Gill > Recent Status Updates

I'm not a cricket fan and only knew of Michael Holding thanks to the classic commentator's line, "The bowler's Holding, the batsman's Willey" from a 1970s West Indies v England match. Even his viral 2020 moment on Sky TV during a rain delay, weeks after the murder of George Floyd, had passed me by and I happened upon this book in the library by chance.

"But I'm secure enough in my masculinity to wear makeup if I want to. I don't associate femininity with weakness...And accepting only straight-passing queer people isn't acceptance anyway. You either accept all of us, every queer person, even the loud, outlandishly, in your face queer people, or you don't accept any of us."

"If you have to use wrong methods to get to the greater good, it probably isn't the greater good."

I got into October before my library loan was up and had to return this book; I have reserved it again because I am a completist, but also because it's very readable. Olusoga has found some fascinating people whose stories will be worth delving further into.

It occurred to her that men locked doors to shield their belongings while women locked doors to protect their bodies.

"United as a people we are a million majestic colours, together we are a glorious stained-glass window. We are building a cathedral of otherness, brick by brick and book by book." Salena Godden

...the great thing about joking around with your friends is that you understand each other's intent. If you make fun of your friend, there is a pre-existing understanding of your shared values and assumptions about the world.

The Debt Paid Late

"For people of colour, race is in everything we do. Because the universal experience is white."
Reading this in the middle of the Kamala Harris presidential campaign, this struck me. Harris has to be seen by white voters as part of the universal experience. Her middle-class upbringing, her blended family, they have to lean into these things to connect with voters in a 'look how like you I am' way.

"But I know I won't be alone. Whether or not there are others present, death will be with me, and she has more experience than anybody, so I am certain that she will show me what to do."

I like this!

They know that the best memorial is a boxful of happy memories inside your head...

He has not passed, he is not gone, he is not lost: he is dead...
His life is extinct, and none of the euphemistic rhetoric in the world will ever bring it, or him, back.

I am loving this book

Finally something to agree on!
"Blackness and Britishness are not in tension. Being mixed-race is not a muddle."

Finally we get a mention of people being mixed-race.

His use of statistics becomes most irritating in the Discrimination and Disparities chapter. I get that he's trying to show there's more to it than racism but come on.

E.g. 19% of the UK population between 19-25 is BAME and 25% of entrants to top universities are BAME.
Owolade doesn't distinguish how many of the latter are British. Universities woo foreign students because they can charge them higher fees.

"The Christian missionaries are one instance of a benign form of colonialism."

Really?! What is benign about the suppression of indigenous beliefs and customs? In many places, Christianity was responsible for the imposition of patriarchal structures and the persecution of people outside its rigid gender and sexual norms. Grrr.

"Being black and British is as much shaped by being British as it is by being black."

"This book argues two main points. We should understand race in Britain through a British perspective, and we shouldn't reduce black people to their race."

I'm pushing through the urge to stick it in the freezer. There are some very nasty people causing serious suffering, more than I expected from a Zoe Sharp work.