Being A Man 2014 | Being a Black Man

one of the sessions that we wanted to hold was it's an explicit conversation about being a black man which one can take automatically as meaning there can't be one thing because it would be like saying well being a woman what is that being a man what is that all question marks so this is going to be an opportunity for for the four people on the panel led by a caller but himself contributing to talk over that subject so I don't wants to say that for those of you weren't here this morning that a caller is one of our most renowned historians thinkers philosophers and artists he's a hip-hop artist who started hip-hop Shakespeare he travels all over the world giving a sense of a renegotiated history that isn't the conventional one which gives us a much wider understanding of how the world has been constructed and so can I welcome to him to the stage with his fellow compatriots thank you [Applause] afternoon everyone that was weak how could you know well you like here this morning because I said I made this exact joke this morning good afternoon everyone okay much better we're gonna jump right into it we will get to questions much earlier than we did in the debate this morning so be ready to fire off but I'll start with one what if I take the title of this debate and we'll start with Topher and go along if I take the title being a black man and Robin make it a statement I make it a question I put a question and being a black man question where would you go from that okay I kind of I was asked to prepare some thoughts around masculinity and blackness and I can also a writer I attempted to write something down which would stop me from sort of drifting off a lot of tangents and this is kind of ocation around this so there we go to the out black and gay to be out black and gay to live as an alt black gay man is a challenge because I appear conventional mostly most people assume I'm heterosexual this is both a privilege and a problem it's a privilege because despite my self and identification I have never experienced overt homophobia it's a burden because inevitably I have to make the choice of coming out again and again and again sometimes it's too dangerous or too much like hard work and at other times it will be stupid not to but in all cases my masculinity which is tied up with my erotic love for other men is rendered invisible until I express it this then only reinforces homophobia the very homophobia that I hope to get around because I'm an out black and gay man to be out black and gay there needs to be invisible it means to be silent but at home perhaps at 18 or 24 not wanting to alienate my loving family because racism renders me more vulnerable in the outside world without them or perhaps it 42 not want to make as factory head in a school when pupils call me names in front of the other staff and then I'm accused of not being able to impose discipline to be out black and gay is impossible that works sometimes unless I go through the intense scrutiny or curiosity and risk of homophobic remarks or the being passed over for promotion in the pit or game that requires me to be respectable with a respectable longtime partner preferably white in my church mosque family if my church lost or family reject me or my friends because I'm gay I will not get away from the risk of being stalked by police or called a racist slur or followed around a shop by a security guard or excluded from school because of my perceived aggression or labelled neat because of my poor background or labeled sell a sell out because of my education I don't get away from being black if I'm gay if I'm black and gay to be out black and gay doesn't protect me from the twin pillars of race and racism and homophobia doesn't shield me from people's expectations of me as a black man that I typically represent a hard-edged masculinity that I should be athletic long suffering and oppression not very well educated perhaps have even gone to prison sexually prolific smoke weed wee baby a baby father too many to be out black engaged and shield me from the idea that I'm a mandingo top or a willing bottom that I'm into fashion love hang with my girlfriends and Gail feels better have a little sugar my walk and lightness in my voice and I'm also funny and outrageous that Beyonce or Gaga are my idols that I really want to get married and adopt children that I'm most so brave for being out to black and gay as a black man it's okay for me to shank a guy in broad daylight killing a brother his praise perhaps among some communities by other brothers but kissing another brother tenderly in public definitely is not that my desire and love for other black men should be frowned upon when so much violence is done to us and bias to each other is bewildering this is why black men loving black men is the revolutionary act to love my father brother son friend is as important to me as making love to my male loved to think one kind of love is natural and another is not is like making a division in the sky that doesn't exist excuse my British accent you is soldiers man toy soldiers yeah get in line cadet a-10 yo yo you punk-ass I know you can't wait to get off house arrest so you can run the out of New York you spin the lyrics of the game in playing the game echoed by 50 mm now as Lil Wayne and all those fine beautiful brothers who so desperately need to define their sexuality by denigrating mine alongside the relishing use of burn bottom and burn by rageh stars Braca star soaking in the Sun of some of the poorest countries in the world as if the thought of two men each other loving each other is more offensive than the poverty and exploitation all around them to be out black and gay will find no refuge also in the clubs of London where chunky white guys full of meth and Tina and G hunt around ready to fill their subconscious and not social conscious desires for a bit of big black the pithy phrase whispered in my ear when I was younger many years ago as a teenager barely coming out as black and gay to be out black and gay is truly stressful sometimes nearly impossible but we will truly liberated liberated to be free and to be self determined to be a man a man of my choosing whether I wish to switch or striked whether I have swag or geek chic whether am gentle or rough or none of the above I have to be out black and gay not silenced not silenced otherwise I will forever be enslaved to another man's idea of what it is to be black and what it is to be gay so you do that and you both look at me top that I can't top that okay my name is Shane Ryan I'm the chief executive of working with men which is a charity that supports positive male activity engagement and involvement look us up online I was backstage realizing that you're about to do that and just thinking about being a black guy and I went back to last year I was asked to be involved in this thing called be part of the story and I had to tell a story of my earliest kind of memories of being black and I thought back I thought when did I realize that it was such a big difference so when when did I realize that racism existed and I remember going to school I lived in Fulham and I remember going to school one day and throughout the time in primary school I've been waiting to get in second school and where a school blazer and anything when I stared but I was displays was a big thing to me so and my parents didn't have very much money but they got me a blazer I was going to school so I was walking down the form pass road I was so happy proud of my blazer it's early in the morning and these guys in a white van came past and chucked the entire contents of their there astray and and all odds coffee and stuff out onto my blazer shai and Carolyn driving and I just stood there in the middle of the street and couldn't work out what had just happened to me and then to add insult to injury I got to school and he gave me the attention from a blazer and I just thought this is and is this how it's going to be and then I suppose the other thing I think of is after that I suppose from mom about it and she was just saying that as a black young man you were going to have to be twice as good to get half as far and my heart sunk and I just thought am I gonna have to wear that for the rest of my life is that in everything I do am I gonna have to try and be twice as good to get half as much and then as I get older I was remembered that statement I looked around and I saw other young black men that I knew that were really trying to get on really trying to do things and and I understood sometimes why they fell by the wayside didn't quite what kind of fell short of the mark for themselves it was that feeling that no matter what we did it wasn't quite gonna be good enough and the maybe we had to find another way to be black black young men you know so which is why you see individuals who adopt I don't know if you're familiar with the term cool pose which is which is a there's a book by by um I think it's by majors and Bilson and they talked about how as black black men what we do is we adopt being cool as an alternative to some of the elements of pieces that are out there for white young men in our society and so it made me really really think about that kind of stuff and so they're the thoughts I bring today they're not they're not as as interesting I don't think there's what you just said or a thought-provoking us what you've just said but nevertheless and that's why I'm here today I think [Applause] thank you very much I met Qureshi and I'm a writer broadcaster I do a few different things yeah it's been really good here in those last couple of talks and I just kind of built on that with a couple of reflections really which is just that to come out to the last manager which is my question I'd answer are Carla's question about being black man question mark with another question which is when do you become black and as we've heard most of the time I think for most of us that's not a question that you turn over as a child it's an answer that's visited upon you at some point often in uncomfortable circumstances often when you're young and unprepared for that and it it sets your life in a really interesting trajectory I think because from that point onwards you're kind of on the back foot in this much as what you realize when we're very early age sometimes of five six or whatever is that the version of you that others see isn't you that makes sense that other people see you determine you have expectations and prejudices and whole sets of understanding about who you are before you even open your mouth before you even walk through the door there's what it kind of boils down to I think is it's very simple thing which is that black men black people but especially black men I'd say are visible and invisible at the same time they're highly visible because you can walk down the street and people can decide before you've opened your mouth who you are what you're about based on sometimes what you wear but chiefly based on their own prejudices and so on and you're completely invisible at the same time because the things that aren't talked about it forms like this are very common so what's inside he doesn't get hurt doesn't get seen in terms of compressors all kind of expectations or ideas or ideals or ambitions or hopes you might have or or just have might stored up so you're kind of bathing your an object rather than a subject most of the time you're a thing that's seen but you're not hurt you're not and it becomes very difficult express who you are and under those circumstances what tends to happen is that it's very easy to fall into kind of prescribed notions of what you should be as a black man say you know when I was younger that's quite a long time ago now when I was younger there's an awful lot of talk especially for a hip pop about keeping it real about being real about being authentic about being true and actually all this was a lie really because you know those kind of ideas about being kind of cool about being distanced about being masculine about being detached about being emotionless about being cool all of those a really trap for men they're trapped because they don't allow you to do the thing that's most important to you which is to go on a journey to discover who you truly are you know you can get caught up in and essentially all you end up doing is replaying other people's expectations of who you should be and the real journey the real task of being a black man I think is to set off on this path into yourself and to try and find the ways to understand without cliche without realness to try and understand who you really are to get beyond tropes of authenticity and to get somewhere that's subjective that's idiosyncratic that's very particular to you you know my heroes tend to be those kind of slightly more kind of a joke ratted kind of dans eh figures you're enjoy 3,000 and people who don't make sense that people who don't necessarily fit into a single category because what I admire about someone like him whatever marabout something that prints is simply the sin that they are seeming to be themselves and for me that's the biggest challenge that's the biggest task but it's almost so the key reward it's the place you need to be in it's not really journey that stops it gets visted upon you very early on but from them the response and the possibility I think we have the possibility that we have when people aggressively decide say you're this is they actually know I'm not that I'm me I'm not necessarily sure how that articulates but that's what I'm gonna do I'm gonna find out what that means I'm gonna surprise myself I'm gonna confound expectation from others in order so that I can live a life that free I can live a life of articulation and honesty and artistry and openness and I think we can't do anything bout that because that's how we get to solidarity with each other that's how we get to connection with ourselves that's how we get to determine the world and our own terms and how we do that it's down to each one of us but I think that's the first us and that's what for me that's what is involved in being a man [Applause] well I'm I'll give my response to that question then we'll probably just open respect to you guys to be honest but um for me of course the situation is slightly different in in a sense which is only something I've really to dialogue about myself with really over the last five or ten years in that I might self-identify and I do self-identify as a black man I identify with my African heritage but my mother is white and it's interesting because I discovered my mom was white at the exact same time I discovered that I was black on the same day and I remember it very vividly my mom's actually here somewhere so she knows exactly what I'm talking about right it was the day I went to school now with the scoyne Camden so we're not talking about you know out of Shropshire it was a multicultural school I was there went to school and the boy who lived on my street called me a Chinese black bastard which to be fair to him was pretty original right I'd never heard that one before him you know I'm um um but but that risk when you think about it that reflected that I that I run the irony of me being mixed I didn't realize at the time I felt black and until very recently I've affirmed blackness as I've got older while I am unapologetically a pan-africanist why unapologetically teach African history and lean towards that side of my culture in a certain way I also think it's important to understand my mixes mostly I have respect for people that have two black parents the reason why I say that is because those of us who are lighter skinned who are mixed I've deliberately given privilege over people who are darker than us and they have to deal with racism and white supremacy certainly in a way that I think not when people imagine a depraved insane ragged black man they're not talking about someone who looks like me that's one that someone looks that Wesley Snipes with digital manhunts ooh and there was certainly a fear attached to men that looked like that there isn't in the exact same way attached to me I'm not saying that there isn't racism towards those office or light-skinned and I'm not even saying that the relative privilege is really privileged it's a privilege based on denial of who you are based on looking down on part of what you are which to me is disgusting it's not privilege but many light-skinned people have accessed and behaved and even commit genocide upon that privilege if we talk about so the history of the Dominican Republic in relation to Haiti for example and so for me that day began a journey that has really defined me and defined my life and I was very lucky unlike many people from mixed sea we never talk we talk about black relationships breaking down what we never talk about is why mixed-race relationships never lost like way more than two black parents are far more likely to stay together than one black person in want white person we have asked why that is I think my dad as most young mixed children don't we don't ask what is that are black and white people getting into relationships because they love each other when we look at the overwhelming majority of it is black men and white women what is that dynamic why you know what's going on here is it simply love or is there some other psychological issue playing into why these relationships are forming in the first place and why they consequently don't last in a racialized society such as this one I was lucky because my mum to be fair to were a was a round a particular set of black people that she'll tell you herself we're very welcoming of her that's not to say she never stuff in any prejudices or whatever else but odd people because what happens what racism does is makes black people actually ironically feel they always have to facilitate white people make white people feel comfortable when black people don't do that it's often felt of when a white person goes into a black space if we don't lay out the red carpet it feels that persecution well why don't realize is we're far more horrible to one another than we ever are to anybody white but really so for my mum being in those spaces the irony is while other people that look like her was spitting at her and calling her a lover and kicking her and chase no industry it wasn't like today we're having a mixed-race kid is fashionable I was born in 1980 it wasn't so fashionable particularly my Godfather's family took her in and educated oh and so she came to understand that she had black children whether she liked it or not she didn't have mixed-race children being half white was not going to stop the police searching me for the first time when I was 11 that does that make sense and so my mum was able to make decisions that gave me equipment that I don't believe most mixed children have and again we don't talk about why why are the mixed kids always the craziest kids on the estate no one ever asks why right well what's about the black kids but the craziest killing it is always the little mixed-race you because he goes home to his white mum usually and tries to explain what he's experiencing as a black man him he doesn't even know he's a black man one of my best friends was like this I was young who swore he'd be dead by 21 and he was dead by 21 but his argument in life right and his behavior in life was as a mixed boy his black masculinity was defined by how tough he was right so if he was gonna be tough he had to be tough with being half white had to be tougher than all of the black boys right another boy when you grown up used to deny that his dad was black what was that was white boy black you told him he said was white a punch in the face right and his dad was white then was at home but he lived on a on a predominantly black estate where that wasn't was and he went on to be a bad boy right partly because of that so my mum's knowledge and the knowledge she was given and she was part of meant that I was enrolled in pan-african Saturday school that I studied certain things but that put me in direct opposition to being Frank with you white teachers my entire life in school and if I were to tell you what my experiences were in school all of the black people in events will say yes sounds about right most white people say you'll actually lie in not not because people are being bad but because it sounds so ridiculous it would take for my white mum to tell you the stories and you'd be like no in the 1980s in Camden you know in the 1990s the teacher said to you in a historical debate this just to give you one example of the most ridiculousness that I experienced in school and then we will just open it straight up but just to reflect on it we were having a debate and this is the most extreme example I can give you and it define my teenage years as well we're having a debate with a my history teacher who'd been repeatedly generally racist and and and the kind of person she was and it wasn't the first time I'd experienced this kind of teach it was a constant thing because my knowledge of African history constantly put me in opposition when I was told the theorem of Pythagoras was the theorem of Pythagoras I knew it was on an Egyptian papyrus read before 2,000 years before Pythagoras was born someone asked why are you telling me it's the theorem of Pythagoras it's not right I'm going to ask that question so she was saying that the Nation of Islam and the Ku Klux Klan are exactly the same thing except one's black and one's white I said I said miss that's a little bending the truth right I mean whatever you perceive or whatever the national Islam's beliefs are or were in relation to white people a we have to look at the time in which they came into existence they came into existence at a time when to be black was to be non-human in America a so they didn't come into existence in the way the Klan did they don't go around routinely hanging white men from trees and chopping their penises or from burning them in public but they also do some very positive things that you can't deny like cleaning up drug addicts and police in crime in certain African American inner cities her response was to say the Ku Klux Klan also stopped crime by killing black people you know that's wrong I'm she sat right there I wrote to the governors of the school but this is where the racism came in I wrote to the governors of the school and articulately I was always good English and the headmaster called me into his office and he gave me a real lesson in polite liberal you ISM it was amazing the way he patronized me and gave me a book about Martin Luther King a you know I've got the book on my shelf I'm not even saying it to be sarcastic yeah she gave me a book called the children about the civil rights struggle and attempted to placate me and basically for a year or so as I continued to complain about what this teacher said and suggest there should be disciplinary action eventually they moved me from class she was also my former they moved me form class and it got brushed on the carpet and she got a promotion hooray let's open up for questions unless there's anything quickly you want to add I'll give everyone seconds come back okay let's open straight up do we have the roving mics around let's go here here here we'll take three and then we'll move on we'll take those free and then we'll come to others so we'll take three at once and then anyone who feels to respond responding to you course to any one of the three that go out good so first of all I just want to thank the panel fantastic discussion now it's very important to note that the question I'm going to Arts is rather loaded so do let me put some context into it I do bear in mind I'm approaches for a very conceptual perspective and equally from the macro so it's an awful lot of assumptions here but this idea of what is to be a black man I thought it's truly broken and irretrievably so so and that's not half fault a lot of that is no post slavery that prison industrial complex and the representation of black men in the media but what we need to recognize that's a given and there's many things that are not in our control because we're not part of the ruling class now if we understand that the idea of what is to be a black man today is broken the question is moving forward as black men do we give up that idea of identity now it's a very strong notion to say I'm no longer black because ultimately this subculture hasn't served me a purpose in the last 10 20 years now being back served an awful you know an awful big sort of part of our history and gated civil rights but for my lifetime and bear in mind I'm 26 and it's a naive view in it being black has never been beneficial to me and their attachment to to what is perceived as being black it's never been beneficial and I've often had to forego that now in order for us to move forward I feel that we have to recognize this is not our game that we're playing we're actually playing the ruling class game which is opposed to our game and let's be frank while it's not a game played by all white people it is played by the ruling class and that is representation for 1% again not us so the question is we forego what is black and fully simulate into the ruling class bourgeois ideals in order to progress forward okay that's one if you're on that side you may as well take this one there's one over here as well so my question is to you specifically I - I'm mixed my mom is white my dad is black I was born in Brazil but I was raised in Porton in Portugal Spain and my experience is I never realized I was mixed until I moved to the UK and in the u.s. there was this thing I got this white girlfriend and she told me yeah you mixed I was like what's that I'm black my skin is brown no you mix your mom is white so you're mixed and I think this ignorance that I've had throughout my whole life kind of helped me because going through the educational system in in Portugal in Spain in very homogeneous societies Catholic I was always you know the darker skin the darker kid in my in my class but I never we I never thought I never this ignorance that I'm actually mixed and I think it kind of helped me because I don't have some of those hang-ups and my question to you is that is that a lot of don't we put a lot of importance in this making this distinction between black and mixed you know I think it was as a hindrance to to people like us to think too much of to make that distinction basically this actually leads on to what this guy was saying here earlier I'm glad that you touched on the issue of light skin and dark skin and brown and people said great in each other on the race on their on their hues and since you were sharing your story about how you realize when you were black when I went to school there was a mentoring project for black girls and little black girls stay behind in the class we've got a projects for you so I state that behind and one of the girls a Caribbean girl said what you're doing here you're not black and I thought were you talking about I am black she was now you're Indian I said no Indian you're Somali then I'm not from Somalia I'm from Eritrea she goes same thing Marla and I thought to myself hold on I'm brown I see myself as an African but I've got another black person telling me that I'm not of African descent or I'm not I'm not a black person so it made me curious to see about the development of black people or people of African descent are we ever going to move away from this black skin light skin business dark skin light skin debate because we're just going backwards every time we thought I would going forwards we see things on social media stereotyping people when it makes us feel a bit like you know how are we gonna move forward and you know recently Madonna put up an Instagram picture of her son and she put you know dis this I've been up a debate about you know how we how we label ourselves and how we expect others to talk to us without realising how how we talk to each other first so just thank you so we've got the free we've got the idea of black identity and should we abandon it we've got a specific question about being mixed and your question is about light-skinned dark-skinned privileged and black self relations would that be fit does anyone wanna respond to the first one about should we abandon this idea of being black yeah I mean well I I wouldn't say we have a choice in an abandoning that because again as we've been talking so far those ideas about being black are necessarily voluntary things they're visited upon you in different ways but I mean the simple answer is no because you know you know there's a you know one of the most significant writers about race and kind of philosophies of race w/e be voice who is kind of writing at the turn of the last century in 1910 1920s wrote book called the souls of black folk and in the souls of blackface do you boys coined what I think it's very useful term called double consciousness which is exactly this thing about the fact that if you're black you have one view of the world which is your view but you also understand that you're being seen and understood by a kind of white gaze around you so you have a kind of double we're looking the world do you boys saw this as a kind of burden as a kind of sort of burden that black people had to carry in fact I tend to look at it another way which is to say if you can see the world two ways that allows you to have a con perception and an insight into who we are into how the world organizes itself and runs that other people white people don't have so to kind of turn over our Carla's story you know that story in one weighs about disempowerment prejudice and so on but it's also a story about power it's also about story about your own personal power your own personal relationship to exactly what's going on around you and the insight that you take away from that and that stays with you all of your life which is to say which is an understanding of those larger power relationships an understanding of your own position in there and an insight that leads to glimpse them into how you deal with them so most of our lives as black people are about a negotiation between these different sets of spaces sometimes that puts you in a difficult position but I would absolutely say that the insight you gain from that is key it's key because it allows you at least the choice and the option and the opportunity to think about how you relate to other people about how you talk to other people think about how you can negotiate these very troubled spaces and it gives you power so I den it's about abandoning being black at all I think it's about me it's about using that to understand your own position to form connections with other people and to try and move forward on terms that are yours [Applause] I'll decide something really quickly I think I think it the the two things first and foremost I mean in terms of the question i when you say should we abandon I'm not sure who you mean by we so that that needs qualifying for me because I don't know what the way is okay and I think I think we'll see even there it becomes difficult because then the motion of what a black man is then you get into that whole thing it's a it there is a we do that a lot people do that a lot did the whole we thing you know no I'm not sure who he is to start with but that's a completely different debate that we won't go into right now the other thing is that I'm I'm sad I suppose in a sense that that you say that the connotation has been black have been negative for you and that that makes me quite sad really because I think that through some of my more difficult moments I have looked to black people use that term again black people of the past in order to look at what I was gonna do in the future you know so the the struggles that people have had in the past and the fact that they've overcome those struggles have really been given me insight into how I was going to live my own life you know and and if you took that away from me it would have made my life a lot more difficult so so that's that's a key thing for me so I'm quite sad that you haven't found any of that you haven't that the in the annals of history you haven't found individuals that inspire you and encourage you to do better things and to move your life forward so so some aside about that but but so I suppose I'm watching a question really in that sense and I'm saying no I don't think it's great I love I love the provocations fantastic it's it's it's like you know a circles a circle and how can it be a square and all kind of things how can how can something be something that is not I mean you know I mean Jimmy Bolden famously said to the interviewer who asked him I think might be David Frost but quite sure you know what's it like said this interviewer being born poor black and gay in the south and ingenue replied famously well David honey I guess I hit the jackpot I mean you know it's it's basically you know we are we are peoples have been oppressed over centuries but you look at the traditions that come out of that whether it be mass in the Caribbean whether it be the dances that come out of Europe look great people musicians like Fela Kuti you look at great things like Garvey you look at so much rich history and culture despite the oppression and racism and all kind of structural and international legal and civil forces that have been striven to silence us we're still pretty much getting to the place where we need to be I think individually is a man and being black is something a whole chair I cherished really and I stand on the shoulder of giants of many hues very light-skinned very dark-skinned very mixed heritage like I am my mother's half asian my father was african-american you know it's it's a great privilege to be sitting in the situation at this time in life and I think it's a great thing so I think that's all I could say really I mean is there's no abandoning really because because in a sense you look at across the world diaspora can speak and we live in the UK at the moment we're living in London but you know when you go international you're not looking at a white world you know you're looking at a very different kind of perspective but just take yourself out of London out of Europe and you're looking at a world from a very different kind of place we this isn't the center of gravity here and it isn't the center of history either so there's kind of lots of different ways of seeing and I think we should be aware of those because they're empowering us so cliche - fiance tonight sorry brother I don't want to spend too much time on this one point so I'm gonna have to come back to you on that one personal vindictive it wasn't that way it wasn't a man it was it was sadness it wasn't it wasn't an attack the idea is is that I use the term capitalist society because the world is governed by the idea now as we stand in England the ruling class or one thing but the ruling class have many manifestations of themselves everywhere the game is the same the rule is the same how we play it is because of what the boy did the double consciousness does it play well again a bad little idea of black identity in my opinion so let's talk let me respond walk let me let me respond briefly and then we'll take three more questions firstly I think we have to know history if we know history we know that the idea that black people only discovered their blackness the moment white people turned up is nonsense we read some ancient African philosophy from mandingo kingdom from ancient Kemet from Nubia black people had sufficient intelligence to realize they were black because of their relationship to the Sun and they worship the Sun they understood what their melanin was etc etc etc so we didn't suddenly discover blackness at the moment racism showed up and that's very important to understand ok there was a particular pride put into blackness and in fact the ancient Nubians for example one of their big conflicts with ancient egypt was the ancient egypt was mixing there's that now we're not we're not mixing we're keeping our blackness and that was part of the interaction between those two societies coming to the point about being mixed do I think we placed too much distinction on the gradations of blackness I think it depends on our motivation if our motivation for looking at what mine and your experience has been in relation to my dad's experience my dad six-foot-two he's fifteen and a half stone he's got dreadlocks and he's jet-black for me to pretend I'm perceived in exactly the same manner as my father is I from a revolutionary perspective is dishonest and I have to look at the way people that look just like me and you have fought it perfectly acceptable weather in Libya just last year sponsored by NATO to hack dark-skinned black people to death or in Haiti in the 1930s right so this racism that has turned into the same kind of violent racism that the open white supremacists express people that look like me and you have been have picked up that baton and run with it whether we're talking about in transatlantic slavery where people were given a certain amount of privilege or when we're talking about today in North Africa or today and in fact hey black Haitians black dominican republic citizens from Haiti have just recently had their citizenship for example which speaks back to this division between mulatto and black so I think from a revolutionary perspective it's dishonest if our motivation for looking at gradations of blackness is about dividing black people and playing one ottomanism and saying well I'm more black than you because I'm two shades darker or I'm more black than you because you know I've read five more books is all this kind of nonsense that is really about breeding conflict then that's where it's problematic for me whereas if we are looking at our different experiences Africans born in Africa have a different experience living under if you live in Nigeria your primary oppression or at least you're visible oppression might be a black government it might not be racism or at least the structural racism from a fire mfy bank etc I can't talk to the average person living in Lagos about that because visibly what can they see black police if I go to Jamaica what can they see right in front of them black police officers that shoot pregnant women Janis then so there's got a big relations of discussion lastly on that point yeah I think it's insane that even light-skinned black people from the Western Hemisphere think they can tell East Africans that are not black I've never been able to figure that one out maybe someone can shed some light on it but it's obviously insanity especially what's most interesting is people are claiming the heritage of ancient Ethiopia ancient Nubia ancient Egypt and at the same time telling people from Somalia and Eritrea in Ethiopia that they're not black did this is the level of stupidy um any quick rebuttals to those real we're gonna go I would say that divide them rule that's just classic dividing little stuff you know and people feeding into that divide and rule you know so and we've seen that you know with a more by way of migration you know people just well I've been here longer so I have some kind of different right to the right you have and it is this just nonsense as you say absolutely can we take three more questions please we will take to it both the two sat next to each other at the front and that will take four and then two just here and then we will come to you as well but we'll take those four quickly I may get the thumbs up or the thumbs down but I don't give a damn because my skin is black okay my skin is black and I think what has happened here with history education whatever you want to call it they have twisted it our skin is black because you you know born in the in the sunshine but the mind heart the soul come on that's completely different each one of us whatever color of our skin we have that same sort of mind heart soul the blood is red so when we come with this blackness and black that and we just get sucker pooled into those sort of way with our talk we get label eyes we feel submissive that we kind of do things because we are black but if you got a mind and a heart and so to do what you want with your attitude or whatever comes your way you can do it with that mind and that's what I call my black skin is that thank you and that's the fat one here by the way statements are fine as well you that it doesn't always I wasn't even say no listen I'm not saying that to be facetious I mean genuine it doesn't have to be a question to the panel of experts on blackness there are the statements absolutely fine also I would just like to bring us back to a caller you said you had a question about the success rate of mixed-race couples and I just wondered if the panel would like to give their thoughts on that and then we've got to this is one observation plus perception for my own experience I have the sense that you're talking much more about in relation to being a black man what it is to be black more than what it is to be a man which I found very interesting secondly for me you may have noticed on white but my mother was Jewish my father came from a Hugo Novak and I think of myself as mixed though I'm mixed white my take on it is that I have a richness and a loneliness I have a richness I have a foot in a number of different camps but I have a loneliness in that I'm not completely part of either [Applause] I really enjoyed Georgia pawpaw and I was just wondering where her you can get get a copy of it and what do you mean by the line violence done to us and by us and there's a second point I just I was very beep amused by the by the verdict of the coroner on the Duggan case I I fortunately I forget his first name sorry they the jewelry found that he wasn't carrying a gun but that the two constables active on the basis of honest belief that were would in to indicate that they made it made a mistake according to the coroner and I I don't know what the answer to this but you would think in those circumstances it would be appropriate for the chief of the mayor to issue an apology even though those two officers had acted lawfully [Applause] so should we go for even the success rate of mixed couples but there was a also question specifically few to--for about the poem okay well yeah I mean it's it's it was it's yeah I wrote it last night but the thing around violence done to us well I mean the reason why I used to start to try to use such as type phrase because it's kind of you explode it's huge done to us whether it could be the transatlantic slave trade all two individuals whether they're stopped by the police at eleven for the first time or whether it's the first moment you discover from another point of view that you're a certain kind of black I could go on and bias well you know I mean the the young men in our country and black men are incarcerated for lots of different reasons and one of the reasons is there because of the violence we do to each other same with the United States same was in a country where my mom comes from Jamaica where the higher cooling rate in the coagulant you know so that's that's what was a loading tea but also the select psychological violence that we do in terms of hating relation to the kind of homophobia that happens within black communities not that black people are any more homophobic than anybody else but you know the Catholic Church for example gives you an example of the way that perhaps perhaps Catholicism thinks about sexuality or you can talk about Islam you can talk about Buddhism in Malaysia so I just want to be in that point but so it's also about you know the fact that we we throw our young sons and some daughters out of a house if we finally Gail there's been we're still beating up kids on the street of London if they're gay or lesbian so there's those kinds of violence is really I'll pick up on the point about mixed couples too because I have some experience of it obviously being born into that I think the point I was trying to allude to is that I think there are behaviors to boo behaviors which is actually what my lecture tomorrow is about sex and race but they were certain to do behaviors that we don't like to talk about you know if you go to Jamaica if you go to Salvador they buy here which I've done many times if you go to Gambia you will see which is the phenomenon you don't see many places in the world you see male prostitution you will see scores and scores and scores and reams and reams of reams of middle-aged white Western women go into these parts of the world to pay to sleep with black men they're not going to Poland they're not going to Thailand like white men go to Thailand others come back from Thailand yesterday that's the there in Cambodia will our prostitution capitals for Western men but what is it psychologically in the minds of white Western women that when they seek male prostitution they go to these overwhelmingly black spaces it's an uncomfortable conversation for everybody for white men for white women for black people but then what is it about black men that makes them in Western countries at least desire white women so much or at least choose to create mixed relationships and I think that's not that me saying that there isn't genuine love between some people that are black and some people that white what I'm saying is I don't think everyone's relationship decisions if black men hate one and all many of whom publicly declared they do when a rapper says I will kill that he's making it very clear he hates black people I never used to see it that way but it's clear how I know this is when I go into prisons and young boys write these kind of lyrics and I say someone my mom's right my dad's black if I write songs saying I'm gonna go out and kill hongki's and crackers and ye tomorrow what do you think about it well by exception every single black boy I've said that to said no you can't do that that's racist the same way of two minutes ago just said I'm gonna blow a nigga's head off when I see him has told me he values white life infinitely more than e values black life see because we tend to think that you have to be white to be a white supremacist that's ridiculous some of the worst white supremacists are not black that's the one the only good thing I found about the Django film was Samuel Jackson's character all right that uncle ruckus character is real there are black people that hate blackness now if that exists their relationships with white people can never be genuine because it's not two people who respect one another's background and culture coming together it's one superior than one inferior and I think at some point the relationship between white privilege white supremacy and black inferiority and mixed relationships makes many of them untenable it takes a very strong love and a very genuine set of mutual respect to maintain that kind of relationship in my opinion if you're conscious of yourself lots of black people can be dishonest with themself when that stuff doesn't exist as can white people but I don't feel as a genuinely honest fulfilling relationship when you have to dismiss people's baggage an identity yeah and the last point about Mark Duggan sorry is let's be clear even when there's been verdicts of unlawful killing when black people have died in police custody ins country so when police have definitely not acted lawfully so when they tired they put 35 or 60 feet of tape around the mouth of joy Gardiner whose mother I met last night and they killed her and the jury found unlawful killing police officers didn't go to prison when they unlawfully killed Roger Sylvester or Marlon Downes names that many people don't know in this room but should know police officers didn't go to jail when they Broadwater Farm rights in 1985 people know PC Blake Locke's name they don't know Cynthia Jarrett's name the riots in Brixton in the eighties also caused by the police shooting sherry grosse again someone's grandmother in the back the idea that the police only killed black gangsters just doesn't stand up to and and even that it would be legitimate even if the person was a gangster there's a thing called due process right and we're saying that pedophiles are entitled to due process but certain young black men are not that is the narrative right police officers killed a dog they locked a car in 2011 or 10 I believe it was the Metropolitan Police apologized let's be clear about that the significance of what I'm saying they put a dog was locked in a car on a hot summer's day and the dog died the police officers came out and apologized I let you marinate on [Applause] take one two three four we'll come to the middle just because it's easier so I work with young primarily young men from disadvantaged backgrounds in your home borough actually in Camden and kind of one of the some of the things eyes I see kind of represented they in they are kind of things that you've been talking about on the panel there that the sense that you know as a black man I'll after work twice as hard in order to get so far and and kind of various other neuroses which they experience you seem to kind of embed it within them kind of got a successful panel set up there and and I guess I'm very interested to know when presented with all of these what were the shrimps the things that you needed to keep you kind of strong on your path in order to build a successful future because quite obviously there's there's a bit of a lottery going on in a moment where some people it's supposed to do some a key and some people don't so I'd be interested to hear kind of what what is it that that can build forward and things that you know actually real human beings kind of in this room complete in place and not you know I don't I don't really have any I'm a five-minute Q so from going forward all questions 20 seconds or statements 20 seconds or no more samwell responses if we can be concise try and get as many of you seen as possible what is the question just just yeah what's filters do we need for our black men to draw and exclude in the media okay what are the key factors key strengths that's one two up here have you got a mic that was made that black men have insight into her power and patriarchy works do they not then have a key role in challenging patriarchy great question there was two more on this side my question is on perception particularly with I'd say young black men today in the view which is sold to them about what they should be and how they should behave particular what would you say as a panel should we try to in terms of changing media and changing perception so people can be themselves despite you know their skin tone not defining the call not defining by the music not defined by what they should be into and then things I should do cool one more on this side and then respond to anyone you wish it's about mine is about it's about black black men and masculinity and how for them to celebrate it seems there's a shadow that's been there for a long time have there been stigmatized in this country from decades of criminals or you know over oversexed that shadow is always there it's always they've days if they did something slightly wrong that kind of shadow it seems to take over or young black men who are innocent and they're always portrayed there's always a underline saying he was no angel and that was the case of Mark Duggan he was no angel I mean how we gonna deal with this kind of stigma this shadow that's been there for decades it hasn't gone away come any particular one of those I don't mean just say first of all it's let's make no mistake it's difficult out there for young black men in 2000 be really really quick in 2011 after the disturbances we conducted a piece of research we spoke to 400 young men now we were expecting to get all kinds of different stuff out of this study what was most notable that was funny was the two things the particularly black young men were most scared of was one the police and I think the the Duggan incident tells you why and the other thing was black young men okay that was that when they leave their house in the morning they're worried about other guys if you live in a city you are more likely it people think that well the for instance that women are the biggest victims of violent crime know in the capital the biggest victims of violent crime a young men okay if you're a young man you're more likely to do sorry it's right at the time right so okay so so that's a major issue so I think that to answer your question there about young men and about the issues for young men a lot of that is compounded over generations it's a very very difficult situation not one we can I'm pickin in 30 seconds I'm gonna move straight away to just talking about what you were saying yes right yep just I'm gonna I'm gonna say it people won't like it but I'm gonna say it I'm gonna tell you exactly what my uncle told me when I was about 10 years old and just remember this if you are not gonna go out there and do something constructive for yourself nobody cares one way or another no one cares so if you don't care about yourself nobody's gonna care about you and if you go forward with that idea then everything kind of fits into place well it has for me I think I think the the route map for young black gay men is is now invisible I think some of those men who were looking into professions are also black gay men and they may be going to different projects and different ideas and some of them may have to be closeted in those projects so there's even deeper projects they have to deal with but the thing I think how formatives what I've done is that there was just so many just it's about poly there's no what magic bullet but for me was education self education and as an artist and as a writer and as a producer and a teller of stories there's just so much to draw on and not just in terms what other black men and women have done before me or alongside me but also from the wider culture and I think that's kind of that's kind of very a key thing and the key thing is also to ask the question of oneself which isn't so harsh not to judge oneself so harshly because in that in that way other kind of possibilities and ways fruit ways forward come come into being and I'm not I mean that sounds kind of very woolly but I do you mean that in a sense that there are moments where you might think you didn't get a job or you didn't get an interview or if you didn't you didn't succeed a particular task when you didn't get into a certain kind of door cuz you don't have you don't have a certain kind of skills and that can be you know you can you can you can get very defeated by that sort of thing but I think to not judge oneself so harshly and to keep moving forward is a very important thing more specifically we could talk more specifically about you know you know Wade's and agencies and ways of doing that I think just just yeah very quickly um two things I think just in terms of how you do all this one is about language and learning learning in terms of kind of just understanding how things fit together kind of formal education wise but kind of informally actually understanding how power structures work and so on language which is that one of the keys to negotiating all of these kind of weird kind of privilege spaces is about how you use language and use it properly but also just as a final thing okay I grew some tofu saying which is that can't be too harsh on ourselves in as much as given the choice between being a black man and be white it would be really boring being white it would be really dull because wooden and all of these things that we think about partly problematic tears but also in terms of kind of heritage terms in terms of actually being able to think about things and look at things from several different perspectives at once all I think things will be dull that way I think it's much more interesting to be able to approach life in the ways that we're doing right now and with that for there were loads of other interesting questions unfortunately run out of time pick up [Applause] [Music] [Applause] you

Channel: Southbank Centre

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Id: EDQiFfx5EfU

Length: 60min 8sec (3608 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 06 2014