Old, Black and Washed Up

I used to be cool. In the words of Aretha Franklin I used to be “young, gifted and black”.

OK I was never that cool but as a young black man I used to at least be part of a cool group. A group that seemed to matter to advertisers, the fashion industry, the music industry and most importantly broadcasters. I used to organise a charity basketball tournament with my brother and we would have to virtually fight off sponsors as they were so eager to appeal to the young black people who came to our event.

 

Now at the age of 41 I feel as if I’m past it. To be honest when it comes to mainstream media I feel I’ve been living on borrowed time ever since I past 30. Let me explain in a bit more detail:

Many broadcasters actively target certain demographic groups. For example at one radio station I once visited a couple of years ago I saw two pictures placed directly in front of the DJ’s eye-line; one of a white middle aged man in his fifties, the other of a white woman in her forties. When I asked the radio presenter who the pictures were of I was told they were of their “ideal listeners”. The presenters were meant to pretend that these were the people they were broadcasting to and tailor their broadcasting accordingly. I’m told it is a practice that many commercial radio stations do.

My problem is that as a 41 year old university educated professional black man I get the sense my picture (or someone like me) is not hanging up in radio stations. I do not feel targeted by any mainstream broadcasters. As a young black person I felt my picture could have hung up at Choice FM and there was a time when 1Xtra seemed to target my demographic.

And it’s not just as an audience member I sense this problem, you get the sense that the same issue applies for older black people working in television and radio as well. We are cool and funky and can give a production a little street cred as researchers and even presenters in our twenties but you see our numbers thin out as we get older.

It is an issue that older women have complained about for some time, and following the ground-breaking legal case of Miriam O’Reilly, one the BBC is actively trying to address.

The twin evils of racism and sexism, both direct and indirect, have long been recognised as holding back many talented women and people from BME backgrounds in broadcasting. However as we now look at more than just getting our foot in the door but actually staying in the industry and building our careers we need to start turning our attention to ageism.

Ageism clearly affects different groups in different ways. The Miriam O’Reilly case clearly shows that while ageism affects men it can hit women harder and earlier. My concern is when it comes to black people ageism can start as early as in our twenties.

We don’t seem to go from “young, gifted and black” to “mature, competent and black”. Instead for all too many of us our careers just come to an abrupt end.