Intersectionality is Important.

 Hi, howdie, hello!

It’s Black History Month here in the UK. Did you know?

Every month should be black history month. Black history is world history. Nuff said. (And here’s a piece I wrote this month for TLG.)

Hopefully you have spent some time this month learning more about some of the heroes and heroines who have been whitewashed out of our volumes. I have!

That’s not what this blog post is about, though there is a link. I’m here to talk about intersectionality.

Intersectionality

Kimberlé Crenshaw 

The term ‘intersectionality’ was coined by civil rights activist Kimberlé Crenshaw in the 1980s. Simply put, it refers to:

The interconnected nature of social categorisations such as race, class, and gender, which combine cumulatively to create overlapping and interdependent systems of discrimination.

Even words like ‘socio-economic’ acknowledge that any given discriminative structure rarely exists in a silo. 

Gender

Sexism is one of the oldest systemic forms of oppression. It is embodied in numerous discriminatory practices. Beyond examples of gender-based violence: including sexual assault, rape and domestic abuse; which are perhaps the first that flooded your mind, the economic disparity between men and women shows more evidence of the trail sexism leaves in its wake.

The gender pay gap continues to be a thing. Journalist Samira Ahmed’s win against the BBC earlier this year highlighted that even when doing the same work as men, women are often paid less.

Enter Covid-19.

The coronavirus epidemic has deepened the disadvantage that millions of people across the globe were already living with.

Many women were already in financial precarity before Covid. Women are disproportionately more likely to work in jobs where contract hours are long, but pay is low – such as in hospitality, retail and care. When the full UK lockdown came into force, restaurants and non-essential shops were forced to close. The ramifications quickly became clear; a UK study released in May found that by that point in the lockdown, of those who had lost their jobs as a result of the pandemic, 78% were women. 

In addition to being more likely to be left jobless, women are also more likely to have their hours cut or to be placed on furlough. (This, paradoxically, exists alongside the reality that women are actually more likely to be key workers than men – working in supermarkets and as nurses, to give some typical examples.) And that’s just Covid-specific stuff. Outside of the pandemic, the unfair dismissal of pregnant women is still not a thing of the past.

Class & Poverty

It’s already clear to see that gender and economic status intersect. Being a woman, in itself, makes you more likely to earn less. So then, what about if you start your life already at an economic disadvantage – gender aside?

Studies conducted in 2019 showed that over 4 million children in the UK live in poverty – and contrary to common belief, the majority of these children live with working parents. Covid will have changed those figures for the worse, of course. (Not that the government cared enough to extend free meals to those will go hungry in the holidays without help.)

Mancunian footballer Marcus Rashford has drawn national attention to the issue of free school meals

Children growing up in poverty face a number of obstacles. Going hungry is nothing trivial and is terrible enough. In a home where parents struggle to find enough money to pay for food, there is often little cash spare to pay for gas and electric bills, to keep the family warm. Having to choose between having food on the table and having a home is a very real dilemma for some people in this country.

In homes where children are going hungry, it goes without saying that many of the privileges most of us take for granted, are out of reach. Fresh clothes. Money for stationery. Internet access.

How well can you really concentrate when your stomach is empty?

Is it any wonder that schools in deprived areas perform less well than institutions in affluent neighbourhoods?

The A-Level fiasco we saw in the UK this year demonstrated clearly that even though working-class people are already worse off, the system is bent on reinforcing their disenfranchisement. If you went to a state school in a disadvantaged district, managed to work hard and get high predicted grades despite this…  And all the same, found that the exam regulator had discarded all your teachers’ predictions – concluding instead, that as you went to such-and-such school, it was legitimate to award you results three grades lower than what you had been consistently achieving… How would you feel when you learnt that people who went to the independent school on the other side of town had received no such treatment?

The academic system routinely fails those of poorer backgrounds. Aside from financial capital, those in poverty often lack the cultural capital to successfully navigate processes such as university applications and university itself. And that’s “just” poverty.

What about when you’re poor and female?

There are these things called periods – you may have heard of them – which affect more than 50% of the population every month. I don’t know a woman who loves that time of the month, but I can think of girls and women for whom it is more than an annoyance.

There are girls and women in this country who live in such poverty that they can’t afford sanitary products. Yes, in this country. 

The pandemic has only exacerbated the issue. The charity Bloody Good Period typically distributes around 5,000 sanitary products to women and girls in Britain – in the first three months of the lockdown, that figure mounted to 23,000.

It is estimated that about 137,000 girls in the UK will miss school each year due to a lack of access to sanitary products.

Scarcity of money means that without help, girls and women who experience period poverty frequently resort to using toilet roll, pillowcases, or even newspaper to try and contain their menstrual flow.

The BBC estimates that in her lifetime, the average woman in the UK will spend about £1,600 each year on period. When you are a woman and poor, this is no joke. The intersectionality of double disadvantage cannot be dismissed.

Race

Last week, the newly-appointed Covid-19 and ethnicities advisor to the UK government declared that ‘structural racism is not a reasonable explanation’ for why a disproportionate number of BAME - Black, Asian and minority ethnic (I hate that term, but I’ve got to use it here) - people are dying of Covid. I say: intersectionality, my friend, intersectionality...

Structural racism, in its very terminology, acknowledges that racism does not exist in a silo. It is embedded not just into individual psyches, but institutional structures; into systems. 

It’s almost comical that a few days after this advisor’s words, Labour peer Baroness Lawrence published a damning report which elucidates the impact of Covid-19 on BAME people.

This conversation is about more than just, say, whether a patient receives adequate care from health workers when they are seriously ill. Intersectionality requires us to look at whole structures rather than single strands. In so doing, when we step back, we quickly see that systemic racism is cemented into the groundwork of each of the structures before us. 

BAME people are more than twice as likely to live in poverty than their white counterparts. They are subsequently more likely to live in overcrowded housing. And we know that Covid-19 is a dynamic virus which spreads easily in small spaces. Socio-economic factors mean that people of colour are also more likely to live in multi-generational households, which of course puts elderly members of the family at greater risk. These structural inequalities all factor into the overrepresentation of people of colour in Covid fatalities. This is a pattern that has played out in the US, too.

Reports have revealed that black people in the healthcare sector are more likely to be sent on the frontline of Covid treatment than their white counterparts, despite being at greater risk. 

It is silly to disregard the influence of race when it comes to any inequality.   

Black women are five times more likely than white women to die of maternal mortality.  – UK study.

There are a lot of feminists out there who pretend that every woman has the same experience of sexism. That just isn’t the case – and that’s why many women of colour now distance themselves from ‘feminism’; branding it ‘white feminism’. 

Anyone that declares that they are for the emancipation of women, has to be for the emancipation of all women. Anyone that calls themselves a feminist but is not simultaneously anti-racist, is not a feminist – they are only for some women’s rights.

Black women are often found at the bottom of the social ladder. Just think of Breonna Taylor. Apartment walls were deemed to matter more than her life. What that tells us about the value U.S. society ascribes to black women is frightening.

Sexual objectification is a prevalent problem which affects all women – but it reaches another degree when it comes to black women. Just look at how Serena Williams is treated. She’s described in papers as “aggressive”, animalistic features are attributed to her, and there’s an incessant focus on her curvy figure. Serena yells when she hits a tennis ball, granted, but when Sharapova and Arazenka screamed, I never heard anyone calling them gorillas. The centuries-old trope of black women as sexual beasts – sexy, but not pretty – can be directly traced back to human zoos which placed women like Sara Baartman in their display cabinets.

Serena Williams and her daughter Olympia earlier this year

I may not ever have been forced to participate in a “freak show” (thankfully), but I’ve most definitely been impacted by the hyper-sexualisation of black women. Most notably, in Italy, where men just presumed that they could ask me for sex. 

And we haven’t even talked about the stereotype of the “angry black woman”…

Disability

Imagine what happens when you are black, female, poor and have a disability. 

Or wait – let me just tell you how severe disadvantage gets if you are a black boy of Caribbean heritage in a low-income household, and have special educational needs (SEN). 

You are 168 times more likely to be excluded from school by the time you are 16 than a white British girl without special educational needs, who is from an affluent household.

In this case, yes, it is males that are more on the back foot. There’s good (bad) reason for that. Black boys in particular are often unfairly earmarked as troublemakers and academically incompetent, due to long-existing stereotypes.

To put the above statistic into perspective… 

Economically disadvantaged pupils who are on free school meals (FSM) are four times more likely to be excluded than those not on FSM. Black Caribbean pupils are three times more likely on the whole than white British pupils to be excluded. Pupils with SEN (disregarding the other disadvantages) are eight times more likely to be excluded than their peers without. 

And that’s just at the start of a child’s life. Think of how these adversities multiply as these children grow older…

.. And we haven’t even talked about physical disability…

Final thoughts

As you’ve read this far, I’d like to think that you, too, care about dismantling structural inequality. I hope I’ve helped you see, with just a few examples, that we cannot ignore intersectionality. Are you with me? Then let’s start changing these conversations – discouraging discussions which place any given inequality in a silo. If we don't holistically tackle injustice, we'll never truly tackle any of it.

Intersectionality is important.

How to be Anti-Racist: A Simple Guide.

 

“It is not enough to be non-racist, we must be antiracist.” – Angela Davis.

With a group of friends in Oxford a few years back, when we met Angela Davis!

On the date of this post’s publication, one-third of a year has passed since a black man lay on the ground, his neck crushed under the weight of the knee of a white police officer – for eight minutes, forty-six seconds. His name was George Floyd.

Some people have already forgotten about him. I hope you haven’t.

The merciless murder of George Floyd – on a sunny public holiday; his principal aggressor casually kneeling on his windpipe, hands in pockets, awakened an otherwise somnolent world to the reality of racism.

Or should I say, those who had the choice to sleep on this issue woke up with a start. The remainder of the population had been wide awake long before, because for them, racism is not fiction, it is reality.

Nobody selects racism from the spinning wheel of life and places it on their platter. We do not choose the skin we’re in.

Yet, even in 2020, the colour of our skin has a say in our quality of life – or indeed, our right to simply live at all.

I’ve been speaking about racism for a long time. I’ve been writing about it for a long time. (You can see that by checking my previous blog posts and elsewhere.) But I’ve found that in 2020, a lot more people have wanted to listen – and learn.

This blog post is an attempt to help you learn… What you can do to turn the tide of racism, which has been raging on our world’s shores for far too long. It is not an exhaustive guide. It is just a start. Ibram X. Kendi’s book How to be An Antiracist is a trending read at the moment; I haven’t read it yet but I expect that would provide a much more comprehensive guide.

George Floyd is just one of many black people who have brutally killed by racism. This week, the decision made to charge NO-ONE with the murder of Breonna Taylor, rubs salt on an already gaping wound: black lives still do not matter in the eyes of too many. 

 1. Make friends with people outside of your race.

I cannot stress the importance of this enough. Only hanging out with people that look like you, behave like you and think like you, narrows tremendously your perspective on life – and your views and assumptions about people different to you.

If you are white and you only have white friends, ask yourself why. Perhaps you have one black friend – maybe that is me! Perhaps the few black people you interact with have reached the level of becoming your acquaintances, your colleagues – and gone no further.

Why is that? Do you quietly think that if somebody of a different ethnic background enters your social circle, the quality of your cultural exchanges will somehow be diminished? Do you think black people are ‘too loud’? Do you want to stick to meals of meat, potatoes and veg – without the flavours and sensations of “ethnic”* food dancing on your tongue?

So many of the stereotypes that lie at the base of racial prejudice are caused solely by having little to no interaction with the group to which they are assigned. For example, when your daily media consumption portrays black men as ‘dangerous’ and ‘criminal’, the sight of a black man walking down the road is much likelier to elicit a ‘cross the road and clutch my bag’ response if, combined with this media misrepresentation, you have a dearth of black friends. If you actually have black friends, in spite of the fallacious propaganda, you would know that most black people walking down the road are literally just there to – walk down the road.

The benefit of making friends outside of your race isn’t just about proving stereotypes wrong. There is beauty in diversity. Many have yet to realise that everyone gains when there is diversity, not just minority groups. Bringing an array of backgrounds, cultural expressions and thought patterns to the table benefits everybody, just as an array of hues in a painting enriches its beauty.

If you are black or a person of colour of another background: do your friends all look like you? Why is that? Are you distrustful of other ethnic groups, or – are you unwilling to take a step out of your own small world into a wider one?

You are missing out on so much if you answered yes to any of my questions above. I hope you know it. There is so much to be gained from stepping out of your comfort zone: take a step into the wardrobe and you’ll see that your perception from behind the door is very different from the view on the other side!

 *I do not like the use of this word in this context, I am being fully sarcastic here.

2. Don’t assume that all people of colour have to offer you is insight into racism.

Yes, make friends from outside your race. Please do. But do not make friends with people of colour just so that you can tick a box. Nobody wants to be your token black / Asian / *insert ethnicity here* friend.

Yes, I am a black woman and much of my life experience has been shaped by racism. But there is a lot more to me and my story. I do not want to be your friend just so that you can pat yourself on the back and feel proud that you have a black friend in your life who can teach you about racism. Nobody does.

*Reality check: Maybe you think that having a black friend immunises you against racism. Wrong!*

Black people of course are not the only ethnic group gravely adversely affected by racism. Although our stories and experiences are of a different nature, other people of colour have their own stories to tell. They too, do not want to be your token representative. 

We are not a monolith. One black person does not represent the views and behaviours of all. And neither is racism the beginning, middle and end of our entire life stories. If you really want to get to know us, stop acting as though the only expert knowledge we have on anything is racism. Get to know us for us. 

3. Educate yourself.

This is such an important point that I’ve put it in twice.

Whilst I myself invite friends to have discussions with me about racism, I fully recognise that it is not my job to educate anyone. (Thank you to my friends that have reminded me of this recently.)

I believe that dialogue is hugely important, and I’m very encouraged by the many conversations I’ve been having with my white friends about issues of racism in recent months. I’m grateful that they are coming to me to ask questions and have a heart to learn more so that they can be part of the change.

However, it is mentally and emotionally exhausting for people of colour to do all the educating around racism. Before you ask your black friend / other friend of colour to help you understand their struggle, please do some research of your own. I do not want our conversation about racism to begin with you telling me that you didn’t know racism existed in this day and age! I do not want to start from square zero: use Google (you use it for everything else!) and get to at least square two before we start our racism lessons. Beyond that, read books, listen to podcasts, watch documentaries. There's a lot out there.

A much better way of having a conversation with your friend of colour is to ask them how they are doing after another horrific racist event has taken place. Sharing your outrage with them. Sharing with them something you learned recently in your own private anti-racism education. If your friend is in the mood, they may want to educate you more. But it is not their duty – they already carry the weight that comes with the colour of their skin. You can make their load a little lighter.

4. Practise CAREISM.

One night, a few days after George Floyd was murdered, I couldn’t sleep. (I couldn’t sleep for many days following the murder of George Floyd.) These words came to me in the night-time. It’s at night-time that God tends to drop profound lines in my head. I know they don’t come from me; they land in my head, unsolicited.

RACE scrambled = CARE

To be against racism, we need to practise CAREISM.

That is:

be Compassionate - mourn with the broken-hearted.

be Attentive - listen to the oppressed group as they tell you their stories. Be quiet for a bit.

do Research - racism is not new. Educate yourself by doing some research of your own.

have Empathy - don't just feel sorry for the oppressed group. Put yourself in their shoes.

be Indignant - don't allow yourself to become desensitized. Racism is evil. It should make you angry.

Speak up - even when it's uncomfortable. It usually is.

Keep Moving - Keep fighting the good fight.

To be against racism, you must first CARE.

C

Be Compassionate

I can’t explain to you what it is like to be a black person and see people that look like you being killed, just because they look like you.

It is traumatic.

Check psychological thought on this: it’s called secondary trauma.

We do not just feel ‘sad’ when we see the George Floyds, the Ahmaud Arberys, the Breonna Taylors… (the names are too many to list) being killed. We grieve. We mourn.

If you really want to join the cause of anti-racism, you have to grieve and mourn with us too.

A

Be Attentive

If you are not part of the oppressed group, please be quiet and let them speak about their experiences of racism. If you are white, you will never be black – no matter how hard the Rachel Dolezals and the Jessica Krugs may try.

It is not the delight of any person of colour to talk to you about their experiences of racism (yes, I used the plural version on purpose). When they have reached the point where they can let their guard down and be vulnerable with you, please honour their willingness and be humble enough to know that you are not the expert on this. There is a lot you can learn when you listen.

R

Do Research

I’ve told you about this one already.

E

Have Empathy

Sympathy is not enough. Feeling sorry for people of colour does not make racism go away. Sticking your head through the hole that we are buried in and going back up to your pleasant world, forgetting that racism exists, does nothing to dismantle oppression. Passivity does nothing. Activity is what we need. And that is the difference between being ‘non-racist’ and being ‘anti-racist’.

I

Be Indignant

In my experience, those that never feel a shred of anger about any type of injustice are the ones that are apathetic to it.

There is such a thing as righteous anger. Anger that something is going on that is not right. If you don’t feel angry about racism, you will never feel moved to turn it upside down.

Desensitisation is dangerous.

S

Speak up

Use your platform. Especially if you are white. Believe it or not, a lot of white people in your circle of influence will not listen to us people of colour talking about racism. But when you speak, suddenly, in their eyes, what we’ve been saying suddenly becomes credible. (It shouldn’t be that way, but it is.)

When as a white person, you acknowledge and denounce a system that historically has given you the upper hand… It is powerful. Don’t underestimate the chance you have to channel change.

Black and brown people certainly cannot fight the battle against racism alone. 

A person in shackles cannot take off their own chains. They do not have the power to do so. They can cry out; then can gesture to the places where the manacles are cutting into their body – but it is the free individual who has the most power to help them. 

What is incredible, is that black people have kept going despite being in chains… I often wonder how.

The more voices we have speaking out, the louder we’ll be heard. Add your voice, no matter what your skin colour. We need it.

M

Keep Moving

The race against racism is not for the faint-hearted. Congratulations to those of you that are still running this race.

‘We shall reap what we sow, if we faint not’.

To be against racism, you must first CARE. And I presume you do care, because you clicked on this post and read to the end. And so you’re already off to a good start. Let's keep going.

Noughts + Crosses: A Review of the 6th episode of the popular BBC drama series

 Before reading, make sure you watch episodes 1-5 of Noughts + Crosses, and read my reviews of them! The below review contains a few spoilers as to what has already happened so far in the series…

Links to previous reviews:

Episode 1

Episode 2

Episode 3

Episode 4

Episode 5

Rating: 4 stars ⭐⭐⭐⭐

There is A LOT of violence in this final episode of Noughts + Crosses. (Well, we don’t know if the drama will be re-commissioned for another series; here’s hoping!)

At times it does feel rather gratuitous. But at the same time, when rage, frustration, injustice and angst are blended together, things can get pretty out of control.

The much-loved grime rapper Stormzy makes an appearance in this episode, as the editor of The Ohene Standard newspaper, Kolawale. Stormzy delivers a pretty convincing performance. The guy can act, who knew?

Barely has the editor given the order: “Let’s party” to celebrate 100 years of The Ohene Standard, than the festivities are turned upside down. Members of the Liberation Militia barge in and smash at everything in sight.

It isn’t long before the police arrive, and though Callum and Jude manage to escape, their accomplice Nicola does not.

It is absolutely no surprise that Jude sees his friend being attacked, and runs away. He seems to be in the habit of creating trouble and then being too cowardly to take the blame for it. Although of course, knowing how brutal the police are to Noughts, we can sympathise with him to some degree.

Speaking of degrees, Sephy doesn’t want one. Her father cannot believe she doesn’t want to go to Okene-Aprica University, despite having been offered a place to study there. Okene-Aprica is depicted as a prestigious university, I suppose akin to Oxbridge. Persephone’s act of defiance signifies a rejection of the establishment, of the status quo. She doesn’t want to study at an institution that has created leaders that go on to continue the cycle of oppression against Noughts – her father being one of them. She doesn’t want to be part of a system that will teach selective history and stoke racial tension. More than this, Sephy’s decision to decline her offer shows the mind of a strong woman at work. Throughout the drama, Sephy takes up her place as an empowering female character – she has her own voice and she uses it even when men are trying to silence her.

Kamal, for once, is silenced by Sephy. He refers to his philandering with a Nought woman years ago – which produced his mixed-race son Yaro – as “outside silliness”. This is the same man who has been speaking of interracial relationships as evidence of an erosion of culture, and the products of them as “mongrels”. The hypocrisy is unreal. Furthermore, what would have happened if Yaro had not turned up at the Hadley house to tell Jasmine and her daughters the concealed truth, as he did in the last episode?

Jasmine and Sephy cannot cope with Kamal’s lies anymore, and decide to leave the home.

I don’t blame them. Kamal really does not seem to have a heart. In reference to the death of Nicola, after excessive restraint and force from police officers, he says “One of the culprits has already been… dealt with.” Who refers to the murder of a human being in such a way?

Kamal cares little about Noughts, and he cares little for his own family. He meets with editor Kolawale to ask him to discredit the (true) story that Yaro is going to tell the press. He will stop at nothing to cover his own tracks.

The word “halfer” is analogous to the offensive word “half-caste”. Kamal’s influence has meant Yaro is now being painted as a deranged attention-seeker.

Kamal isn’t the only one who does a lot of lying in this episode. So does Callum.

That’s not what he said about Sephy in the last episode!

Callum’s resolution to stamp out his feelings for Sephy enables him to take steps he would never otherwise have taken. In a drastic move to take power from Kamal, Jack Dorn authorises the LM to go for Sephy.

Callum is the bait, and Sephy takes it. In this moment, Callum becomes almost a Judas-like character, betraying the one he loves by first lavishing her with kisses – before he leaves room for the eagles to come swooping in.

The fear and betrayal in Sephy’s eyes cuts to the heart.

Callum watches on emotionlessly as another LM member thrusts a sack over Sephy’s head. This is not the Callum we know. What has happened to him?

Jude’s relentless taunting, questioning his brother’s loyalty to the cause, appears to be the push factor.

A look of approval and a pat on the back from Jack Dorn seems to have become Jude’s drug.

It is pitiful to see just how much Jude craves attention from the LM’s ringleader. His character is a prime example of how becoming marginalised and cast aside can lead someone to seek identity and value from the wrong people. Jack Dorn has essentially become his new father.

Speaking of fathers, will the father of Yaro Hadley please stand up – and be a real father? Nope. Nope, he won’t. All Kamal will do is pay off his illegitimate son and order him to go far, far away. Yet, as Yaro reminds him, no matter how many miles separate them, Yaro is not a fictional character. He is a bodily personification of Kamal’s romance with a Nought woman – evidence that he has broken all the rules he claims to stand on so firmly.

As different as they may be, Kamal and Jude are ultimately breaking the same rules. They are aligning themselves with a code which tells them that career opportunities and fame come before family. Their morals are being further flung out of the window, as their statuses rise. 

“This is my side. I brought you in”, Jude retorts, as his brother Callum reminds him that they are on the same side and fighting against the same system. Jude’s desperation to finally be a part of something, has come to trump everything. His relationships with his mother and brother are shrivelling away, all because the Liberation Militia has given him a new identity.

Sephy’s fear is palpable.

“She’s nothing. She’s nothing.” Callum repeats to himself, in an effort to reduce the woman he loves to a disembodied object. It’s a tactic used by many to reason away treating other human beings like animals. The Jews of the Holocaust were referred to as ‘rats’ by the Nazis. Black people were depicted as ‘monkeys’ during the slave trade and colonial era (and sometimes they still are). The Tutsis killed in the tribal genocide in Rwanda were called ‘cockroaches’. The same word was employed by Katie Hopkins to describe the refugees that drowned in the Mediterranean in 2015. The fact of the matter is, when people are stripped of their humanity, it is much easier to justify killing them or treating them with less, or little, dignity. That’s why today, we say 'Black lives matter' – for so long, black people were not even seen as human. In the United States, for a long time, black people were only seen as constituting three-fifths of a human being.

The very thing that the Crosses do to the Noughts – in treating them as naught – Callum is doing to his Cross girlfriend.

But two wrongs don’t make a right.

Callum knows that, deep down. Yet, with everything he has, he tries to fight his conscience. Avoid eye contact. Avoid talking to her. But that doesn’t change anything: Sephy is still there, and she is a still a human. A human being that he still loves.

And the mother and father that love her, too, will do all they can to make sure she stays alive.

I must say, this Police Commissioner is extremely annoying! Always butting in!

This wasn’t how you were going to change the world, Callum”, Sephy reminds Callum, as she sits with her back to the wall of her cell.

“Well, maybe it’s the only way left.” – comes Callum’s wistful response.

“No. It’s a choice you’re making.” Sephy replies, firmly.

This exchange is important. It gives voice to the desperation of a disenfranchised people, with centuries of oppression on their backs.

Desperation doesn’t cause only Callum and the Liberation Militia to go too far. Sephy also goes for desperate tactics in these desperate times. Angst and anger have transformed Callum and Sephy’s relationship from one of mutual love into a dysfunctional dynamic of extreme violence.

“I’m not your enemy”, Sephy tells Callum, as he retreats.

“No, you’re worse. Standing by, watching, doing nothing. All the while claiming that you love me.”

Ooh! That line from Callum! It echoes with the weight of centuries of white passivity, in the real world.

Martin Luther King Jr. talked about reaching ‘the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Councillor or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to "order" than to justice’. For ‘in the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.’

Callum’s words hurt her, but Sephy doesn’t argue with the validity of them.

She does argue, however, with how Callum is choosing to translate the sentiments of his mind into murderous action.

Of course, so do Callum’s mum and Sephy’s mother. The tension builds in their relationship as they seek to protect and fight for their children.

It is the same parental instinct that fuels Jasmine and Meggie that eventually causes Callum to recognise the deep error of his ways.

Callum extends his hand to Sephy, symbolising a ceasefire.

Though Callum and Sephy call a truce, that isn’t the way of Jack Dorn. Despite Kamal having stepped down from his position as Prime Minister as the LM demanded, Jack Dorn still wants further revenge.

The money for Sephy’s ransom isn’t enough for Jack Dorn.

The leader of the Liberation Militia wants power – and he cares not a jot about he gets it. Dorn relishes being the one in control when he meets with Kamal; being at the head of a hierarchy where he is usually at the bottom. He knows that where Sephy is involved, Kamal will do whatever he is instructed in order to keep her safe – Dorn knows he has Kamal right under his thumb.

It takes Jude a while to realise that his newly adopted father isn’t the man he thought he was. Jude’s panicked words to Callum show how wracked with guilt he is for not realising sooner – instead getting swept away with the tide onto the wrong shore.

The penny drops in a big way when the horrifying event that concluded Episode One, is brought into the light. Jude realises that it was, in fact, Jack Dorn, that killed their friend Danny – as he lay fighting for his life in the hospital.

Dorn feels no remorse for he did. He unashamedly states: “Danny’s death was a game-changer.”

What kind of racial justice activist kills his own people in order to bring about change? Dorn is a malignant opportunist who will go to unimaginable lengths to further his own ends.

Just how far will he go?

How does the episode end?

The series?

I’m not going to tell you. You have to watch it for yourself! Literally today, because it expires on BBC iPlayer tonight at 10pm, on the day I write this! But I will say, this a phenomenal final episode to end a phenomenal series.

Thank you for reading my reviews - I hope you have enjoyed them and enjoyed the show!

All six episodes of Noughts + Crosses are available to watch on BBC iPlayer and various other streaming services outside of the UK. Go and watch it! I've tried not to give away any key spoilers!

Noughts + Crosses: A Review of the 5th episode of the popular BBC drama series

Rating: 4.5 stars ⭐⭐⭐⭐ (you know, I can't find a half-star!)

The below review contains a few spoilers as to what has already happened so far in the series, so make sure you watch the previous episodes and read my other reviews first.

Links to previous reviews:

Episode 1

Episode 2

Episode 3

Episode 4

“We’re receiving news that the terrorist Ryan McGregor, otherwise known as the Decimator of Demwa, has died.”

This is the last we see of Ryan McGregor.

In the final moments of the previous episode of Noughts + Crosses, we saw Ryan brutally attacked by a Cross inmate, on the night of his sentencing.

The next we hear of him, in this episode, is that he has died.

It’s a shocking turn of events – Ryan had just been sentenced to 30 years in prison, rather than death by hanging. And now, instead of 30 more years to live, he has been afforded only a few more hours.

Meggie is completely dumbfounded by the news, as are we.

The most shocking thing is, she does not learn of her husband’s death through a sympathetic phone call from a prison official; she discovers that he has died from the television news bulletin. Such a lack of human decency – failing to inform his family in person of the news that will shatter their lives – brings home just how little the Crosses care about Noughts. Truly, they see no humanity in them – so why would they treat them like humans? 

The cup Meggie is holding falls to the floor and shatters into pieces. Sustained musical tones drown out the news, and the camera pans shakily around to show Meggie, still. She becomes a blurred statue in the camera frame as her sons rush down the stairs.

Like that cup, their lives have just been shattered into pieces. Commotion may whirl around them, but the axis of their world has lost its place. 

Noughts + Crosses does a brilliant job of depicting the harsh realities of racial injustice and racial tension, but it also does a phenomenal job of illustrating the realities of human relationships. Bereavement is the most severe rupture of a human relationship possible, and we see its effects at work in this episode.

“I can’t believe they’ve put me on hold”, Meggie says in disbelief as she paces up and down the living room. Neither can I.

The McGregors head to the prison, to ascertain the facts for themselves, as no one is telling them anything. 

The stone-cold grey lighting cast over this scene reflects the dismal mood. It is impossible not to be touched by the palpable grief of Meggie and her sons.

“All I can tell you is, his body was found last night in his cell and was then moved to the prison morgue.”

That is the clinical reply from the receptionist to Jude as she faces him from behind her protective glass screen. The receptionist may feel an ounce of discomfort in following such harsh orders, but she does not have to live the grim reality that the McGregors are now shut up in.

To learn of Ryan’s death through the news is bad enough. To then meet with those who should have told them in the first place, only to have the facts withheld, and then be told they are barred from seeing Ryan’s body… The disregard for Nought life is so tangible, it is as though it is hurtled at you through the TV screen.

“He killed himself?” – Jude  

“But you can’t tell me how or why?!” – Callum

It seems more than a little suspicious that Ryan’s corpse is being kept under lock and key. Doubts that his death truly was a suicide begin to surface relatively quickly.

The death of Sandra Bland is a real-life case where doubts have been cast over the ruling of suicide. When her mugshot was first released, the public even doubted that Sandra was still alive at the time it was taken, due to her appearance in the photo. Sandra’s death was ruled a suicide, but the nature of her violent arrest – for a failure to indicate – and her death in prison three days later, showed profound misconduct on the part of Texan police. Here in the UK, Simeon Francis died in police custody during the lockdown. The cause of his death remains unknown. Kingsley Burrell suffered a cardiac arrest in Birmingham in 2011 after being subjected to excessive restraint by police officers – his body was only released to the family 17 months later. 

Kamal the Gaslighter

As well as highlighting the evidence of racial injustice, Noughts + Crosses is extensive in its social commentary of abusive relationships. The marriage between Kamal and Jasmine is clearly one in which Kamal controls and manipulates his wife. 

In an act of defiance against him in the last episode, Jasmine shamelessly used money from Kamal’s account to fund Ryan McGregor’s defence – to support her friend Meggie and her family. 

Her defiance is quickly broken down though, under the merciless, manipulative hands of Kamal. His behaviour is a classic example of gaslighting: he makes Jasmine believe that she is losing her mind. In a matter of seconds, he has eaten away at her self-confidence. 

This creepy stare from Kamal sends shudders down my spine.

Ryan’s death changes EVERYTHING.

As the family battles their grief, Meggie warns Callum not to allow his anguish to turn into rage and revenge. She cautions him not to join the Liberation Militia. But this time, Callum doesn’t seem to be against the idea, “if the cause is right”.

Precious few seconds after this talk of the LM, the voice of their leader Jack Dorn echoes through the air. Dorn is one of my most hated characters on the show! He is an unscrupulous opportunist who enjoys gratuitous acts of violence. It matters little to me that he claims the cause behind his trouble-stirring is Nought dissatisfaction – the trouble that he stirs takes the lives of the Noughts he claims to care about! 

One of the more frustrating things though, is that Jude, still disenfranchised and still struggling with his identity, is quickly sucked into the web that Dorn is spinning. 

I don’t really understand why Jude is dumb enough to listen to Jack Dorn again, after all the trouble he’s caused their family.

“They killed him. Deliberately.” 

That is the assertion of Jude when he returns home to find his brother Callum, still sunken in hopelessness. Callum, the much more optimistic of the two, isn’t ready to believe those words.

After some time to reflect, however, the possibility no longer seems outlandish. Callum brings his thoughts to Sephy, and as usual, she chooses wilful ignorance – because anything else will change the level of comfort she’s afforded. She doesn’t want her father’s upcoming position as interim Prime Minister to be jeopardised.

Why is it always about YOU, Sephy?

At Kamal’s inauguration, however, the story isn’t all about him.

The beading on Jasmine’s hair – and her jewellery, point to the richness of various African cultural traditions.

As Kamal speaks of implementing tighter controls and greater police presence, a group of Noughts head to the front of the crowd, their chests covered with red and their hands in chains. Their message is clear: you say we are free, but everywhere we are in chains.

This breathtaking statue never gets boring!

Kamal’s first act as Prime Minister is to chuck the former Prime Minister, Opal Folami’s draft of an interracial bill, into the bin. Or, at least, to command that his cabinet do so – despite some opposition.

The ministers can’t believe the vitriol they are hearing from the new Prime Minister.

In a society where the idea of Noughts and Crosses forming interracial relationships is seen as engendering “mongrels”, it is perhaps no surprise that the loss of Ryan is handled so unfeelingly.

Meggie receives this letter from the prison. Identified only with a number, Ryan is not even to be buried by his own family, but only be 'disposed of' by the state.

Callum cannot believe the height of the depravity. “They’re disposing of him like a dog!” he yells at Sephy down the phone. And at a cost that is unimaginable for a family that is already struggling to pay rent.

It is more than a little suspicious that the family are not going to be allowed to see Ryan’s body before it is 'disposed of'.

Even Sephy begins to suspect foul play.

Kamal the gaslighter, at it again.

“I just think the time for silence is over.”

Such is the assertion of Meggie as she speaks to Yaro. Her words run through the current of events that follow. What has been hiding in the dark comes to light.

Kamal, after ordering his secret service officials to take Callum from his home offers up the flippant words: “Apologies for the nature of the invitation. It’s the only way I could assure your attendance.”

You will have to watch the episode for yourself to find out how their conversation goes.

Jude, the recruited, now becomes the recruiter.

We never expected this to happen, but in desperation, people take desperate measures.

Callum turns down a different path to the one that he would usually take, and Jasmine opts for a completely different mode of thinking from her husband – when she tells her daughter Sephy to follow her heart. 

The sentimentality doesn’t last long, though. The next scene is frighteningly jarring. 

The prison guard that tried to protect Ryan reappears.

“There were orders. […] From the warden, maybe higher even, I don’t know”, the prison guard tells Callum.

What follows is shocking stuff. The Callum that we see now is incongruous from the one we knew at the start of the series. Being led down a path of crime is common amongst those who have experienced relentless hurt and angst at the hands of an unjust system. 

The sight of the car screeching away with its angry tail lights, leaving two women feeling heartbroken and helpless in the ruins left by the men they love, is heart-wrenching.

I can't recommend enough watching this episode to find out more for yourself. There's a lot that happens that I haven't told you about. Be quick about it though; at the time of writing, here in the UK, the series is only available until tomorrow!

All six episodes of Noughts + Crosses are available to watch on BBC iPlayer and various other streaming services outside of the UK. Go and watch it! I've tried not to give away any key spoilers!