newland, Kadija Sesay, Bola Agbaje, Dipo Agbolouage, Diran Adebayo, Kwame Kwei Armah, Ade Solanke and now Steve McQueen have a genius gift of using art to share uncomfortable truths that need to be discussed and ultimately addressed.
It doesn’t stop there.
There are also many socially minded communicators on unlicensed radio stations up and down the country reaching the population ignored by the mainstream media and even the publicity teams of famous civil rights icons when they visit the UK.
Why don’t the Jesse Jacksons, Al Sharptons and Oprah Winfreys visit the studios and venues of real community activity and talk with us instead of wandering into ‘Loose Women’ or the offices of the Mail or Guardian and attempt to speak for us whilst pondering why there are so few ‘black’ faces in the audiences?
The British media has perpetrated a great trick best demonstrated by the film Notting Hill where it would appear both domestically and internationally that the Pan African community in the UK has no voice. This leads to ridiculous situations such as our annual carnival no longer being marketed as an expression of African Caribbean culture infused with the history of our enslavement and liberation but instead as ‘Europe’s Greatest Street Party’.
But none of this has to be so if WE support by promoting and investing in what we already have.
Why listen and participate with the likes of the BBC or LBC when we have legal stations like the community standard bearer, Colourful Radio set up by Bro Kofi Kursitor that stand alongside Space Clottey’s VOAR and more passionate voices being broadcast on community stations like DJ Shelly on OMEGA and so many on AfiweGalaxy.
Many of the presenters are ‘underground’ role models who often due to their status as ‘illegal’ or unlicensed broadcasters are treated with disdain by wider society. Little is said about their activity in organising debates, hosting community building session, promoting additional and supplementary education events in between broadcasting genres of African music marginalised and demonised by a mainstream media that favours supporting the community destroying ‘gangsta-rap’, ‘grime’ and vacuous soulless pop ironically described as R&B.
Indeed the vast number of names I have failed to include (please forgive me) far outnumbers those that I have mentioned. I also apologise for the London-centric perspective I have shared. Our voices and leadership extends across the entire UK.
I suppose that the point I’m trying to make is that there is a cohort of exceptional workers, male, female, young and old, that offer leadership through action and not just populist media sound bites. Some support the vulnerable, others simply disseminate, archive and protect our culture and heritage. There are those engaged in politics, whilst many use education as a tool of empowerment.
Today a national newspaper had the audacity to ask “Mark Duggan verdict: who speaks for black Britain?” It then offered a debate on who we should choose between Dianne Abbott MP or David Lammy MP (unsurprisingly Lammy won).
This is typical of a belligerent national media.
Despite the rich pool of talent I have shared that could be draw upon, the British media invariably always decides to selectively chose ‘safe’ voices like Dizzee Rascal, Shaun Bailey, Stephen Amos, David Lammy MP, Tinie Tempah, Jamelia, Reginald D Hunter, Nims Obunge MBE, Beverley Knight, John Barnes, John Sentamu, Constance Briscoe and Bonnie Greer to represent the diverse socio-political views of two million British Africans with Caribbean and Continental heritage.
Clowns, entertainers, sportsters and jokers.
Don’t get me wrong, some of them may be very nice people (got love for Jamelia and Beverley) but leaders they are not.
I write this to say that we are tired of turning on the News, Question Time, The Wright Stuff, Newsnight or viewing a ‘gritty’ documentary and watching as some so called ‘black’ media personality is presented as a ‘community leader’.
1. Being ‘black and famous does not qualify someone as a ‘community leader’ - but being proudly African and ‘infamous’ for standing up to power, challenging the status quo even if supported by the UK’s ethnic majority does.
2. Anyone claiming to have registered a community ‘charity’ or social enterprise engaging with ‘deprived neighbourhoods’ or ‘disadvantaged youth’ is not automatically a community leader (many rich and famous racists donate to charities).
3. Anyone who speaks in tired unimaginative clichés claiming that ‘colour is irrelevant’, ‘black people need to move on’ or ‘we need to unite’ and ‘slavery made me do it’ doesn’t cut it either.
True community leaders, live amongst us, eat with us, laugh and cry with us during any good times and the bad. They don’t just suddenly emerge as rent-a-quotes at moments of crisis with tough words about ‘lessons to be learned’, ‘questions to be answered’ or ‘respect the process’.
They offer realistic solutions, and follow them through by getting engaged or publicly supporting real work that makes a tangible difference to our circumstances.
The late Amiri Baraka was once described by the FBI as ‘the person who will probably emerge as the leader of the pan-African movement in the United States’.
In the UK the statement should read, the leaders of the Pan African movement in Britain are...
Toyin Agbetu is a writer and community educator, a film director and philosopher, a poet and founder of Ligali, the pan African human rights based organisation.
External Links
MP would not share platform with anarchist groupsMark Duggan verdict: who speaks for black Britain?Labour MP: Smacking ban led to riots because parents fear children will be taken away if they discipline themIshmael Reed, Amiri Baraka and the Black Radical Dilemma
Elected or selected - A crisis of leadership?
Ironically, it was a few days ago whilst my family and I attended the Mark Duggan Vigil in Tottenham that an excitable brother named Clive came up to me. He shook my hand and gave me his business card. It described him as a ‘Community Relations Officer’ for the UKIP party. I have since found out that he is a former Labour councillor.
His polite manner yet membership with such an odious political party that has a history of racist extremists contradicted themselves. It made me think of the politician, David Lammy. The Labour MP for Tottenham chose to ignore the needs of his constituents and snub the vigil claiming that he “will not share a platform with anarchist groups and people that do not accept that a jury laboured and reached a verdict”.
His actions and strange choice of words were baffling considering that days before Lammy had stated he had found the same jury’s verdict of a ‘lawful killing’ as ‘perplexing and seemingly contradictory’.
I alongside many people felt he was being disingenuous, on one hand trying to claim he supported the Duggan family’s search for justice whilst on the other seeking to maintain his poster boy image of gentrified ‘black’ Britain for the middle classes. Sadly, these contradictions which disqualify him and other ‘post-racial’ politicians like Chuka Umunna from representing African people with any authority are ignored by the media. Instead, politicians, the very people who by definition are typically (there are exceptions) the opposite of ‘community’ are not presented as agents of the state but instead leaders.
Lammy, Umunna, Kwarteng, Afriyie, Bailey, etc all serve as our own pre-kidnapped Solomon Northup role muddles. Men living a privileged life totally disconnected from the daily experiences of their community until the ever present presence of racism slaps them in the face or leads to their inevitable fall from grace.
It is this anomaly in the representation of British Africans that has led to me writing this article.
You see if there is one issue that annoys many African people in Britain is not just being labelled in the media as a so called ‘black’ community or ‘black communities’ but also being told by the media who our ‘community leaders’ are. The constant attempts to divide Africans with Caribbean heritage into so called ‘west Indians’ and Africans with Continental heritage into ‘west Africans’ and refer to Somalis as if they were a different ‘race’ is annoying.
Unless a production crew deliberately seeks to find and interview someone from the vast number of articulate and politically literate Africans on the street, journalists invariable seek and even pay/bribe rough and ready ‘man on road’ voices in an attempt to ‘keep it real’.
These voices alongside those selected for us from a pool of ‘safe’, ‘fiery but safe’ or ‘fiery, entertaining but incoherent’ candidates rarely represent their own concerns let alone ours as a collective.
Speak to us direct and many of us will admit that we don’t even know what most of these media appointed ‘community leaders’ do if indeed we know who they are.
Yet despite them being irrelevant to us the media makes sure they keep on popping up on our screens, in newspapers and on the radio. They are presented as if they speak for us with authority and credibility.
They don’t.
There are many reasons for this. The first is that the media which is largely interested in sensationalist stories doesn’t actually know who our true leaders are and even when they find them, many often refuse to take part.
The second is that a great many of those working to empower ‘the community’ are pretty humble people who do not regard themselves as leaders despite their long term commitment to addressing issues on social injustice and inequality.
Most are parents, educators, healers, artists, activists, advocates, archivists and students.
Many volunteer to work with community organisations and projects without fame or glory. Others help by sharing information or simply building healthy community relationships through events and cultural media.
Some are long standing activists like Prof Gus John who turned down trinkets of state approval (OBE’s) in favour of being free to speak truth to power with moral authority and integrity. Others like Dr Ama Biney, Dr Hakim Adi, the late Dr Abiola Ogunsola and Dr Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem, Dr Kwadwo Osei-Nyame Jnr, Sis Dr Sandra Richards, Prof Ben Bowling, Dr Sue Palmer, Dr Paul Gilroy and Dr Kimiani Nehusi educate through publishing journals, books or teaching at university’s offering academic vigour to history that is often dismissed as ‘conspiracy’ theories.
There is also a wealth of grass root workers-activists from Mayor Nana Asante, Sis Ama Biney, Sis Maame Oforiwaa, Bro Glenroy Watson, Sis Amma Fosuah Poku, Sis Lorna Jones, Bro Kwaku Boateng Olaleye, Sis Jendayi Serwah, Bro Jules Jack, Bro Onyekachi Wambu, Bro Kubara Zamani, Sis Ankhobia, Sis Dawn Amos, Sis Toyin Dania, Bro Trevor Hakim, Sis Joy Francis, Bro Colin Prescod, Bro Christopher Icha, Bro Andrew Muhammed, Bro Kwaku & Sis Awula Serwah, Bro Tony Warner, Bro Mark and Sis Charmaine Simpson, Bro Cecil Gutzmore, Bro Minkah Adofo, Sis Ngozi Fulani, Sis Saynab Mahamud, Bro Trevor Hakim, Bro Colin Pryce, Sis 'Juju' Fuller, Sis Pam Fraser-Solomon, Bro Nia Imara, Bro David Neita, Sis Jedidah and Bro Seobo Idrisu, Bro Patrick Vernon, Sis DebRose SearchWell, Bro Arthur Torrington, Dame Betty Asafu-Adjaye, Sis Andrea Enisuoh, Bro Macka B, Sis Del White, Sis Cargil, Sis Marcia and Samantha Rigg, Bro Omowale Rupert, Sis Cindy Soso, Bro Charles Thompson, Sis Ama Gueye, Sis Mandisa Gordon, Bro Onyeka Nubia, Sis Njeri, Bro Richard 'Fluid' Smith, Sis Rosanna, Sis Lenéa Herew, Sis Janet Alder, Bro Jake Ferguson, Bro Jaiyeola Bagbansoro, Jak Beula, Bro Frank Owuasu, Sis Lekia Lée, Sis Asher John-Baptiste, Bro Menelik Shabazz, Sis Ivie Zawditu, Bro Marlon Palmer, Bro Kehinde Ogunlabi, Bro Explo Nani-Kofi, Bro Neil Mayers, Sis Nadia Denton, Bro Ngoma Bishop, Bro Orin Lewis, Sis Toyin Dania, Bro Bini, Bro Pablo Reid, Sis Bellavia Ribeiro-Addy, Sis Sylvie Aboa-Bradwell and Bro Garry Green.
Likewise there are many underfunded smaller but relevant organisations from the PASCF, AJAMU, NABBS, ADAP, Yemenja, Taui Network, DFIN and African Sons and Daughters to the wider known Black History Walks, Black History Studies, 100BMOL, AFFORD, BCA, GPI, Friends of Huntley Archives, to name a few in London alone.
And then there are those people already with a proven track record in the media eye such as the always on the pulse Henry Bonsu, Gary Younge, the human rights barrister Matthew Ryder, Sis Ekua Stanford-Xosei, Courtenay Griffiths, the blunt speaking Stafford Scott, Afua Hirsch, Bro Mandingo, Bro Kwaku Bonsu, Sis Afiong, citizen journalists Marc Wadsworth, Matilda MacActramm, Olu Alake, Lester Holloway, Joseph Harker, Michael Eboda, Tetteh Kofi, 'bridge maker' Simon Woolley, controversial elders like Darcus Howe, Claire Andrews and the venerable Linton Kwesi Johnson.
We must also not forget trend setting publishers like Margaret Busby, Verna Wilkins, Michael Williams, the late Jessica Huntley and her husband Eric, lawyers like Peter Herbert, to younger while inspiring voices like the powerful artists/writers - Akala, Soweto Kinch, Adisa, George the Poet and the Best Kept Secret Collective. Writers like Malorie Blackman, Courttia Newland, Kadija Sesay, Bola Agbaje, Dipo Agbolouage, Diran Adebayo, Kwame Kwei Armah, Ade Solanke and now Steve McQueen have a genius gift of using art to share uncomfortable truths that need to be discussed and ultimately addressed.
It doesn’t stop there.
There are also many socially minded communicators on unlicensed radio stations up and down the country reaching the population ignored by the mainstream media and even the publicity teams of famous civil rights icons when they visit the UK.
Why don’t the Jesse Jacksons, Al Sharptons and Oprah Winfreys visit the studios and venues of real community activity and talk with us instead of wandering into ‘Loose Women’ or the offices of the Mail or Guardian and attempt to speak for us whilst pondering why there are so few ‘black’ faces in the audiences?
David Lammy (Left/Labour) : “Speaking slang is fine in a social setting but [if a school wants to ban it] that’s fine by me” / Shaun Bailey (Right/Tory) : “The more liberal we’ve been, the more the poor have suffered. Poor people don’t need liberalism”
Our leadership extends across the entire UK
The British media has perpetrated a great trick best demonstrated by the film Notting Hill where it would appear both domestically and internationally that the Pan African community in the UK has no voice. This leads to ridiculous situations such as our annual carnival no longer being marketed as an expression of African Caribbean culture infused with the history of our enslavement and liberation but instead as ‘Europe’s Greatest Street Party’.But none of this has to be so if WE support by promoting and investing in what we already have.
Why listen and participate with the likes of the BBC or LBC when we have legal stations like the community standard bearer, Colourful Radio set up by Bro Kofi Kursitor that stand alongside Space Clottey’s VOAR and more passionate voices being broadcast on community stations like DJ Shelly on OMEGA and so many on AfiweGalaxy.
Many of the presenters are ‘underground’ role models who often due to their status as ‘illegal’ or unlicensed broadcasters are treated with disdain by wider society. Little is said about their activity in organising debates, hosting community building session, promoting additional and supplementary education events in between broadcasting genres of African music marginalised and demonised by a mainstream media that favours supporting the community destroying ‘gangsta-rap’, ‘grime’ and vacuous soulless pop ironically described as R&B.
Indeed the vast number of names I have failed to include (please forgive me) far outnumbers those that I have mentioned. I also apologise for the London-centric perspective I have shared. Our voices and leadership extends across the entire UK.
I suppose that the point I’m trying to make is that there is a cohort of exceptional workers, male, female, young and old, that offer leadership through action and not just populist media sound bites. Some support the vulnerable, others simply disseminate, archive and protect our culture and heritage. There are those engaged in politics, whilst many use education as a tool of empowerment.
Today a national newspaper had the audacity to ask “Mark Duggan verdict: who speaks for black Britain?” It then offered a debate on who we should choose between Dianne Abbott MP or David Lammy MP (unsurprisingly Lammy won).
This is typical of a belligerent national media.
Despite the rich pool of talent I have shared that could be draw upon, the British media invariably always decides to selectively chose ‘safe’ voices like Dizzee Rascal, Shaun Bailey, Stephen Amos, David Lammy MP, Tinie Tempah, Jamelia, Reginald D Hunter, Nims Obunge MBE, Beverley Knight, John Barnes, John Sentamu, Constance Briscoe and Bonnie Greer to represent the diverse socio-political views of two million British Africans with Caribbean and Continental heritage.
Clowns, entertainers, sportsters and jokers.
Don’t get me wrong, some of them may be very nice people (got love for Jamelia and Beverley) but leaders they are not.
I write this to say that we are tired of turning on the News, Question Time, The Wright Stuff, Newsnight or viewing a ‘gritty’ documentary and watching as some so called ‘black’ media personality is presented as a ‘community leader’.
1. Being ‘black and famous does not qualify someone as a ‘community leader’ - but being proudly African and ‘infamous’ for standing up to power, challenging the status quo even if supported by the UK’s ethnic majority does.
2. Anyone claiming to have registered a community ‘charity’ or social enterprise engaging with ‘deprived neighbourhoods’ or ‘disadvantaged youth’ is not automatically a community leader (many rich and famous racists donate to charities).
3. Anyone who speaks in tired unimaginative clichés claiming that ‘colour is irrelevant’, ‘black people need to move on’ or ‘we need to unite’ and ‘slavery made me do it’ doesn’t cut it either.
True community leaders, live amongst us, eat with us, laugh and cry with us during any good times and the bad. They don’t just suddenly emerge as rent-a-quotes at moments of crisis with tough words about ‘lessons to be learned’, ‘questions to be answered’ or ‘respect the process’.
They offer realistic solutions, and follow them through by getting engaged or publicly supporting real work that makes a tangible difference to our circumstances.
The late Amiri Baraka was once described by the FBI as ‘the person who will probably emerge as the leader of the pan-African movement in the United States’.
In the UK the statement should read, the leaders of the Pan African movement in Britain are...
Toyin Agbetu is a writer and community educator, a film director and philosopher, a poet and founder of Ligali, the pan African human rights based organisation.
Toyin Agbetu
External Links
MP would not share platform with anarchist groupsMark Duggan verdict: who speaks for black Britain?Labour MP: Smacking ban led to riots because parents fear children will be taken away if they discipline themIshmael Reed, Amiri Baraka and the Black Radical Dilemma
Ligali is not responsible for the content of third party sites
Elected or selected - A crisis of leadership?
Speak Out!
Are media appointed community leaders aloof and out of touch? Are self appointed community leaders any better?Click here to speak out or read (1) comments about this article
Whilst David Lammy and Shaun Bailey are fine spokespeople for their respective political masters, they hold no mandate to represent the views and aspirations of the pan African community in Britain. People elect leaders, they do not appoint themselves.
Toyin Agbetu, Ligali Organisation
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