Scotland, legacies of slavery and unpacking family histories in front of white audiences

Responding to The Drift by Hannah Lavery

Originating as a series of poems in response to her father’s sudden death, Hannah Lavery’s The Drift evolved into a full-length play confronting not just the complicated history of Hannah’s own family, but that of “sweet forgetful Caledonia”, Scotland itself. Now, for Fringe of Colour Films, Hannah presents an extract of her autobiographical play that toured as part of the National Theatre of Scotland’s season in 2019 and Scotland’s 2018 and 2019 Black History Month. The winning combination of sophisticated imagery, metaphor and rhythmic patterning is enhanced by the contrasts in timing, movement and volume in Hannah’s performance, immersing us in the waves of her emotional journey.

The original show was developed knowing that Scottish audiences would be completely or majority white, which can potentially stymie the creative process in a number of ways. One of these is the unwanted perpetuation of unexamined stereotypes. Perceptions of Black men as naturally violent or irresponsible endure in Scottish society: ideas of innate inferiority penned by white intellectuals such as Edinburgh philosopher David Hume used to justify slavery and colonialism.

So, it was likely to have been a carefully considered decision on Hannah’s part to admit that her Black father “was a shit dad”. Admitted through a loud whisper early in the performance, it serves as a warning that the ride won’t be an easy one. However, the decision to tell the whole truth about a person not only honours the complexity of their character but creates the necessary space to allow for both empathy and catharsis through the art of storytelling. Hannah’s trump card is her outright refusal to let her father be the easy scapegoat for Scotland’s shortcomings. Challenging the audience with a direct stare, she confronts the pervasive idea of Scots as victims when Scotland benefited from centuries of inflicting terror across the globe.

The heightened focus on the Black Lives Matter movement this year has brought certain conversations that we have among ourselves to a much wider audience. One of those discussions is how to successfully navigate the streets, including the expectation to automatically give way to white people when walking along a busy or narrow pavement. As a child of a mixed-race family in the 1970s, I can remember the curious stares that would linger over each one of us in turn, but we were generally fortunate to escape outright abuse.

Hannah recalls the white couple who violently enact their sense of racial superiority by deliberately walking between her father and herself, breaking up the affectionate linking of their arms while shouting distressing racial slurs. They find safety in a coffee shop, ironically a place where white men used to guzzle slave-grown coffee and sugar to help discuss Enlightenment ideas with extra vigour. These shops served as locations where Black children could be sold by auction, but also where Jamaican pioneer Joseph Knight was said to have first been inspired to fight for freedom and security for himself and his mixed-race family in Scotland in the 1770s. 

In the 1970s, my white father could walk the streets of Bournemouth in mismatched and dishevelled clothing with no problem, whereas my mother might prepare for days to grace the concrete in a blaze of stylish, colourful elegance. Groups of workmen on building sites would throw down their tools to serenade her with cheerful but tuneless versions of Brown Girl in the Ring. Hannah laments the lack of opportunity to unpack the personal significance of this iconic Jamaican children’s song with her father. Unpacking centuries of Scotland’s painful history to make sense of one’s own contested belonging shouldn’t be left to a Brown girl to do alone. Although their stories have been ringfenced by deceitful Scottish lies, Brown girls have been navigating the streets of Edinburgh for centuries, the walking sequels to the twisted stories of fathers feted for their adventure and mothers abandoned over yonder with neither a child nor a last name to keep.

The Drift’s script is liberally seasoned with phrases like “limbo under the colour bar”, one that deftly nods to the realities of light-skin privilege and colourism in our own communities that lead to problematic dating preferences, dangerous skin bleaching and more. Edinburgh’s own ‘colour bar’ was referred to in local newspapers in 1927, fears of “race-mixing” caused Scottish aristocrats to make official complaints to the British government in 1943, and instances of unofficial apartheid live on. Not just in sudden refusals by landlords and nightclub owners, but malevolent racist attacks and police brutality.

The Drift tells a story of how the legacy of racial slavery stole from three generations of a Scottish family; a different inheritance from the very same system that gave generously to three generations of inventor James Watt. Racism causes a different kind of hurt when it’s aimed at your own child, as something you hoped would end with your generation. Hannah responds to the news of her son’s bullying with a quieter expression; one that invites us to share the hurt from this deep cut into the hopes for our collective future. The sensitive ones, endowed with invisible antennae that vibrate to the currents of the past and the future, tend to be the ones who take it upon themselves to heal inherited trauma in a family lineage. But Hannah’s heavy “burden to carry” is a weight that should be the responsibility of an entire country. 

Despite everything, Hannah’s great love for Scotland shines through. Referring to herself as a “limpet stuck on you”, she underscores her right to the kind of unquestioned sense of belonging that most members of a Scottish audience have always had. However, full healing and reconciliation can only happen by daring to move through the well-established stages of grief, whether personally or collectively. Until now, Scotland has largely been reluctant to move beyond the first two stages of denial and anger about the atrocities of its imperial past and the enduring legacy of racism that still haunts us.

It’s time for us to share the burden and work together, so that the generations of Scottish children who follow us are never made to question their belonging again.