Benjamin Zephaniah on fighting the far right: ‘If we did nothing we would be killed on the streets’

Racist violence was never far away for the poet and author when he was
growing up. And even when the thugs put on suits, the threat of the far right never disappeared. In this exclusive extract, he explains how he learned to fight back

This is personal. It started when I was about eight years old. I was walking on Farm Street in Hockley, Birmingham, where my family lived. I was in my own little world, having poetic thoughts and wondering what the future held for me.

Then, bang, I felt an almighty slap on the back of my head and I fell to the floor. A boy had hit me with a brick as he rode past on his bicycle. As I lay on the ground with blood pouring from the back of my head, he looked back and shouted: “Go home, you black bastard.” I had no idea what he was talking about. I was going home. Who was black? What was a bastard?

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