The Importance of the Black Vote

On Friday April 12th 2013, Black and Minority Ethnic Arts Network (BEMA) will host ‘The Importance of the Black Vote’ event in partnership with Hackney Unites, Operation Black Vote & LB Hackney Library Service. OBV caught up with BEMA’s chief officer Ngoma Bishop to find out why this event is so important.

Bishop told OBV that BEMA is a networking organisation. Its aim is to bring together different groups and individuals, who want to do artistic, theatrical or musical projects. It encourages BME communities to represent themselves artistically and culturally. It has special interests in helping the Black African and Afro-Caribbean community, to express themselves. However, in an era of cuts, the BEMA network found that artistic and cultural sector were hit particularly hard. It was even worse if that artistic and cultural sector was representing BME culture and art.

The cuts on spending to the art and cultural sector represented wider trend of cuts, which hit BME communities particularly hard. Some boroughs were hit harder by it that others. To make the problem worse, African Black and Afro-Caribbean communities experience the highest levels of voter apathy, many, especially the younger generation, do not see the point in voting. They do not believe that their lives have gotten better, despite the fact that their parents and grandparents generations all voted.

But without voting, their lives will not get better, as those who hold the power will never have the incentive to help. Worse, the people elected will not represent them at all. If all young Black people actually voted, there would be a democratic revolution, as the new governments would have to reflect the wishes of the electorate.

Uphill Struggle: It is however an uphill struggle, as well as the apathy on the part of the Black community, the political parties do little to encourage their participation. Take Hackney for example. It is a traditional Labour seat, and with any safe seat, the parties do not see the necessity to do any more than minimal campaigning. All political parties tend to focus their energies on marginal areas and so we see little of them. What makes this worse is that the other parties also see no votes in Hackney and so they don’t try either.

We want this to be a non-partisan event, where all the parties will be made to listen to our concerns. The attitude of political parties is only now beginning to change, but more is needed.

The Event: The event is really a pilot one; we realized that we couldn’t discuss the need for more funding of BME art and culture, without discussing the wider issues of politics. In particular the lack of voting by black people and their political under-representation. Thus we decided to host this event; although it focuses on Hackney, our aim is to get other boroughs to host similar events. Our gradual aim is to get a nationwide debate, which we hope can take place in the House of Commons. There is a lot of interest in this idea but we have a long way to go.

This event is really a stepping-stone towards initiating a wider-debate. It’s particularly important to have this debate now, as it is widely believed that the next general election will be a tightly fought one. BME communities could play a decisive role in determining the outcome of the elections, and we want both the black community and the political parties to be aware of this. The parties are gradually realising this and we use meetings like this to channel this awareness.

‘The Importance of the Black Vote’ will be held at Dalston CLR James Library, Dalston Square, Hackney, London, E8 3BQ on Friday April 12th 2013 at 18:30- 21:00. Speakers include Simon Woolley of OBV, MP Diane Abbott, Jules Pipe Mayor of Hackney, Ngoma Bishop of BEMA and Pauline Pearce from the Hackney Liberal Democrats.  The event will be chaired by Andrea Enisuoh of BEMA & Hackney Unites.

To book a place please visit http://blackvoteinhackney.eventbrite.co.uk or email bemaarts@googlemail.com

Usman Butt