Dear Editor,

My name is William McKenzie and I am a member of the Windrush Generation who migrated to Britain at age 11 and chose to return to Jamaica in 1974. I left a good job as an engineer with a company, Matthew Hall Limited, because I had enough of the struggle to do my work as an electrical design engineer while enduring many instances of sabotage by envious bigots who could not stand to see a black man succeed, thereby destroying their narrative of black inferiority.

Had I been a janitor with a mop and a broom, I am sure, I would have been less harassed.

We are now witnessing another episode of British use and abuse of black people to help build their economy, resulting in increased national wealth post-slavery, and when they are done they are discarded like used toilet tissue.

The time has come to call in the debt owed to us by the British. No longer is the call for reparation a hollow wish, but rather well-deserved compensation for exploitation of our sweat and toil over the years.

We see a repeat of past exploitation where British citizens who are descendants of African descent, now referred to as the Windrush generation, are kicked out with only shirts on their backs ignoring their contribution to the rebuilding of post-war Britain. These people are certainly entitled to monetary compensation as recognition of their contribution to the British economy when they were callously referred to as British subjects.

The point of this letter is to express my support for those who are fighting this egregious action by an unfair British Government which has used our labour to rebuild a war-ravaged country, telling us we were British citizens when they needed our labour, but now willing to deny us our citizenship because they now feel they can do without us.

I say we must demonstrate emphatically that we will not accept this fate willingly. My suggestion is persuasion of the black population to stage a united “one-day stay-at-home” protest aimed at bringing to the attention of the ignorant the tremendous contribution blacks are making to the economy of Britain, and what it is likely to suffer should we all decide to leave.

Hoping to see a sustained response to this obvious injustice.

William McKenzie

wjonmac01@gmail.com