As a Black man in the UK, I felt from very early on that things were disproportionately more difficult for me to achieve because of the colour of my skin.
Before knowing stats like the ones that say Black workers with degrees earn less on average than white workers, or the ones that say that rates for prosecution and sentencing for Black people are three times higher than white people, I could feel it. Growing up, I’d switch on the TV and from what I saw, there were five types of Black men seen most often on the news: a murderer, a murder victim, a drug dealer, a musician, or a sports person. So without being too conscious of it, I still got the inclination that the media were trying to place limitations on my mind about who I was and what I could become. I grew up fully expecting to get stopped and searched when I left my house, simply for being me. And growing up poor—in general—comes with so many other challenges.
But despite all the challenges and disadvantages, I noticed that there still was no reason as to why I couldn’t achieve. And really, this great truth is the major reason as to why I wanted to write this piece. Now, I’m on the same side as the person fighting the good fight against the powers that be, the powers that set us up to fail in a system that treats us unfairly. However, my part to play in all of this is to turn people’s attention to the most important fight, which is the fight against the greatest enemy any of us will ever come across in our lives: ourselves. Because, even though it may well be that we are set up to fail, we’re also built to win. We live in a western society, where a person whose grandparents were immigrants can become the Prime Minister (Rishi Sunak). And when that person does, the majority of us hurl negativity their way (which may even be justified at times) without ever stopping to say, “That’s inspiring because my parents or grandparents were also immigrants.”
We seem to be experts at calling for our own to be cancelled, rather than encouraging them to grow; experts at pointing the finger, rather than offering a helping hand. Experts at positioning ourselves as victims. Casting yourself as the victim is the opposite of taking responsibility. I heard someone say recently that “responsibility means the ability to respond”, and by that definition, why would you not want that? It may well be that we are set up to fail, but that doesn’t take away from the truth that we are built to win. And from my experience, the Black experience in the UK comes with challenges—that much is clear—but I haven’t yet seen evidence of it changing the truth that we can still achieve. If that wasn’t factual, there would be no such person as Idris Elba, Lewis Hamilton, Akala, Lenny Henry, Marcus Rashford, Naomi Campbell, Stormzy, Dave, Little Simz and many more.
I still have a lot to learn in this life, but from the best observation that I have made, I’ve got to say that my community lacks sufficient harmony and togetherness to excel. And if you feel the same way or similar, it would be silly to expect more harmony as a collective if we were not to achieve it more individually. How can you expect harmony with others if you don’t have it within yourself? How can you truly love others if you don’t love yourself? How do you expect to move forward if you keep holding yourself back? Before addressing any enemy on the outside, it’s best to first look in the mirror and approach that enemy. The enemy that tells you you’re not capable of achieving anything you put your mind to. The enemy that tells you life is happening to you and not for you. The enemy that told you you’re not deserving to the point where a lack of confidence developed into an inferiority complex.
“We owe it to the generation coming up after us to do better than we are doing. And if we do better now, collectively, then the result will be that they have a fairer chance in life than we did.”
If you have the perspective that your struggle is inescapable and you continue to go through life with the lazy attitude that the things you don’t want from life are not worth fighting off, then you’re accepting a major curse. But if you can relate yourself to struggle by seeing it as a way for you to become sharper, dig deeper, stimulate more enthusiasm, make you stronger and more resilient so that your achievements are more outstanding, then struggle can be a blessing.
We owe it to the generation coming up after us to do better than we are doing. And if we do better now, collectively, then the result will be that they have a fairer chance in life than we did. Get rid of the version of yourself that is killing you, and embrace your other self—the self that doesn’t recognise the word ‘impossible’ and knows no limits. The self that knows that anything they’re doing to others, they are doing to themselves so they treat the world around them accordingly. The self that doesn’t get disheartened by failure to the point that it makes a person quit, but instead sees it as one step closer to the goal.
I lost my father to a stroke. He was, without question, my idol and a great source of strength for me growing up—still is today, even after he passed. His passing was a tragic event, but I was able to convert it into a blessing by using my imagination and deciding to use my surname as my stage name in his honour. His death provided an unlimited well of motivation for achievement, rather than an excuse for failure. Even now, as a rapper who doesn’t promote violence in his music, I still get put into boxes and generalised. But that doesn’t mean the world is against me. Life is going to come at us over and over again, but the fact that we’re always in control of how we respond to it via the God-given right of independent thought leaves us wholly in charge of our experience of this life.
