Wigga please, it's.....Black History Month
Without wishing to sound ridiculous, what the fuck is Norfolk Black History Month? Apart from a contradiction in terms of course. Having attended and even performed at events as part of this programme in the past I can categorically state that Norfolk not only has no black people residing within it, the only black people I saw at Black History Month events in previous years were imported to perform. Bussed in... but not at the front of the bus, one would imagine.
So let’s get that straight. The only black people at black history month in Norfolk were there to perform to a room full of white people. White people in baggy clothes with deadlocks who call each other nigger. Is that politically correct or is that racist? I think that fucking stinks. We have so much trouble finding black history in Norfolk that the same tired old stories get dragged out every year; apparently there was a particularly swarthy individual who lived in Caister in the 1700s. Swarthy, but not black. I’ve seen pictures, and it’s really pathetic. The etchings I saw showed a shortish portly man with wild hair who ended up in Norfolk after travelling as part of a circus, as an attraction. As an attraction damnit... This is not only tenuous as fuck, but it could possibly be construed as racist. The trend continues into the present, given the fact that the only black people at Norfolk Black History Month are imported performers as I have outlined above. Does this strike anybody else as a pathetically translucent attempt to make white, middle class people feel good about themselves? Stand around sipping hot, sweet ginger beer, eating jerk chicken and talking to each other in patois, the fuckers. Stand there watching a traditional African drumming group imported to entertain them, with smug faces because that’s how they like their black people- dressed in grass skirts and hitting things with sticks. All from the relative safety of behind a crowd barrier or perhaps inside a negro proof cage. Makes me sick. So fuck it, we at Now or Never! have decided to give these pricks something ‘real’ for them to keep. The Now or Never! Black Prog Night, with segregation like Louisiana in the 1920s. Come and celebrate your ethnic diversity with enforced white on white violence at Norfolk’s first organised race riot. Come down so I can hit you with sticks for being stupid cunts. Oh, er I mean... come down, it’ll be fun. We’ve got the Black and White Minstrels headlining and special guests include Lenny Henry and Ainsley Harriott. We were going to get John Fashanu, but it turns out that his brother hung himself and the last thing we wanted to associate with the event was a black guy with a rope around his neck. No, don’t... even the connotation’s not a good one is it? So Fashanu got shelved. I mean, you strive for realism don’t you? But sometimes, well, you know. Keepin’ it real ain’t all gravy.
Perhaps I should explain a little more about the evening as it’s going to be super good, a bit like the MOBO’s - Music of Black Origin for those of you from Norfolk who don’t know. What’s going to happen is that Trevor will play a record, any record, and this will be followed up by an in depth panel discussion of how ‘progressive’ and ‘black’ the record was. The panel are all white Anglo Saxon Protestants including Robert Kilroy Silk and the Bishop of Durham and they will no doubt conclude that as black people were the first people on earth, all music, even Beethoven, Dolly Parton and Nazi Death Metal is of Black origin. Well, they should anyway. Also as all music progresses through time, it can be referred to as ‘progressive’ or ‘prog’. Actually, I think I might have given the game away there. This should make everybody feel much more comfortable with their ethnic diversity. Apart from the blacks, who will of course be at the back of the room, unable to take part; but there’s no helping some people. If indeed any show up at all. Against this eventuality, we will plaster the back of the room with pictures of Robert Mugabe, in amusing tribal dress. Incidentally, did you know that Ainsley Harriott used to be black? It’s true. I think the fucker should be shot by the Black Panthers for the sabotage of the civil rights movement in this country. His jazz hands alone have set the cause back twenty years; doing more damage than a tour bus full of Nazis could hope to. Unless, as I believe, Harriott is in fact Dr. Josef Mengele in a cunning mask. Norfolk black history, dude it’s like a bad neo-Nazi joke. You can imagine the slogan- ‘together we can make blacks history. Seig Heil…’ But Norwich has got one of the best reggae scenes in the country Paul, how can you say that? Mr. Scruff mentioned it in Outline... Ok. In Norfolk you do have people who know about reggae, granted. But reggae nights in Norwich are just different from the ones I knew and loved back in Bedford in my youth. Norfolk reggae... This sounds intriguing, I’ll nip down. Yes it’s reggae, but something’s wrong. Now or Never! will sniff it out. Hey what the fuck, no black people. None. Maybe one; the cleaner. So stop trying to make yourselves feel like good little white people who buy fair trade choccies once in a while and get over yourselves. If I see another hemp clad be-dreadlocked ex-public schoolboy in Norwich I’m going to explode. Don’t go to Goa to find yourself or take too much ketamine in order to discover the real you. I can see the real you, and he is a twat. Not only a twat, shimmying around the world in the accoutrements of a stolen culture, but in fact an inverted racist parodying another culture in a frankly ignorant and offensive manner. It’s not yours, get over it. Partake, fine, not a problem, but don’t walk up to me with your fake Jamaican patois when you are from Dereham and went to the Cathedral School, because I will bite your face. And so will my friends at the Celtic Union of Nationalist Thinkers, or CUNT as we are known. Here’s a thought to take away with you. How come there isn’t a Norfolk Black Future Month? Or does that scare you? Now or Never! - together we can make race politics history. This article, by Paul Knight, originally appeared in Issue 13 of Now or Never! available in our shop
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