Delusion of Inclusion – Kwame Kwei-Armah tells BBC“We have to use this moment to crow-bar our legacy into the consciousness of the next generation"
An edited version of Kwame Kwei-Armah’s passionate intervention into the BBC CDX Movement or Moment session which opened the 2 day virtual diversity event
https://www.bbc.co.uk/creativediversity/cdx/#/
Racism is not our problem
“We have been climatized to seeing ourselves as the “other” and to solving the problems that invariably are not, our own. Racism is not actually our problem. Racism is a virus that sits outside of our bodies, but then attacks us in a most virulent and sustained fashion. a subtle fashion.”
The delusion of inclusion
“People often talk about the difference between American racism and British racism – that racism is problem over there and not here. I know that not to be true. When I got back (from working in the USA), I was so startled by the level of racism that I was receiving in Britain. I started to write a book about the microaggressions I was facing every day from the tube to my office – I couldn’t believe it. Our white brothers and sisters need to actually debunk themselves. We need to not get gassed on the delusion of inclusion.”
Legacy
“What brother Noel (Clarke) has shown us with his life is, as we have incrementally moved forward as a community of this country, there are still a huge blocks that are dropped on our heads and our bodies and what he said, really clearly, he’s going, “I see that coming and I’m going to die, but I’m going to dodge and I’m going to go under and I am going to go over and I’m going to create a legacy.”
We have to use this moment to crow-bar our legacy into the consciousness of the next generation – so they don’t feel that they are having to reinvent the wheel, that they can look at multiple generations of political activity and say, I stand in that tradition. That they can look at multiple generations of black art and say, I stand on the shoulders of!
We have to make sure for the next generation that the struggle is real for them. And it will be. They can say, I know that those before me have made the world better for me. And it’s now my responsibility to make it better for the generation who comes next.”
Kwame Kwei-Armah
Kwame Kwei-Armah is British actor, playwright, director and broadcaster. In 2018 he was made Artistic Director of the Young Vic, where he has directed Twelfth Night and Tree. He has numerous credits as a playwright and has worked as an artistic director in Africa and America and was awarded the OBE for Services to Drama in 2012.
Simon Albury
28 July 2020