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I'm Bengali and I'm black - in the same way that my parents were

Chakrabortty, Aditya
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/oct/30/bengali-black-ethnic-minorities-racism

Publisher:  The Guardian
Date Written:  30/10/2014
Year Published:  2014  
Resource Type:  Article

Asians may be seen as a distinct today but in the 1980s they and other immigrants identified as Black due to common struggles with racism and discrimination.

Abstract: 
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Excerpt:

When someone like my late father responded to the term "black", it was not because he'd forgotten his Tagore, or the films of Satyajit Ray. He carried that history with greater care and affection than those who today boast of their Bengali-ness. But "black" wasn’t about pigment or some flatpack identity. It was primarily a political term, borne of a recognition among those who'd recently arrived in Britain that they faced obstacles in common and would try and beat them together. One wore "black" not instead of "Jamaican" or "Sikh" but alongside all those other labels of cultural and historical identity, as an anti-racist affiliation.

Our parents were black because when they tried to get digs, they'd all see those signs saying "No black, no Irish, no dogs". They were black because they'd all struggle to get the jobs, the pay and the promotions they deserved. And they were black because they all faced racial abuse and violence.

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