Natives: Race and Class in the ruins of Empire by Akala

Part memoir, part a sociological analysis of racism and several other themes, including the legacy of colonialism, Natives investigates the pernicious racism that can be found throughout our media and education system and the complex interplay between race and class. It's a revealing, inspiring and uncomfortable read. It approaches the systematic and institutional oppression of people of colour, especially those with black skin, in a way nothing else I have read before does.

Akala (real name, Kingslee Daley)  is a rap artist, poet, author, activist and a very talented and charismatic speaker. He is biracial, second-generation black Caribbean and half white Scottish. His background was stereotypically “rough”. He grew up in London, in Kentish Town and he suggests that if you are from the rough part of town and never see anyone like you presented as intelligent and if you are consistently presented as a “hoodie”, you become alienated which in turn affects your mental health, your feeling of self-worth, and the way you conduct yourself in society.

Akala draws from incidents that happened in his life that are relevant for the history of class and race in the history of the United Kingdom of the 20th and 21st century, where black people, male in particular, are depicted as the source of violence. But Akala points out that the issue of violence and the issue of race is very often an issue of class.

"The history of the British class system, despite all the rhetoric and meritocracy and the equality of opportunity, Britain is still like every notion on Earth on some degree, a society where the social class, an area you are born into will determine much of your life experience, chances, and outcomes. The quality and type of education you receive in your likelihood of interaction with police, social workers, prison, and other state institutions, will all be influenced by class. If you visit any prison in this or any country, the vast majority of its prisoners from any ethnicity you choose will be people from poorer backgrounds, obviously."

Natives deserves to be very widely read.