Absolutely outstanding, essential reading for anyone British or who wants to understand Britain. One of the most enlightening books I've ever read in its treatment of how race, class, colonialism and empire intersect, mainly in Britain but also across the world. It's in part a personal memoir, some of which is blood-boiling about the injustice and casual cruelty of teachers and the institutional bigotry that continues to underestimate black kids. (Akala was put in a special needs class basically...

This made me sad, it made me angry, it changed the way I think about things and I may have to go back and listen to parts of it again. Akala is coming to Dunedin as part of the Dunedin Writers and Readers Festival, I'm a trustee and try to read the books prior to the writers arriving. This was an unexpected read for me. I didn't really know much about Akala prior to him being booked for our festival but I'm so pleased that I have learned some more about this interesting person. He is articulate,...

It is incredible how much knowledge Akala draws on to develop a very personal and compelling argument about race in the world today. It is not just about the story he tells, but the way he tells it. His humour, wit and sardonic tone throughout make this a very easy and engaging book to go through, even making me laugh out loud at times despite its dark subject matter. A must read for all.

I first came across Akala via this awesome track: Comedy, Tragedy, History, a wonderful twist on Shakespeare. Then I came across a review of ‘Natives’ in the Guardian (of course) and was immediately intrigued. This book is a moving account of growing up mixed-race in Britain and an incisive account of racism’s history in America and Europe which also asks wider questions about class, historiography, and politics. I learned a lot from it, notably about Cuba’s role in the fall of South African apa...

This book is about how the British class system interacts with and feeds off a long and complex relationship with empire and white supremacy, and how these social forces can manifest in and shape the life experience of a random child, born to a father radicalised as black and a mother radicalised as white, in early 1980s England. The above quote (at the end of the first chapter) summarises nicely the central premise of this book, which (as a number of reviewers here have commented) should be

I'm utterly disgusted with the level of racist abuse that the three Black English players received on social media since missing penalties in the European Championship Final.I felt that one way to support them was to learn more about systemic racism in Britain and this was a brilliant starting point.The most obvious section that stood out was with the press handled sprinter Linford Christie's Olympic success in 1992 by spending more time acknowledging his 'lunchbox'.There's similar parallels tod...

First things first, I didn’t know anything about this guy before the book was recommended to me by Mimi. I got most of the way through before it even occurred to me he might be somebody. Today, after writing most of this, I thought I had better listen to some of his music. I can’t help it, I find rap just too repetitive and it all sounds too angry to me. One of the songs I listened to I literally couldn’t understand what was being said at all. I’m not the audience for his music, I accept that.An...

this was not an easy read, but an important one. I admire most about this book the tangents and the systematic unpicking of all sorts of arguments one hears about the conversations about race, privilege and “equal society”. And not just about Britain but about the reaches of empire and impact of Empire way past its expiry. I found this super interesting, instructing and it taught me a great deal. and I am left with this feeling of hope that this sudden surge of these types of books is not just a...

Akala seems to think that people who oppose his views either deny racism exists or that they don’t care about minorities (I’m ethnically Indian myself). This couldn’t be further from the truth. Of course racism still and, to a certain degree, will always exist. Black communities in the West do indeed have problems that need to be addressed but there is no evidence to suggest that in the 21st century these problems are due to rampant racism. In fact the Left’s solution of tearing down Western cul...

A rapper’s journey to adulthood, armed with emancipatory histories…Preamble: --Diaspora: coming from an educated immigrant family, my awareness of this personal perspective varies. The reason the global division of labor (and thus global capitalism, or just capitalism) is such a compelling subject for me should be obvious; it has completely changed my life’s path on a visceral level. For parents to migrate in search of a better standard of living, and sacrifice their own social roots as well as

This is a combination of memoir and polemic about class and race and its intersection. It is analytical and looks at the history of empire. It has been compared to The Autobiography of Malcolm X (by David Olusoga amongst others). Akala is a rapper, poet, activist, author, Corbyn supporter, MOBO award winner, founder of the Hip-Hop Shakespeare Company amongst other things. His older sister is the rapper Ms. Dynamite. Akala has a Jamaican father and a Scottish mother.The memoir parts are particula...

Akala gives a nice overview of his life growing up as a mixed race child and clearly outlines his difficulties in every day life and how that sculpted and shaped his worldview. It is clear that race in the UK does have an impact on our lives and those around us, though many may not realise this.This book gives a good account of problems concerning race in the UK and mentions some clear historical moments where racism was very evident in society yet nothing was done about it. This continues to ha...

* I audiobooked this and I highly recommend that as the author read it and was excellent at getting his points across succinctly and in a super engaging way *This book is challenging, fantastic and thought-provoking. I went into reading this one straight after another book Black and British: A Forgotten History which was a long history of Britain's slave past. I found that one harrowing, but also a little disconnected from 'me' as it covers a long course of history and although it's a brilliant

I wish I had a pocket-sized Akala to whip out whenever I hear someone talking ignorant ****, so that he can drop some knowledge on them!

"What happens once money no longer whitens? When whiteness is no longer a metaphor for power? When whiteness is no longer default? When Chinese or Indian actors can be ‘universal’ sex symbols in the way that Brad Pitt and George Clooney are thought to be? When the world’s leading economies are decidedly in Asia? Whiteness will have to find a totally new meaning."In short, read this book.

A well written, fantastic non-fiction work, really thought-provoking and absolutely worth a read.

Superb. This should be required reading for at least every white person in the UK in 2018. Akala dissects British culture and puts it firmly in its place in the world and in history. He mixes this in with accounts of his own life growing up in Camden in the 80s, from the moment he realised his mother was white, to "Linford's lunchbox". He shows us how thoroughly British society disadvantages black people, how it is does it, and why it does it. I couldn't help but be constantly impressed by his r...

Please note: I don't rate nonfiction and memoirs. This was enlightening. In a nonfiction category that's normally over saturated by Americanised literature, this was a breath of fresh air. Well researched and argued, Akala has a passion and intellect that's quiet and pervasive at times, at loud and opinionated in another. It's nuanced, well researched and informative and helps build on knowledge that I acquired from Black and British: A Forgotten History. In particular I was, yet again, appalled...

‘Natives: Race and Class in the Ruins of Empire’ is at once a memoir, a detailed sociological investigation of racism, and a whistle-stop tour of global politics from London to Beijing, with stops at Johannesburg, Kingston, Havana, Glasgow, New York, Hanoi, Bahia and Harare. We get an engaging and nuanced analysis of several themes, including the state of British culture, the historical function of racial superiority theories, the legacy of colonialism, the pernicious racism that can be found th...

This is a difficult book to read, if you are white. It forces you to confront with your own prejudices and to dig deep under expressions such as "black-on-black violence" that you most probably have somewhere in your mind as a category to (not) understand the news. Have you aver tried to frame the conflict in Northern Ireland, or the Mafia wars, as "white on white violence"? Of course, slavery is the beginning of the problems. And of course we all reject slavery (and have celebrated the end of a...