Honey & Spice

Honey & Spice is set within the real cultural and political context of race relations and debate in the 2020s in the UK, when increased public pressure led to more formal scrutiny of the ways in which UK society and institutions discriminated against people of color, whether consciously or unconsciously. Efforts largely centered around challenging white privilege and recognizing the lived experience of Black people and people of color in the UK, especially unequal opportunities and the barriers of traditional white-centric power structures and predominantly white institutions. This context is central to the novel’s campus setting, made explicit in the name “Whitewell” and its exploration of racial identity, race relations, and access within the university community.

An important part of this context is the Black Lives Matter movement, which is significantly referenced in the novel. This movement originated in the United States in 2013 and increasingly influenced anti-racism movements in the UK in the 2020s. Black Lives Matter was established in response to police brutality toward Black people in the US, with the slogan “Black Lives Matter” becoming a wider anti-racist call for social justice and raised awareness. The movement increased in global awareness in May 2020 after footage showed police murdering a Black man named George Floyd—the police were called because a clerk suspected Floyd had used a fake $20 bill. This extremely violent response to a suspected and harmless crime was indicative of the pattern of police brutality against Black people and caused worldwide outrage.

The Black Lives Matter movement and its effects were received and enacted in particular ways in the UK, reflecting the nature of UK society and race relations in the country. In general, the movement was less police-focused: The British police service is state-funded and its normal officers are unarmed and have limited powers of physical force as compared to US officers: instances of fatalities and serious police brutality are much rarer. As a result, subsequent scrutiny of institutional racism in the UK police service focused on questions of representation and progression, racial profiling and bias, and uneven access to protection and justice. The novel engages with these issues when it shows Malakai stopped by police in the street at night. UK police have discretional stop-and-search powers and statistics show that these are used disproportionately to stop young Black men.

The wider effects of Black Lives Matter were felt differently in the UK than in the US. In particular, in several unorganized but related incidents across Britain, the statues of famous historical figures were forcibly removed and defaced by protestors: These figures had traditionally been given historical status—as symbolized by their statues—because of philanthropic or other achievements. These achievements were often only possible due to the massive wealth these figures garnered from the slave-trade, either directly or indirectly. Protestors argued that the statues’ continued presence normalized social injustice and represented the “whitewashing” of British colonial history, marginalizing the past and present experiences of Black people in Britain. This cause was taken up more generally by liberal voices, who called for an intersectional reassessment of public spaces and the widening of historical narrative perspectives to include under-represented groups such as People of Color, women, and the working class. Significant debate ensued in the UK, partly driving the so-called “culture wars,” as conservative forces argued against these “woke” reinterpretations of accepted historical tellings. The wider ramifications of this controversy have continued through the 2020s, as society and its institutions, especially educational and intellectual institutions, grapple with changing and polarized perceptions of “correct” cultural and historical narratives. This is the context into which Honey & Spice leans.

The novel engages directly with these contemporaneous issues in the academic sphere. Kiki acknowledges that institutional racism accounts for the persistent barriers in the English-speaking publishing world for authors who identify as non-white. Systemic racism shows up in Whitewell in that this large university only has two Black professors; a lack of qualified candidates of color can usually be traced to inequalities of access, financial support, and mentorship along the educational pipeline. Although in the UK, more than 50% of Black 18-year-olds enter higher education, compared to only 30% of their white peers, only 9% of Black students are accepted to the more prestigious universities. Black undergraduates are also more likely to drop out and there is a significant attainment gap between the degrees awarded to Black and non-Black students, and in progression to professional and managerial graduate careers (Nerys, Roberts and Paul Bolton. “Educational Outcomes of Black Pupils and Students.” House of Commons, 2023.) As the novel shows, this data can be used to perpetuate racist beliefs and assumptions as well as to challenge systemic barriers. Kiki refers to Zack’s hypocritical ambition to be the “token Black” in a financial company run by alumni of the Whitewell Knights, a racist organization that is happy to use him for diversity optics but that considers him intellectually inferior due to his race.