Black London by Matera Marc;

Author:Matera, Marc;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: University of California Press

Bah tried to recruit me into his “business” with the promise of big money and any “beautiful gal” I wanted. . . . When I turned him down, Bah had snapped: “What wrong with you? You John Bull nigger?” “No.” “Then what?” I shrugged. “This is not right.” “They do it to us. They use our women. Been to Lagos?” “Yes.” “Accra?” “Yes.” “Freetown?” “Yes.” “Cape Town?” “Yes. You been there?” “Me been everywhere. Cape Town, Cairo, everywhere. They do it with our women, so I do it with their women. Only I treat them good. Join me?” “No.” “Damn John Bull nigger!”

Abrahams offered his account of Bah to condemn what he perceived as the substitution of one form of exploitation for another. “There is no virtue,” he argued, “no goodness in hurting, abusing, degrading someone white because you have been abused, degraded and hurt by someone white.”16 Like his friend Abrahams, Makonnen expressed disdain for this “dubious business.” He was concerned particularly about the manner in which some clubs blurred the line between black political activism and sexual commerce. When he entered the restaurant business in Manchester during World War II, Makonnen recalled, “I wanted no part with this image of the Negro club with its bunch of women packing the place from morning to night. I thought too much was at stake. If we were really ambassadors of our people, we should be able to portray our manhood without any regrets.”17 Although some viewed their sojourns in the metropole as, in part, a sexual rite of passage, black activist-intellectuals like Makonnen and Abrahams used the black pimp as a foil against which they differentiated their own projections of black masculinity, relationships with white women, and views on interracial cooperation.

In many cases, sexual relationships and marriages between men from the colonies and British women developed out of friendships and political alliances. The exigencies of daily life informed the reasons that individuals entered into relationships as well as the ways others perceived them. Most people of African descent in Britain, including students and intellectuals, lived a spartan existence straitened by racial barriers to housing, social services, and professional advancement. For many black men, the assistance, affection, and companionship of white women attenuated the effects of loneliness and racism in London. Public personae and political commitments had to be balanced against an austere existence in the metropolis, and with their ambition far outstripping their means, black intellectuals and agitators frequently relied on the financial support of white partners. These relationships, in turn, fueled debate and anxiety over the nature and substance of black masculinity, individuals’ professional and class aspirations, and their connection to black liberation. Relations with white Britons became a symbol not only of the pleasures of the metropolis but also of its perils for men of African descent and for the cause of colonial freedom. Many feared that interracial partnerships, like life in London in general, would lead to new forms of dependency, and talk of the corruption of

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