Essay

Caryl Phillips, A New World Order

The author talks about the struggle that he faces when he was growing up in Leeds, England. As he grew apart different from his parents especially his father and not like crickets but instead liking football. But then he grew up in a place where he was the youngest fan in the stadium but at same time the one of the only black people at the stadium. He then talks about the culture gap between his parents and himself. Showing that there hasn’t been much of a difference between the old generation and the younger generation. Then he states that when he used to go to the stadium to watch the Leeds United games he experienced racism because when they were winning, the supports or the people that he was sitting next to them will cheer with them and share joy with them but when they lost the people tends to be violence towards him and his brother. This got to a point where one of the players of the opposite team scored a goal and he happened to be black, this cost the people to retaliate towards him and he didn’t do anything.

Making it seems that if someone of the same race does someone it means that they have all done the same thing. As he grows up he learns that not all things seems to be important anymore forcing him to move to United States where things to be a bit different. And as he connected to his old life staying where he came from between the Atlantic Ocean, Africa, Europe and now North America. As he make connections between Elmina Castle and the Atlantic Ocean showing the struggle of how the slaves been through and the struggles still goes on till today. And all the difficult that he has to goes through whenever people kept asking them where he is from and not know what to say because at the end of day it looked like he was not able to fit anywhere since he knew that England wasn’t his actual home base and the people also knew that but now he wants go back and trace to where he came from.

The English society, racism...