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Greetings all, welcome to this month’s newsletter. While much of our time this month has been spent doing what we call, ‘invisible work’ (i.e. setting the foundations for future projects, alliances and organisational development) we have nevertheless been involved in our fair share of ‘visible’ activities. We would also like thank all those people who have emailed us words of encouragement and support, which have come from as far as Australia, Trinidad and Belgium to those closer to home in Leicester, London and Nottingham. You keep us going. Love
and Liberation, The Ligali Family. |
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| Media | ||||||||||||
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| Crime | ||||||||||||
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Imagine the scene; You drive into a petrol station and see an Asian sales assistant having an argument with an African brother. What’s the first thing that comes to mind? Do you think a) Here’s another ‘angry black man’ causing trouble or b) What has the sales assistant done to provoke this kind of reaction in the brother? As previously documented, Ligali Founder Toyin Agbetu, was racially abused by a Shell petrol station employee in September this year. To add insult to injury, no more than 15 minutes after leaving the petrol station he was subsequently hauled out of his car and surrounded by 6 policemen acting on the malicious phone call by the sales assistant who initially abused him! On writing to Shell to complain, we were assured that the matter would be thoroughly investigated. Several weeks later, Shell issued an apology having discovered that their employee had indeed been at fault. But what happened between the time that the complaint was received and eventually resolved? Click here to read a transcript of Shell’s internal investigation. Other crime related news this month include Ligali’s attendance at the DISARM funding seminar and our presence on ACTV’s new current affairs programme ‘Hot Seat’, which focused on Gun crime in the UK with an emphasis on practical, workable solutions.
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| Education | ||||||||||||
The DfES has recently published a report we deem essential reading for all African British parents, teachers and governors. The report contains the interim findings of a two year research project examining the disproportionate numbers of our pupils excluded from schools. The report comes as new figures released reveal children from ethnic minority communities will be in the majority in London's schools within a few years, as accelerating population shifts transform the composition of the Capital. Visit the Ligali education page for further information on this and other stories.
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| Events | ||||||||||||
Saturday 6th December sees the London launch of one of the most important books of the year, a must for anyone who is interested in the advancement of our community. The book, written by Paul Grant, raises some very pertinent issues about Afrikan people with a particular focus on Afrikan organisations. If one were to try to describe in simple terms the problem this book seeks to address, then it could be summed up by the question ‘Why Do We Lose?’. That is, why is it that wherever you go on this planet Afrikans are firmly rooted to the bottom of the socio-economic ladder. Why is it that Afrikan run countries, be they in Afrika or the Caribbean are so often economic and social basket cases? Why is it that so-called ‘Black’ organisations are generally dysfunctional? The book moves beyond simply describing these well known problems and sets out ideas describing ‘How We Can Win’. This book uses Black organisations as a vehicle for addressing these issues and is designed to act as a practical toolkit/handbook for individuals seeking to set up or who are currently active in community organisations. With this in mind the book is divided into very short chapters, similar to the approach adopted by Tony Browder in his book 'The Browder Files'. The rationale for this is to aid comprehension, provide a logical structure and encourage readers to dip in and dip out on a regular basis, using the book as an 'active resource' and aide memoir. The book is written from an Afrikan-British experience whereas most similar books are written by Afrikan-Americans. It also combines a grassroots perspective with international and global analysis. The reader will find something in this book for them if they are simply looking for personal improvement and development or for an incisive socio-political analysis of Why We Lose. To read the book’s full synopsis, please click here. Looking back... Sunday 30th November, saw the presence of the long-awaited Dr. Tony Martin at an event that finally took place at Ezekiel’s in Peckham, despite attempts to prevent the event from going ahead. As expected, people attended in abundance to hear the man that Jewish lobbyists and the Mayor’s office had made so much effort to unsuccessfully discredit and censor.
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| Spirit | ||||||||||||
Visit the Ligali spirit page for further information on this and other stories.
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| ABC Award | ||||||||||||
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Ligali awards Benjamin Zephaniah for publicly maintaining his integrity and for his consistent, creative work with and for the African British community. Not much more to say really. Respect. Visit the Ligali ABC awards page to read about more community s/heros.
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| RIO (Racially Insensitive Offender) | ||||||||||||
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Trevor, like his RIO mentor David Blunkett, is prone to making publicly offensive statements. In a recent appearance on LBC, he supported and joined in the barrage of abuse being directed at ‘black men’. Now we are not saying that all brothers are perfect, but neither are men from other cultures. Yet you rarely see or hear other public figures from other ethnic communities using such a public arena to bemoan how bad men in their communities are. Not content with publicly supporting this overtly negative image of brothers, Trevor goes on to state that if you get ten black women in a room, they will ultimately be talking about the state of black men. Clearly our Trev thinks sisters have nothing else substantial or constructive to talk about. And
we can not forget Trevor’s assertion that it is not particularly
important for African British children to learn about their history.
But then when he makes a statement like ‘Empire happened.
It wasn’t all bad’ you begin to see exactly where
Trevor is going... We find it incredible that he can label people like Benjamin Zephaniah 'self righteous prigs' while citing Kanya King as a role model and displaying just how out of touch he is with the African British community. There are so many offensive and patronising comments made in his ‘self-righteous’ attempt to discredit the positive actions of a political and social activist and world-renowned poet, we would suggest you read the article for yourself. So here’s to you Trev – RIO of the month. Another 3 letters to add to your name.
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