Elizabeth Obi: I was there, and I find the portrayal of black women unforgivable
As someone involved in the black movement in the 1970s I was intrigued to see how those times would be depicted in this series. I was aware that there has been some controversy around an Asian woman being cast as one of the main protagonists.
For those of us who were around at the time, the role of Jas Mitra (played by Freida Pinto), is quite obviously in recognition of Mala Sen, who was part of the leadership of the Black Panther movement and a member of the Race Today Collective alongside the late Darcus Howe and Farrukh Dhondy, who acted as consultants for the series. For me it was an absolute pleasure to have Mala’s contribution acknowledged through the role of Jas, and I am interested to see how her character unfolds, if nothing else.
Aside from Jas, the portrayal of black women in the first episode was unforgivable, as they are represented solely by Wunmi Mosaku’s character Kenya, a sex worker whose clients include the police inspector Pence. Historically women were the backbone of the black movement: Althea Jones-Lecointe, Barbara Beese, Leila Hassan, Olive Morris, Beverley Bryan and Stella Dadzie, to name but a few, and I can only hope this is reflected in future episodes.
What can activists today take from the series? Not much, I fear. After the first episode, I felt the story was becoming reminiscent of Bonnie and Clyde. But it is, after all, fiction. The real-life events and achievements of people such as Howe, Dhondy and their contemporaries are where the lessons actually lie.
The words at the beginning of the first episode are well worth remembering: “Do not seek the white man’s approval.”
Those of my generation didn’t – and neither should you.
Lola Okolosie: This reveals how institutional racism took root within the Met
Guerrilla shows that the struggle for racial equality has always been global. There is an instructive moment in the miniseries’ first episode. A political prisoner informs the radical couple (Freida Pinto and Babou Ceesay) fighting to free him that there is a black power desk in the Metropolitan police’s special branch (a historical fact). He goes on to add that the team is staffed by officers trained in South Africa and Rhodesia. It is shorthand, not that we needed it, for the institutional racism rife within the force. Linking this racism with African liberation struggles and the civil rights movement in America illustrates the internationalism of activists at the time. In all cases, racist violence was deemed necessary to achieving stability and security.
In 2014, when military-style police began teargassing protesters campaigning against the shooting of an unarmed teenager, Michael Brown, in Ferguson, St Louis, it led some protesters to chant “Gaza Strip”. Here in the UK, this type of internationalism would help to revitalise the long-standing campaigns on deaths in police custody and disproportionately heavy policing of black communities. Struggles do not need to be the same to share a resemblance or offer an opportunity for solidarity.
Guerrilla also reminds us that no single black person can speak for us all.
The critical role of women such as Althea Jones-Lecointe, considered by many to have been the leader of the Black Panther movement in the UK, or Beverley Bryan, who co-authored The Heart of the Race: Black Women’s Lives in Britain, or the community activist and organiser Olive Morris have not, as of yet, featured as central characters because, ultimately, this is not the story that writer John Ridley wanted to tell.
He deserves our disappointment, but we must also accept that he is a symptom, not a cause, of a bigger problem – namely that so few of us are given a platform from which to express the various stories we carry. One episode or miniseries cannot do justice to the important work on education, housing and police discrimination of even the few women listed above. We need more black women telling our stories.
Kehinde Andrews: The erasure of black women seriously undermines the show
It is impossible to watch Guerrilla without noticing the gaping hole it leaves in the story of the struggle for racial justice. Black women – including Althea Jones-Lecointe, Olive Morris and Gail Lewis – weren’t just part of the history of the black power movement, they led it in Britain. That leadership role continues today, with black women at the heart of movements such as Black Lives Matter.
But it isn’t until episode two that Guerrilla features its first scene with a proper conversation involving a black woman. In the first episode the only black woman who plays a role in the story is sleeping with the police enemy. The writer’s defence for the casting of Freida Pinto, an Asian actress, in the lead role – that it was only important she be a “strong woman of colour” – should tell us it is high time that “political blackness” was consigned to the dustbin of history. The erasure of black women seriously undermines the show and the lessons we can learn from it.
Guerrilla also falls into the trap of representing black radicalism through the well-worn trope of violence. Armed struggle was never a major feature of black power in Britain and it is overplayed in discussion of the US movement too. Activists focused on fighting and providing support for issues including housing, poverty, migration and health. This is the legacy that activists today need to draw on, connecting day-to-day struggles with wider structural issues.
What Guerrilla does well is to portray the brutal face of policing. The public relations mantra of “community policing” is a mask that hides the role the police have played as the boots on the ground of racism. The portrayal of police violence, surveillance and outright terror tactics onscreen should stand as a reminder that the police are the enemy of racial justice, and, in my opinion, will be no part of its solution.
Iman Amrani: How would black British writers have interpreted this story?
Guerrilla is an uncomfortable watch. How could it be anything else, when it deals with race in Britain during the 1970s? The violent scenes between the police, black protesters and white racists are particularly emotive for a contemporary audience.
But it’s not just the brutal history of race in the UK that makes the show difficult. Throughout the first episode I found myself losing focus on the main characters’ stories, and thinking about the storytelling itself.
The casting choices have already sparked debate, raising questions about the representation of black women’s role in the British Black Panthers, the concept of “political blackness”, and the ownership of this story.
After watching the first episode I understood the need for discussion around these issues, but I realised that I didn’t have anything to compare it to. I had no reference for how to do this sort of story justice in a British context.
The violence, racism and injustice towards black, Asian and Irish communities in Britain in the 1970s doesn’t often get dramatised in high-budget productions – in fact, when I think about the most iconic films or TV series about race in a historical context, they’re almost always American.
It’s not as if we’re no good at making period dramas in the UK. Shows such as Peaky Blinders and Downton Abbey have shown there’s an international appetite for British stories, but they’re nearly never about the stories of minority communities.
Guerrilla does go some way towards redressing the balance with regard to how British history is portrayed on TV, but it’s just a starting point, and it doesn’t feel like it’s quite cracked how to tell black British stories to a British audience.
The American director and writer, John Ridley, who also wrote 12 Years A Slave, has a slick and cinematic style which made it hard for me to fully connect with the story, and I do wonder what it would be like if black British writers were to make dramas about black history in the UK.
Hopefully, Guerrilla will pave the way for them to do so.