Stephen Lawrence — The Model Black Citizen: An Interdisciplinary Conversation on How Black Men Were Moulded in British Society Between the Years 1942 and 2000.

38 min readFeb 1, 2021

In Loving Memory of Stephen Lawrence. September 13th, 1974 — April 22nd, 1993.

This dissertation was submitted in May 2020 as part of my final year mark. Upon being marked in July 2020, I eventually shared this piece of work with Stuart Lawrence (the younger brother of Stephen) who recently encouraged me to publish the dissertation. I hope you all enjoy this researched piece!

Best,

Aimina

INTRODUCTION

The period between the post-war (from 1945) and the year 2000 (when the Parekh report was released) has highlighted that society’s portrayal and expectations of black people in Britain continued to change as the definition of what it means to be a model black citizen in Britain evolved (Parekh, 2000). I will be arguing that although British society progressed (to some extent) in how they responded to the multicultural shift during these years, there were some contradicting changes to the media and institution’s definitions of what the model black citizen should act and look like. Such inconsistencies and contradictions springs the question: can the black man ever be a model citizen in Britain?

This essay examines the staggering experiences of black people living in Britain and how deeming black citizens as ‘impure’ is just one of the negative connotations that was (and arguably still is) associated with black skin (Stoler, 1989). In the post-war period (with specific focus on the years between 1945 and the late 1960s), it was often asserted that the black man was racially ‘impure’. This portrayal of black men was fuelled by concerns about sexuality and miscegenation. Yet, as we emerge into the 1970s, it becomes clear that this negative perception changes; blackness instead became synonymous with crime.

Using the works of historians such as Stuart Hall and Paul Gilroy — to name a few — I argue that the 1970s reveal how black men were portrayed as criminals despite crime rates being at an all-time low (Hall, 1978). Confrontations between the law enforcement and the black youth not only intensified in the 1970s, but they also assumed a more open and politicized form. Chapter One of this essay conveys how the trajectory of the black race evolved as the circumstances in Britain evolved; black men went from being perceived as a threat to British whiteness to a threat to [civilized] British society (Bland, 1985). To strengthen my point about the evolving roles of black men in Britain, I present case studies such as that of African American GIs who fuelled concerns about race and national identity and Clement Gomwalk whose case revealed that the racial profiling of the black man in question sparked the beginning of openly politicized confrontations. Each of these cases are palpable to how society’s portrayal and expectations of black men in Britain continued to change as the definition of what it means to be a model black citizen evolved. The two cases fervently challenge the popular belief that issues of race were not foisted into Britain from the outside. Rather, these issues were endemic to the negative portrayal of black men in Britain.

Stephen Lawrence is the epitome of Britain’s ideal model black citizen, and yet, he was still a victim of a racially motivated crime. Sarah Neal and Nira Yuval-Davis have separately produced studies that point to some of the requirements of a ‘model’ black citizen (Rose, 1997; Ford, 2015). For instance, they must have educational achievements, career aspirations, their family must maintain their dignity and uphold the ‘right’ values. The Lawrence family met all these unspoken requirements. In fact, the parameters of British institutions and media’s definitions of a ‘model’ black citizen allowed for the Stephen Lawrence murder campaign to become subject to the “empathetic inclusion” expressed by the collective (Neal, 2003).

Therefore, one of the points I assert in Chapter Two of this essay is that classism was rife in case studies such as the Samuels v Argyle case in 1985 and the Stephen Lawrence murder in 1993. Everton Samuels was the 27-year old “pot smoking Rastafarian”, who was negatively portrayed by the media because of his participation in criminal activities and his refusal to accept help that could have improved his quality of life (Gilroy, 1987). Ironically, Rastafarians are also condemned in islands such as Jamaica, however, this is a fact that white Britons frequently choose to overlook as it fails to meet their agendas about black people. This case conveys how black people in Britain were burdened with the responsibility of representing their whole race; Everton Samuels was frequently described by Judge Argyle as a disappointment to his whole race because of his criminal activities (for example, drug dealing). Such pressures are put in place to force black people to be moulded into Britain’s ideal citizen just so that they can be accepted by society. In the latter case, we see that class underplayed in the ‘white trash’ representation of Lawrence’s five murderers (Gilroy, 1987). This time, Stephen Lawrence is the ‘model’ citizen that breaks negative stereotypes of black people.

Inspired by the Stephen Lawrence murder campaign, this essay argues that there are clear contradictions to newspapers’ (for example, the Express) responses to the Macpherson Report compared to other recent events at the time, such as the Scarman Report (which was released following the Brixton Unrest in 1981).These inconsistencies have little to do with Britain progressing as a multicultural society and unconditionally accepting and welcoming marginalised groups as ‘British’. Rather, these inconsistencies reflect social uncertainty and tensions regarding institutional racism, multiculturalism and ultimately what it means and takes to be a ‘model’ black citizen.

LITERATURE

This section will briefly give insight to the historiographic field surrounding the debate on the negative portrayals and expectations of black people in Britain over the course of 60 years. Discussions about how black people are expected to conform to British society’s standards before their lives are valued, centre around the experiences of the young black man. Over the course of this essay, I highlight that there is a degree of prioritization of the black man and how he navigates in British society — this prioritization comes from both an academic standpoint and institutions such as law enforcement (Ford, 2015).

Paul Gilroy’s There Ain’t No Black in the Union Jack is a commendable depiction of the study of Britain’s transition to multiculturalism. Gilroy’s bibliography shows a varied range of accessible primary and secondary materials. Some of the secondary sources used by Gilroy in this book include The Black Jacobins by C.L.R James, a book that contributed to producing a better understanding of the link between race and class (C.L.R, 1938). This helps us to recognise why black men were encountered in varied and inconsistent ways by British society and how these inconsistencies were a means of manipulating black subjects into conforming to society’s expectations of them.

C.L.R James himself stated that:

“The race question is subsidiary to the class question in politics, and to think of imperialism in terms of race is disastrous. But to neglect the racial factor as merely incidental is an error only less grave than to make it fundamental.”

Consequently, the literature within this field leads my argument that race and class inevitably play a hand in the treatment of black people. The lives of black people in Britain only appear to be valued when they conformed to society’s expectations of a ‘model’ citizen, as was the case with Stephen Lawrence.

Indeed, the monitoring of interracial relationships illustrate that black people had been racially profiled since Britain began to shift multiculturally during the post-war period. Though, as we emerge into the 1970s, it is revealed through the works of Gilroy, Hall and Tanisha Ford, that the policing of black subjects was intensified in this period, more than ever. I will define the 1970s as the era of criminalization, this is ultimately the soundboard for tracking the changing expectations of the model black citizen and of any black man navigating British society in the 20th century.

Gilroy’s chapters, ‘Letter Breeds’ and ‘Two Sides of Anti-Racism’ set the tone on how racist stereotypes would influence the ways in which black people were treated and encountered in the 1970s and 1980s. Hall’s detailing of The Storey case in Policing the Crisis should be used collectively to challenge the popular belief that young black men were more likely to commit street crimes because of the colour of their skin (Hall, 1978).

Although the definition of being well dressed is subjective, there is the popular belief (in British society) that the model black citizen should not wear dreadlocks, beanie hats, wear baggy trousers, have an insolent attitude or be a drug user. Everton Samuels was the epitome of everything the ideal model black citizen should not be, hence Gilroy called him an “anachronism” in a world where smartly dressed criminals disguise their deviancy (Gilroy, 1987). To strengthen this discussion, published in 1978, Hall’s Policing the Crisis has paved the way for studies on the ‘mugging’ panic. Hall’s piece also conveys how black identities were defined by how British society stereotyped black men. This study is crucial to this essay because it sets the pattern for a discourse on the different ways that black people are negatively perceived and thereby moulded by British society through stereotypes.

Sources

In 1999, The Macpherson Report, which is otherwise known as the Stephen Lawrence Inquiry, was published to the public. This report acknowledges and defines institutional racism, the report is monumental for shaping how black people were moulded into the model black citizen by British society. Lord Macpherson defines institutional racism:

“racism that consists of conduct, words or practices which disadvantaged/advantage people because of their colour, culture or ethnic origin.”

When used in comparison with the 1981 Scarman Report — as is the case in this essay — The Macpherson Report is a substantial primary source. The report presents irregularities about what institutional racism in Britain has been defined as and whether Britain is the institutionally racist country that individuals such as Obi Egbuna believe it to be (Egbuna, 2000). For example, Lord Scarman argues that an institutionally racist country or society is one that “unwittingly” adopts practices that might discriminate against black people (Scarman, 1981). To Scarman, Britain is not a country or society that discriminates against black people. However, as The MacPherson Report expounds, Britain is ‘covertly’ racist and 1999 was the first time this point — that British institutions tend to discriminate against black subjects — was brazenly acknowledged in the media and by law enforcement. Founded in 2003, The National Archives’ ‘Transparency’ section gave online access to content surrounding events of the Macpherson Report. The online materials have helped to invoke a nuanced historiography on the issues of race in Britain during the 1990s, it demonstrates the social uncertainties and tensions in British society, which in turn influenced how black men were perceived and moulded.

The Macpherson Report’s references Dr. Robin Oakley, who suggests that institutional racism is subtle but can influence police delivery, demonstrates that institutional racism is often covert and therefore overlooked. There is no disputing that racism in Britain is considered to be ‘covert’ because it isn’t often as violent or extreme as in other countries such as America, hence it is overlooked. Oakley asserted that “police work, unlike most other professional activities, has the capacity to bring officers into contact with a skewed cross-section of society, with the well-recognised potential for producing negative stereotypes of particular groups.” (Macpherson, 1999). Views similar to Oakley’s have gained currency among law enforcement and the media. This was particularly evident in earlier years such as the ‘mugging’ panic of the 1970s, the Samuels v Argyle case, as well as the handling of the Stephen Lawrence murder investigation case in the 6 years prior to the publication of the Macpherson Report in 1999.

Much focus has been directed to the study of British newspapers such as the Express. The newspapers give us an insight to how class played a hand in how the media would treat young black men who might not have been a model citizen. British newspapers such as the Mail and the Sun have had a long history for their association with a hostile reception of multiculturalism and race related issues in Britain. Yet, as we emerge into the late 1990s, some of these newspapers, including the Express assumed a liberal perspective for a limited time. This is evident by the amount of positive coverage that was given to the Macpherson Report in their articles. By 2003, the media had gradually reverted back to a right of centre position, particularly on issues of asylum and the immigration. Such political positioning included the vilification of marginalised groups in the media; this very political positioning challenges the Parekh Report and its argument that Britain had progressed in terms of its reaction to the multicultural shift that the country experienced since the postwar period.

This essay is divided into two chapters. The first chapter will analyse the timeline of young black men in Britain during the postwar period (1945–1960s) and how concerns about their presence in the country was sparked by sexuality and miscegenation. As this chapter develops, I introduce the ‘mugging’ panic and a small segment of issues that arise during the British black power movement era. These events highlight how blackness became synonymous with crime, how racist stereotypes manifested themselves and finally, how black political activists were automatically perceived as criminals because they were the voice — albeit provoking voice at times — of the black community. Chapter Two challenges the revelation that racial delineation in reports became transparent by comparing responses to the Stephen Lawrence murder case to the Storey Case (1972) and the Samuels v Argyle case (1985). This study of marginalised men’s histories since the multicultural shift seeks to bring the two strands of tolerance and acceptance together to show how young black men were only accepted into society if they adhered to the image that British society had moulded for them.

CHAPTER ONE— CAN THE BLACK MAN EVER BE A ‘MODEL’ CITIZEN?

The first wave of black immigrants in Britain sparked increasing concerns/perceptions about the sexualization and miscegenation of black men and white women. Migration had become a constant motif of the Afro- Caribbean story, especially in the context of 1948, when the SS Empire Windrush signalled the beginning of post-war Caribbean migration in Britain. Similarly, African American GIs had arrived in Britain during the war (so before 1948), this was a monumental time because it exposed many white Britons’ negative perceptions of black people (Rose, 1997). Not only did the presence of African American GIs fuel concerns about race and national identity, it also promoted reckless behaviour amongst young white girls and white women. This was exemplified on January 30th 1954, when the Home Secretary at the time(Sir David Maxwell Fyfe) cited “lurid newspaper” headlines about how black pimps were living off the sexually immoral earnings of white women (Gilroy, 1987). Therefore, during the post-war period, at least up until the late 1960s, it is convincingly noted by Gilroy that race was a fixated matrix with the imagery of “sordid sexuality”. Miscegenation captured the descent of white womanhood and re-casted it as a “signifier of the social problems associated with the black presence” (Gilroy, 1987). As a result, I argue that during the post-war period, black presence – particularly of black men – was negatively defined by their sexual influence on white women.

The image of young black men in Britain was constantly redefined according to how they were perceived in society — there was always a pessimistic perception of the black man’s presence. This is demonstrated by how institutions authorized the monitoring of the less disciplined white women; these methods of policing unveiled itself as a form of patriotism, patriarchy and racism. Historian, Sonya Rose, argues that anxieties about sexuality and the female autonomy had always been prominent in Britain (Rose, 1997). Yet, the large arrival of American troops during the summer and autumn of 1942 saw an aggravation in these anxieties amongst newspaper reporters, social workers, clergymen, members of ‘moral welfare organizations’, all of who believed that there would be an increasing spread in venereal diseases if sexual interracial relations occurred.

These concerns and aggravations manifested themselves through disciplinary techniques, for example: the excessive patrolling of predominantly black cities such as London and Liverpool. Some of these techniques included the police “routinely” patrolling bars, clubs, dance halls with the sole intention of preventing ‘coloured’ men from “becoming acquainted with white women” (Rose, 1997). Another disciplinary technique was the hiring of female police officers to deal with the young girls seen to hang around military encampments and lobbying the Home Office and local constabularies. As a result, mixed race relationships became a focal point because the authorities wanted to diminish the influence of black men over white women and ultimately deter the spread of the black population. This therefore suggests that interracial relationships were such a major concern in British society that the institutions/authorities were willing to counter their overall perceptions of the ‘inferior’ woman to resolve this.

The perception of the ‘inferior’ woman stems from the initial reluctance to hire female police officers prior to the post-war period. For instance, when their [female police officers’] predecessors campaigned in World War One to persuade the constabularies to hire women, this was highly contested. However, as Philippa Levine exerts, their persuasion in the post-war period was somewhat successful; this essay will concede that this was only for the sole purpose of monitoring the movement of black men (Levine, 1994). The monitoring of black men thereby conveys that, in order to be a ‘model’ citizen in the post-war period, black men would have to be segregated from white people. Making it clear that black men were perceived as a threat to British society because they were not trusted to integrate with white women.

The fact that institutions were willing to hire white women as police officers to control the issue of sexual interracial relations can also be seen as contradicting. I argue this because of the hypocrisy in the fascination that white Britons had towards the presence of African Americans GIs. Furthermore, white Britons found comfort in the hostility that white American soldiers posited towards black Americans. This is despite their own segregated public areas (e.g. bars for ‘coloured’ people and bars for white people were not unheard of in some areas of Britain) and the excessive patrolling of black bodies. In spite of this, white Britons still believed that racism was an external problem that had been foisted into Britain from the “outside” (Hall, 1978). Hall concedes that this is why many believe the discourse on issues of race and relations between British people and those of Afro-Caribbean and the Indian sub-continent descents began with the first wave of immigrants (circa, 1940s – 1950s). Hall’s argument demonstrates how pinpointing the discourse on problems surrounding race relations was the foundation of the perception that blackness was synonymous with crime in the 1970s and onwards. Thus, acting as a soundboard for understanding how the negative portrayals of black men in Britain developed throughout the 20th century.

Furthermore, David Reynolds suggests that the attitudes that many Britons had towards interracial relations resembled that of Americans, this is a further indication of how British attitudes towards black presence was hypocritical (Reynolds, 1995). Reynolds’ suggestion is strengthened by ‘Mass Observation’ reports that have highlighted that 1 in 7 of the unsolicited comments on interracial sexual relations aroused strong dislike. Moreover, while some Britons were not necessarily explicitly racist in social or professional environments, the majority were still avidly against “intimate relations with ‘coloured’ folks” (Rose, 1997). Many went as far as saying that anything that would sexually affiliate black people with white people should be prohibited by laws. This calls into question the popular belief that racism was merely an external issue that had been foisted in Britain. The Black Power activist, Obi Egbuna, challenges this argument when he contends that, while “there is a difference between the racialism in America and the racialism in England ... I disagree when the Englishman tells me that it is worse in the States.” I will continue to argue that racism is as much a problem in Britain as it is in the States. The belief that racism has been ‘foisted in Britain’ and is ultimately not a problem here, removes white Britons of all accountability from their expressed microaggressions to the more extreme race hate crimes.

Such attitudes towards interracial relationships can be intricately linked to how these types of relationships marked a phase in the emergence of a “new racial state” (Carby, 2009). Ultimately the presence of black men threatened the longevity of the British Empire. Furthermore, the spectre of mixed raced babies from the first wave of immigrants were thought to be a product of this threat because they blurred the racial lineaments of British national identity (Tabili, 1994). More specifically, cities such as Cardiff and Liverpool encountered large numbers of black communities, with up to 2,000 black people settling in each city. Meanwhile, cities such as London and South Shields only had concentrations of approximately 1,000 black people settling in 1942. The increasing black presence was believed to have threatened the longevity of the British Empire because the multicultural shift now allowed black Britain to define itself crucially as part of the diaspora. Laura Tabili summarises these policies to limit and mould the presence of black men in Britain as long standing, if not successful, this equally demonstrates that black people were not welcomed into British society. Their role during the war was strictly to serve Britain (and other western countries), but not to become integrated into British society. Thus, illustrating that black identity was increasingly marginalised and that black people were not given the freedom to create their own identity as the ‘model’ black citizen. It also strengthens the argument that Britain’s condemnation of American segregation served as a cover for British racism. This argument should be considered when discussing and defining institutional racism in Britain in the context of the Stephen Lawrence Murder (1993), the MacPherson Report (1999), and how institutional racism moulds the role of black people in British society through racist stereotypes.

Racism was seldom acknowledged as an internal problem during the post-war period because white Britons failed to comprehend that their ‘tolerance’ of black people in Britain could coexist with racism. In the past, racism had been theorized as “an expression of the prejudice that some individuals harboured towards those they regarded as culturally different and inferior” (Rizvi, 2015). Hall did not harmonize this theory when he conceded that racism is more complex than this — a point that has been made evidence in the 1980s by case studies such as Samuels v Argyle and the Scarman Report. The Scarman Report, which materialised out of the Thatcher Age, should be viewed as evidence that supports Hall’s argument on how brutality of Thatcherism gave rise to new forms of racism under the guise of ‘authoritarian populism’ (Hall, 1978). Historian, Fazal Rizvi contends that these new forms of racism also masked their destructive effects on the black communities in Britain. I will detail how covert racism, fuelled by stereotypes of black people, manifested itself through institutional systems such as the Metropolitan Police. This in turn led institutions to mould a specific, albeit negative, image of the black man as a criminal.

This definition of racism reinforced that tolerance was distinguished as mutually exclusive with the tendency to abstract race internal political and social basis and context in British society. Hall strengthens this point when he argues that white Britons dealt with the issues of race as if it had little to do with the current situation (excessive patrolling of interracial relations) in Britain at that time. An argument that was echoed in 1968 by Egbuna. Yet, the policing of mixed-race relationships suggests otherwise. The lack of acknowledgement and ultimate denial invalidates the experiences of black immigrants existing in Britain during the peak of its newly multi-cultural age. Hall stresses that neither the left nor right could bring themselves to admit that attitudes towards the current situation were a result of Britain’s imperial and colonial past (and in the final analysis, it was about reconfirming the boundaries of empire). Hence, British political parties pretended that “racism is not endemic to the British social formation” (Hall, 1978). I will argue against this because racism proved to also be endemic to how black men were portrayed in Britain. This argument that racism is not endemic to the British social formation is harmonized in the Scarman Report (1981) and parts of the Macpherson Report (1999). In 1981, Lord Scarman's Report into The Brixton Disorders was presented to Parliament. In that seminal report Lord Scarman responded to the suggestion that “Britain is an institutionally racist society” in this way:

“If, by [institutionally racist] it is meant that it [Britain] is a society which knowingly, as a matter of policy, discriminates against black people, I reject the allegation. If, however, the suggestion being made is that practices may be adopted by public bodies as well as private individuals which are unwittingly discriminatory against black people, then this is an allegation which deserves serious consideration, and, where proved, swift remedy.”

It is this flawed perspective — that racist and discriminatory conduct cannot be knowingly enacted — that allows the British society to fervently argue that they are no more racist than America. However, as Obi Egbuna strengthens, it is Britain’s covert racism that worsens the subtle discriminatory policies adopted by institutions such as the Metropolitan Police because, at least in America, the ‘bad’ slave-master “makes the slave realize” the abuse about to transpire without coercion (Egbuna, 1968). Therefore, no matter how subtle the racist act is, racism is endemic and damaging to how black subjects are portrayed in Britain.

Mr and Mrs Lawrence alleged and “fervently” believed that “their colour, culture and ethnic origins” of them and their murdered son, affected how the investigation into the Stephen Lawrence case was dealt with and pursued (Macpherson 1999). The Macpherson Report explains that in general terms, racism “consists of conduct or words or practices which disadvantage or advantage people because of their colour, culture, or ethnic origin. In its more subtle form it is as damaging as in its overt form” (Macpherson, 1999). As Hall has argued, racism is much more complex than this. Dr Robin Oakley echoes this when he asserts that institutional racism separately occurs “not solely through the deliberate actions of a small number of bigoted individuals, but through a more systemic tendency that could unconsciously influence police performance generally” (Macpherson, 1999). This hints at the racist stereotypes that British society defines black men by, which this essay will explore in greater detail later.

To conclude, this section of Chapter One — ‘Can the Black Man Ever be a Model Citizen?’ — sought to highlight how concerns about the presence of black men, whether they were Afro-Caribbean or African American GIs, were centred around the miscegenation of black men and white women. The black male body was not seen fit enough to be racially ‘pure’ as it posed a threat to white supremacy. This suggests that black people in post-war Britain were perceived as a matter of life that inevitably navigated through British society. Black people and especially men were never accepted, they were merely tolerated. Furthermore, the term ‘institutionally racist’ did not gain currency until the publication of the MacPherson Report. The next section of this essay explores the different ways that institutional culture in police took pleasure in targeting black people before the ‘mugging’ panic and the Macpherson Report, thus centering on the periods between the 1970s and 1980s. I discuss case studies such as The Storey case in 1972 and the Samuels v Argyle case in 1985 to support the argument that the 1970s (and onwards) were the era of criminalization in Britain. This period would mould black men into criminals and not just a threat to white supremacy in Britain.

POLICING THE BLACK BODY

Despite the mid 1970s being the same period when black crime appeared to have a low profile, Gilroy, Hall, Kieran Connell and Tanisha Ford demonstrate that this was still the period where confrontations were intensified between the police and black youth in urban areas. These confrontations assumed a “more open, politicized form” which manifested themselves through political activism; individuals such as Clement Gomwalk and Chas Critcher shape the conversation about how young black men were perceived by their white counterparts (Hall, 1978). Despite individuals such as Chas Critcher using their dual privilege to improve urban areas such as Handsworth, Birmingham, I will argue that without the politicization of confrontations between the black community and the police, how Afro-Caribbean peoples were portrayed in the media, society and history, may have continued to be voiced and defined by white Britons.

The Stephen Lawrence murder should not be viewed in isolation when engaging in discourse about how this event shaped attitudes towards racism in Britain in the future and the prioritization of the image of young black men in Britain as criminals. ‘Policing the Black Body’ will focus on cases such as the Gomwalk incident in 1969 and the role that individuals such as Critcher played in propelling the conversation about institutional racism in 1970s Britain.

On one hand, it is clear that the idea that blackness was synonymous with crime intensified, this is highlighted by the constant surveillance of black movement in urban areas in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The British Black Power Movement (BPM) is a testimony of this, especially in Clement Gomwalk’s case. Gomwalk was a Nigerian diplomat who was interrogated on November 15th, 1969 by police officers after being spotted with his “luxury vehicle” in the car park outside of Desmond’s Hip City in Brixton (Ford, 2015). As established, the 1970s, though seemingly low in black crimes, was high in confrontations between the black community and the British law enforcement in urban areas such as Brixton. Hence, these confrontations assumed an openly politicized form due to acts such as the ‘Sus’ law (as part of the Vagrancy Act of 1824), which had initially been introduced with the intention to deter white people from using the waterfront to conduct legal transactions. ‘Sus’ laws enabled police officers to stop, search and potentially arrest suspects who allegedly breached section (4) of the Act. It was often the case that black people were the ‘suspected’ persons.

As the black population in Britain increased in the 20th century, the purpose of the ‘Sus’ Law (to deter illegal transactions conducted by white individuals) changed too. Therefore, police officers now racially profiled black and brown people and were protected under the guise of the ‘Sus’ law. It was around this point that black people began to be moulded as criminals in the public eye. This calls in question the extent to which negative racist stereotypes fuelled institutional racism. The Gomwalk incident exemplifies that even black individuals such as Gomwalk who had respectable jobs and could afford their “luxury” vehicles were still policed and treated as suspects and criminals. This suggests that black people were perceived as criminals because of the colour of their skin, not necessarily because of how they dressed. Furthermore, this racist stance failed to change as they neared the end of the century. The Macpherson Report reveals this in 1999, when Dr Oakley argued that:

“Police work, unlike most other professional activities, has the capacity to bring officers into contact with a skewed cross-section of society, with the well-recognised potential for producing negative stereotypes of particular groups. Such stereotypes become the common currency of the police occupational culture.”

The frequent surveillance raids of predominantly black venues such as Desmond’s Hip City (Brixton) and the Mangrove Hotel (Notting Hill) inevitably led to confrontations between black crowds and the police, which, at times, escalated into violence. Literature surrounding racial profiling focuses on how these spots were targeted because of the popular belief that criminals and activists allegedly attended them. Categorising black people as the same as criminals, under the basis of them either enjoying the predominantly black communities that they had created for themselves, or defending the black community (in the event that it was raided by the police) reveals that the ideal ‘model’ black citizen is expected to never challenge society’s negative portrayals of them.

Hence, it was advantageous and to some degree, necessary for black communities to have an ally in white people at a time when black crimes (such as ‘mugging’) were becoming a moral panic in 1970s Britain, that once again painted a negative image of young black men. This was a moral panic that had become generated by processes of social and political fragmentation that been underway in Britain since the late 1960s, but did not manifest itself until the 1970s. A key individual who used his dual privileges to challenge the inherent racism in Britain towards the black youth is Chas Critcher; Critcher was a white Ph.D student who, with Hall, co-established a community ‘action centre’ in Handsworth, Birmingham.This was a project that aimed to “raise the consciousness of the people” – black people – by giving them advice on social security issues, housing and police harassment (Connell, 2015). A space like this was pivotal to the underrepresented black community and the frequently targeted black man.

It was and still is important for predominantly black areas to have white allies/representatives who challenged the vagueness of the alleged equation between crimes such as ‘mugging’ and ‘black crimes as it became unclear what the two looked like. Petty crimes are often labelled as ‘muggings’, thus revealing that this is a term that is used incorrectly because it became a “catch-all label for mindless hooliganism” (Hall, 1978).This ambiguity allowed the term to continue to be associated with the problem attacks on bus drivers and underground crews, which ultimately intensified the politicization of black urban areas.

Still, there was some disparity between the students who helped run the community and the local residents that were being endeavoured to help. For Critcher, the dual privilege whilst navigating in multicultural Handsworth made him feel like he was living “two lives in parallel”, especially since there were parts of Handsworth that he could not possibly understand in depth due to him being white (Connell 2015). It was Hall’s Policing the Crisis that provided Critcher with the tools needed to acknowledge his white privilege and form a connection between his roles in Handsworth and the Birmingham Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies (CCCS). Critcher’s acknowledgement of his white privilege was important to the black community that he advocated for because it also allowed him to not only use his voice to challenge how black people were negatively perceived by white Britons but be listened to by his white counterparts.

The analysis that the 1970s was the era of criminalization dates to 1971, when ‘mugging’ became a label that was imported into Britain for certain kinds of crimes attached to the black youth in Britain’s urban cities. In Policing the Crisis, Hall explores and details the use of the term ‘mugging’ by the press and law; he examines the ‘mugging’ panic from the British society’s perspective. Such uses have led to the term becoming unambiguously assigned mostly as black crime in the 1970s, especially when we identify which crimes were passed off as a type of ‘mugging’. Petty crimes such as snatchings, pickpocketing and pilfering in the street have been painted under the guise of ‘mugging’. This means that the general census would indicate that black people had committed one form of ‘mugging’ rather than specifying which crime within the ‘mugging’ blanket they had committed. In short, this implies that the society had forged a link between ‘mugging’ and black crimes by naming most crimes committed by a black person as a ‘mugging’.

Consequently, I argue that by 1974, ‘mugging’ was misunderstood as a black crime, despite the white youth occasionally committing the offence too. Hall acknowledges that the media did not push the narrative that only black people were convicted for ‘mugging’, yet as the Samuels v Argyle case will encapsulate, the media also failed to dispute the narrative that blackness was synonymous with crime. Hall, Gilroy and John Solomos separately explore the argument that the media’s representations of young men of Afro-Caribbean descents were not only criminalized culturally, but the process of these representations influenced their experiences with the criminal justice system, as was the case for individuals such as Everton Samuels (Hall, 1978; Gilroy, 1987; Solomos, 1999). This brings into question the British media’s idea of whiteness as ‘pure’, the ‘mainstreaming’ of multiculturalism and how this affected how black people were encountered in British society.

Hall reveals that there was a significant rise in ‘muggings’ even in cities where there were no “substantial black settlement” (Hall, 1978). Nonetheless, some would argue that the themes of race and crime became “indissolubly” linked because each of these terms referenced the other in both the official and public consciousness (Hall, 1978). For example, Enoch Powell’s stance on ‘mugging’ is that it is a “criminal phenomenon associated with the changing composition of the population of Britain’s larger cities” (Powell, 1969). This agenda is no different to Powell’s infamous Rivers of Blood speech, which was essentially an attack on the Afro- Caribbean and Asian immigrants in Britain at this time. So whilst the media still reported the ‘muggings’ committed by white individuals, to say that the reception to such news was similar to the reception that the black youth experienced would be absurd. If Powell, like many others was attempting to blame the rise of ‘muggings’ in Britain’s bigger cities on the growing black population in Britain, then this is contradicted by the muggings in cities with no substantial black settlements.

Thus, ‘Policing the Black Body’ concludes that Britain is an institutionally racist society as institutions insisted on forging a link between the black youth and ‘muggings’; this reinforces my previous argument that the media and press did little to defend Black individuals that were under scrutiny. Essentially, the British media were another institution that worked against the Black community. By Lord Scarman’s definition, institutional racism occurs when “public bodies and private individuals adopt[ed] practices” (for example racial profiling and surveillance raids). This was the case during the ‘mugging’ panic and previously during the Gomwalk incident that discriminated against black people. Albeit, Scarman’s Report was published in 1981, society refused to acknowledge racism as an internal problem until the Macpherson Report in 1999, hence I argue that institutional racism did not gain currency until the end of the 20th century.

CHAPTER TWO — RACIST STEREOTYPES: MOULDING THE BLACK MAN

Not only did the mid 1970s see a notable shift in the pattern of emphasizing which crimes were classified under the umbrella term of ‘mugging’, it also revealed that racial delineation in reports became transparent. For example, the narrative was pushed that the victims of street crimes were middle-aged white Britons being attacked by black people in South London boroughs such as Lambeth and Lewisham. The unreleased report prepared by Scotland Yard and passed by the Home Secretary revealed startling statistics that fed into the ‘mugging’ panic episodes throughout the mid 1970s (Daily Mail, 1973). Rather than focusing on the “poverty, poor housing, lack of jobs and broken families” that first and second wave immigrants were affected by, articles such as Derek Humphrey’s have played a role in highlighting the “less dramatic or quotable” statistics when it comes to talking about ‘crime’ in Britain (Humphrey, 1972). There was instead a primary focus on the fact that street crime in Lambeth had ‘tripled in five years’. 1974 was the year worst on record for street crime with 203 ‘mugging’ cases that occurred in 1974, 172 were committed by back youth. These statistics intensified the narrative of the black man as a criminal (Lambert, 1970).

Selective quotations are a hyperbole that feed into the stereotypes of black people as criminals. This requires us historians to examine the position of the social group that the concept of ‘mugging’ had become associated with. This social group being the black youth, with the prioritization of young black men. Gilroy uses the Samuels v Argyle case in 1985 to highlight the significance of black crime in today’s racial discourse, however, I will argue that this is equally significant to the discourse in the 1990s (Gilroy, 1987).

The Samuels v Argyle case gained momentum when newspaper headlines such as ‘Lazy Rasta’ and ‘cheeky Little Rasta Angers Judge’ were published after Lord Argyle offered to help Everton Samuels — a “pot smoking Rastafarian on the dole for two years” — secure the post of a job, but was refused by Everton (Gilroy, 1987). This case highlights an “archaeology of representations” of black lawbreaking. For instance, institutional culture in the police took pleasure in targeting black people, this is evidenced by the languages used by individuals such as Argyle, when he stated that:

“I have to tell you that your attitude has done your own people no good … Your manner merely feeds the prejudice of those who think that anybody who is coloured is automatically unfit to be a member of society.”

Such statements strengthen the argument that black people carry the burden of representing their whole race through their actions. Stereotypes hinder the black community, yet this reception towards black people is survived and conveyed in the Macpherson Report in 1999 when Dr. Oakley conceded that the police were more subject to acting on stereotypes.

Literature on the stereotypes of black people goes beyond the racial profiling of individuals such as Clement Gomwalk under the ‘Sus’ laws. For example, Hall’s Policing the Crisis reiterates the story of three black boys – Paul Storey, James Duignan and Mustafa Fuat – who asked a Mr. Keenan for a cigarette one night on November 5th 1972. This case was to be called the Storey Case and it is otherwise known as the Handsworth ‘Mugging’ case, which has been briefly mentioned this essay. Hall details the incidents of this night, whereby Mr. Keenan was knocked to the ground and attacked three consecutive times (with 2 hours between each attack) by the same three boys. By the time of the third and final attack, only Fuat and Duignan took the initiative to call an ambulance, albeit they gave the misleading impression that they had merely “found” Mr. Keenan in his injured case (Hall, 1978).

The Storey case reveals how three boys deliberately disguised their deviancy by refusing to conform to stereotyped ideals of what young black criminals should look like. Gilroy expands on this idea when he points to a white reporter’s surprise at the fact that following the 1984 Notting Hill Carnival, a group of black youth who ‘mugged’ each passenger in his carriage on the tube looked “so normal” with their “expensive designer sweatshirts” (Gilroy, 1987). British society perceived Everton Samuels as the epitome of a criminal, this judgement was based off his dress sense, his sub-cultural affiliation and his black skin. Gilroy asserts that Samuels’ representation contains the “residue of his previous criminal incarnations” as a scrounger, knifeman and drug dealer.

There are clear inconsistencies with the racist stereotypes that have been used to mould an image of black men as criminals. Stephen Lawrence and his best friend Duwayne Brooks were merely two well-dressed black boys and yet, the Metropolitan Police still allowed their racist stereotypes of the black youth to influence how they approached the Stephen Lawrence murder.However, the Macpherson Report explains that this was inevitable “given the fact that these predominantly white officers only meet members of the black community in confrontational situations, they tend to stereotype black people in general” (Macpherson, 1999). Again, proving that blackness was perceived to be synonymous with crime and that institutional racism was not tackled in Britain. Racist stereotypes mean that newsletter outlets deemed it unnecessary to identify criminals as black when reporting ‘mugging’ crimes or reporting under headlines such as ‘Lazy Rasta’ and ‘Cheeky Little Rasta Angers Judge’.

Therefore, to conclude this section, the 1970s was the starting point for the emergence of criminalization of black people in Britain, as was exemplified by the ‘mugging’ panic. Yet, the 1980s proved to be the era that revealed inconsistencies to the definition of discrimination, thus challenging racist stereotypes of black people and ultimately showing that the idea of a ‘model’ citizen was constantly changing.

STEPHEN LAWRENCE: THE ‘MODEL’ BLACK CITIZEN

The 1999 Macpherson Report/Stephen Lawrence Inquiry was one of the repercussions of the 1993 murder of Stephen Lawrence, a young black man waiting for a bus in Bexley with his friend Duwayne Brooks. Although Sir William Macpherson of Cluny (Chairman) desired for the report to “identify the lessons to be learned” for all racially motivated crimes, this essay argues that the report also highlights the shift in media discussions surrounding issues of race and social policy. For Michael Mansfield, the media’s response to the Macpherson Report and Stephen Lawrence Inquiry could be identified as ‘the biggest sea change in media coverage of race’ (Macpherson, 1999). To fully understand this change in media coverage towards race that individuals such as Mansfield discuss, the Macpherson Report should, to some extent, be contextualized around the 1981 Scarman Report, which was equally fundamental in changing how issues of race were approached in British society.

The Scarman Report and the surrounding events reinforces that the visible presence of black and Asian bodies in all aspects of British social life was merely tolerated, not accepted because white Britons perceived such bodies as “a natural and inevitable part of the scene” (Scarman, 1981). Therefore confirming one of the arguments in Chapter One, that white Britons failed to comprehend that this ‘tolerant’ attitude toward black people in Britain could coexist with racism. Hence, Hall concedes that the multicultural drift in cities such as London is not the result of “deliberate and planned” policies to actively include black and Asian bodies into British society (Hall, 1978). Rather, it is the “unintended outcome of undirected sociological processes”, thus explaining why the new play of difference cross British society since the post-war period was highly uneven (Hall, 1999). Outside of the “undirected sociological processes”, racially-driven discrimination and racially- compounded disadvantage (through household poverty, unemployment and education under- achievement) still persisted. This strengthens the argument that while many white British people may now tolerate multiculturalism as a fact of life and to some degree accept it, this does not mean that they welcomed it. It is a key reason why black people had to be moulded to society’s standards of a ‘model’ citizen in order to fit in.

In 1981, the Scarman detailed what prejudice and discrimination was and how the black community were subject to such actions. Chapter Thirty of the Macpherson Report signifies that the Assistant Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police — Mr. Ian Johnston — is a key example of how prejudice and discrimination not only continued to exist in the 1990s, long after the Scarman report had been published, but they played a key factor in why policing failed at this time. It is revealed that prior to the Macpherson Report’s release, the Metropolitan Police did not fully understand racism. Mr. Johnston was under the belief that racism was only racism when it was overt. The burden was placed on Mr. and Mrs. Lawrence to explain that their complaint into Mr. Johnston’s treatment of their son’s case was because the investigation was “skewed and slowed down by racism”, so while this was not overt racism, it was definitely conduct driven by discrimination and prejudice. The consistent insensitivity towards the Lawrence family and the case in the years prior to The Macpherson Report, as well as the patronization of the Lawrence family conveyed that racism did slow down the progress of the investigation. This lack of comprehension of institutional racism and discrimination among the Metropolitan Police is one of the reasons why the burden falls on black people to explain what constitutes as racist to their white counterparts and ultimately redefine their position in society.

The ‘mugging panic’ put the black youth at the centre of the media’s agenda that ‘mugging’ was a predominantly black crime and that blackness was synonymous to crime. This is why, it comes as a surprise to learn that there was a political balance in how the Macpherson Report was retrieved. Tabloids such as the Mail and the Sun have a long history for their association with a hostile reception of multiculturalism and race related issues. However, when the Express newspaper shifted and assumed what Neal calls a “more liberal-leaning perspective” towards issues of race in the late 1990s and around the time of the Stephen Lawrence campaign, this marked the beginning of Britain’s internal awareness of its long history with institutional racism. Evidence of the Express newspaper’s shifting liberal perspective can be seen in the brief editorship of Rosie Boycott, the coverage that the newspaper gave to the Macpherson Report (which worked in favour of the Stephen Lawrence Campaign) and the critical response towards the Parekh Report (2000). The Parekh Report provided an example of the longevity of an anti-racism discourse, especially since media coverage at this time focused on the report’s dismissal of the exclusionary implications of the category ‘British’ – ‘British is Race Slur’ and ‘British is a Racist Word’.

Lastly, I assert that the Lawrence family were able to garner media support following the Macpherson Report’s release — despite Britain still being an institutionally racist society — because of class. Class silently contributed to the media support as was evidenced by accounts that frequently outlined the status of the Lawrence family. For instance, 1999 reports often noted that Stephen Lawrence had many educational achievements and aspired to venture onto respected career paths. The dignity of his family and their values which were deemed ‘right’ in the eyes of the media, was significant to this class play that would influence how and if the media supported the Stephen Lawrence campaign. This brings into question whether the media would have taken the same direction to support someone like Everton Samuels, who had been described as a “pot smoking Rastafarian”, had Samuels suffered Lawrence’s unfortunate fate.

I therefore argue that while the Parekh Report (2000) is correct that Britain had certainly improved when it came to embracing its multicultural identity, there is no denying that the extent to which black lives mattered in Britain was dependent on whether the black person was an exemplar British citizen. Once again this suggests that the young black man is moulded to British standards before he is respected as an individual whose life matters because he is human. The same can be said for how the Lawrence family were accepted and, in some cases, welcomed, rather than tolerated by society because of their class and ‘right values’.

CONCLUSION

Britain’s progression as a multicultural society was limited by the public and private sectors’ desire to mould black men into a perfectly crafted image before accepting them as a member of society. During the post-war period, the presence of African American GIs fuelled concerns about race and national identity, which in turn portrayed the black man as a threat to British whiteness because of their sexual relationships with white women. The monitoring of predominantly black areas proved to be a product of racism because this was racial profiling with the intention of preventing ‘coloured’ men from becoming acquainted with white women. As such, Rose, Carby and Stoler have confirmed that institutions would rather have protected the boundaries of empire by willingly countering their perception of the ‘inferior’ woman when they hired female police officers to police the movement of black men.

Throughout this essay, I challenge the popular belief that Britain is no more racist than America — hence their fascination with how white Americans treated African American GIs. However, as we emerge into the 1970s, with this being the era of criminalization (of black people), this belief is countered. It is clear that racism is not something that was merely foisted into Britain from the outside. Instead, the media painted the image of the black man as the scapegoat for petty crimes. This negative stereotype was supported by reports by the Scotland Yard, who forged a link between race and crime. The ‘mugging’ panic in the 1970s highlighted that there was a degree of prioritization of the image of young black men in Britain as criminals. The Samuels v Argyle case conveyed that this prioritization of black men did not falter in the 1980s. As the media’s response to other ‘black crime’ cases initiate (for example, the Stephen Lawrence murder), black men continued to be perceived a threat to British society as long as they expressed their African or Caribbean culture in the way that Everton Samuels did.

Despite the current global pandemic disrupting my ability to visit archives in support of this research essay, and thereby changing the original direction for this research essay project, I was still able to access a good amount of my sources online before the lockdown began. The Macpherson Report was one of the primary sources that were still accessible online and monumental for bringing to attention the issues of race within Britain even if this was only for a limited period of time. Although the details of this report garnered media and public support of the Stephen Lawrence campaign, this response equally revealed that black people, especially black men, were not relatable to white Britons unless they had the ‘right values. Therefore, I continue to argue that the Macpherson Report, though monumental for sparking an open discourse about institutional racism in the Metropolitan Police and British society, was limited in its influence.

Moulding black people in Britain — particularly black men in this case — was never about allowing them to choose between being a ‘model’ citizen and conforming to society’s standards. It was never about giving them agency over how they wanted to navigate through British society as a citizen. Rather, moulding black people was about controlling how they navigated in a country that did not see them as British (even when they were born there or had obtained their citizenship). This is because Britain, for the most part, tolerated black people, black people were not accepted or welcomed as a member of their society. As we come to the end of the 20th century, Britain’s idea of a model citizen slowly encompasses middle- and upper- class Black people; henceforth, the Lawrence case gained some supportive media attention at the end of the century. Of course, the Metropolitan police, as another institution, fails to progress to this stage, as is evidenced by their appalling response to the tragic murder of Stephen Lawrence (for example, the investigation launched by the police force on the Lawrence family to portray them and Duwayne Brooks as suspects. Instead of focusing on the prime suspects at hand who were white and far from Britain’s standardized definition of the ‘model’ citizen). Thus, this brings into question whether the black man can ever be a ‘model’ black citizen without adhering to society’s portrayal of him.

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