The People’s Account (1986) and Racism: a Response (1990) by Ceddo Film and Video Collective

Counter-hegemonic representations against police brutality and
media indoctrination

by María Piqueras-Pérez

 “The law is what the policeman interprets to be the law” (The People’s Account 1986).

A policeman shooting a black woman.

On November 14, 2020, filmmaker Steve McQueen told journalist Sean O’Hagan he felt a lack of black British representation on TV. McQueen’s works don’t mark the first efforts of black British filmmakers to challenge stereotypical portrayals in British cinema or TV, or present narratives highlighting the diversity of black British experiences. In the 1980s, various black British film and video collectives received funding to combat the underrepresentation of ethnic minorities in Britain. [1] [open endnotes in new window] One such collective was Ceddo (1982-1994), characterized by their radical stance and opposition to hegemonic mainstream media narratives from a Pan-African stance. I focus here on two of Ceddo’s productions: The People’s Account (1986) and Racism: a Response (1990), which illustrate how radical cinema can contest mainstream media narratives regarding Britain’s 1980s racism and police representation.

Ceddo was part of a community filmmaking workshop movement with other collectives like The Black Audio Film Collective and Sankofa, signalling a new level of cultural struggle in Black British cinema. Funding enabled the proliferation of Black British visual narratives and marked the beginning of a more sustained and politically conscious engagement with minority representation. The adequate funding of these workshops, which did not last, should be read in dialogue with the institutions and legal frameworks that were facilitating the circulation of Black British narratives, enabling greater visibility of black British perspectives in the national media and challenging dominant paradigms like Channel 4 (1982-), the British Film Institute (BFI), the Greater London Council (GLC, 1965-1986) and the Workshop Declaration (1982-1990) launched by the Association of Cinematograph, Television and Allied Technicians (ACTT) in collaboration with the BFI, Channel 4 and the Arts Councils of England and Wales (Dickinson 1999). The Workshop Declaration fostered formal and thematic experimentation and commitment to production, distribution, exhibition, education and training organized by the funded workshops. This resulted in the creation of experimental and radical works in a protected and subsidised space.

The 1980s saw stark political and racial divisions in Britain that excluded Black Britons and intensified social tensions. Speeches like PM Margaret Thatcher’s Swamp Speech (1978) and the National Front’s demonstrations that used a slogan “keep Britain white” articulated clearly racist ideas. Culturally and socially, Black Britons experienced rootlessness and dislocation due to their inherent diasporic experience––often physical separation from ancestral homelands and cultural separation from UK dominant narratives—and the subsequent lack of access to their history and memory since it was suppressed by hegemonic discourse. They were pushed to the margins of society and politically, economically, and socially, framed by the mass media as “enemies within” or “dangerous others”  (Gilroy 1987; Mercer 1994) and as jeopardizing essentialist notions of Britishness. Migrants, as cultural studies scholar Stuart Hall argues (1978), became the seeming bearers of the crisis developing in the country under Thatcherism. Thatcherism, a term coined by Hall, in Marxism Today (1979), describes the political situation and ideological basis behind the then economic strategies, the rise of the National Front, and the marginalization of minorities under Margaret Thatcher (1975-1990).

Mainstream media portrayed black Britons as criminals threatening an ideal of Britishness as an exclusive white club. Ceddo’s films, The People’s Account and Racism: a Response, are counter-narratives that aimed to provide black British communities with agency and visibility. Both works depict the tumultuous relation between the police, media, and black British communities. These repressive and ideological forces have long perpetuated racist stereotypes resulting in their scapegoating and vilification, creating a tense climate of constant invigilation and scrutiny. By exploring some key scenes, I will demonstrate the historical alliance of the police and the media works to uphold hegemony and how radical media like The People’s Account and Racism: a Response can offer powerful counter-hegemonic forces.

The state of the nation and the birth of
Ceddo Film and Video Collective

In the 1980s, some underrepresented black British communities learned to use cinema and television for self-expression and access to suppressed narratives. The workshop movement challenged the distorted images presented by mainstream media, which contributed to national amnesia and the forgetting of black British memory

Before the emergence of film and video workshops like Ceddo, Black Audio Film Collective and Sankofa in the early eighties, black British filmmaking had remained marginal due to limited access to resources and funding. Notable black British media pioneers like Horace Ové or Lionel Ngakane tried to survive individually or depending on Network Television companies such as the BBC and ITV (Shabazz 1986). The worsening socio-political context of Thatcherism prompted an institutional response to black British communities and their activism.

In 1981, under Labour control, the Greater London Council acknowledged institutional racism and took steps to combat it, initiating an experiment in municipal socialism (Mercer 1994). The GLC aimed to represent London’s diverse social identities. The GLC’s policies focused on disadvantaged groups, placing minorities at their agenda’s centre. The GLC promised to change social reality, and even if it failed for some, it posed a threat to Thatcherism. In 1986, Thatcher dismantled the GLC and cancelled its cultural and community programs. However, in this period of time, the GLC’s effort to recognize London’s diversity played a role in Ceddo’s emergence

Ceddo, named after Ousmane Sembène’s film Ceddo (1977)—a word which signifies culture of resistance—had a diverse membership. The members and participants throughout its operating years included Imruh Bakari, Menelik Shabazz, Glenn Ujebe Masokoane, D. Elmina Davis, Roy Cornwall, June Reid, Dada Imarogbe , Lazell Daley, and Valerie Thomas, Alrick Riley, Cassie McFarlene, Chuma Ukpabi and Vusi Challenge. Ceddo aimed to provide a platform for Afro-Caribbean voices in Britain and redefine perceptions of blackness. The essay, “Culture of Resistance: Reflecting a True Image “(1986) by Bakari, encapsulates their ethos. In this article presented at Edinburgh’s 1986 arts conference, Ceddo emphasises that its members are Afro-Caribbean individuals in Britain and part of the Black Diaspora. They acknowledge European influences and underline their African heritage as Black Diaspora members in Britain. Ceddo points to the importance of considering the audiences alongside the images presented, highlighting the people’s need for meaningful representations. This kind of statement indicates the relation between image and theoretical background in the works I am exploring.

For Ceddo, images are weapons and point to areas of expression (Diawara 1993). The group’s productions, documentation, training, and screenings reflect their community orientation and commitment. They documented events, including conversations with U.S. writers like Maya Angelou and Rastafari pioneer Ras San Brown, showing their commitment to the diaspora and interest beyond Britain.

Unlike Black Audio or Sankofa, some Ceddo members (Imruh Caesar Bakari and Menelik Shabazz) were known professionally before the ACTT franchise and had produced for television and cinema before Ceddo as part of Kuumba.[2] Ceddo established itself as a workshop to provide community access to filmmaking equipment, train individuals interested in cinema, record the community’s perspective and expression, and document black British experiences. Ceddo’s community orientation and commitment to expressing black Britons’ perspectives are foregrounded in The People’s Account and Racism: a Response. The group’s productions allow for an understanding of race relations in Britain and the history of black British people, offering previously unseen narratives and histories on TV which then challenge the biased misrepresentation of mainstream media.

Looking at them in a larger context of radical media of the time, Ceddo’s productions fit the categories outlined by Fernando Solanas and Octavio Gettino in “Toward a Third Cinema” (1969). They included in third cinema  “pamphlet films, didactic films, report films, essay films, witness bearing films” (1962, 126). The People’s Account and Racism: a Response are at times a hybrid of all of these forms and their didactic impulse is worth noticing. They are essay films, in the way that Nora Alter argues; that is, they incorporate aspects of non-fiction and fiction and tend to appear in times of crisis (2018). Amidst the socio-political crises which the politics of Thatcherism created, these two works posed a challenge to ongoing conditions.

The People’s Account and Racism: a Response explicitly dispute the alliance between the police and media, especially how they frame black British communities and manipulate public opinion. The People’s Account uses the aftermath of the 1985 riots in Tottenham and Brixton (London) to expose physical and discursive control over Black British communities so that they are used as scapegoats for political, cultural and economic issues. The People’s Accountpresents the perspective of the black British community in Broadwater Farm Estate and how they organized themselves after local riots in order to confront the police and media and fight for the right to speak and be heard.

The People’s Account depicts the events leading to the deaths of two women. In Brixton, police entered Mrs. Cherry Groce’s home looking for her son, mistaking her for him, and shot her. Similarly, in Tottenham, Mrs. Cynthia Jarrett suffered a heart attack as police illegally entered her house using keys taken from her son. In response, the black British community peacefully marched to the police station asking for an explanation.As The People’s Account shows, in Broadwater, police prevented the community from leaving the Estate, leading to a riot. The work mixes archival footage and guerrilla hand-held camera with talking-head interviews and direct-cinema to tell the account of its people.

Racism: a Response constructs a rebuttal against the racism faced by black British communities. It challenges the notion that “black Britishness” is an impossible concept, affirming that black Britons were invited to Britain as settlers to aid in the country’s reconstruction after World War 2, and that even before that, their presence is a consequence of British Empire colonialism. The film emphasizes the unity and resistance of the black community in Britain through events like festivals highlighting their contributions. These gatherings importantly encourage mental emancipation, urging people not to believe British mass media. Racism: a Response’s form resembles The People’s Account. Archival footage from the festivals and events organized to fight oppression predominates. The films highlight Ceddo’s commitment to make future generations of black Britons aware of their positionality.

Police brutality and media control:
the challenges of national amnesia

The People’s Account and Racism: a Response underscore Black Britons’ history of marginalization, criminalization and misrepresentation, especially caused by the tense relation between police, mass media and black communities. The police and mass media share an interest in exerting pressure on black Britons through what Marxist philosopher Louis Althusser has calledideological and repressive state apparatuses (1984). The former signals how a society functions by violence and repression through established institutions, the function of which is taken for granted.  In this case, that means the police, army or prisons. Althusser especially refers to manipulation at the level of ideology through education or mass media. In Britain, the interaction between these two levels, institutional and ideological,  maintains control over hegemonic beliefs and perpetuates false perceptions of black communities as inherently dangerous, even as enemies.

The then censorship of The People’s Account on TV is an example of media control and the consequences of not conforming to the Establishment’s language and “production values.” Ceddo was producing works deviating from Britain’s media public’s expectations.  In fact, The People’s Account was produced under the ACTT workshop declaration and sponsored by Channel 4. But although it was scheduled to air three times (20 July 1986, 24th November 1986, and 23rd March 1987), it never aired.

The IBA (International Broadcasting Authority) censored it because they disagreed with The Peoples Account’s content. For the IBA, it lacked balance, portrayed the police negatively, and used unacceptable language. The IBA also wanted to await the trial of PC Blakelock, who died in the riots that The People’s Account documents. The IBA requested that Ceddo include a debate after the potential broadcast to balance its content. Complying would have transformed The People’s Account into the IBAs account. Ceddo challenged the IBAs wishes, signalling how the IBA’s demands were part of a historical conspiracy against black British communities (The Voice 1987). This defiance show Ceddo was an example of counter-hegemonic resistance, engaging in counter-media to rectify the stereotypes and biased views of hegemonic Britain, confronting Britains historical amnesia (Hall 1978).[3]

Hall describes the national amnesia that neglects Black Britons’ past, their contributions to the country, and their arrival in the UK as workers. Blacks have been treated as second-class citizens through rationalizing about their inferiority and through white Britain’s collective amnesia (Gilroy 1982).  Britons too often believed in the narrative of migrants as imported problems disrupting national identity. I take Racism: a Response, produced four years afterwards with independent funding as a reaction to the censorship of The People’s Account and continuing a defying stance indicating that black British resistance cannot be silenced.

Ideological manipulation permeates society, leading to stereotypes, scapegoating, and surveillance. In Racism: a Response, a montage presents how black Britons are told about their inferiority through nursery rhymes or daily phraseology. A voiceover builds this argument, while a montage of black Britons working and arriving in Britain for a better life and participating in riots is shown. This launches a message of resistance whilst justifying the community’s defiance, indicating how image and text work together to build counterarguments. Moreover, the fast-cutting editing heightens urgency. The argument reinforces the antagonism inherent in the rhetoric of them vs. us latent in the media’s creation of “moral panics” (Cohen 1973). The montages serve as a reminder of the presence of black citizens “in the Union Jack,” to paraphrase British sociologist Paul Gilroy’s book There ain’t no Black in the Union Jack (1987). In particular, Gilroy describes the consequences of historical amnesia: Black Britons’ marginalization from history. As the film’s voiceover argues, slavery needs to be ideologically justified to allow for colonial expansion and its consequences.