Episode 4 Black is the New Black

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

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

Boom!

We have our own thing. And it's really...rich.

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.

Everybody wants to be us -

but they only want the good parts of being us.

HE SUCKS HIS TEETH

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 was a great feeling.

We are people of talent,

people of vision.

People of passion.

There's a great seam of British success.

And when it stands out, it is dazzling.

And we should celebrate it.

We should celebrate it.

INTERVIEWER: Can I ask

why you agreed to take part in this show?

I have a story to tell.

I think it's important that

not just black people but people in general see the journeys.

When I heard that something like this was happening I thought,

"I should do this, it's really important."

Anything that documents our existence is important.

I heard the concept, and as a black woman being born in this country,

I said, "I definitely want to be part of that."

I'm glad that a show like this is happening.

Voices need to be heard.

People don't hear us talking like this.

My listeners don't hear me talking like this.

And I look at a lot of

very famous black achievers,

and I always wonder, did THEY go through the same thing?

In life, there's a time for things,

and I think it was just time for a piece like this to be made.

We need to see black icons talking in an honest fashion about

how they came up, where they came from,

what it's about, and actually seeing the real person rather than

what you've read about in the newspapers.

I also hope it will help

Britain's own self-understanding.

I can't lie,

it gives me a little bit of a thrill to know how much that statement,

me saying, "Made in England," gets under the skin of a few people

who certainly do not see me

as being English.

But sorry, I was born here, I was raised here, and this is what I am.

I feel fantastic being black and British.

I'm serious. I am British.

Can't you tell?

For me, Britain's important because I was raised and born here.

Everything that I've done has been spawned from being in Britain.

So I'm very proud of my blackness and my British heritance.

This is the flag that I would always fly.

I was brought up in London,

and I'm as British as it gets.

What can I say? I'm proud to be British.

I just think we're very blessed to live in this country.

I've served in the British Army, in the British Parliament,

member of the Court of the Bank of England, the judiciary,

the English and Wales Cricket Board.

I can't be any more British,

there aren't many British institutions

that haven't touched my life!

I more think, "Are you losing your Jamaican?"

That's my question!

I would describe myself always as West Indian.

On my passport it says, "British."

But the passport I had in the West Indies also said "British."

Am I proud to be British...?

Er...!

For many years, when I was growing up,

the society that you were in

said very clearly, "If you are black,

"you are not British."

I didn't feel really British

until in my 30s.

I've never really felt British.

Is the truthful answer.

When a group of friends go to a friend's house and

their dad doesn't let you in because your skin's a different colour,

you don't FEEL like you belong.

People were always asking you,

"No, no, but where do you REALLY come from?"

Some people think in this country I'm American, which bugs me.

I've often felt

I've had to prove myself more in my own country than anywhere else.

I still feel that way.

What IS Britain? How do you define a British person?

Britishness isn't about singularity -

Britain is actually about difference.

It's like a microcosm of the globe,

situated here in the UK.

I think it's complicated today

to be British, full stop.

To be black British is like...

There's a gazillion question marks over that.

This British accent has got me out of a lot of trouble.

Being stopped by a police officer in America,

then I start speaking and he's like, "Oh, my God -

"I'm sorry, I thought you were black."

The first time I really started thinking, "Man...

"..I'm British," was the Olympics.

It's one of those rare

British events where I recognise myself.

Oh... There was Dizzee Rascal, the representation of Britain.

For the first time in my life, on television,

I felt that I was being represented,

as a British person.

'It was a real high point.'

The first time on a global stage

where the black British experience

was expressed as a vital part of British identity.

This is a picture of me in full flight

singing the closing song

of the Paralympic opening ceremony.

And at that precise moment

and for the ten minutes that I was on that stage,

I became the symbol of what modern Britain is.

Me. Just me.

Black athletes wrapping themselves in the Union Jack...

And I see them people cheering for Mo Farah

and it didn't matter where he was from -

and I was like, "Man...

"This is what I'm talking about."

It has left a real good feel factor around us at the moment, you know,

and that's great, and that does in itself bring community,

but we need it on a wider scale.

Can't just be sport.

I always used to say to myself, "I don't have any heroes,

"I don't have this one person that I look to."

Actually, when I reflect on it further, in fact I have MANY people.

I think the figures that have been most inspirational to me

are the ones who are most fully

themselves. Because in the end,

that's what I think anyone can aspire to be.

And there's a wonderful African saying again -

"The person who stands out in a crowd,

"they're doing so

"because they're being carried

"on the shoulders of others."

When Obama was thinking of standing for President, Michelle said to him,

cos she wasn't keen, "What will you achieve?"

And he said, "At least they will look at us differently."

I sat up all night watching Obama's election. Sat up all night.

It was one of those moments, I think, when

you sit up and you watch history.

I think everyone's aspiration levels went higher, basically.

Everyone around the world - even in the depths of Africa -

I think people were like, "Damn, if Obama can be President,

"I can at least do something."

I remember sitting my son down when Obama was inaugurated.

And I sat there, tears streaming down my eyes, I said,

"Miles, you've got to look at this, you've got to look at this."

He didn't really feel the significance.

Because as far as he's concerned,

the number-one tennis players in the world were black,

there's a black racing driver...

"What are you talking about? It's a different world," that kind of vibe.

And I'm like, "No, this is seismic, this is a huge moment,

"you don't understand. In my life, I never thought I'd see this."

-HIS VOICE CRACKS

-Do you know what I mean?

I cried.

I cried.

Because it gave

me hope

that the world is...is changing.

That black people are moving forward.

And upwards.

I believe we live in a day and an age now where

anything can happen.

There was a massive thing around Barack Obama becoming President.

So I don't see why there couldn't be a black Prime Minister.

I don't see why not.

It wasn't just Obama - it was the black family.

It was thousands of people cheering the black family.

That's what really...

..just blew me away.

The confidence they had.

And that people were cheering them, celebrating them.

It's wonderful to see.

Inspirational.

So now we've had the black President -

albeit at the time when everything's falling apart.

What's he going to do? Use gaffer tape and stick it all together?

People thought that when Obama became President, it's...

"Yay, racism's going to end." And stupid people,

they're like, "How can there still be racism?

"We have a black President."

It's actually got worse. Because the racists got angrier.

They were furious, and they're still furious.

And it hasn't helped us at all, unfortunately.

It's amazing for kids coming up -

they'll never know of a life

where you couldn't be a President

as a black man, which is a beautiful thing.

When I became a professional footballer,

I thought the highest accolade I could get

was to represent my country.

I always remember my dad telling me a story about one of his friends

going to a pub, and me scoring for England.

And there was a group of guys who didn't celebrate.

And he asked them why.

He said, "He's just scored, why aren't you celebrating?"

"He's black.

"We don't celebrate when black people score for England."

Well... That's hard to take. Erm...

Cos here you are,

representing the country that you feel that you...

Well, I was born here,

I'm British,

but still you're not accepted by some.

And from one level I'm thinking, I'm at the pinnacle here,

but then I've just been shot right back down here again.

And almost, like, put back into...into my place.

My wife was a secretary

for the Church of England Vicars.

And she's forgotten some material

so I actually drove from Stepney

to Woking, to deliver it.

So it meant I'm coming back slightly late,

at about nine o'clock, nine, ten o'clock.

Then I'm stopped by a City of London Police officer.

Tells me to get out of the car.

It was raining, and he searched me.

And then he said, "Open the boot."

I opened the boot - there was just nothing in the boot.

And he looks at me, asks me, "What's your name?" I said, "Sentamu."

What do you do?

By that time, he's seen my collar -

I used to wear a dog collar which I cut off because of Mugabe now,

but anyway, he saw my collar.

He says, "Oops." Realises what he's just done.

And I said, "Officer, any reason

"why you stopped me,

"and why you searched me?"

How did I feel

when he said, "Oops"...?

And it's raining...

You say to yourself,

we had finished the Stephen Lawrence inquiry,

our recommendations had been made clear.

It is as if somebody hadn't noticed.

I am a bishop, I have a bit of education,

I can defend my case -

what happens to an ordinary black guy?

That worried me.

It still worries me.

I've been shocked by

the xenophobia recently around Brexit.

I used to be really proud of Britain when I travelled in Europe

and I heard and saw levels of discrimination over there,

and I used to be really proud and I used to say,

"That would never happen in Britain,

"that would never be condoned in Britain."

Most people who voted to leave the European Union,

they were voting on immigration.

So there's this whole atmosphere of xenophobia and racism.

I've been racially abused at least three times on the street now,

in south London. It's extraordinary.

So we are at a pivotal time now.

As long as we are in denial, we'll never progress.

I think it's sad that

I can read books from James Baldwin,

and literally make direct links

to the things he was talking about in the '50s and '60s

to 2016.

In black Britain.

Every country is based on flows of people,

every country is based on cultural shifts.

And, you know, the reason I've lived in Britain all my life

is actually because it's been more

open to that than many other countries -

I think Britain's in fact an incredible place because,

short of the Brexit vote,

our entire trajectory in post-war times

has been towards an embrace of difference and diversity.

I think immigration,

different sets of people coming together and living together -

not always happily -

has made Britain all the stronger,

all the better, all the more exciting,

all the more significant internationally as a place to live.

Because we have this conversation

that takes place all the time

about who we are.

There are lots of white people

with whom I have more in common than lots of black people.

To be working class and white in Britain

and to feel that

you've been overlooked...

..undermined,

forgotten, disparaged...

And they're angry.

They're angry that they haven't got jobs,

they're angry that their industries have gone.

They're angry that their politicians don't stand up for them.

I actually have some sympathy for that.

The place where I depart is, well, who's to blame for that?

And of course, there are some people who will blame the visible other or

the audible other, someone they can hear speaking a different language,

someone who's wearing a hijab or a niqab...

I'm pretty sure

that those Roma children or that Muslim woman

did not trade in credit default swaps,

that crashed the economy

and drew all the money

out of the local council,

that means you're no longer getting

the disability services that you require,

I'm sure it wasn't her.

I think in that dialogue,

the issues of specifics relating to black Britons

perhaps has been a bit lost.

We always used to be part of the working class, and Labour.

I think those boundaries have gone now.

And perhaps

many of us are now maybe more aspirational,

maybe identify with

just a different

political idea.

You often get, as somebody of mixed-race background,

people trying to get you to choose between your different heritages.

"Are you black or are you white?"

I am black, but I also have

a European background too.

How can you be both?

I always remember Tiger Woods making the statement, "I'm not black."

And it was on the front page

of Britain's biggest-selling black weekly, The Voice.

Tiger Woods says, "I'm not black."

I respect where he's coming from,

but the problem I felt for him, and he's also of a mixed heritage,

is that he allowed himself

to be dictated by others in terms of who he defined himself by.

And the only mistake he made there

was in saying "I am not" -

whereas you need to assert who you ARE.

If I'm not white, I'm black.

That's what I've found in my life, you know?

No-one ever refers to me as mixed race.

It took years and years

to even have on a form anything other,

it was like, "White", then it was "Black", and then there was "Other".

And I remember so clearly

my mum taking a form back to a counter and saying,

"If you think I'm going to tick 'Other' for my children,

"you've another thing coming."

My wife is white,

my children are of mixed heritage.

When I look at them,

I see another stage in a journey,

that starts with my parents

and continues with my marriage, continues with them.

What I'm sceptical about in that

is that this is a journey to a kind of

utopian state where because they're kind of mixed heritage,

that's the best of all worlds.

That's not what I say to them.

I try and give them

an understanding that the world is a complicated place.

That the world isn't a harmonious place.

That the world doesn't actually have to be a SCARY place,

but that the world is defined by difference.

We all have to grapple

with this understanding that the world isn't a place of purities.

I was the only

non-white person in the senior school at that time.

I really wanted to get my hair in canerows, and

I went into school the first day,

and that was it, there was a call home.

I think I had to leave school that day as well.

And it was a really big deal.

Bearing in mind that I couldn't just put gel in my hair,

I couldn't just have a comb-over -

I either had it as an Afro, or it was braided.

The best comment that was ever said to me was,

"We understand that you want to be like David Beckham."

And still to this moment,

that comment just sits with me

and it just shows me such a severe lack of understanding.

And it was my mum,

who is my white parent, who went into the school and said

you're actually victimising him for the hair type he's got.

You know, his racial identity. You can't do that.

The Kardashians are celebrated for putting their hair in canerows,

and you've got schoolgirls in the South West

that have been sent home from school

for having their hair braided.

When nonsense like that stops,

then we know that we're equal.

As early adapters and

early creators, early inventors,

early messers-abouters,

black artists rarely get the credit they deserve.

When it comes to the word "appropriation",

you have to look at individual cases.

When it comes to APPRECIATION - that is obviously a lot wider.

Yeah. I call it stealing.

I don't call it appropriation.

It IS appropriation, but it's stealing, it's theft.

Cos they're taking it, they're using it,

but they're not acknowledging where it's come from.

It's theft!

I agree.

I do.

I think there's a thin line between appropriation and appreciation.

When you get someone like a Taylor Swift for instance,

lampooning culture, that's when I have a problem with it.

But when you have someone who appreciates it and

puts it on a pedestal and says,

"I appreciate what it is you do so much,

"I am going to try it myself," that's when I think that

that person shouldn't be chastised for it.

It's a problem.

It's really important that we

know where our

inspiration is coming from.

And if we're going to take... let's give it back.

And it's fine, you know, to appropriate black culture,

cos we've appropriated WHITE culture.

In a lot of ways.

And that's why, with that fusion of those things,

we tend to walk tall.

Black culture for me in Britain,

I find it's the...the roots, like, of everything.

It starts in the streets and it makes its way up to the top.

You put that weed, as you call it,

the bad seed -

put it in the ground,

put the concrete over it, let's just cover that right up there.

"It's going to come through, man, it's going to come through.

"It's going to come through, it's going to weave its way through."

And you've got black people as a whole, were there

against all odds,

reinventing. And coming back through.

I think we came into Britain

not so much like a wrecking ball,

but like a tidal wave.

Consumed everything that was there, kind of culturally,

threw it up in the air,

and when it landed, Britain was never the same again.

And it could be you know, Chris Ofili getting elephant shit

and putting it on a painting or Basquiat doing hip-hop art

and elevating it to fine art.

Ozwald Boateng putting his flavour into clothing.

Marianne Jean-Baptiste being her own bad self at the Oscars. You know?

Michaela Coel being so poised and so cool

and so elegantly styled

when she picks up her Royal Television Society award,

and saying just the right thing.

Because actually,

this creativity is worth something.

And what's interesting is

that we know what that is from the get-go,

and it takes a while for other people to catch on.

We go, "Yeah, that's something I was doing two years ago.

"Now we're doing bebop.

"Yeah, yeah, OK, that's cool - but now we're doing RE-bop."

Black culture should be celebrated, and it shouldn't be watered down.

I have a very, very strong influence from

the Jamaican side of me,

and I want that to come across as well.

And I would love to just see black British culture

put on a mainstream platform in the UK,

because I think there's a need and a hunger for it.

And I think for OUR sanity we need it, because it's part of who we are.

I tell you who's going to change all of this.

John Boyega will change it all.

John Boyega is a brilliant, brilliant young man.

He's a mainstream name,

so now he can sell a film in China because it doesn't matter

that he's a black actor - he's John Boyega. He was in Star Wars.

I'd just say that this is the time of change in general.

So, you have transgender people

who are changing things and are monarchs of change.

Feminists - big up Emma Watson, by the way -

who are these advocates of change and empowering females.

There's gay people who are coming and changing things,

and it's great.

So you have to let the black guy change something, man, you have to.

I think we have huge advantages.

We are interconnected with the rest of the world due to our families

in a way that many other Britons aren't.

And we've got links to all of those countries.

And Britain can harness the links that we have

to bring opportunity not just

for our own community, but all of Britain.

I think we've got a very, very important role to play

going forward.

We're now waking up to this role that we have.

Or more so,

this identity

that had been lost somewhere.

"Oh, we're supposed to be American."

No, we have our own thing.

Hey, we not only

have a right to BE here, but

we can fly, by the way.

That's like, fact.

I think we are on the edge of a...

a sort of a revolution.

It's on a really...

an awesome level,

people...

want to hear from us.

INTERVIEWER: Could you raise the picture up just slightly, please...?

Maybe it's one of the proudest moments of my life,

other than having my children.

It's a real thick gauge...

I wouldn't actually call it a sculpture.

It sits right plum in the area that I used to hang out.

The only shame is the fact that my parents didn't really get to see it,

but at least the grandchildren get to see that.

I figured that being in the melting pot,

somebody sometime will ask a question, "Who's that geezer?

"What's all that about?"

And they will go on and talk about the Funky Dread.

My message to

everybody in the future, including my grandchildren,

would be to have a happy face, listen to a thumping bass,

so we all have a loving race.

There was a reason why my parents came here,

there was a reason why they thought their lives

could be bettered by being here.

And despite,

you know, the racism and the prejudice that they experienced,

they still were able to have that opportunity,

it wasn't taken away from them.

As hard as it was, they were able to rise up the ranks.

With both my parents actually,

I feel like I'm continuing their journey,

which I think is what we are all doing.

I was talking to my dad, and he was like,

"This is when everything has started to make sense, with my children -

"this is now, when it has made sense."

We're in an interesting time right now.

This attitude towards blackness I think has shifted,

and there is now a level of pride and

you're allowed to talk about

your culture, your blackness, your history,

without feeling that, you know,

you're throwing up a fist for Black Power.

Maybe this generation, if they could just put the phone down,

stop texting,

stop doing the swipe to the left or the right...

Maybe it's the generation AFTER these guys who actually go,

"Yeah, all right, we've got this."

"You old people stand to one side, we've got this!"

We need THOSE guys. When's that happening?

There's a quote that I've put on my Twitter -

"There are those who think of the way things are and ask why.

"But I say dream of things that never were and ask why not?"

Being British to us is about

all these diverse and complex

influences coming together.

And it creates a raw energy because it's always evolving,

it's malleable. And I think it can be you want it to be.

And I think that's really exciting because there's a kind of...

a fire there,

that is burning, and it really excites me.

I think it's brilliant that we've got potentially a generation

-underneath

-us,

-who haven't got those same barriers

or the same baggage that we had.

They don't see the barriers of colour.

They've grown up in a post-modern world, and they want to access it.

And they're bold,

and they're brave.

And they're courageous.

Black Britain isn't just black any more.

Black Britain is my complexion,

Black Britain is Mariah Carey's complexion.

Black Britain is Thandie Newton, is Mo Farah, it's Jessica Ennis.

Black Britain is eternally different to what it was 25 years ago.

Not only are people increasingly accepting their blackness

and proud of it, but they're also proud of their Britishness.

And for the white mother that's raising

the mixed-race son that the world sees as a black boy,

she understands that

things are going to be different for him

than they were for her.

And she is a part of Black Britain.

Even though her life

wasn't even remotely connected to it when she was growing up.