Task 6

I think that Black British, describes people from the Caribbean or Africa that have travelled to Britain, normally from the second generation and people who were raised here describe themselves as 'Black Britain’. The Majority of people that came to Britain were Jamaican. This is because before the WW2 Britain still owned the biggest empire the world has ever seen, owning such countries like Caribbean but as the empire broke up the country became reluctant to allow people to immigrate. Immigrants brought with them a lot of different views and styles including, food, clothing and their accents. Immigrants assumed that they were moving to what they described as 'Motherland'. However on arrival they were shunned by many white people and they didn't socialise with them and stayed within their own racial groups in terms of going out and socialising. They lived in cramped houses sometimes 12 to a room and even when  they went out there was only a certain venues in which they were welcome.

 

During the 90's there was a specialist type of dress that  they brang to the UK, including low jeans, dashikis and afros these clothes or 'garms' are still worn by youths today. Style has really allowed integration of white people and black people because they all had the same style and they began to be seen as British rather than the colour that they were. Were as before immigrants would wear traditional clothing from their motherland, and whites would dress traditionally British, by the 90's however these lines had begun to blur. Hip-Hop and artists like 50 cent also added to image. Black style has now essentially become style, with most people dressing similarly. David Beckham had a programme dedicated to him where he was described as 'Britain’s Most Famous Blackman'. I feel that this means that Britain’s began to not so see much of the colour of a person, but the lifestyle that they live from day to day decided there race, however this is commonly called ‘Acting Black’. This is when people fulfil the stereotype of a black person without actually being black, this can vary as to the area that they were brought up in and if they live around a lot of black people.  

 

The Majority of people that came to Britain were Jamaican so they bought the dialect Patois with them. Jamaicans have begun to try and tone down the accent as they believed that it sounded too aggressive or could be too difficult to understand at least for the older generations; however the younger people embraced the language a language that is still used today. People also began to embrace the Jamaican music such as Reggae. Patois has very strong roots in slang that is used today by all of the younger generation, every race and every colour it has almost become the norm as a way to speak for teenagers.

Despite the criminal stigma attached to black people, 81% of defendants in crown court cases were white, despite this overwhelming statistics more black people were still sent to prison. The survey also said that black children tended to underachieve at school.

 

I believe that the lack of positive stereotypes really affects them as they are constantly seen as a problem, with the type of music that they bring and the crimes that they are accused of committing and what they actually do is vastly different.