Visible Struggles: Solidarity & Skin Colour Within British Black and South Asian Communities
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A shared experience for both South Asian and Black communities is being marginalized due to the prevalence of darker skin tones within their communities. The visibility of race is important in understanding the oppression experienced by people of color (85). Visibility creates a different reality compared to other marginalized groups who can go “invisible”, meaning they may have the ability to move more fluidly within white spaces. Dark skin becomes a marker of being the “other”. Though not all South Asians, and Black people have dark skin tones, this shared experienced of visibility and marginalisation due to visibility, is a point of solidarity and similarity in both the South Asian and Black experience. It is also important to mention that this shared visibility can sometimes lead to both communities identifying and distancing themselves from each other, potentially creating tension within their respective struggles.
This shared dynamic of racialization is particularly evident in comparison to experiences of Arab immigrants in the UK. Hassan explains how Arab immigrants often find it easier to integrate into white spaces. He says, “We haven’t got the numbers of, say, South Asians, so we weren’t able to create ghettoes the way South Asians did. We look more like Europeans than South Asians do. We normally know English better, especially if you are middle class so that you can integrate easily.” (89) This proximity to whiteness, as in being able to align oneself more easily within white spaces, can lessen the experience of marginalization due to race. Though it is important to note that not all Arabs are white-passing, or easily integrate into white spaces. This perspective is specific to the British context of this paper, and does not apply universally to all Arab migrants' experiences.
Fun^Da^Mental’s music video is a powerful and important expression of Black-Asian solidarity. The music videos use both visuals and lyrics to emphasize the bond between Black and Asian communities. The lyrics: "There comes a time when enough is enough / Afro-Caribbeans, Asians together are tuff / Our defence is on attack, minds are made up / Bodies are fightin' back," are about the shared struggle against racism, and the importance of being aligned with one another, and fighting for each other. The visuals of the physical violence done by white racists, and the cuts to groups of Black people and South Asian men banding together in the streets are incredibly poignant. Another lyric: “I am the Brown one, my brother Nubian” again connects the South Asian and Black experiences, calling onto each other as brothers.
On a personal note, I noticed that at around 2:30 in the music video, the string(flute?) noise being played sounded a bit similar to the Ethiopian Masinko
While I believe the instrument sampled was most likely South Asian, I found this similarity to be another example of connection between these two groups.