Book Review - Afropean: Notes From Black Europe By Johny Pitts

The mainstream perception of Europe is one of a continent made up of civilisations that have stood the test of time, world changing achievements, and liberal minded openness. This is a view that many throughout Europe have worked hard to propagate over the years, but it is one which largely ignores, or minimises the historical, and cultural contributions of the millions of people who live across the continent with African and Caribbean heritage. Johny Pitts is a British writer, photographer, and journalist with a White mother and Black father. His work exploring the meshing of Black, and White European cultures and the ways they have influenced and built upon each other started with a Facebook page (‘Afropean Culture’), was followed by a website (Afropean.com), and in 2019, a book: Afropean: Notes From Black Europe. This book is a travelogue with Pitts detailing his 5 month journey across Europe visiting, and living among Black communities to examine what it means to be Black, and European.

Pitts’ trip takes him through many locations including Paris, Brussels, and Amsterdam among others. While he writes about his time in these cities his journey often takes him off of the more typical backpacking tourist path. His attention is focused on lesser-known places that are on the outskirts of these major cities such as Parisian suburb Clichy-sous-Bois, or Matogne, a largely Congolese neighbourhood in Brussels to give but two examples. They are all different and culturally rich in their own rights, but while reading certain commonalities seem to emerge. These areas tend to be underdeveloped, underfunded, and forgotten, with majority Black populations. Pitts writes about these cities, suburbs, and neighbourhoods with descriptions that paint a vivid, and evocative picture of a Europe which is beautiful at a distance, but upon closer inspection has cracks which entire communities can all too easily fall into. One exception to this Pitts finds on his journey is Marseilles in the south of France. Marseilles seems to be the brightest spot on his tour standing in stark contrast to the other cities he visits. As a reader amongst all of Pitts praise I kept expecting a turn to more negative aspects that never came. If any one location on Pitts’ trip could be said to be the physical embodiment of Afropea, of the equal mixing of African, and European cultures that he was searching for, Marseille would be it.

While Pitts explored many of Europe’s Black communities he also spoke to the people that made them. The book is peppered throughout with the interviews, and conversations he had with the people he encountered. It features a wide variety of people from all walks of life from artists and intellectuals, to museum archivists, to social workers, and many more besides. Their different stories, and the snapshots of their lives that Pitts presents shows the breadth, and diversity of the Black experience in Europe. Pitts’ search for Black Europe leads him to an array of different people some succeeding, some struggling in many cases giving a voice to people who are usually voiceless, and a spotlight to people who are usually ignored. One example of this is in Rinkeby (a neighbourhood in Stockholm with a large immigrant population) where he happened across an old man who was wandering the streets shouting that he was Nelson Mandela’s brother as loudly as he could at passers-by. Instead of avoiding the man Pitts actively engaged him in conversation, an act which Pitts observed seemed to even take the old man himself by surprise. What followed was this old man’s story, that of a political activist fighting apartheid in South Africa before having to flee his home and move to Sweden as a refugee. Without Pitts this would have been a story that went untold and been forgotten. What would have been lost is instead preserved through his writing.

Alongside his own observations, and his conversations with the people he met Pitts also writes about the history of each of the countries his visits. Pitts goes deep excavating, and revealing the colonial histories of Europe’s countries. While reading it quickly becomes clear that historical amnesia is not an exclusively British tendency. The book shows Europe’s whitewashed past has created a myth for itself in the present that many want to believe in, but which is challenged by the lived experiences of those Pitt’s interviewed. Many of the people he talked to on his journey spoke about how difficult it can be to live in Europe while Black. Notably two separate individuals (one in Berlin, and one in Moscow) both told Pitts the same thing: “This is no place for a Black man”. Many times throughout the book the image Europe’s countries want to present bumps up against the painful truth of their past. One example of this is when he writes about his time in Brussels. Pitts finds an intrusion from Belgium’s colonial past into its much more innocuous present when he writes about his visit to a shop dedicated to Tintin “the world’s most famous Belgian”. Among all the toys, and books featuring the schoolboy Pitts sees a copy of Tintin In The Congo covered with a red warning label. Upon taking a closer look Pitts finds this book, originally written in 1931, depicts the Congolese people Tintin meets on his adventure as racist caricatures that look more like mindless gremlin creatures than people. Later in the book he makes sure to include details about Belgium’s colonialist past including the torture and mass murder of the Congolease carried out during King Leopold II’s reign. Hiding in plain sight amidst all the family friendly merchandise was a painful reminder of a decidedly less family friendly past.

In addition to these historical deep dives Pitts also takes many cultural deep dives looking at the ways Black European culture has developed over time, particularly when writing about his own cultural influences. As a reader the way Pitts writes about and delves into significant Black literary figures, and artistic figures was illuminating. As a White British man I will admit to not being aware of many of the people he writes about. This is something I have bumped up against before in past reviews but looking back on my own education I must admit my studies of literature were overwhelmingly White. One example of this in action is when Pitts writes about James Baldwin. I will admit I knew of James Baldwin, but only that his was a significant name. I was vaguely aware that he was a civil rights activist up there with Dr Martin Luther King Jr, and Malcolm X. I knew he had written some important essays but nothing more than that. I didn’t know that he was a novelist, and playwright as well. I didn’t know that he was kept at arms-length by other civil rights activists due to his homosexuality, and I didn’t know that he spent his final years in Saint-Paul-de-Vence in France. It has become a common refrain in these reviews that I didn’t know how much I didn’t know but that is because it is true, and is partially why I started these reviews in the first place. In this respect while it was a little overwhelming at first to read about these figures and their works became one of the highlights of the book for me.

To conclude this piece, while the travelogue as a literary genre dates back centuries and is usually in White hand, Pitts reframes it through a Black lens to great effect. His journey takes him to places that are typically ignored, and people that are typically side lined and puts them centre stage. He provides a glimpse at a Europe that is vastly different to the one we generally see, one which has not been carefully packaged with all the edges sanded off. It is a more boots on the ground approach showing the disparate experiences of Black people living across Europe. On a more personal note, while reading this book Pitts showed me a side of Europe that I at least, hadn’t seen before. It was like this book is the key that has unlocked a treasure chest of Black literature, art, and thought with name after name being pulled out that I had never heard of.

 You can buy this book here: https://tinyurl.com/bk96bsmm