Iz it because I iz black? ummm well yes... but it's not just about me...

It’s that time again, where I turn off Classical FM and conveniently highlight my ancestry with the sound of Peter Tosh dub wafting out my cottage door. I could quite easily be perceived as a coconut sat on this white middle class Estate, I confess sometimes I do forget what my parents sacrificed in order for me to be sat here but I can assure you, living in the UK it’s a memory lapse that occurs infrequently. After all I am the only black living on this hill and I'm not the help !!

So try not to start any mass political debate about the blacks having a month to celebrate their heritage and don’t do that ‘us and them’ standardised argument.. ‘if there is a black month there should be a white month’. Do try to avoid the constant droning bitter grumblings of… ‘better not be government funded’!!….give that monotone moaning a rest. For this month serves not just as a celebration for the BHM culture but a reminder of the importance of how we....yes I said WE, as a country have changed, grown, educated ourselves about the integration of other cultures, improved and moved on more harmoniously now. Much more congruent, than that of the days of the Brixton riots, Bradford and the lovely stop, batter, arrest then search tactics of the police back in the day. We all need to see and have this benchmark. It’s no longer an ‘us and them’ society, *coughs* well not as much… if anything the lack of popular support for the BNP thankfully evidences that.

So for all those Windrush, Ugandan Asians, Bengali, Chinese, Indian and African next generation to name a select few. If it weren’t for the utter horrific hardships our parents and ancestors had to endure, when they were actually INVITED here, to help strengthen the UKs infrastructure in order to make their lives better, which in turn aided our parents lives to improve. Then we sure as hell wouldn’t be as thriving when we make the comparison to some of the countries they have left behind.

And to all the original inhabitants of the UK you need to celebrate this month along side the BHM. If you look at the history of the immigration here, you will see it is a partnership that overall has worked and as much as the UK gives me constant despair, I am actually really proud of our progress. It’s these celebrations that bring it home to me that there really are worse places you could be living. Not really surprising people are bashing down the door to get here, we all worked fucking hard to get this place so desirable.

So press the play button below, collect some soul food, sit back and for once instead of moaning about what we need to achieve, lets really feel good about just how much we have.




Spliffs optional of course....

Billy the Brit??

I can't stop laughing at this. I actually can't believe it’s real but I still think the BNP party is an elaborate side of my mind playing tricks on me. It’s a regressive part of me just there to remind me of how things use to be, far from a representation of what’s happening now and just couldn’t be. I would find it hard to understand something so preposterous can seriously exist in this country in this day and age. I know I’m not wrong as this video proves it.




You see utter jest .... and where was St George in all of that? Probably getting a kebab...

For all you who don't know the BNP (British National Party) it is a political movement in England (or in my mind) that would prefer Britain to be as pure as possible. Not too keen on immigration, they have no issues with being in the EU or living in other peoples countries, no that's fine, just much prefer if the rest of the world didn't come to the UK and take their jobs and so on.

You see.... makes no sense so it dosn't really exist.

I'm back....

Hello guys

First like to apologise for not being around for a while. Not that I was a prolific blogger but hey my absence was still noticed and I thank you for that. What have I been doing? Getting my daughter off the roof howling at the moon in tense anticipation for her GCSE results. We both wanted these. If you’re a single parent then you will understand what I mean, we both NEEDED them and because she is a very hard working, talented girl, she passed, mummy cried and we continue to move forward not backward or even standing still. And trust me coming from a Guyanese, Christian, Windrush household, forward movement is paramount, especially living in the UK.

My kid lives with her Grandparents and to cut that long story short it’s so she could have the best life and the same life I had as a child. Therefore avoiding my life of domestic violence, copious amounts of drink, homelessness. Shared households with Muslim men (not as fun as that sounds), box rooms with racist neighbours with a hammer as I remember smashing through my door. Bedsits and unavoidable drugs in the rave era (didn’t really have a drug problem just liked taking them). There is more to that story that reveals me to sound less selfish but I’m too happy to dredge up the weepy stuff now but if Thatchers government didn't decree that I had made myself homeless, which I didn't I had a baby for fuck sake, then cut my child support because I wouldn't tell them were my violent ex-partner was....hmm? Can't think why I didn't do that...if the bitch hadn't hated single parents so much, then it may have been a different story, such a different story for a decade of single parents. It was a key time of social change, people weren't getting married as much, single parents were on the rise and morals and values passed by our parents were challenged as religion became a ridiculous paradigm which stopped making any sense in our modern lives and was on it's way out. And who did she blame for this shift in social awareness and punish?....The women.

Never usually hang pictures of my daughter up. Aside from always living in transition, I always felt that I had failed her and that she would look back at me and I would feel guilty and tearful. It's her second week of A levels today, she tells me to stop saying sorry as I have nothing to be sorry about....we had such a great chat on the phone last night and then continued on MSN and I even put her to bed. (Sounds odd but we have our ritual)

I didn't sleep the night following her first day of Sixth Form I was so happy, excited, overwhelmed and breathing a sigh of relief. Looking back at the pictures of her and I living in that god awful damp ridden flat 17 years ago, then making the decision to give her up to my mum, is pain you will never understand unless you have been through it yourself. Comparing that anguish to the utopia I feel now, is simply amazing. She is making her own decisions about her love of music and the piano and is working to go on to University, I can't stop grinning. And as for me, I am getting ready to write my dissertation for my MSc and a proposal for my PhD sat at my office desk, in a wee detached cottage, on an upper middle class rural hill in Scotland. Marx would kill me but after a couple of glasses of Jura Whisky he would soon understand!

I need to buy more picture frames...I'm not afraid of her wee eyes looking back at me....I KNOW we're finally both smiling now and proving Thatcher wrong. Maybe she was an accidental feminist and thats why my story is ending in some success but personally I can't wait for the funeral.

This may well be the Butterfly effect....

Sudanese woman risks flogging over 'indecent' trousers

I am floored by the determination of this woman (Lubna Ahmed al-Hussein) who has obviously been singled out and harassed...why else would the police enter a private party and arrest people??? Well unless it's a basement party in Brixton...

''A woman journalist is taking on the feared Sudanese morality police to challenge the country’s draconian laws on public dress, insisting on being tried for the crime of wearing trousers in public and risking a punishment of 40 lashes''. Times

She would have had immunity from the lashings as she works for the UN and therefore protected but she chose to resign. Just this heroic act of defiance has highlighted the astonishing strengths women need to go to, in order to be recognised as individuals that want to make their own decisions which would be opposing Sharia law. This is a philosopphy that doesn't favour women and deals out harsh punishment, which the other unprotected by the UN ten women found out. Why the hell are people still being 'flogged' for crimes (used loosely of course) committed? She's on a crusade to get the laws changed there and I don't think her lefty views and attack on the Islamist regime sits to well with Bashir........they can't stop him fixing elections but they can stand and oppose him in every other way possible.

If you want to show her some support click here and let her see she's not alone in her fight.

And so it begins.....

Obama 'hates whites': TV host accuses President after his attack on police for arresting black Harvard professor

Glenn Beck is a man that supports individual gun ownership rights, is the God of the 9/12 Project (very very scary). Past or still struggling with alcohol issues and a Catholic turned Mormon (Yike!!) and an all round shit stirrer. I am all for freedom of speech but if you are going to be vocal at least seek counselling first after that kind of history....


He said: 'This president, I think, has exposed himself as a guy who over and over and over again has a deep-seated hatred for white people or the white culture'.

He was challenged by Fox host Brian Kilmeade who pointed out that most of the people who work for Mr Obama are white and added: 'So you can't say he doesn't like white people'.

Beck replied: 'I'm not saying that he doesn't like white people, I'm saying he has a problem. This guy is, I believe, a racist.'


You can't be a little bit racist.....you either are, or you're not, it's not on a sliding scale (other wise known as the 'I have friends who are black' syndrome). Such a strong irresponsible accusation, which well in my opinion unfounded, not unless Obama is harbouring deep rooted hate for his ancestry and he's on the turn?.... but you can judge it for your self. I advocate for free speech but it doesn't sit comfortable with me when it is used to incite hatred. For me if you can't justify your claims you shouldn't be allowed to say it, apparently that's libellous, surely?

And in all honesty the sooner the USA can start talking about the colours in their country openly, preferably to each other and pull down that limiting, over sympathetic, redundant, PC barrier the sooner you will actually be able to cope with the reality of having a black President. It really shouldn't be such a big deal but it will continue to be used by opposition to stir racial hatred and that doesn't take much in such a an undefined volatile continent.



Black Obama needs to start defining himself as a leader, transcend the easy stereotype and start working on New Orleans or he could be left with the legacy of just being know as the black man that hung out in the white house....hurry up.....their mocking you already!

The Mothers' pay gap

So this is done and dusted now is it? There is no gender gap in the UK but it is now known as the mothers' pay gap, which has been neatly subsidised through Child Benefit, Working Tax Credit and Child Tax credit. Well if Tim Worstall has made these conclusions, then us single working mothers should (yes I've used the s-word) be happy we are getting our subsidy and get on with it.

But in all honesty on that platform, I can argue the point no further. I have looked at the stats and they pretty much give the argument solidity. But this doesn't mean I close the Guardian and get on with my day excepting that the married middle classes have put me in my place once again. There is a problem that needs to be addressed and it’s not about improvements on the welfare system, it's about improvements to the self worth of women living on the bare minimum, within low income jobs or on welfare with children.

The career break is an issue, an issue that mainly effects single women with children, If experience counts then anyone that takes time out from work will be short of it. But what is the root problem we need to address here? If women choose to have kids, of course that is fine, but alas you can't have your cake and eat it. You can't be a full time parent and expect to walk into a job at three time the national average income the moment you decide to return to work, I accept that. But for me this is why the gap is not simply addressed with a bung from extra tax credits. The basic problem is family's remain in poverty even after re-entry into work.

Relative or real most ordinary people don't really give a stuff about being a high flyer, what they care about most is not being poor. There is a possibility that this problem is not new and the only reason we are aware of it is because we have fixed all the other pressing issues and now looking at the welfare state in order to reform it, this problem has revealed itself to be apparent.

There is also the possibility of something deeper going on in society. Women could actually be disengaging, the beginnings of a genuine paradigm shift in attitudes to work and wealth that is leading some sections of society, not just women alone, to turn away from traditional notions of success and worth and back to a more traditional view of what is valuable. I guess if we see a growth in the birth rate over the next ten years this would offer some support for this idea.

I feel like I’m suggesting that women have started a decline from the initial equality sort, maybe because its just too bloody hard to have children then fight to get a decent wage to feed them, so they just make do, except their self imposed fate. The stats may say there is not an inequality and that we have dealt with the shortfall to their wages by bunging them money but living on welfare or low wage sucks, I know, because as always I've been there.

How about offering single parents specifically, who take large periods away from work the opportunity for free open-learning to bring their skills back up and I mean recognised qualification, subsidised by local businesses? I don't know I'm still working on that idea. And pay no attention to people who say degrees don't matter, most of those people who say that have either got one, or have worked in the same job or within the same industry for years. Degrees bloody matter, if you enter into the job market as a graduate you are paid more and have more of an opportunity to enter a variety of fields. Without it you are gravely limited, I cite this by being unemployed at present in Scotland. Scotland takes no prisoners. When it comes to education here its free and they reward you if you take that free option, with a decent starting wage but if you don't, they hand you a vulnerable role in local industry and services. And at the moment it's grim because this recession has attacked those businesses first.

There will be more men in high paying jobs, as the majority of women take the role of looking after the children for large periods of time, there are also a lot more single mums out there as well. So yeah ok, statistically there isn't a wage gap....there is a Mothers' pay gap but I think the way to get people out of that low income poverty trap is education, a very obvious conclusion yes....but why arn't we doing it then instead of bunging tax credits at it, it needs a long term solution not means tested resolve?

I wish I had something else that pissed me off as much...

....but I don't and so I guess I'm just going to keep on highlighting the twats that call themselves the BNP and the amazing calibre of their support.

These interviewed beauties originate from the stylish magazine called VICE. I had to keep checking to make sure this was not something they made up, just for me, in order to make my Monday better. So far it seems totally bonafide, crikey why wouldn't it be???!! Throw a Paratha in the air and you'll hit someone with these kind of views.....do I exaggerate?

I live in Scotland......there are some areas in which when the residence see me, then hear me talk, you can see the utter turmoil on their faces and the questions flickering at the rate of poppers in their eyes...'do I attack the English part of her first or call her a nigger?'...if a facial expression could stutter, I do believe those were the thoughts that were causing it.......such fun to witness, if I didn't think I'd get stabbed I seriously would tweak their noses and say 'there there'.



Anyway these are the sexy BNP lady supporters, below are some extracts from the interviews. They have obviously studied their parties policies and have formulated amazing understandings of the ideologies and paradigm in which they follow. This is shown through masterful questions and well thought out prompts by VICE....

When people say the BNP is a fascist party, what do you think?
Fascist – I don’t understand that word.

Think of Nazi Germany, or 1930s Italy.
I can’t even remember when that happened really, but I’m against them anyway.

You’re against who?
The Germans. I know that sounds evil… I was brought up that way.

But not the Nazis?
No, I don’t agree with that at all.

(Fuck me! A free video should come with BNP membership 'This is England'? Maybe... *smiles*)

So what nationality would you most like to be waited-on by as a servant class?
Oh God, there’s a few. There’s a couple I would, but I can’t really pinpoint one.

Go on.
I don’t know. Chinese maybe?

Sure thing. What ethnicity would you most like to make love to?
Oh, God, British.

Outside of that?
Say… black.

(Priceless!!!)

So you agree with the BNP’s send-em-back policies?

Yeah.

But would it be possible to maybe come to a compromise with a noble race like the Chinese? Perhaps keep them on as a sort of servant class?
Yeah. I wouldn’t mind them if they actually worked and didn’t take all of our jobs, basically. I wouldn’t mind them if they contributed something to this country.

What nationality would you most like to keep on in the UK?
African, because my nana’s African. She was a white African from somewhere next to Cape Town. She moved back here in 1987 or something. My granddad was in the RAF over there and she came back with him.

At this point I lit a ciggerrette...recognised my age and that awful tired feeling you get when you realise just how some things are never going to change....I remember as a kid seeing that same look on the faces of my Windrush parents when we were running from the Brixton riots...it all makes sense now. Ahhh the NF where are they now? Oh yeah hemimetabolism occured.

This doesn't need a big sprawling diologue dilberating over the necessity for multicultural integration education. Or resolve on how to work out citizanship in diverse socieites or even the supposed worry about the splatterings of followers the BNP is attracting. Pick a decade in the UK unchallenged by these issues....and if you find one, then you are obviously an immigrant that hasn't got a clue, come over to this country with your hope and qualifications, what do you know eh? On the face of it these girls are horribly lost and lacking identity, I hardly think thats anything to do with being a confused by-product of a Labour infection? Socialisation, education, class, socio-economics... are major factors for this level of ignorance. For me this has always been here and always will be.

When Obama became President, people stopped me in the street and wanted to talk to me about how amazed and brilliant they thought this event was...a BLACK President! 'Haven't we come so far'? Doesn't that embarrass you a little bit? Should you really be celebrating the fact it took you so fucking long to treat another culture as your equal? I honestly think you should keep your head down and start working out if he is actually any good at politics, rather than party at the fact you don't need to opress his kind anymore....notice some of the blacks amongst you are looking indignant mouthing the words, 'well would you look at us all 'free at last'. I wrote my first activist letter to The Sun paper at twelve years old, I'm thirty-eight and still writing about the same issue. Those girls are a product of an international disease that has haunted certain cultures for years and that is the inability to develop at the same rate as the North of the world......but that is a rather complex argument and will be voiced in another blog.

Anyway enough of my ranting. Click on the pic and have a read for yourself....it won't upset you initially. It made me laugh loads....but then I experienced that look I saw on my parents faces and felt the Windrush.