Black blokes who spoke like East-Enders

Nation, race and hooliganism in Cass Pennant'sCass

Bibliographic Data

ID2179002
AuthorsIgnacio Ramos Gay, Ignacio Ramos-Gay (0000-0002-2664-0183, corresponding author)
Year2016
Volume52
Issue1
Pages13-25
Publication date2016-01-02
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Postcolonial Writing (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1744-9855 • E-ISSN: 1744-9863
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/17449855.2015.1125140
OpenAlexW4255525873
LanguageEN
Citations received1
References cited30

Cass Pennant’s autobiography Cass revolves around his days as one of the top men of West Ham’s ill-reputed InterCity Firm (ICF). As a narrative that spans over 40 years, it intertwines Pennant’s personal account with the rise and fall of hooliganism in Britain during the late 1970s and early 1980s. Pennant was born in East London and fostered by a white, working-class family; his narrative is a detailed introspective description of his progress from his beginnings as a black hooligan to his eventual self-perception as a black Jamaican. This article analyses the manner in which Pennant assimilates, conceptualizes and instrumentalizes his blackness for different purposes throughout his life journey, and how, looking back, he comes to terms with his shifting understanding of race as an inherent part of the progress of his Bildungsroman. It concludes with a discussion of the ways in which Pennant’s final acceptance of his transatlantic heritage ties his work to other black British narratives written at the turn of the millennium, and places it within a cultural endeavour to re-imagine Britain as a multicultural space and experience

Art · Art history · Biography · Black British · Introspection · Literature · Multiculturalism · Narrative · Race (biology · Sociology · Subjectivity · White (mutation · Cinema and Media Studies · Crime and Detective Fiction Studies · Music History and Culture · Psychology · Gender Studies · History

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