Book Review - Brit(ish): On Race, Identity, And Belonging By Afua Hirsch

All my life my sense of identity and belonging has never been in doubt or called into question by anyone I have met. I am a white British man. While I have grown as a person over the years, and what it means to be a white British man has changed in my mind over time that part of my identity has remained. This is a privilege that Britain does not afford most demographics. My identity, and sense of belonging is solid, for many it is more complex, and nebulous. Brit(ish) by Afua Hirsch is part autobiography, part social commentary, and part exploration of the nature of identity, and belonging in Britain. Hirsch is a British born mixed-race woman with a black Ghanaian mother, and a white Jewish father. Her search to discover her own sense of identity is one which took her around the world to Senegal, Ghana, and back to Britain. This book is simultaneously deeply personal, and wide ranging in scope. It is one woman’s journey to find where she belongs, a collection of interviews with people sharing their experiences in Britain, and a look at Britain’s past, and its present as a whole.

Hirsch’s search for a place in the world where she can fit in, and the alienation she feels is the main driving force of the book. This is as much about finding where she culturally belongs as it is about geographic belonging. She describes growing up in a middle-class family and was often one of very few students of colour in school. This position, being alone in a sea of white faces continued up to her attendance at Oxford University. By her own admission she did not know much about black British culture as a result of her upbringing. She expresses feeling like she was on the outside everywhere being neither physically white enough to fit in one world, nor culturally black enough to fit in the other. Her relationship with her hair is a clear example of this dichotomy at work. Her natural hair is curled enough to defy her attempts to flatten it as a child, but the curls are not tight enough and too fine for black hairdressers’ usual treatments to work. She goes into detail about the difficulty she experienced trying to find ways to treat it, with most haircare products available for purchase not being designed with her hair in mind. Her hair is not only significant as a marker of her outsider status however. It also becomes a formative part of her culturally claiming her identity as a Black woman. Hirsch writes about when she first got her hair braided, and how things changed for her when she had a traditionally black hairstyle for the first time. She says the difference was night and day as they made her look blacker, and older. Her hair became a cultural marker signalling her as a member of the black community in a way she had not felt before. As a reader this was eye opening, revealing even something as simple as the hair growing out of my head to be yet another thing where I am relatively privileged.

The way Hirsch writes about her hair, the work it takes to care for it properly, and the reaction of others to it, is not the only way she writes about her relationship to Britain as a Black woman.  She goes deep examining Britain’s hyper sexualisation of Black people. In a notable early chapter, she details visiting the “Black Man’s Fan Club” (BMFC) which is a monthly swingers night specifically for white women who want to have sex with black men. She links this hyper sexualisation back to racist stereotypes that developed during the era of slavery and colonialism to dehumanise black people. She looks at how these myths have been used to portray black men as boogeymen coming to take the virtue of white women, and points to the treatment of the Central Park Five as an example of how these myths still cause real harm in the modern day. At the BMFC however, instead of rejecting or pushing back against these myths she finds black men who have not only embraced them with open arms but are actively reinforcing them, and a club which does not seem to understand how fetishizing black bodies this way can be offensive or racist. Hirsch also writes about the hyper-sexualisation of black women and her own experiences of this in action. She includes examples of how at just fourteen years old she had teenage boys making crude jokes about black girls supposed greater promiscuity, and sexual experience. These stereotypes and myths around the hyper sexuality of black women similarly to those about black men seem to be repeated with no consideration or awareness of their historical origins rooted in white masters raping black women slaves. This is just one example of how Britain’s reluctance to examine its past of slavery, colonisation, and empire is poisoning the well even now in the 21st century.

Hirsch is critical of Britain’s seeming refusal to look at its past with honest eyes throughout the book. Britain favouring a view of the past which extolls its fight for abolition while minimizing its role in the slave trade has contributed to a view of Britain as being a post racial society. Hirsch clearly stands opposed to this notion using her own experiences to show that the idea that Britain is “colour-blind” is a veil to hide Britain’s more subtle hidden brand of unspoken racism. The more overt instances of racism she describes such as a neighbour who would make their dog defecate directly outside her grandmother’s home every day do not receive as much focus. Instead, its things like what she terms “The Question” that seem to have left more of an impact. The Question is: where are you from? It is as an almost perfect example of the kind of micro aggression Hirsch is pushing back against. I have never been asked where I come from, but she and many others have countless times. It is presented as being just out of curiosity asked by people who will readily claim they “don’t see race”. The problem with this is when a person is asked over and over again like Hirsch has been, its ‘alienating’ and ‘othering’ effects are multiplied. The idea that Britain is some kind of post racial nation is so widespread it has come up in past reviews and is a clear source of frustration for Hirsch. It is almost a form of gas lighting on a national scale. It flat out denies the lived experiences, and racism people of colour are forced to live through every day. One example of this Hirsch writes about is at a special reception held by the Daily Mail to mark 10 years of the journalism diversity fund. A mixed-race journalist called Joseph (who Hirsch spoke to for the book) confronted some of the Daily Mail grandees present about a racist cartoon the newspaper had published. In response he was told to “stop being a troublemaker”. This myth has turned Britain into a nation with racism but no racists, where calling out racism and demanding accountability is met with denial, and labels like “troublemaker”, or “divisive”. To question and challenge this idea might make Hirsch a “troublemaker” but to paraphrase the late American politician and civil rights activist John Lewis, sometimes you need to make good trouble, necessary trouble.

To conclude this piece, good trouble as John Lewis described it is something Hirsch provides throughout the book. As her search for her own sense of identity continues, she touches upon and explores many aspects of what it means to be Black in Britain today. She always maintains her self-exploration as the emotional centre of the book so these dives into a wide range of subjects around race and identity never feel unwieldy. Her interviews with people of all walks of life are woven into the book well. They never detract from her story instead, adding more shades to it. Hirsch writes with a deft hand which is thought provoking and illuminating in equal measure. The book reviews I have written have all forced me to confront and reckon with my own privilege and position in society and this one is no exception. While it is about one woman’s journey of self-exploration it has also become an important step in my own self-exploration, and ongoing education.

You can buy the book here https://www.amazon.co.uk/Brit-ish-Race-Identity-Belonging/dp/1784705039