Identity and Belonging in Contemporary Black British Writing

Our culture shapes and determines our identity. To convey our sense of self, as Black women, we must first generate a positive understanding of the long cultural tradition, which has fashioned our way of life here in Britain. … The unique feature of our culture is that its roots and base is Africa. To acknowledge its origins is also to identify the unchanging seam, which is common to all Black cultures in the diaspora. Our African origin is the cornerstone of our lifestyle and our perception of the world, the internal dynamic, which has enabled us continuously to resist new assaults on our way of life. 1 [B]eing “black” in Britain is about a state of “becoming” (racialized); a process of consciousness, when colour becomes the defining factor about who you are. Located through your “otherness” a “conscious coalition” emerges: a self-consciously constructed space where identity is not inscribed by a natural identification but a political kinship. Now living submerged in whiteness, physical difference becomes a defining issue, a signifier, a mark of whether or not you belong. Thus to be black in Britain is to share a common structural location; a racial location. 2 Contemporary African-American resistance struggle must be rooted in a process of decolonization that continually opposes re-inscribing notions of “authentic” black identity. These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.