George Orwell
As I Please
Tribune, 11 August 1944A few days ago a
West African wrote to inform us that a certain London dance hall had recently erected a
colour bar, presumably in order to please the American soldiers who formed an
important part of its clientele. Telephone conversations with the management of the dance
hall brought us the answers: (a) that the colour bar had been cancelled, and
(b) that it had never been imposed in the first place; but I think one can take it that
our informants charge had some kind of basis. There have been other similar
incidents recently. For instance, during last week a case in a magistrates court
brought out the fact that a West Indian Negro working in this country had been refused
admission to a place of entertainment when he was wearing Home Guard uniform. And there
have been many instances of Indians, Negroes and others being turned away from hotels on
the ground that we dont take coloured people.
It is immensely important to be vigilant against this kind of
thing, and to make as much public fuss as possible whenever it happens. For this is one of
those matters in which making a fuss can achieve something. There is no kind of legal
disability against coloured people in this country, and, what is more, there is very
little popular colour feeling. (This is not due to any inherent virtue in the British
people, as our behaviour in India shows. It is due to the fact that in Britain itself
there is no colour problem.)
The trouble always arises in the same way. A hotel, restaurant or
what-not is frequented by people who have money to spend who object to mixing with Indians
or Negroes. They tell the proprietor that unless he imposes a colour bar they will go
elsewhere. They may be a very small minority, and the proprietor may not be in
agreement with them, but it is difficult for him to lose good customers; so he imposes the
colour bar. This kind of thing cannot happen when public opinion is on the alert and
disagreeable publicity is given to any establishment where coloured people are insulted.
Anyone who knows of a provable instance of colour discrimination ought always to expose
it. Otherwise the tiny percentage of colour-snobs who exist among us can make endless
mischief, and the British people are given a bad name which, as a whole, they do not
deserve.
In the nineteen-twenties, when American tourists were as much a
part of the scenery of Paris as tobacco kiosks and tin urinals, the beginnings of a colour
bar began to appear even in France. The Americans spend money like water, and restaurant
proprietors and the like could not afford to disregard them. One evening, at a dance in a
very well-known café some Americans objected to the presence of a Negro who was there
with an Egyptian woman. After making some feeble protests, the proprietor gave in, and the
Negro was turned out.
Next morning there was a terrible hullabaloo and the café
proprietor was hauled up before a Minister of the Government and threatened with
prosecution. It had turned out that the offended Negro was the Ambassador of Haiti. People
of that kind can usually get satisfaction, but most of us do not have the good fortune to
be ambassadors, and the ordinary Indian, Negro or Chinese can only be protected against
petty insult if other ordinary people are willing to exert themselves on his behalf. |