The Construction of Afro-Caribbean Cultural Identity in the Poetry of Linton Kwesi Johnson

The redefinition of black and issue of racism in during 1970s and 1980s become major preoccupations of black British poetry. Demonstrating clearly what it is to be black in a contemporary British society, black British poetry continuously deals with racism, discrimination and oppression that black people are exposed to in British society. Within this context, Linton Kwesi Johnson's poetry is defined as the communal experience of black diaspora in Britain (McGuirk 51). Almost all of his poems are devoted to fight against racism on one hand, and effort to construct a distinctive Afro-Caribbean cultural on other hand. With his use of performance and dub, Johnson achieves a revival of Afro-Caribbean oral tradition through his poetry. He succeeds in turning poetry into an act of cultural activity in which audience also is involved. Therefore, Johnson attempts to define a distinctive black cultural as only medium to fight against racism. According to Castells, identity is created by black people who are stigmatised by logic of domination, thus, building trenches of resistance and survival on basis of principles different from, or opposed to, those permeating institutions of society (89). The resistance affirms cultural production of people of African diaspora who no longer feel guilty of their blackness. Rather than attempting to negate blackness in order to erase feeling of isolation, black people are encouraged to feel proud of their difference with an awakening to their cultural and historical difference. Manuel Castells describes building of a resistance in opposition to dominant ideology as exclusion of excluders by excluded and states: Identity for resistance leads to formation of communes or communities. It constructs forms of collective resistance against otherwise unbearable oppression, usually on basis of identities that were, apparently, clearly defined by history, geography, or biology, making it easier to essentialize boundaries of resistance. (9) The creation of a particular lived experience of blackness which would construct feelings of solidarity between different groups of blacks to diminish sense of estrangement caused by racism can be considered primary aim of resistance identity. Focusing on nature of identity, Stuart Hall argues for controversial structure of identity. Drawing from fact that concept of may involve within itself counter-identification against socially imposed identities along with meanings and values they represent, Stuart Hall claims that is not an unproblematic issue as may be thought: Instead of thinking of as an already accomplished fact, Stuart Hall argues, we should think, instead, of as a 'production' which is never complete, always in process, and always constituted within, not outside, representation (Cultural Identity and Diaspora 392). With aim of exploring his allegation of problematic nature of concept of identity, Hall specifies two different types of cultural identity: collective and individual identity. According to first approach, collective identity, cultural is a culture, a sort of collective 'one true self,' hiding inside many other, more superficial or artificially imposed 'selves,' which people with a shared history and ancestry hold in common (393). Stuart Hall defines collective as constructed against racism: It had to do with constitution of some defensive collective against practices of racist society. It had to do with fact that people were being blocked out of and refused an and identification within majority nation, having to find some other roots on which to stand. Because people have to find some ground, some place, some position on which to stand. …