Society
Role models aren't only middle-class
Published 06 September 2007
The instinct of any caste or class is to reproduce itself, and so it is with the black and urban middle classes
Black role models are at large. Those with wigs and gowns, police and military officers, doctors, dentists and City wallahs - anyone with an academic or a professional qualification: these are our mentors for black, errant, urban boys.
Charities are being formed to raise funds in what appears to be largely a private initiative. The blackmail seems to be: "We spend our money at your businesses in the inner city; we demand that you donate to the cause of our youth."
Thus, in the ever-redesigned space of our inner cities, there are mentoring rooms, painted in soothing colours to calm the troubled nerves of our young men who have been reaching for the gun "under stress".
The instinct of any caste or class is to reproduce itself, and so it is with the black and urban middle classes. At the sound of a gunshot, they find ways of recruiting members of the working classes into their social group.
The signs are writ large. On Tuesday 28 August the Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, invited scores of black men and women to sup at the Dorchester hotel. We were described as those who had reached the top of our professions and as leaders in the struggle against racism.
Then one of the black weekly newspapers published a pamphlet on the 100 most successful black men and women. Even though it was silly season, it astonished me that the Observer gave this nonsense a double-page spread.
It is in such quasi-anti-racism that deep class snobbery is exposed. There were no working-class heroes mentioned in the list, only middle-class aspirants for whom a university degree is everything.
Permit me to illustrate. In the midst of all this fuss and fanfare, a huge and dramatic moment occupied the national stage. Thousands of prison officers, black, white and Asian, struck in defiance of the government's no-strike legislation. And who was at the head of the invading troops? One Colin Moses.
I got on the phone to Colin at once and asked him to spare me some of his severely rationed time. Colin is a black man who began working in the prisons in 1986. He started his working life as an apprentice fitter in the shipyards of the north, travelled widely as a merchant seaman, and became a shop steward in the chemical industry.
He is self-taught. He tells me he set himself the goal of transforming the prison service by attracting blacks and Asians, men and women, to the job. He also campaigned ferociously against racism in the service, which had reached epidemic proportions.
Now he was standing in front of the entire nation, raising the flag of revolt against an ini quitous pay scheme and pension plan. The state took the issue to court and won an injunction from the judges, who threatened the destruction of the union and the imprisonment of prison officers' leaders if they did not return to work. But Colin made it clear to the Justice Secretary, Jack Straw, that his organisation is like a phoenix that will rise from the ashes in time.
His name did not appear in the list of Britain's 100 top black men and women, nor was he invited to Ken Livingstone's Dorchester supper.
The anti-racism movement is fast becoming a reactionary stream polluted by class snobbery and prejudice. It does not see a working-class hero as something to be.
Sell some stocks and shares, drape yourself in riches galore. Indeed, do cartwheels across the floor in order to attract an OBE or the title of baron or baroness, and - hey, presto! - a role model you are. But you will be ignored by young black men in the inner city: Colin Moses is much more likely to be their cup of tea.
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