TITLE: Sufferah: The Memoir of a Brixton Reggae-head
AUTHOR: Alex Wheatle
PUBLISHER: Akashic Books
Just as he was born ‘out of place’, Alex Wheatle always felt like an outsider. But, it is precisely this nonconformist maverick status that saved him.
Abandoned by his birth mother as a baby and placed in the British foster care system, Wheatle suffered physical and mental abuse which moulded him into a ‘rebel with a cause’ fighting against the established racist norm in the society he was born in. Unfortunately, this is not a unique story. Many children become trapped in foster care only to come out scarred by their experiences. But, raw and honest, Wheatle tells his story with sensitivity.
The product of Jamaican parents, neither of whom could take care of him, Wheatle would find solace in Reggae music, rhythms of the Sufferah. Indeed, that’s how he saw himself throughout his formative years being flung from one foster home to another — a victim suffering under Babylon system. But, that would all change as he matured and absorbed the true message of the music: Don’t be defined by injustice, fight against it. This, reenforced by mentors like Simeon, his Rastafari ‘teacher’ who taught him to rise above the system and “make the invisible visible.”
Baptised in the sounds of this hypnotic reggae resistance, Wheatle was now a reggae-head living through the music that would help shape his literary career. Listening to music by some of his favorite artistes like Dennis Brown, Gregory Isaacs, Max Romeo, Bob Marley, Marcia Griffiths, Mighty Diamonds, and reggae toasters U-Roy, I-Roy, Dennis Alcapone the author would come out on the other side.
He grew up in Brixton, South London’s Caribbean enclave, never knowing his mother, who returned to Jamaica, and with only brief encounters with his father. At just three years of age Wheatle was placed in social care where his physical and mental assault began. His reggae awakening would begin ten years later. This musical journey would sustain him into what would become some of Britain’s darkest and bloodiest periods in the struggle for racial justice.
STAIN
The New Cross Fire is a stain on British history that Wheatle recounts for his readers. on March 2, 1981 a mysterious fire started at a birthday party for a black teenage girl in the New Cross area of London. Thirteen young black people between 14 and 22 were killed. No one was charged, but many suspected foul play.
Wheatle’s account of the aftermath is searing, taking readers on the road with him as he and many others in black neighborhoods such as Brixton took to the streets having had enough of police brutality, systemic racism, and indiscriminate killing of young black men.
Our breath quickens as he runs from chasing policemen after throwing bricks at them from behind a hastily put-together barricade. Smoke from burning cars and storefronts stab the air making it hard to breathe. He jumps a fence; he hides in a huge rubbish bin and we smell the stench of the garbage around him. And, we cheer him on.
Raw and gritty at times, yet hopeful because of the fight in him, Wheatle obviously survived to tell his story. Yes, he learned lessons, he had to. Taking such punishment from an early age did indeed leave him angry, scared, impulsive, explosive, lonely. But, with encouragement from those who nurtured him, including St. Giles School for pupils with physical, medical, and learning difficulties, Wheatle learned to forgive.
It is this new found peace that opened a whole new world to him. The reggae lyrics he wrote as a youth, the poems that helped release him from loneliness all became fodder for a budding literary career. His young adult novels have garnered him prestigious awards and best-selling recognition. His life story has been memorialized as part of filmmaker Steve McQueen’s series Small Axe. For his contrition to British literature, Wheatle was awarded Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) for his invaluable services to the industry.
Indeed, this Sufferah’s tale is made visible. It is an inspiring narrative about grace under fire and why negativity should never define us.
