SOME of the most important conversations we need to have are some of the most difficult to actually have. I haven’t had all of mine, have you?
I admit I was slightly horrified when Labour MP David Lammy took aim at TV presenter Stacey Dooley over her Comic Relief video ahead of tonight’s telethon.
I admire Lammy precisely because he leads with the front foot, championing the Windrush generation over their appalling treatment by the Home Office, the victims of the Grenfell Tower fire and deprived families in his constituency.
Taking on Stacey Dooley felt different - the nation’s latest darling, Essex girl turned `investigative reporter’; winner of Strictly Come Dancing, the biggest show on TV.
Nevertheless he tweeted: “The world does not need any more white saviours… this just perpetuates tired and unhelpful stereotypes. Let’s instead promote voices from across the continent of Africa and have serious debate.”
I was aghast because I knew what was coming and the backlash was immediate, even Dooley’s professional dance partner, the even more beloved Kevin Clifton weighed in.
“What are your priorities?” he asked.
“Some are in desperate need of help. If people are in a position to raise money and awareness why should they not just because they are white? You just can’t win for trying to help.”
Dooley also queried if he had spoken out because she is white, telling him to “go over there and raise awareness”.
That was the point I realised why we cannot allow a squeamish aversion to `making a fuss’ to stop us speaking out.
Lammy is challenging hundreds of years of thinking and if he had posted his comment with no particular celebrity attached that would have made his point to like minded followers, who would have agreed and expressed their own revulsion and frustration at this unhelpful and reductive trope.
However, it would not have exposed how deeply ingrained this thinking is and the unconscious biases with which our society is riddled.
Let us break down the exchanges above.
Clifton questions Lammy’s “priorities”, accusing him of suggesting white people should not raise money and awareness.
That is a facile evasion of the issue – asking that people be given the dignity of telling their own tragic story is as much a priority as raising money and awareness. You can “win for trying to help”, you can do that by showing people the respect they deserve.
Dooley challenging the him to “go over there” himself was even more telling - assuming a black Briton would make the scenario any more palatable. It wouldn’t.
Just because his skin colour is closer in tone doesn’t make him closer to that experience and the person best to interpret it.
One black man is not the same as another and a British MP has more in common with her than he does with the child she posed with for publicity shots. It is deeply disturbing and tells us a lot about race relations in 2019 that she does not recognise that.
By the way, if it matters at all, Lammy is of Guyanese descent – that’s in South America, not Africa.
I actually don’t blame the Strictly partners for their ignorant interpretation of the criticism being levelled.
Along with its sister charity Sports Relief, Comic Relief has raised more than £1 billion by pricking the consciences and consciousness of people sitting on their comfortable sofas living relatively safe and secure lives.
Its style of storytelling has been effective and the generosity with which that money was donated is proof the charity is primarily a force for good.
But we have to realise the pernicious message that is being propagated in these videos of British celebrities weeping at the plight of `poor black and brown people’.
No, it’s not that the celebrities are white, it’s that the subjects are not and in image after image they are depicted as broken and powerless.
Not only does that diminish the dignity of these fellow human beings, Lammy is right to point out the knock on associations it casts on people of colour in the UK and Ireland. All representation matters and Comic Relief can be a powerful tool for this.
Instead, 282 years after the first missionaries, I sit at a café in Belfast hearing how a friend of a friend of a friend “went to Africa last summer to do charity work”.
“Where?” I ask. They don’t know.
Africa is not a country, I want to say, but don’t, because they’re a friend and the conversation will get awkward.
But important conversations are awkward, so next time I will. Thank you David Lammy for teaching me that.
