After completing B.A., HDip & teaching for a year, I completed an MA - A Feminist Reading of the Gothic Novel. Developed my interest in publishing and I moved to the UK.
Alongside my day job (Editor at Child’s Play), I got very involved in anti-racist activism in context of Children’s Literature via Working Gourp Against Racism in Children’s Resources.
In later years, I combined my publishing work with working for Sure Start, running literacy projects for deprived families in West London.
I’m going to concentrate on two things today which I think have bearing on the topic...
Alongside my day job (Editor at Child’s Play), I got very involved in anti-racist activism in context of Children’s Literature via Working Gourp Against Racism in Children’s Resources.
In later years, I combined my publishing work with working for Sure Start, running literacy projects for deprived families in West London.
I’m going to concentrate on two things today which I think have bearing on the topic...
• An American lens?
Guidelines & Selected Titles - Huge project. Then as now supply & demand issue - Positively select books we could recommend (save people time finding them). In the course of the process, we refined
our criteria then presented it in the Guide for use for readers to review books going forward.
Guidelines & Selected Titles - Huge project. Then as now supply & demand issue - Positively select books we could recommend (save people time finding them). In the course of the process, we refined
our criteria then presented it in the Guide for use for readers to review books going forward.
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The review process was to invividually review books, then swap them, then discus... Masai and I
On the face of it positive [PowerPoint] and certainly a celebration of Masai culture but...
On the face of it positive [PowerPoint] and certainly a celebration of Masai culture but...
we had a Nigerian librarian in our review group.
He felt it played into the stereotype of Africans...
[PowerPoint] water - juxtaposition between ‘developed’ world and ‘primitave’
[PowerPoint] in huts...
[PowerPoint] less than / only...
He felt it played into the stereotype of Africans...
[PowerPoint] water - juxtaposition between ‘developed’ world and ‘primitave’
[PowerPoint] in huts...
[PowerPoint] less than / only...
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It IS correct - this IS how Masai live... but why choose this particular people [other Kenyans in cities] CHOICE - [PowerPoint] Kerry
“I came from a country where race was not an issue; I did not think of myself as black and I only became black when I came to America.” Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Americanah
“Dear Non-American Black, when you make the choice to come to America, you become black. Stop arguing. Stop saying I'm Jamaican or I'm Ghanaian. America doesn't care.”
Discussion followed was interesting - and we came to a realisiation that while there is
• real need for African American children to have resources to counter the particular, centuries-old racism that has arisen out of slavery and its history - need validate now AND history/roots of Africa...
• they have a VERY different relationship with Africa than that of Black British.
• many Black British were recent/ish arrivals from different / varied countries, cultures and CITIES.
Didn’t view their culture or history through the lens of slavery
• Walé also pointed out that since he had grown up in Nigeria and even African-Caribbeans (though came to Carib via slavery) grew up in a majority-Black population , he didn’t need the same validation
So we didn’t list this book - address African American concerns not appropriate to the UK
“Dear Non-American Black, when you make the choice to come to America, you become black. Stop arguing. Stop saying I'm Jamaican or I'm Ghanaian. America doesn't care.”
Discussion followed was interesting - and we came to a realisiation that while there is
• real need for African American children to have resources to counter the particular, centuries-old racism that has arisen out of slavery and its history - need validate now AND history/roots of Africa...
• they have a VERY different relationship with Africa than that of Black British.
• many Black British were recent/ish arrivals from different / varied countries, cultures and CITIES.
Didn’t view their culture or history through the lens of slavery
• Walé also pointed out that since he had grown up in Nigeria and even African-Caribbeans (though came to Carib via slavery) grew up in a majority-Black population , he didn’t need the same validation
So we didn’t list this book - address African American concerns not appropriate to the UK
• There are no universals in anti-racist work - [KENTE] Image
[PowerPoint] Kente
You will, not doubt be familiar with Kente cloth and how widely it is used in the African diaspora (most especially in America) as a kind of universal celebration of African heritage.
I noticed that in the space I was given to run my Sure Start groups, the tables were covered with
beautiful Kente as a kind of ‘all welcome’ shorthand.
[PowerPoint] Kente
You will, not doubt be familiar with Kente cloth and how widely it is used in the African diaspora (most especially in America) as a kind of universal celebration of African heritage.
I noticed that in the space I was given to run my Sure Start groups, the tables were covered with
beautiful Kente as a kind of ‘all welcome’ shorthand.
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SureStart 1
However, my group was largely Somali, Eritrea, Polish, Brazilian and Lebanese. I realised that for them, it was not a ‘universal’ sign of welcome - they didn’t see it as such at all. In fact, I sometimes wondered if they thought there was a large but rarely seen Nigerian group attenging sessions directly before mine. They certainly didn’t feel addressed in any way by the pieces of cloth, however well intentioned.
And I began to develop other ways of welcoming that spoke directly/specifically to those attending.
However, my group was largely Somali, Eritrea, Polish, Brazilian and Lebanese. I realised that for them, it was not a ‘universal’ sign of welcome - they didn’t see it as such at all. In fact, I sometimes wondered if they thought there was a large but rarely seen Nigerian group attenging sessions directly before mine. They certainly didn’t feel addressed in any way by the pieces of cloth, however well intentioned.
And I began to develop other ways of welcoming that spoke directly/specifically to those attending.
Conclusion and link
So, I would like to take these two moments as the foundation of my thinking
• the need to develop specific anti-racist strategy for specific populations/localities
• and a kind of sub-thought about using inappropriate ‘universals’ /‘short-hand’ that were developed in other places, instead of developing responses (and particularly language) that are specific.
So I’m goint to leap forward about 20 years here - I left UK, 30 years in publishing and 30 years of activism in a very diverse community - moved back to live and work full time in Ireland - in the wilds of Kerry...
Hardly diverse (depends on your definition of diversity).
When, in the first weeks of the pandemic, 100 Internation Protection Applicants were moved into a hotel in Caherciveen (near me), I was contacted and became involved supporting.
The group had been taken from jobs and schools and study... and asked to be moved. (Clear - this was not a residents’ get out’ campaign).
At the first protest march (they at this point were quarantining in the centre so we not ON the march)
I was surprised to see some young local people with BLM posters. I got (obviously) that it was a kind of shorthand, BUT our main liason at this point just happened to be a group of political activists from Georgia.
So I felt that using BLM as a shorthand for “we’re not racist” (was, like Kente) both exclusuary –
• in excluded those white Georgians, and inappropriate in this specific context.
The more I thought about it, the more I felt that this US lens was actually unhelpful.
By framing issues around racism in this context in Ireland as black/white issues, it excluded not just the white Georgian activist Asylum Seekers involved in this specific protest, but in the larger context of
Ireland, it excluded the very people who probably suffer the most racism in Ireland - Travellers.
That’s when I began thinging about the issue of how to examine racism and Irish identity while keeping the focus local.
Which brings me neatly to Emma Dabiri’s astonishing book, What White People Can Do Next
So, I would like to take these two moments as the foundation of my thinking
• the need to develop specific anti-racist strategy for specific populations/localities
• and a kind of sub-thought about using inappropriate ‘universals’ /‘short-hand’ that were developed in other places, instead of developing responses (and particularly language) that are specific.
So I’m goint to leap forward about 20 years here - I left UK, 30 years in publishing and 30 years of activism in a very diverse community - moved back to live and work full time in Ireland - in the wilds of Kerry...
Hardly diverse (depends on your definition of diversity).
When, in the first weeks of the pandemic, 100 Internation Protection Applicants were moved into a hotel in Caherciveen (near me), I was contacted and became involved supporting.
The group had been taken from jobs and schools and study... and asked to be moved. (Clear - this was not a residents’ get out’ campaign).
At the first protest march (they at this point were quarantining in the centre so we not ON the march)
I was surprised to see some young local people with BLM posters. I got (obviously) that it was a kind of shorthand, BUT our main liason at this point just happened to be a group of political activists from Georgia.
So I felt that using BLM as a shorthand for “we’re not racist” (was, like Kente) both exclusuary –
• in excluded those white Georgians, and inappropriate in this specific context.
The more I thought about it, the more I felt that this US lens was actually unhelpful.
By framing issues around racism in this context in Ireland as black/white issues, it excluded not just the white Georgian activist Asylum Seekers involved in this specific protest, but in the larger context of
Ireland, it excluded the very people who probably suffer the most racism in Ireland - Travellers.
That’s when I began thinging about the issue of how to examine racism and Irish identity while keeping the focus local.
Which brings me neatly to Emma Dabiri’s astonishing book, What White People Can Do Next
“As Ireland becomes a more racially diverse country, it would do well not to take too many cues from either the US or the UK, and to invest instead in the development of a culturally and geogrically specific response to racialisation on the island of Ireland...the concept of whiteness may be well established, but the institutionalized intergenerational racism hasn’t had the same opportunities to take root. Before it does, it’s time to create new stories.
I would argue, that, though, as Dabiri points out, the large black and brown presence in Ireland and the conversations we are having around that is relatively new, Narratives of nation, Ireland and Irishness are something we’ve been having for over 800 years. We don’t need to look to the US or the UK for
solutions, we have vast experience and we have form!
Waaaay back...
1170 - saw the arrival of Strongbow (Anglo-Norman - Earl of Pembroke)
1366 - Anglo Normans had become “more Irish...” Statutes of Kilkenny - [PowerPoint] FRENCH!
• forbade the intermarriage between the native Irish and the English...
• the use of Irish names and dress [PowerPoint]
• forbade wearing beards in the Irish fashion (wasn’t enough to be loyal, “presenting as Irish”)
• forbade Irish minstrels or storytellers to come to English areas
solutions, we have vast experience and we have form!
Waaaay back...
1170 - saw the arrival of Strongbow (Anglo-Norman - Earl of Pembroke)
1366 - Anglo Normans had become “more Irish...” Statutes of Kilkenny - [PowerPoint] FRENCH!
• forbade the intermarriage between the native Irish and the English...
• the use of Irish names and dress [PowerPoint]
• forbade wearing beards in the Irish fashion (wasn’t enough to be loyal, “presenting as Irish”)
• forbade Irish minstrels or storytellers to come to English areas
However - Hiberno-Norman Ireland continued a primarily Irish cultural identity.
Things got complicated, as we know, reigns of Henry VIII and Elizabeth 1.
New waves of plantation and colonisation brought, this time, Protestant settlers.
The colonised and old colonisers became united against a new enemy.
What is interesting in the context of what we are discussing today is how quickly they abandoned
identities formed on ethnic or historical lines and came together on sectarian ones.
Initially term ‘Irish Catholic’ used, but by 1580s, a group identifying itself as ‘Old English’ emerged.
Now ‘Gaelic Irish’ and ‘Old English’ unite against ‘New English’. *New Irish
Things got complicated, as we know, reigns of Henry VIII and Elizabeth 1.
New waves of plantation and colonisation brought, this time, Protestant settlers.
The colonised and old colonisers became united against a new enemy.
What is interesting in the context of what we are discussing today is how quickly they abandoned
identities formed on ethnic or historical lines and came together on sectarian ones.
Initially term ‘Irish Catholic’ used, but by 1580s, a group identifying itself as ‘Old English’ emerged.
Now ‘Gaelic Irish’ and ‘Old English’ unite against ‘New English’. *New Irish
For the next over 400 years, Catholicism was seen as an essential mark of Irish identity, perhaps even strengthened after the formation of the Irish state.
Fast forward (well, not fast forward - it was 400 years later!) to the 1990s...
Sectarian divisions were still central to conversations about Irishness and nationality most especially in the six counties of the North. And in the Republic, there were many discussions around how Irishness could accomodate all the people in the North should there ever be a United Ireland.
[PowerPoint] Irish, Irisher, Irishest - Edna Longley
Enda Longley talks about Irishness as a scale... she has a quote from a then recent speech given by
Cardinal O Fiaich to illustrate: [“Many Protestants love Ireland as devoutly as any Catholic does.”]
She says he then recited a litany of Patriot Prods (Tone, Emmet) etc usually produced in support of such statements. And she says,
“It somestimes seems as if Protestants have to die for Ireland before being allowed to live here.”
Longley says, “The Cardinal meant his remarks kindly.”
Fast forward (well, not fast forward - it was 400 years later!) to the 1990s...
Sectarian divisions were still central to conversations about Irishness and nationality most especially in the six counties of the North. And in the Republic, there were many discussions around how Irishness could accomodate all the people in the North should there ever be a United Ireland.
[PowerPoint] Irish, Irisher, Irishest - Edna Longley
Enda Longley talks about Irishness as a scale... she has a quote from a then recent speech given by
Cardinal O Fiaich to illustrate: [“Many Protestants love Ireland as devoutly as any Catholic does.”]
She says he then recited a litany of Patriot Prods (Tone, Emmet) etc usually produced in support of such statements. And she says,
“It somestimes seems as if Protestants have to die for Ireland before being allowed to live here.”
Longley says, “The Cardinal meant his remarks kindly.”
[PowerPoint]
[But in so deliberately including Protestants, he excluded them.
He fed the belief that Protestants have to work their passage to Irishness.
Catholics, on the other hand are born loving the country,
knowing by instinct its entire history and literature...]
Longley longs for more varied, mixed, fluid and relational kinds of identity.
In many ways that’s what happened with the signing of the Good Friday Agreement...
[But in so deliberately including Protestants, he excluded them.
He fed the belief that Protestants have to work their passage to Irishness.
Catholics, on the other hand are born loving the country,
knowing by instinct its entire history and literature...]
Longley longs for more varied, mixed, fluid and relational kinds of identity.
In many ways that’s what happened with the signing of the Good Friday Agreement...
PowerPoint]
Fintan O Toole in his article on it talks about the lack of jubilation, “the agreement wasn’t about
winning... no grand ceremony where all the flags are hauled down”... instead, he says,
[The Good Friday gamble was that people could live with complexity, contingency, ambiguity.
It made tolerance of uncertainty a great civic virtue...]
Despite flaws, he talks of the boldness, radicalism and imaginative brilliance of the agreement...
[PowerPoint]
Fintan O Toole in his article on it talks about the lack of jubilation, “the agreement wasn’t about
winning... no grand ceremony where all the flags are hauled down”... instead, he says,
[The Good Friday gamble was that people could live with complexity, contingency, ambiguity.
It made tolerance of uncertainty a great civic virtue...]
Despite flaws, he talks of the boldness, radicalism and imaginative brilliance of the agreement...
[PowerPoint]
It did something that sovereign governments had not done before, which is
to create a political space that is claimed by nobody – a space, moreover, that exists
not in a physical territory but inside people’s heads.]
[PowerPoint]
to create a political space that is claimed by nobody – a space, moreover, that exists
not in a physical territory but inside people’s heads.]
[PowerPoint]
At the core of the agreement is its statement that people born in Northern Ireland have an absolute right to be “Irish or British or both as they may so choose”.
[PowerPoint]
[PowerPoint]
We have here, written down in a binding international treaty, a recognition that
national identity is not a territorial or genetic imperative, and is not necessarily a single thing...
it can be multiple: those six letters – “or both” – are the glory of the agreement,
its promise and its challenge.]
[PowerPoint]
national identity is not a territorial or genetic imperative, and is not necessarily a single thing...
it can be multiple: those six letters – “or both” – are the glory of the agreement,
its promise and its challenge.]
[PowerPoint]
The agreement tries to replace either/or with both/and...
Both/and pushes away the illusory satisfactions of purity and seeks out the common decency
of everyday life, in which we all live with complex ideas of belonging.]
I’m sorry to labour this point, but I think with the day-to-day shenanigins in the North, Brexit,
Stormont...
we can lose sight of the brilliance, the innovativeness, the magical thinking of this agreement...
and we can lose sight of what it continues to offer to conversations around identity and belonging
Both/and pushes away the illusory satisfactions of purity and seeks out the common decency
of everyday life, in which we all live with complex ideas of belonging.]
I’m sorry to labour this point, but I think with the day-to-day shenanigins in the North, Brexit,
Stormont...
we can lose sight of the brilliance, the innovativeness, the magical thinking of this agreement...
and we can lose sight of what it continues to offer to conversations around identity and belonging
If through the GFA, we can redefine Irish identity free from the moorings of
“territorial or genetic imperative”
why not bring some of that imaginative brilliance to look at the racial component of that identity too?
Black Lives do Matter, of course, but can we not interrogate the whole centring of ‘whiteness’
in the way the GFA interrogated “territorial or genetic imperative”?
Just as we rejected the either/or of Irish/British, can we not also reject the either/or of black/white...
both
• to find a more inclusive notion of Irish identity not predicated on whiteness (& so embrace new arrivals)
•as well as developing discources around racism that include our oldest oppressed minority?
[PowerPoint]
“territorial or genetic imperative”
why not bring some of that imaginative brilliance to look at the racial component of that identity too?
Black Lives do Matter, of course, but can we not interrogate the whole centring of ‘whiteness’
in the way the GFA interrogated “territorial or genetic imperative”?
Just as we rejected the either/or of Irish/British, can we not also reject the either/or of black/white...
both
• to find a more inclusive notion of Irish identity not predicated on whiteness (& so embrace new arrivals)
•as well as developing discources around racism that include our oldest oppressed minority?
[PowerPoint]
ED: “My fear is that much of the anti-racist literature is a iteration of the same process of maintaining and reaffirming whiteness.
Little in the mainstream anti-racist narrative focusses on challenging the idea of ‘white people’ itself. Rather, it takes the category as an unassailable truth,
with the emphasis placed instead on making white people nicer.”]
Dabiri points out that before 1661, the idea of white people did not exist... and says that
[PowerPoint]
Little in the mainstream anti-racist narrative focusses on challenging the idea of ‘white people’ itself. Rather, it takes the category as an unassailable truth,
with the emphasis placed instead on making white people nicer.”]
Dabiri points out that before 1661, the idea of white people did not exist... and says that
[PowerPoint]
“Race is one of the most powerful, seductive and enduring myths of the last four centuries...
Whiteness and indeed blackness are stories, created like most stories, to give instruction...
a socially engineered concept invented with a specific intention in mind. That intention was racism. Until we understand the beginnings, there will be no happy ending.
Until we come up with a convincing counter-narrative,
we are unlikely to achieve the anti-racist world we claim to desire.”]
I love Dabiri’s emphasis on narratives and counter narratives -
like others, she recognises the power of stories (over facts and figures).
As my neighbour, poet Paddy Bushe in his extraordinary essay, Port of Entry writes,
Myth, and particularly mythologised history is powerful in informing how we see ourselves.
Paddy quotes Hilary Mantel writing about Brexit in June, 2017,
Whiteness and indeed blackness are stories, created like most stories, to give instruction...
a socially engineered concept invented with a specific intention in mind. That intention was racism. Until we understand the beginnings, there will be no happy ending.
Until we come up with a convincing counter-narrative,
we are unlikely to achieve the anti-racist world we claim to desire.”]
I love Dabiri’s emphasis on narratives and counter narratives -
like others, she recognises the power of stories (over facts and figures).
As my neighbour, poet Paddy Bushe in his extraordinary essay, Port of Entry writes,
Myth, and particularly mythologised history is powerful in informing how we see ourselves.
Paddy quotes Hilary Mantel writing about Brexit in June, 2017,
PowerPoint] [“We reach into the past for foundation myths of our tribe, our nation, and found them on glory, or found them on grievance, but we seldom found them on cold facts.”]
All of us here today are storytellers and students of story, so we should be well placed to draw on myth ourselves to create a new more inclusive narrative of nation and Irishness.
So, I would like to finish today by looking at Leabhar Gabhála (with huge acknowledgement to Paddy Bushe for many of the ideas I’ll be putting forward) which I believe could provide a foundation myth with a positive, complex and more inclusive story of who we are as Irish people.
As many of you will know, the earliest known version of An Leabhar Gabhála has origins in the seventh century, although the earliest surviving manuscripts are much later, (so well before Dabiri’s 1661).
It is a foundation myth, validating the Milesian or Gaelic people as rightful Irish
with pedigree going back to biblical times, and describing their values.
According to An Leabhar, the very first settlers to arrive in Ireland was led by Cesair, the granddaughter of Noah who landed in Ballinskelligs on Saturday the 5th (the month is unclear) 2858 BC.
[Powerpoint]
So, I would like to finish today by looking at Leabhar Gabhála (with huge acknowledgement to Paddy Bushe for many of the ideas I’ll be putting forward) which I believe could provide a foundation myth with a positive, complex and more inclusive story of who we are as Irish people.
As many of you will know, the earliest known version of An Leabhar Gabhála has origins in the seventh century, although the earliest surviving manuscripts are much later, (so well before Dabiri’s 1661).
It is a foundation myth, validating the Milesian or Gaelic people as rightful Irish
with pedigree going back to biblical times, and describing their values.
According to An Leabhar, the very first settlers to arrive in Ireland was led by Cesair, the granddaughter of Noah who landed in Ballinskelligs on Saturday the 5th (the month is unclear) 2858 BC.
[Powerpoint]
So, Ireland’s first settlers were from what we now call Palestine, led by a dark haired, likely brown-skinned woman – refugees fleeing from the Biblical Flood.
[Powerpoint - image]
[Powerpoint - image]
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Think how powerful that image alone is in thinking about our identity...
Cesair was followed by Partholon and Nemed (also descendended from Noah) who come via Greece. Then come the Fir Bolg and the Tuatha Dé Danann.
Finally the Milesians (sons of Míl Espáine) otherwise called Gaels arrive.
First comes Ith on a scouting mission following a prolonged drought and subsequent famine in Spain. He is killed, but his seven sons come later.
Their stories offer interesting insights into the values celebrated by the Gaels:
• One son, Donn, refuses to accept the rights of other ethnic groups living in Ireland
and is portrayed as a destructive force – in the story he drowns.
• In contrast, another son, Amergin the poet and judge, shows a willingness to share territory
and resources. His famous shoreline incantation is a poem of identification and praise,
not of ownership or conquest.
That this is celebrated is noteworthy - a sign of the attitudes the Gaels celebrated and wished to foster.
These sons of Míl were variously born in Egypt, Scythia, Thracia, the Middle East and Galicia.
And their ethnic diversity was mirrored by linguistic diversity – Gaelic is said to have been fashioned from seventy-two languages; everything from Greek to Spanish, from Hindu to Saxon.
Finally the Milesians (sons of Míl Espáine) otherwise called Gaels arrive.
First comes Ith on a scouting mission following a prolonged drought and subsequent famine in Spain. He is killed, but his seven sons come later.
Their stories offer interesting insights into the values celebrated by the Gaels:
• One son, Donn, refuses to accept the rights of other ethnic groups living in Ireland
and is portrayed as a destructive force – in the story he drowns.
• In contrast, another son, Amergin the poet and judge, shows a willingness to share territory
and resources. His famous shoreline incantation is a poem of identification and praise,
not of ownership or conquest.
That this is celebrated is noteworthy - a sign of the attitudes the Gaels celebrated and wished to foster.
These sons of Míl were variously born in Egypt, Scythia, Thracia, the Middle East and Galicia.
And their ethnic diversity was mirrored by linguistic diversity – Gaelic is said to have been fashioned from seventy-two languages; everything from Greek to Spanish, from Hindu to Saxon.
As Paddy Bushe concludes, Geographically, ethnically and linguistically, the world-view of An Leabhar Gabhála was, and remains, global rather than insular.
Its function was to establish and validate Gaelic civilisation.
It was the Gaelic/our foundation myth.
So it is of huge importance I think, that it very deliberately catalogues and accepts the ethnic diversity
of our ancestors and the diverse-linguistic history of our language.
It also celebrates those who show a willingness to share territory and resources.
This, it says, is who we Irish are.
Its function was to establish and validate Gaelic civilisation.
It was the Gaelic/our foundation myth.
So it is of huge importance I think, that it very deliberately catalogues and accepts the ethnic diversity
of our ancestors and the diverse-linguistic history of our language.
It also celebrates those who show a willingness to share territory and resources.
This, it says, is who we Irish are.
IN CONCLUSION
We already have a foundation story with great potential to reframe Irish identity as one
with a long and diverse history. A history of comings and goings, of arrivals, adaption and adoption.
[Power point]
We already have a foundation story with great potential to reframe Irish identity as one
with a long and diverse history. A history of comings and goings, of arrivals, adaption and adoption.
[Power point]
We already have an Irish origin myth,
a narrative of nation, that
pushes away the illusory satisfactions of racial or linguistic purity
and celebrates instead the complex, the diverse, the multi fascetted.. the both/and...
It tells us that we Irish have a long history of complex ideas around belonging
on which we can draw for the new stories we need to describe ourselves.
a narrative of nation, that
pushes away the illusory satisfactions of racial or linguistic purity
and celebrates instead the complex, the diverse, the multi fascetted.. the both/and...
It tells us that we Irish have a long history of complex ideas around belonging
on which we can draw for the new stories we need to describe ourselves.