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Brit(ish): On Race, Identity and Belonging Paperback – Illustrated, January 1, 2019

by Afua Hirsch (Author)

4.6 1,769 ratings

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Where are you really from?

You’re British. Your parents are British. You were raised in Britain. Your partner, your children, and most of your friends are British.

So why do people keep asking you where you are from?

Brit(ish) is about a search for identity. It is about the everyday racism that plagues British society. It is about our awkward, troubled relationship with our history. It is about why liberal attempts to be "color-blind" have caused more problems than they have solved. It is about why we continue to avoid talking about race.

In this personal and provocative investigation, Afua Hirsch explores a very British crisis of identity. We are a nation in denial about our past and our present. We believe we are the nation of abolition, but forget we are the nation of slavery. We are convinced that fairness is one of our values, but that immigration is one of our problems. Brit(ish) is the story of how and why this came to be, and an urgent call for change.

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Praise for Brit(ish)

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"Brit(ish) is a wonderful, important, courageous book, and it could not be more timely: a vital and necessary point of reference for our troubled age in a country that seems to have lost its bearings. It’s about identity and belonging in 21st-century Britain: intimate and troubling; forensic but warm, funny and wise." —Philippe Sands

"Brit(ish) brings together a thoughtful, intelligent, accessible, informative investigation on Britain as a nation not only in the midst of an identity crisis but in denial of what it has been and still is." —Dolly Alderton

"Highly personal and yet instantly universal, this is a book that millions will instantly relate to. Hirsch places her own lifelong search for identity and a sense of Britishness against the backdrop of our national identity crisis. Part historical exploration, part journalistic expose of racism and class disadvantage in modern Britain, this is a book searching for answers to some very big questions. Delving behind words like 'prejudice', 'disadvantage', 'structural-racism' Hirsch unpacks the real world impact of these forces and on the lives of real people. Written with passion not anger, insight rather than resentment, on the issues of race, identity and the multiple meanings of Britishness this is the book for our divided and dangerous times." —David Olusoga

"Memoir, social analysis and an incisively argued challenge to unconscious biases: this is a truly stunning book on racial identity by a remarkable woman." —Helena Kennedy

"[A] bracing and brilliant exploration of national identity … Through her often intensely personal investigations, she exposes the everyday racism that plagues British society, caused by our awkward, troubled relationship to our history, arguing that liberal attempts to be colour-blind have caused more problems than they have solved. A book everyone should read: especially comfy, white, middle-class liberals." —Bookseller, Editor's Choice

About the Author

Afua Hirsch is a writer and broadcaster. She has worked as a barrister, as the West Africa correspondent for the Guardian, and as social affairs editor for Sky News.

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ 1784705039
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Vintage; Illustrated edition (January 1, 2019)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 384 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 9781784705039
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1784705039
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 2.31 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5 x 1 x 7.75 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #144,260 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #135 in England History
- #408 in Cultural Anthropology (Books)
- #468 in Discrimination & Racism

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4.6 1,769 ratings

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4.6 out of 5

1,769 global ratings

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Clifton Dobbs III

very thoughtful and well written piece. Highly recommended.

Reviewed in the United States on July 7, 2023

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I wanted to complete this book prior to visiting London for the first time. I wanted to have some insight on what the current racial realities are from the prospective of it’s black population.

The author is a very deep thinker, who has taken the time to carefully articulate complicated nuances of British society.

Reviewed in the United States on May 18, 2023

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An excellent insight into Black Britain and one of Mixed Ethnicity.

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Akin Jeje

Surprisingly good buildup

Reviewed in the United States on March 25, 2021

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While initially anecdotal, Hirsch’s knowledge of British history and politics on race and immigration accentuates and enhances her personal stories.

2 people found this helpful

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Nicole A

Beautiful

Reviewed in the United States on April 6, 2020

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This book is the beginning of healing. Honest. Heartfelt. And sometimes uncomfortable. Holding a mirror up to us, to look at ourselves as individuals and as a nation.

2 people found this helpful

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SG

A Great Conversation Starter

Reviewed in the United States on February 4, 2018

Fact: Hirsch delivers some uncomfortable truths that quite a few people still aren't reading to open their eyes about.

Fact: For many of us, and not just in Britain, race follows us, defines us, frightens us, etc. every single day.

Fact: This book contributes to a well-needed conversation on race and how we navigate, or choose not to navigate, racial identity on our path to equality. I enjoyed it, just as I enjoyed books that talk about other social issues, such as "Class Matters," "A People's History of the United States," and "Nickel and Dimed." The aforementioned books were required readings when I was at uni, and I genuinely believe that this book should be one of them as well.

Fact: Talking about race doesn't send anyone running to the far right (as the last reviewer has suggested). You run to the far right, because you believe that there is finally a political party that expresses how you felt deep down but couldn't actually say because the socio-cultural conditions didn't allow for such a "moment."

Fact: You will either love this book or hate this book. If you think that any person of colour who dares to talk about how horrible it can sometimes be to not be white does so because we hate white people, don't bother reading this book. If you keep referring to "Africa" as if it's one country, and you believe that "it's" a horrible place to live, I can assure you that you will hate it. If you are willing to engage in a dialogue and genuinely seek information in order to "walk in other people's shoes" and open your eyes to the post-colonial reality, then you'll like the book.

45 people found this helpful

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starsandstarz8989

The author is a star.

Reviewed in the United States on March 26, 2019

Great book about the hard truths we all must come face to face with.

7 people found this helpful

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C. Papadopoulos

Great Writing, Somewhat Insightful, Short on Authenticity, Strong On Commercial Motive

Reviewed in the United States on March 21, 2020

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So sad that one can make a living through a book when they themselves are utterly and intentionally confused about an identity they’ve obviously sorted out. This is not a book of one coming to an understanding of who they...instead, this is a book of one profiting by repeating the same points and contradictions of one who is not in touch with their perspective of their social relations with people in their immediate surroundings. This book is proof that college training without sufficient life experiences and adventures is simply devoid of the brevity, humility, and social awareness that accompanies an educated person. The book is part informative, a great part whining, and a small but insufficient part gratitude for something the author had nothing to do with: namely, what she got at birth. What will she do for others as a barrister is the real question and the end or the beginning of her real life adventure. This book was her mind’s great ability to take something so tiny and turn it into a great moral question or some insight to a characteristic she so nobly possesses. The book felt like it wanted to be a novel, a work of fiction, but somehow had to be an autobiography that became an hagiography of the author by the author. It is an example of the unclear motivation for the book despite the expressed statement that it is an adventure of identity.

4 people found this helpful

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Mr. M. Taylor

I first became aware of the self-loathing Ms Hirsch after ...

Reviewed in the United States on April 23, 2018

I first became aware of the self-loathing Ms Hirsch after reading her bizarre extremist opinions in the Guardian. Then I read her piece in National Geographic, so I decided I should chance her book. Basically, it is packed with historical revisionism. She claims that "Britain has been a multicultural society for centuries" despite the fact that the 1921 Census showed that the UK was 99.99% homogeneous. I'm all for diversity of opinion, but historical revisionism is beyond the pale. As the vast majority of fair and impartial British people feel the exact same, I suggest the vast majority of British people avoid this ridiculous collection of fabrications, and Amazon should clearly mark this book as "fiction."

11 people found this helpful

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ago

On Race

Reviewed in Canada on March 12, 2020

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I enjoyed reading this book, I feel that all people of British Heritage, should understand how the children of the Empire identify themselves today.

Izzielickedabee

Important, lucid and engrossing piece on race, racism and its impact on identity

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 25, 2018

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Afua Hirsch combines reflections on her personal experiences of life in a ‘racialised’ society with a broader exploration of race and racism (there are affinities here with Akala’s ‘Natives’ and the two work well read together). Unlike Akala, Hirsch’s background is solidly middle-class, she grew up in the leafy suburb of Wimbledon and went on to study at Oxford. However, like Akala, her mixed-race identity made her seemingly ‘easy’ background feel like anything but. Her father’s family were originally Jewish refugees and her mother’s refugees from a difficult political climate in Ghana.

Living in Wimbledon Hirsch and her family fitted in on the surface, but Hirsch’s appearance as a ‘brown’ woman also singled her out. She grows up surrounded by a white world, in which her friends believe they’re being reassuring by not ‘seeing’ her as other than them; yet she describes early incidents that made her conscious of 'difference', such as being chased out of a posh boutique by a white shop assistant because, ‘girls who look like her must be thieves’; she doesn’t ‘read’ as black either, her hair doesn’t respond to standard treatments, she has no knowledge of black British culture, she finds it difficult to pronounce her own name. At Oxford, with its tiny percentage of BAME students, she is equally lost, despite finding a small group of like-minded friends.

This sense of being an outsider in her own country informs and undermines her whole sense of self, her identity becomes something she must work to construct. An intense feeling of dislocation leads her to spend time in Africa, Senegal and Ghana, which only serves to further complicate her attempts to work out who she is and where she belongs. And everywhere she goes she is pursued by ‘The Question’ at home in Britain more than anywhere else: ‘Where are you from?’ usually followed by, ‘Where are you really from?’. In other words you don’t fit in, you’re foreign, so now you’re required to explain exactly how foreign you are.

As Hirsch moves through the different stages of her life she links each of these to broader concerns from the history of slavery and its role in the development of Britain; the politics of hair and the particular forms of misogyny aimed at women of colour; the treatment of BAME people by the legal system; stereotypes of the ‘good’ and ‘bad’ immigrant; deeply unsettling encounters at a club for white people looking to 'swing' with black men'; the impact of class on the black community and in particular young black men. Alongside discussing specific instances of history and relevant cultural/socio-economic analyses, she presents a detailed consideration of the particular forms that racism takes in British society and how polite forms of denial, colour-blindness, perpetuate systems of inequality and impede meaningful dialogue over how to overcome structural inequalities, prejudice and bias.

This is an important, engrossing piece, lucid, well-researched and deeply thoughtful. I read it just after Akala’s ‘Natives’ and there are some overlapping topics – hard not to be – but these topics are sufficiently distinct, in their treatment and detail, for there not to be a sense of repetition or déjà vu, rather they complement each other; particularly as one is from a male and the other a female perspective. There are some minor structural issues, some minor flaws: sometimes the discussion of her partner’s working-class background comes across as a little naïve, but the problems were more than outweighed by the richness of her writing and the quality of her material.

120 people found this helpful

Ina

Pursuit of Black Identity in Britain

Reviewed in Canada on November 23, 2021

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This author is an easy target for superficial criticism. She was raised in a wealthy neighbourhood and was given a privileged education. Her father came from Germany (White) and her mother came from Ghana (Black). She is writing about her search for identity and being allowed to be herself. The key fact of this search that came across to me is her Black skin. Her mother and father and husband don't understand her search because they are secure in their heritage and know who they are. Growing up in Britain, mainly mixing mostly with whites, she knows she doesn't fit and has to confront the question of who she is every day. At one point she moves to Ghana, thinking she will fit in there but finds she really is British. I do not criticize her. This is her journey and I am glad she is sharing it with us.

Kindle Customer

Highly recommend

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on December 28, 2022

Verified Purchase

As a white person, who wants everyone in the UK to feel safe, accepted and able to develop to their full potential in our country, I read this book to gain a better understanding of what it means to grow up, like the author, as a British person who is not white. I feared that the book would be an ant-white rant but it was not so. Very well-written, calm and considered in its approach, as one would expect from an Oxford graduate and jounalist, the author takes great pains to understand differing views and, most importantly explore the reasons behind behaviours. This book doesn't admit to having all the answers, as it is a hugely complex issue, but has made me more open and understanding.

Footnote: I read this just after the media frenzy surrounding
Lady Susan Hussy in Dec 2022 and the book explores 'The Question'.

3 people found this helpful

VyxxN

Daring & intellectually-stimulating perception shifter on race & identity in the UK

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 9, 2018

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For her first published book, this is a hard hitter from a woman with much intellectual curiosity, insight and courage. I must admit it was an uncomfortable read at times, being, as I am, a person who would be classified "white" (albeit also a person with a large mixed-race family, the mother of a mixed-heritage child, a lifelong dislike of colour-based pigeon-holing, and a huge problem with the structural construct of 'race'). BUT that discomfort is part of what's so great about this book. It's what truly holds a mirror up and allows the reader to step for a moment into the lived experience of another. Britain is not a post-'race' society, and Afua helped me to understand that trying to downplay the significance of 'race' by claiming 'colour-blindness' compounds the problem. It's like being in an abusive family, where the issues are not discussed but everyone puts on a brave face, sweeping any honest conversation under the carpet.

Breaking somewhat of a tradition for me, I read some reviews before I read the book (I usually avoid pre-reads of reviews as I'm a big fan of making my own mind up). The voracity of aversion to this book that comes through in some of the reviews needs an analysis all of its own (Stephen Glover's, Michael Henderson's and trusty-old David Goodhart's come to mind as particularly distasteful denial/projection responses).

Having made up my own mind, I've given it four stars, because it's a very well-written, important and daring book - well researched, referenced and beautifully hung-together with personal, engaging snippets from the author's own life interwoven with heavyweight intellectual analysis. There was much to learn and reflect on. I cried when reading Lola's story of growing up in care through the various changes to 'race' matching in family-finding policy. I shook in anger at the historic (and current) racism Afua reminds us of - even as someone who seeks to educate oneself on history, the naked horror of our colonial past shocks and saddens me when I'm confronted with it. I giggled nervously (on the tube) when reading chapter 3 (the club in Luton, no more shall be said), and I felt indignant when reflecting on the media portrayal of black bodies (I'm so glad Afua called out the skewed media portrayal of the Williams sisters and others). I reminisced about my own trips to Ghana, and my own not-so-dissimilar experience of growing up in a leafy London suburb through 80s,90s, 00s. I was educated on every page and in every chapter I found something I wanted to argue about, to discuss, to debate - but I found much more that made me nod in agreement.

However, my criticisms would be thus:

1. It could have done more to balance the positives against the negatives. It does a stellar job of highlighting the issues Brits face in our national narrative about 'race' and inclusion but it could do more to recognise that, for all its flaws and challenges, Britain is still, in my opinion, one of the most advanced societies in promoting inclusiveness and tackling racism, and other forms of discrimination. It would be difficult to pick a nation with a similar cultural mix to the UK that has better outcomes and experiences for people of colour. That's not to say there isn't much much more to do, but I would have liked some of the positives pointed out more, to shine a light towards the plants we want to nourish and grow (and not just the weeds of society we want to eradicate).

2. It could have given people a plan for what to do. As readers - as ordinary people - who care about what she has just told us, how do we make a difference? Afua's sharp, insightful and very personal style of writing paints a real and ready picture of what life has been like for her, and people who share some of her characteristics, growing up in modern Britain. But, in some ways, for me, it is too much of a commentary, a reflection of how it is now, and I wanted her to inspire change. In her next book (which I'll definitely be reading) I'd like her to be even braver and paint the world she wants to see - not just the national conversation she wants us to have. I want her, realistically and pragmatically, to set out a path for how we should be, not just what's wrong with us. She does this in places - there are many helpful insights scattered throughout - but it's difficult to discern her vision as one coherent whole. And that is what I think this book, and Britain, needs.

33 people found this helpful

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