This is In Conversation with Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, a subscriber-only newsletter from i. If you’d like to get this direct to your inbox, every single week, you can sign up here.
Is there no end to self-pitying majoritism? It’s everywhere – in India, the US, Sri Lanka, France, and here in this mosaic nation of ours.
Dominant groups seemingly feel terrors about diversity, exclusion, unfairness, censorship, loss of national identity and traditions. And they are perpetually furious, sometimes dangerously so. Obviously, not all members of those class, ethnic or racial sets are disgruntled or angry about what is happening to “their country”, but too many are. Right-wing papers throw logs on to the resentments to keep them burning, raging, even. Their writers never explain, never establish the contexts. The mission is to cause consternation and fuel cultural fires.
These days, Tories, falling fast in the polls, daily fan those flames. The preoccupation is both senseless and baleful.
This week’s hot issue: the Noël Coward theatre in the West End plans to hold “Blackout” performances – meaning for people who identify as Black – during a run of Slave Play, which dramatically explores race and sexuality. There’s nothing sinister about the idea. Security guards won’t duff you up at the door if you are white or brown. You can still pay and go, though being visibly different in a crowd can be discomfiting. (We minorities know all about that.)
Cinemas often hold special shows for parents and babies or for schoolkids; some theatres have had Blackout nights before. But now the protectors of mocked up “British values” have noticed and they are kicking off about white theatregoers being “banned”. The Guardian’s theatre critic, Arifa Akbar, resolutely rebuts this claim: “Black Out is hardly preaching segregation… No one is victimising white people here.”
Rishi Sunak is always looking for ways to make himself look big and powerful. His spokesperson tells us that his boss “is a big supporter of the arts and he believes that the arts should be inclusive and open to everyone, particularly where those arts venues are in receipt of public funding. Obviously, these reports are concerning and further information is being sought. But clearly, restricting audiences on the basis of race would be wrong and divisive.”
See the hidden threat? Divisive? This from a PM who spends his whole life instigating strife between the various tribes of the UK and fury against incomers who just want a better life. It’s just creepy opportunism.
I love the theatre and go often, mostly to small venues which are affordable and welcoming. For a long time, our grand theatres were too pricey and felt forbidding. I remember being at a RSC production at the Barbican when a woman next to me said condescendingly: “You must find it hard to follow this.” I replied: “Not really. I played two of the main parts at the National Theatre in Kampala, Uganda.” Then quietly fumed.
The West End is changing – it must, for its own future survival. It still costs too much but colour-blind casting and a new openness is bringing in mixed audiences which reflect our thrumming, multifarious capital. Think about those Blackout days not as institutional segregation, but fast track access.
Last Thursday, I went to the Garrick, with Gavin, my gay, white friend, to see For Black Boys Who Have Considered Suicide When the Hue Gets Too Heavy. Almost 90 per cent of the audience was Black and totally involved, almost physically. All the actors were young and Black. It was written by Ryan Calais Cameron, a brilliant Black playwright. This couldn’t have happened five years ago.
Even today, on the whole, those who go to West End productions are white, middle-aged and middle class with money to spend. In 2022, an Arts Council study found that just 7 per cent of theatregoers were Black, Asian or mixed race. White working class attendance is bound to be far lower.
So, a message to you, Mr Sunak. Why don’t you personally fund “Common Folk Only” nights at posh theatres? You’d possibly get a tax break for that. And do some good instead of causing bonfires of resentment and anger.
What leapt out for me from the long Budget statement were the naked inducements to those who have given up on the dysfunctional, unethical, populist, disorganised and hopeless government. So here’s a little something for boozers – no tax increase on that pint – and a leg-up for small businesses and two pennies off NI for workers. Nothing for you, first time buyers, you losers without trusts to fall back on.
Ah, but look, a million pounds for a monument to Muslim soldiers who died in the two wars fighting with the Allies. After describing us as “extremists” and antisemites for standing with Palestinians and warning the nation about Muslim “no-go areas”, this act of generosity.
Why and why now? Because Most Muslims have felt Tory racism on their skins and will not vote for them. Do they believe a monument will pull us to them? Yes. Are they that shallow? Yes.
Today, women and girls across the globe will defiantly and elatedly mark International Women’s Day (IWD). I usually put on an Annie Lennox or Diana Ross CD (yes, I still play those) and dance wildly in the kitchen, releasing irrepressible female energy. Then have a glass of rose.
Each of us in our own way, if free to be and make our own lives, recognise how far we have come. But lurking around that joy are dark shadows of sorrow. I watched the BBC documentary on Sarah Everard on Monday and sobbed. At least 350 women have been murdered in the UK by men since Sarah’s murder and the number of rapes and sexual assaults have shot up. Afghanistan is now a prison without parole for all females; rape is used as a weapon of war; abortion rights are being denied and the sense of hopelessness spreads.
Then, on Saturday, at the Malvern Festival of Ideas, I met Serlina Boyd, who, in 2020, launched Cocoa Girl, a magazine that cherishes and celebrates Black children. She did this for her daughter, Faith, who was badly bullied at school. It’s taken off here and is on its way to the US. Her chutzpa wiped away the blues and made me believe again. We will get there, whatever they do to stop us.
I’ve just read Among the Trolls, by Marianna Spring, the BBC’s first disinformation correspondent. Spring is young, exceedingly smart, a superb communicator and the most trolled journalist at the corporation. Conspiracy crazies and truth changers go for her mercilessly. But she carries on, does her job, like no other. I’ve never read any book that has so shaken and reassured me. You should read it too.
This is In Conversation with Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, a subscriber-only newsletter from i. If you’d like to get this direct to your inbox, every single week, you can sign up here.
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