Episode 3 Black is the New Black

When I heard the name Black Is The New Black, it really made me smile.

I think we're on the edge of a revolution.

Boom!

We have our own thing, and it's really rich.

This programme contains some strong language.

We're the influencers, the taste makers.

Remember when we invented jazz and you didn't know what it was?

Well, now we're going to do something else.

I've never really seen myself as an immigrant.

I see myself as a person.

I'm proud to be black.

I've never cared to be any other way.

CAMERA CLICKS

Everyone wants to be us,

but they only want the good parts of being us.

They want our physicality, they want our musicality.

Selling our culture, it's like one big hustle.

They want our talent, they want our dancing skills,

they want our singing skills.

Music hasn't got no colour.

The oppressed always find a way to celebrate, right?

It's a great feeling.

We are people of talent, people of vision, people of passion.

There is a great seam of British success...

..and when it stands out, it is dazzling.

And we should celebrate it.

We should celebrate it.

There is a formula for white success.

It's a well-trodden path. You see it everyday,

but there isn't one for black success, and when it stands out,

it is dazzling.

I'm a former international athlete and I have won a gold medal.

I'm the Member of Parliament for Streatham.

Am I successful?

At the end of the day,

it takes years to become an overnight success, you know.

I invented this operation to save women from dying from childbirth.

I became the first black woman

to become one of Her Majesty's Queen's Counsel.

I have written, like, 69-odd books, I am working on my 70th one.

My operation has been used over two million times on patients.

Over two million women's lives have been saved.

SBTV started when I was 15, zero views.

Now I've got 400 million views.

As a child, if there had been a black female presenter

on The Sky At Night,

I mean, I would have worshipped the very ground she walked on.

I'm not just a rapper,

I've got the most number ones of the decade in this country.

I think I was the youngest person ever to take silk at that stage,

other than Pitt the Younger.

I've run with the Olympic torch...

What else is there?

And he had become an HONORARY silk when he was 21,

because he became the Prime Minister,

so I reckon he cheated.

We run things. Things don't run we.

You know when you say, "Reel off your achievements," yeah?

I know there's ones I've missed, which I'll probably like...

"Oh, my God, how can you miss that?"

Can I send it over to you and you can put it on text on the screen?

I won New Faces in 1975 and it was lovely.

Suddenly, I was being seen by 16 million people,

everybody knew I was that black kid from Dudley who did impressions.

And Michael Grade rang my agent and said,

"Let's have a meeting." And he showed me a videotape

and the show was called Good Times.

Michael Grade, when it got to the end, said,

"Do you think you'd want to be in a British version of this?"

And I said, "Yeah. Why wouldn't I?"

What I didn't realise...

..is that the status quo of the industry at the time

meant that there would be nobody of colour

involved in that production at all.

No writers, no directors, no producers or associate producers.

The make-up lady was mixed race, but that was it.

The rule of twos, the rule of twos.

I call it the nightclub policy.

One in, one out.

That's what I call it.

When I'm at home, watching TV with my partner,

we always make a little joke whenever they, I don't know,

show the contestants of a new show

and you always get the one black girl and one black guy,

and we're like, "Oh, they've got the token ones in there,"

and we make a joke of it,

but at that heart of that joke is frustration, because...

why does it have to be so calculated?

Why can't it just be more of a balance

and a representation of what surrounds us in our own country?

We are nowhere near balance, as far as I'm concerned.

We're not.

And don't think because

I am sitting here, Naomi Campbell,

after 30 years of modelling, that I don't hear this.

I hear it all the time.

They don't say to me, though,

"because you're black," they say it in another way.

"Oh, you're too strong. Oh, you're too famous."

Now it's that one. And it's like, "Please..."

There was a photograph that I saw

of Naomi Campbell and Jourdan Dunn together.

For me, it was so powerful,

seeing two beautiful black women fronting Burberry.

And I had to stop and take a photograph of it,

because it's rare.

Doing the Burberry campaign did make me feel,

"Well, I've finally been accepted in this country,"

but a year after the campaign,

I still feel like I'm not really quite sure.

I used to do a joke about waiting for Lenny Henry to die,

so that I could get on TV.

I hate that joke. What is that joke?!

There can be only one!

I turned up for an interview

at ITN and I was almost on the spot offered a job,

and so I was immediately suspicious

and I didn't accept it.

Why did they want to employ me?

Why did they...?

They had not had a black reporter on television before and why me?

Then I came back and I said...

And this, on reflection, was rather bold of me then.

I, kind of, made it very, very clear

that I didn't want to be the token black person on ITV television.

"I want to be able to do everything everybody else does."

So, I was not going to do stories about immigrants,

I was not going to do stories about problems in Brixton or Hackney.

I wanted to be seen to do everything that my white colleagues did.

I only ever wanted to be an actor.

That's all I ever wanted to do.

You know, by necessity, the other things happened.

By necessity.

I didn't get the roles I wanted, started writing.

Someone didn't want to direct the sequel to my first film,

so there was no film. So I had to direct it

or there would have been nothing.

I got robbed as a producer, so I was like,

"I need to learn to produce, so that doesn't happen again."

Everything has been by necessity.

Nothing was because I wanted to do it, apart from acting.

I would get auditions, the odd one or two auditions,

and it would always be for Thug Number One or Crook Number Three.

"Why do I need to play Crook Number Three?

"Why can't I play Jim?"

"Cos Jim's a white character."

"Yeah, but why can't I do it? I could be called Jim."

Hi, I'm Malorie Blackman and I'm an author.

My first nine or ten books

were for about nine or ten different publishers.

And when editors would ask me, very politely,

"How did I see my characters?"

And I'd say, "Black."

"But we already have a story that features a black family,

"would you made if we mind them white?"

And I sort of paused and I said,

"Well, how many stories do you have that feature white characters?"

And then it went quiet and they said, "OK,

"would you mind if we made them Asian?"

And I thought, "Yes, I do mind, actually,"

cos that was actually a major part of the reason I started writing

in the first place is, because there was such a dearth

of black characters in children's books.

You know, "Only black children

"will buy books that have black characters."

And I just thought, "That's not true -

"if you engage a child with a story, they will read it.

"It doesn't matter, the colour of the character."

For me, it's so important that books were not just windows to the world,

but they had to be mirrors as well.

And I remember growing up and I never read a single book

that featured a black child like me, not one.

Myself and a colleague from UCL were invited on to Newsnight.

So, that was the Bicep2, a large telescope,

which looked as if it had discovered gravitational waves

and something called cosmic inflation -

two big milestones in science.

My colleague was actually working on this Bicep2,

and a rather acerbic piece was written in the Daily Mail

the next day, and I think they described it

as that the BBC were being very politically correct

by bringing on two ethnic minority women

to talk about the science of white men.

Oh, dear. I was...

That was just wrong on so many dimensions.

I mean, for one thing, the idea that this science

was just being done by white men was a ridiculous notion.

I mean, teams of scientists all across the world

are working on this. It was just sort of stirring.

So, letters were written,

and I do have a letter of apology from the Daily Mail,

which I've hung up in my loo at home,

because I think that's the best place for it.

People frame you.

People make up their understanding of who you are as you go along.

If you're from a dominant group - male or white or straight -

it's almost like you don't have a frame.

You can be whatever you want.

You can do whatever you want to do.

So, if you're black, you have the choice

of living in somebody else's frame or creating one for yourself.

Once you understand that, it's a very liberating thing.

Go back five, six years ago, working at Tottenham.

I was speaking to one of the young boys.

He asked me for some ideas. He wanted some ideas

about what to get his parents for Christmas, so I said to him,

"I tell you what, your best bet, go to Harrods

"and they've got everything there."

He said, "I can't go there, a young black guy."

And he honestly believed, in this day and age,

that Harrods was off-limits to him.

And the struggle continues.

The really strange thing about black people in general

is that we're public figures. Simply by walking down the street,

we're public figures, in as much as we stand out

in a generally white society. So, style,

dress, deportment, the way we carry ourselves becomes really important,

because it's one of the ways that you stay alive.

So these aren't trivial issues.

Style is to do with everything.

This is my first ever suit and my first ever pair of boots.

And I don't know if it's a self-conscious thing,

but basically, I still wear the same thing nowadays, so...

I realised that clothing was kind of like an external manifestation

of maybe what was going on upstairs.

Or what you wanted people to believe was going on upstairs.

And I think that was what was interesting for me,

is that you could trick people into believing maybe

that you were someone else, just by the clothes that you wore.

I've always seen my clothes or what I create as enhancers,

so you put on a piece I created and it would add to you.

It would connect with you in some way,

so you would have more confidence.

The idea of me being my own muse was something I fought against,

because I knew that maybe if the press took pictures of me,

the point might get missed.

So, I didn't allow anyone to take pictures.

What did Maya Angelou say?

You know, "I might be broke and penniless,

"but I look like I have an oil well

"bubbling in my living room," you know.

I will always be Edward the black editor.

I guess the dream position is to be...

Like, whether it's Naomi or myself or Ozwald.

..is to be the best at what you do, regardless of your colour.

When I was growing up, we had the greatest of them all,

Naomi Campbell. She really is a true fighter.

She's Jamaican, you know. Buffalo Soldier.

I don't care what they think of me.

I can't change their opinions.

Does it hurt sometimes?

Of course, it does. But it doesn't stop me from keeping moving forward.

I'm proud to be black. I've never cared to be any other way.

I'm a black woman and proud to be in my own skin.

Is black success valued in the UK?

I don't know. I don't know if it's...

I don't even know that it's...

I don't know about valued, I don't even know whether it's acknowledged.

The day after I won my BAFTA, I can't remember what rag it was...

"Well, she's not actually British, because her dad is African."

THAT'S what was chosen to focus on?!

Oh...so sad.

It's like... "Embrace me, enjoy me -

"I just won a BAFTA for you a lot."

Embrace it. Let's all celebrate together.

Quite often, as an actor, particularly as a black actor,

you're told you have no value.

"Black movies aren't going to sell. Black plays won't work.

"I'm not going to put my money into this movie,

"because it's got a black lead."

So it gets frustrating and that's why we all leave.

That's why you're getting a drain of black talent leaving England

and going to the States.

If an opportunity to work in America came up tomorrow, I'd be gone.

That is the honest truth.

I think, as a women of colour, I think...

When I look to America, the possibilities seem endless.

As far as I'm concerned,

BAFTA stands for Black Actors Fuck Off To America.

Are you going to leave that in? That's a good line, that.

You should leave that in.

This is a photograph of me playing Othello, Shakespeare's Othello.

For centuries, it's been played by a white actor in blackface.

So I was the first genuine black actor to play this.

I gave it absolutely everything, absolutely everything.

I knew what was on the line.

I had to really give it my all.

I remember reading the reviews and every single one of them said,

"Black actor David Harewood."

I kind of stopped and thought, "Oh.

"I'm a black actor. I'm not an actor."

And, er...

..I quickly became aware that things were different.

A couple of years later,

I was in a well-known fast-food restaurant and...

..this black lady came up to me and she just, she said,

"Excuse me, your name's David Harewood."

I said, "Yes." She said, "I just need to thank you."

And I said, "Sorry?"

She said, "I want to thank you,

"because my son is now at university because of you."

I said, "What do you mean?" She said,

"He's the only black kid in his class

"and they were studying Othello

"and all the kids where ribbing him, because Othello is stupid

"and had been undone by this... the clever white man

"and he was dreading seeing the production."

She said, "When he saw your performance, he was so proud...

"..and so inspired that he decided to study English at university,"

and...

Just kind of makes you go...

There's a part of black society

that would like to insist

that black people should only behave in certain ways,

that black people should keep to themselves, you know.

Being the first black director of a major cultural organisation,

sometimes that gets difficult.

It gets lonely. Sometimes, it gets profoundly uncomfortable.

That's never a reason not to do those things.

No-one will ever tell you,

"You should do this, in order to become that."

They'll never give you that.

They'll never give you that knowledge.

As a black person, you have to figure that out for yourself.

And it's something that I know

and I quietly celebrate myself,

because there's no-one else who's going to celebrate that for me.

And that...

that makes me sad.

There are some lines in Tennyson, which I always remember.

It's in the poem Ulysses.

At the end of his life, he wasn't sure where he was going,

whether to heaven or to hell, and he explains it by saying,

he says, "For all my mind was clouded with a doubt."

That's me, because I was terrified of failure.

I have always lived with the fear of failure.

My name is David Adjaye, I'm an architect.

My name is Ashley Banjo.

I'm a dancer, choreographer.

I am a singer, songwriter, amongst other things.

-SHE LAUGHS

-Mother, you know...

That should have been number one.

I, kind of, made an office and it grew very quickly

and I was doing work all over the world.

The problems with being a black entrepreneur

is that the thing is stacked against you in the first place.

You're not expected to succeed,

because the percentages of black businesses that succeed

are not many, so when you go to that bank manager

and you say, "I really need a loan of X,"

they really look at you triple hard.

They were kind of looking for the white person

who really kind of made the business work or who owned the business.

I realised that there were a lot of other young entrepreneurs

and young businessman who probably were in the same position,

who feel like they didn't make it,

and I thought, "It's incumbent on me to dispel that sense of failure,"

which I think is a really horrible quality.

A lot of people are so fixed in their opinion.

I can think of specific moments

where people have told me I can't do something.

I think you can't reason with people until you actually just show them

what you're capable of and show them what you can do.

I had a father who was very much against me

being in the music industry.

I remember saying to him that I cannot let the success or failure

of anyone else determine what path I choose.

You choose to become the individual that,

when the next 17-year-old turns around to their dad and says,

"I want to be in the industry," they can use you as an example

as somebody that has prevailed.

And I know... I know where he was coming from.

But it still broke my heart that he said it,

because it was such a sad state of affairs,

but, in a way, it became my driving force, it became my motivation.

Anybody who's sitting at home, writing a brilliant script

or anybody who's been doing stand-up for three or four years

or acting or whatever and has brilliant ideas, but thinks,

"I'm never going to get a chance and they'll never listen to me

"and anyway, everybody's against me,"

needs to get up off their arse and just pitch -

pitch like crazy.

Kick the door down and pitch like you've never pitched before.

MUSIC: Fix Up Look Sharp By Dizzee Rascal

So, from early, I had my own record label,

so all the early instrumentals that I made when I was, like, 17, 18,

before I had a record deal, were on my own label.

When it came to a crucial point in my career,

when my record deal with XL was over

and they weren't about to give me the situation that I felt I deserved

at the time, it's cos I had a record label when I was 17

that let me feel like I could do it again but on a bigger scale,

and it worked out.

I got a bunch of number ones on that album.

That album sold millions of records.

And it's the album that I own,

it's the album where I went independent...

that has really given me my real big success.

Black people must follow that advice of Bob Marley -

"We must liberate ourselves from mental slavery."

We are free people,

so let's liberate ourselves from always assuming,

"We can't do this, we can't do this, we can't go there."

No. Every area is available, including the political scene.

This is a picture of the announcement of my election

as the Member of Parliament for Streatham.

The reason I chose the photo was because, when I was growing up,

this just seemed so...

completely incredible and improbable.

In this photograph,

I am doing my first solo Royal Albert Hall BBC Prom.

I'm holding a little dream of mine.

It was totally surreal.

My message to people who have ever been told that you can't,

I'd beg you not to believe that

and I would dare you to do it anyway.

This is a portrait that has been taken of me

in front of the National Museum of African American History And Culture

on the Washington Mall.

We were on a shortlist of 70 architects from around the world

and we got down to the, sort of, 20 and we couldn't believe that.

And then we got down to the six

and then we were paid to do this competition

against all the kind of great names that we know.

That was really exhilarating.

I remember the phone call.

I don't think I'll ever forget that phone call,

where I was told that I'd won the competition, and it felt like, um...

everything had changed in that moment.

That was like...

"Wow, this is a powerful statement."

I genuinely believe that I was chosen not because of my colour,

but because I kind of synthesised an agenda that the museum had.

I kind of made a building which spoke to their story,

rather than making a building as a container for their story.

And winning the museum on such a sort of contested ground,

the political front lawn of America, behind the White House,

suddenly felt like, "Oh, my God, if THEY got it,

"then maybe this was not so insular after all."

It was a kind of profound vindication.

It was euphoric.

It was like the air was different.

I could hear the British public cheering for me, screaming for me.

And I just...I just gave everything.

When I crossed the line, it was just a...

a kaleidoscope of emotion, just overwhelming beyond words.

But, coming back to Britain, I realised that there was impact.

I distinctly remember going to schools

and young children actually coming up to me and giving me hugs

and, you know, really feeling the fact that I was in their school.

And for, I think, the young black children, there was a sense of,

"Well, if she can do it, then I can."

I forgot to tell you about what my mum thought about

-when I became a comedian. Did I tell you?

-No, you didn't.

She was not happy.

But, luckily, I got on a talent show on ITV

called The Big Big Talent Show, watched by millions of people

and I got to the finals and my mum was invited to the studio

to be in the crowd.

And Jonathan Ross actually, sort of, pointed to my mum in the audience,

he acknowledged her in the audience,

he said, "Oh, Gina's mum is in the audience,"

and I swear to God my mum stood up like that.

CREW LAUGHS

"Mm-hm, yes. I am the reason she's here.

"I am the reason for this success."

I think the legacy of black people in Britain, particularly now,

is to demonstrate that we are people.

People of talent, people of vision, people of passion,

that we have a contribution to make to this country, which is equal

and can on occasion surpass that made by anyone.

Britain's a better place because of us.

We've made it a more dynamic, exciting, entertaining, ironic,

romantic, you know, expansive place, because of who we are

and because of what we've brought.

There's a great seam of black British success

which, when put together, you go, "Wow!"

Just coming in today, I just walked past Denise Lewis, who's a legend,

and I go, "I'm in a thing... I'm in a thing with HER?!"

And then you look on there and you see Ozwald Boateng, Naomi Campbell,

and you suddenly of think,

not only do we have value, but we have HUGE value.

There is...

..a path and you can achieve and we should celebrate it.

We should celebrate it.