Friday, December 18, 2009

Denzil Forrester & Tam Joseph: Cries Against Injustice in a Racially Divided Britain


Written by: Henry Love
They say every generation has a voice and it should be extended to say that every struggle has an artist. With that being said, the struggle for race relations in Britain has at least two. The works of Denzil Forrester and Tam Joseph offer insight to what it meant to be Black and in Britain during the late 1970’s to 1980’s. This period in history was characterized by violent race relations between
White and Colored British citizens. Caribbean Blacks were at the heart of the great migration that occurred in the late 1940’s to mid 1950’s. This influx of foreign individuals caused racial tensions from their arrival, but these tensions hit an all time high in the 1970’s and 1980’s. Britain never had to deal with a significant population of people of color up until this period in its history. The race riots’ in the London’s Notting Hill neighborhood in 1958 seem to have served as the marker between the period of increase tensions and violence. Denzil Forrester, as well as Tam Joseph, offer a captivating narrat
ive, serving as artistic-documentaries that probe deep into this horr
ific period of racial violence between the 1970’s to the late 1980’s. The topics they address and the emotions they evoke are key tools in the effectiveness of their art, or rather their reporting of events.

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