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A review by karenangela_1
Mother Country: Real Stories of the Windrush Children by Charlie Brinkhurst-Cuff
4.0
I received a free review copy from the publisher in exchange for my honest unedited feedback.
An exploration of the Windrush generation featuring David Lammy, Corinne Bailey Rae, and Sharmaine Lovegrove, along with many others.
For the Windrush generation and those who came before, Britain was ‘the Mother Country’, they made the long journey across the sea to a country thousands of miles from home where they expected to find a place where they would be welcomed, a place where you could build a new life, where you could be anybody. What they instead found was a country that objected to them being here simply because of the colour of their skin, it didn’t matter if you actually came to work or you were actually a chancer all that they saw was that you weren’t white and that was all that counted, it would be nice if in the intervening years things had changed but between the despicable attempts to try and deport the surviving members of the Windrush generation, the demonization of all Muslims because of the actions of a few, and the rise of far right movements across the world it is clear that we haven’t learnt a damned thing.
If you only read one story from this book then it has to be the one about Joy Gardner, a woman whose only crime was to have over stayed her visa, and being black. Given the level of restraint used against Joy you would think that she was a serial killer.
An exploration of the Windrush generation featuring David Lammy, Corinne Bailey Rae, and Sharmaine Lovegrove, along with many others.
For the Windrush generation and those who came before, Britain was ‘the Mother Country’, they made the long journey across the sea to a country thousands of miles from home where they expected to find a place where they would be welcomed, a place where you could build a new life, where you could be anybody. What they instead found was a country that objected to them being here simply because of the colour of their skin, it didn’t matter if you actually came to work or you were actually a chancer all that they saw was that you weren’t white and that was all that counted, it would be nice if in the intervening years things had changed but between the despicable attempts to try and deport the surviving members of the Windrush generation, the demonization of all Muslims because of the actions of a few, and the rise of far right movements across the world it is clear that we haven’t learnt a damned thing.
If you only read one story from this book then it has to be the one about Joy Gardner, a woman whose only crime was to have over stayed her visa, and being black. Given the level of restraint used against Joy you would think that she was a serial killer.