Natives is one of the best black history books in the UK right now, and one that pairs perfectly with Why I’m Not Longer Talking to White People About Race to paint a vivid and real image of the current state of racism against Black, African, and Caribbean people in the UK.Useful resources for the classroom and workplace

This is an eye-opening and personal book that not only asks us to consider the racism we ignore in the UK, but also forces us to address it through a combination of lived experiences by a Black British man and historical facts and statistics which support his own real-life experiences. Nativesis a book that takes the author’s own personal experiences, from childhood to adulthood, and uses them to paint an intimate picture of Black life in the UK, before then widening the scope and contextually slotting himself into the broader political, historical, and cultural picture of Black Britain. I’ve already mentioned British race denial twice, and it is that denial which inspired Akala to write this book. This fairly recent book by rapper, activist, and author Akala (birth name Kingslee James McLean Daley) has proven to be a very timely read. Read More: Collections of Short Stories by Black Authors Natives by Akala

Why I’m Not Longer Talking to White People About Race is the perfect starting point for readers looking to educate themselves on Black history in the UK. Why I’m Not Longer Talking to White People About Raceis a book that blends eye-opening history, personal narratives, interviews, and facts about law, politics, and culture to open the eyes of readers across the country.Īs a white reader, this is the book that shamed me into realising my own naivete, and led me to anger at our flaccid and cowardly education system’s approach to British history.īritain has a habit of assuming that racism is mostly experienced in the US that Brits are good and noble that we’re above racist thoughts and behaviour.But, really, that’s just arrogance fed by a wildly biased and unbalanced historical education. What began as a blog post and blossomed into an ambitious yet grounded book about the truth of Black history, Black culture, and Black experiences in the UK took off as a cultural phenomenon in its own right. It’s far from hyperbolic to say that this is the book that changed everything.

Black and british david