Keep The Faith magazine - Britain's leading publication about Black faith

WHERE DO OUR YOUNG PEOPLE BELONG?
Ever wonder why some young people act badly?  Amie Buhari writes that it’s due to a lack of identity, because they have to be both Black and British – a very tall order
Have you heard the one about the four Black boys who walk into a kebab shop?  Four Black boys walk in and order kebabs.  They are not happy with their food, and start to hurl insults at the kebab man. Angry words are exchanged, then loud and clear, from the mouths of the boys come the words, “Why don’t you just go back to the country you came from?” You get it? A few decades ago, Black people were getting told to go ‘back home’, and now our Black boys are telling others the same thing. But it’s not funny, and unfortunately it’s not a joke. I witnessed this incident a couple of weeks ago, and although I wasn’t shocked, it got me seriously thinking, Where do our young people actually belong?
At university, I studied the theory of ‘The Black Atlantic’ – the transcultural, international relationship that developed between the Western world and West Africa - the attempt to be Black and European; the acquirement of a double consciousness, and the acceptance and adaptation of the liminal state between the two cultures.
The cultural characteristics and customs of Blacks, which are no longer exclusive to them, is the Black Atlantic. It is the vacant space that the Black westerners have claimed as their own, where they can incorporate both cultures and form a hybrid diaspora. I call this the Third Space – not from here, not from there. This, I believe, is where our young people live, and this space is a fragile, volatile one.
The question for me is, When did our young Black people start feeling so comfortable and confident in this country being their home? And why are our young people now doing unto others, what was so horribly done unto them?
When I was a youngster, I would never have dreamed of saying such a thing; mainly because I didn’t consider England to be where I’m from, despite the fact that I was born and happily raised here. The house on the street I lived was home, but not much beyond it. As I grew up, I was painfully aware that my ownership of this country was tentative and conditional. I learnt this through my knowledge of history; conversations with those who were present during difficult times; going back to what I thought was my homeland, and actual experiences of racism and ignorance. But then came the contradiction, because at the age of 17 I visited for the first time the land of my family – Sierra Leone - and realised that I didn’t quite fit there either.
So why is it so different for our young people today? Why is it so easy for the words “I come from here, you don’t, so go back” to roll off their tongues? Well, we now live in an all-inclusive England. Things like Equal Opportunities policies, the ‘Black British’ ethnicity box, Black History Month, athletes draped in the red, white & blue flag have all helped to create a place where our young people feel comfortable to call ‘home’. We, as parents, leaders and elders have done our bit too. We don’t tell young people how we came to be here. Racism - not totally eradicated, but occurs distinctively less in the playground.  We don’t take our kids to the home of their forefathers to see their origins enough or at all. Our homes are not full of cultural artefacts, but of PlayStations and flatscreen TVs.  The songs playing on the stereo are not filled with an African drum or a steel pan, but with a fusion of watered-down music from both sides of the hemisphere. I can’t help thinking that for the cost of inclusion we have compromised on cultural identity, and allowed the spirits called arrogance and ignorance to step into the Third Space.
This happened with the Israelites. Time and time again they went through the same cycle: oppressed by the other → delivered by God → got comfortable, forget God → stopped learning from the past, started sinning → oppressed by the other. I believe that for our young people to have such an attitude to ‘others’, who now occupy the shoes we once filled, we, like the Israelites, have become complacent in our comfortableness and have failed to learn from our struggles.
We must ensure that we learn from our experiences and teach our children, lest we forget and they become the oppressor. The only way to do this is to remember that no matter what space you occupy, ‘we are called to be in the earth, but not of it’. If we focus too much on this earthly home, we will fail to recognise our true home, heaven; a home where there is no ‘other’, no arrogance, no rejection; a home where all are welcome.
 For we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands. ...Therefore we are always confident and know that as long as we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord. For we live by faith, not by sight. We are confident, I say, and would prefer to be away from the body and at home with the Lord. So we make it our goal to please him, whether we are at home in the body or away from it. For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each of us may receive what is due us for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad.”  (2 Corinthians 5:1, 6-10)
Like the Israelites, let’s not willingly lead our young into sin, because we did not take the time to teach them the struggles to get here.

Amie Buhari is a youth worker – this is incomplete – have to check previous issues credits