The Space Between Black and White
Esuantsiwa Jane Goldsmith, Jacaranda Books 2020
When I did a stint on the Feminist Library stand at the Women of the World festival at the South Bank in March, I couldn’t help noticing a colourful figure cruising the market place with a large starburst-style sticker on her jacket that read ‘Meet the Author’. This successful advertising campaign meant that most of the time she was surrounded by punters eager to buy her book and get it signed.
But in a fallow patch she approached our stall and from that point on it was inevitable that I would buy a copy, because Esuantsiwa Jane Goldsmith promised a story that was too good to miss, and looking at her standing there in what she called her ‘Safrogette’ trouser suit (of green and purple waxed cotton) I was inclined to believe her.
Born to a white working-class mother – and a Ghanaian father conspicuous by his absence – in Clapham in the 1950s, Jane was always going to get noticed. The racial abuse started early, at primary school: she is called names and asked why she has been rolling in dog’s muck. The trouble is no one will tell her why she is Brown, and why there seem to be no other children like her around. The glimpse of an Asian family with a little girl one murky November afternoon on Clapham Common comes as a revelation to her.
But if you can’t hope to blend in, why not make the most of standing out? Jane seems to have adopted this policy quite spontaneously, acting on impulse to address issues of importance, starting with the remarkable play she wrote, directed and starred in at primary school, coercing her classmates to take part. The account of the first and only performance of Why Am I Brown? made me laugh out loud, especially Jane’s regrets about her casting: ‘I wish I had a stand-up speaking part like the others. I don’t appear in the first bit at all, because I haven’t been born yet, and I have to spend the next few scenes on Elizabeth’s lap making small baby noises.’
The play is a huge success and nothing will stop Jane now. Emboldened, she leads a sit-in at secondary school and embraces student activism at Leicester University, becoming the first Black female president of the students’ union there. Her successful protest gets the library opening hours reinstated, and then it’s off to London for a grants (remember them?) demo, where she coins the immortal chant of ‘No ifs, no buts/We are gonna fight the cuts!’
The search for identity portrayed in Why Am I Brown? is the ongoing backdrop to Jane’s adult life. Too Brown to be White, yet not Black enough to be Black, where does she belong? This is thrown into sharp relief when she signs up to Voluntary Service Overseas – and turns out to be their first-ever non-white volunteer. Out ‘in the field’ no one seems quite certain about her status or what to do with her.
No matter – Esua (and if you think there is a clue to the end of the book in her change of name, you are right) does her own thing, despite the toll it sometimes takes on her mental health. Part intriguing quest, part memoir, part social testimony, part manifesto for inclusivity, The Space Between Black and White is never less than entertaining. Along the way Esua pays loving tribute to her mother, determined to keep her Mixed-Race daughter at any cost, and her grandfather, a committed socialist who inspired and supported Esua’s lifelong activism. And her new-found family turn out to be just as remarkable.
I treasure my copy of this unique book, with its inscription of ‘To Verity, In sisterhood, International Women’s Day 2022, Esua xxx’