Michael Elias

Extract from Men Speak the Unspeakable

Below is an extract from Men Speak the Unspeakable. The exchange is between the authors Michael Elias (light text) and Edward Seeker (in bold). The extract deals with racism and contains numerous swear words.    

When we first moved to Wales, there was a petition, apparently, and I think there was a big thing in this country around the refugees who are going to take all the council houses...

Ah, yes.

...and there was one against us. Coming to Wales and that we weren’t wanted.

Oh, yes.

And we, um, in a council house. And I didn’t even know what a council house was, but I heard ‘things’ and I had to work out what it all meant. I just felt unwanted. And then when I was a bit older, I remember the guy next door - who was, who wanted to be with my family, you know, a relatively close friend – apologised to my family, saying that he was one of the people that signed the petition that didn’t want us to come here, because blah blah blah blah. And it’s not like, they were hard done by, or anything, but it’s, I suppose, mass hysteria.

A knee-jerk reaction. Yeah.

Hmmm. And then, my wallpaper. Ummm. On one wall – I had a small room – because of my Obsessive Compulsive Disorder I couldn’t deal with a big room. I had a small, manageable room... and, on three walls, I had a black and white textured paper that was quite nice. On the fourth wall was ‘slavery posters’ wallpaper.

Sla ... what, like

Yup

for sales.

Yup

Slaves?

Yup – and other things for sale, like coffee and boats coming in. it was un-be... I have always... typography makes me weak at the knees.

So it was the typography rather than the subject matter?

I don’t know. Thinking about it, the subject matter, surely. And also my parents having this thing about ‘we’re not black, we’re not Indian, we’re not this, we’re not that’ I must have been proving to myself that I’m not, and it’s not an issue, and...

Hmmm

...but there must have been something going on there. The typography, really, just – I wish I could design like that today.

Hmmm

But, there must have been something. I mean, it’s a bit much. The only coloured family in the area.

And their son’s got slavery sales posters all over!

And it was relatively expensive, if I remember. Huh

Very strange...

Some guy gave us loads and loads of furniture, books, toys, old stuff. It was interesting. It was almost like a house-clearance. Suddenly we had all these things. Old things, and even – you know – now, or until the last house in Muswell Hill, I’d go into charity shops to see, very interesting things to buy.

Well you still do that!

I’d buy things like things an aunt or grand Mother would hand down. Like vases, and – you know – you’ve seen my vases and some of my strange things. And I think wacky, and cool, and nice but; this guy. it’s almost like buying a history. With this guy who gave us this furniture and toys and everything. And he gave us some old encyclopaedias, um - Children’s Encyclopaedias - and I remember flipping through, and there was this whole chapter, or whole section on why coloured people are different to white people – and why they’re more like animals. And why it’s good for them, or right for them to be slaves and workers.

Who wrote this?

It was in a children’s encyclopaedia.

Jeesus.

And at that age, with my paranoias, coming into this country, unwanted, with people who are very different to us, that play in the street and – I remember one of our neighbours whose kids were playing at the top of the stairs and one brother said to the other “Let’s see who can piss further down the stairs!” so they both pissed from the top step, right down the flight of stairs to the bottom. For me, I was dying. Meanwhile, their Mother goes “Ha ha ha ha boys will be boys!” While they pissed down her stairway!!!

it’s true. Boys will be boys. ‘Peerticarly n Weerles...’

Then, suddenly I’m in this barbaric situation, waiting for something to happen, like the law to change, or someone to notice something and then suddenly, all black people will be re-made slaves like on my wallpaper. And because the people in my area didn’t know, you know, Wales. When we first went there they didn’t know whether we were cannibals, or some children looked under the furniture to see where we hid bows and arrows because they were told we were Indian so we must have bows and arrows. We were everything ‘foreign’ that they’d ever heard of. So we would become slaves at some stage . And this was like ‘something awful is gonna happen to my family’.

Hmmm

Do you know what I mean?

Hmmm. Well, yeah. The ‘70’s. Enoch Powell and ‘rivers of blood’ and ‘If you want a nigger for a neighbour, vote Labour.’ Nice little slogan...

Fuck! I don’t remember any of that. All I know is that I had a ‘busy’ childhood. Meanwhile, everything was fine on the outside. it’s the mind of a child. Anyway... ha ha ha ha ha God these things have just made so much sense. But yes, I did have a good family, a good childhood, my parents did their BEST, considering their fucked up lives they did fucking excellently. Seeing them recently, I’ve never seen them so great together. And so cool together. And realised what wonderful people they are. And what they’ve been through, and what they’ve had to suppress. They did fucking excellently. They weren’t to know what was going on with me. And even if they, you know, if my cousin – when I was in school – said something about Micky’s an obsessive-compulsive... what would that mean? And what do they do with it? We weren’t brought up to go to doctors and say...

‘You need therapy’

...exactly. Therapy! There was no such thing. It was for Hollywood film stars.

Yes. Or ‘mad’ people.

This was fucking Welshpool!

Which was probably the same thing.

To find out more about Men Speak the Unspeakable visit: www.menspeak.co.uk

© Copyright of Michael Elias and Edward Seeker

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