Britain's First Black Prime Minister?

A few months ago, one of my production team called me excitedly: “I’ve just spoken to Britain’s first black Prime Minster!”. He had just interviewed Chuka Umunna MP for the Panorama film “Carry On Banking”.  Of course, political predictions by journalists are notoriously unreliable. If the majority of journalists had been right in 2009 Hilary Clinton would be President now. However, it demonstrates that even for hardened Panorama journalists, the young black MP did make an impression.

I was reminded of that Panorama and the Umunna interview today, with the bankers’ bonuses back in the news, and the charismatic young MP seeming to be on every TV and radio news outlet.  They reminded why that one interview encapsulated all the reasons why it‘s crucial to have people from diverse backgrounds working behind the camera.

The Panorama was, as the title suggests, an investigation into bankers’ bonuses. During the  production meetings, we would think through all the relevant people that we could interview – including banking experts, small businesses, banking insiders and of course politicians. It was at one of these production meetings that I suggested we interview Chuka Umunna for the programme. At the time, he had been sitting on the Treasury Select Committee in charge of examining banking practices, and prior to that had worked in the city as a lawyer.  I also knew he was very eloquent. In short he was perfect for our programme.

Despite all of these qualities, no-one else on the production team had heard of him. To be honest, it wasn’t that surprising. He had only been an MP for 6 months, so was still relatively unknown to the majority of people.  At the same time however, I don’t think there was a single black British person interested in politics who did not know of Umunna. So I pushed my team to interview him for the Panorama, and as I anticipated, he proved to be a valuable contribution to the programme.  And obviously, he improved the programme’s on screen diversity.

What this experience proved to me was just how important it was to have people from diverse backgrounds  on production teams if we want to get the very best contributors. The fact of the matter is that while all journalists try to have as large a black book of contacts as possible, we all have different strengths and weaknesses. If all our journalists come from the same background, we will invariably have the same weaknesses and strengths in our knowledge of contributors. It is crucial to draw our journalists from as wide a pool as possible in order to make sure our strengths and knowledge on a team are as  broad and strong.

Working in Scotland news and current affairs I regularly see the benefits of this diversified strategy. Scottish journalists regularly know of contributors that might escape our London based colleagues. For example, the majority of Scots are very aware of Margo MacDonald’s campaign to change the laws on assisted suicide. She is a politician, an MS sufferer and in most Scottish circles considered a “national treasure”. When my Scottish team were pulling together an excellent Panorama – shown in the whole of the UK – on assisted suicide called “I’ll Die When I Choose”, Margo MacDonald was the obvious choice for presenter. But I think it would be fair to say that not many London colleagues would have thought of working with Margo MacDonald on the film. I don’t think it is controversial to say my Scottish colleagues are more aware of potential Scottish contributors and issues than journalists who do not live in Scotland.

But it’s not just important to have people from diverse backgrounds in the production team.  They also need to be in positions of power and influence. Trying to persuade my team that they should interview Chuka Ummuna,a contributor they had never heard of, was certainly difficult. But as the executive producer, ultimately they did as I said. If I had been a researcher with the same suggestion and knowledge, I’m not sure my suggestion would have gone that far.

Following his interview in our Panorama programme – his first on a network current affairs programme – Ummuna is now on our screens and on the radio pretty consistently. You definitely no longer need to be from a diverse background and take a special interest in BME politicians to know of him. However, every time I think of that interview, I wonder how many other great “next Prime Minsters” as my colleague put it, be they black, Asian, disabled or come from any manner of diverse background, aren’t making it to the screen.  And whether that’s simply because the production teams aren’t as diverse the population we make programmes for.

Looting For An Identity

I’m sitting in my office in BBC Scotland with my fellow news colleagues watching images of London burning as rioting and looting takes place in Hackney, Tottenham and Brixton. As one of the few Londoners in the office and definitely the only Black person in the office, the question my fellow journalists keep asking is why? They point out that deprivation in parts of Scotland is far worse than anything in London, pockets of youth unemployment in Glasgow is far worse than any black youth unemployment rate, and even life expectancy is worse in Scotland. Yet no one is rioting in Glasgow. Simple liberal explanations of blaming the riots on racism and socio-economic deprivation just don’t seem to explain the full story.

As the apparent sole representation of all things black and London, my answer is “identity”. Specifically, the need for “role-communities” not “role-models”. Let me explain:

I’ve been working in Scotland now for over three years. What I love about Scotland is just how broad Scottish identity is. You can be an intellectual, read ancient Gaelic poetry and love long country hikes and feel very Scottish. At the same time you can enjoy eating deep-fried mars bars, drink buckfast (a potent mix of caffeine and alcohol popular on Glasgow’s streets), and regularly get into fights on a Saturday night and still be 100% Scottish.  It’s equally Scottish to wake up listening to BBC Scotland Radio’s Good Morning Scotland (the Scottish equivalent of Radio 4’s Today programme) or listening to something a little lighter on Radio Clyde. And whether you support Scottish independence or think Scotland should always be part of the United Kingdom, it doesn’t matter to your identity - no one can use that to tell you you’re not a proud Scot.

Scottish identity is a broad church.

So what has this got to do with rioting by black youth in London?  The fact is that black British identity, and more importantly the black British community, is the complete opposite.

Since the 1980s, there has been a great deal of effort to increase representation of black people on TV, Radio, online and in print.  That effort has been crucial.  However, what it has not managed to do is to challenge and broaden the black British identity.

Whether on TV, Radio, online or in print, the Black community is invariably very narrowly defined. It is generally portrayed as a dysfunctional community that is dominated by youth culture, the underclass and constant undertones of criminality.

However as a result of efforts since the 1980s, we now see some successful elements – those great black individuals on screen who have “made it”. The problem is that these black people are not seen as being part of a functioning black community.  They are nearly always portrayed as being fully integrated into the broader white community; islands of success divorced from the gangster laced black community which they managed to escape from, and now might visit occasionally.

The message this sends out to young black kids is dangerously clear, as the riots have demonstrated. They have to make a choice: either be part of a narrowly defined dysfunctional black community (populated with hoodies, grime and undertones of criminality); or leave that community behind and become fully integrated into a functioning wider white community. Choose between a culture of crime or a lifetime of community self-loathing. In TV terms a choice between MTV gangsta rappers or the single black character in a Mike Leigh film. This is a choice that media representations by well meaning liberals of “positive black role models” does not address and can sometimes inadvertently reinforce.

Is it any wonder then, that when someone from the black community is killed, the outcome is a riot? According to the media the dysfunctional black community is populated with potential rioters, all the black youth have done is internalise this identity and reacted accordingly.

That, I believe, is why youth are rioting in London and not in the most deprived areas of Glasgow. It’s a lack of a broader, functional community identity.

In this context, the media has an (if not the) most important role to play in addressing identity, and therefore these riots. Yes, the police need to take action, and re-connect with the black community. That’s necessary. But it’s not sufficient. It is only the media that can really start to widen the definition of black British identity. The havoc being wreaked in Tottenham and other black communities throughout London demonstrates that we need to go well beyond finding a few “positive role models” or teaching our children about individual, one-of-a-kind black heroes from Martin Luther King to Barack Obama. We need to present a black community that these youth want to be part of that is as broad as the Scottish identity – one where Goths and nerds can co-exist with rappers and all feel an equal claim to the term “black”. One where a suburban middleclass black family can feel their community is as “legitimately” black as any inner city black family.  One where black people can do PhD’s without the feeling that they are “acting white”.

These broad black communities already exist; I suspect that a lot of black people in the BBC and other media offices actually do come from these communities. Our job is to stop shining the spotlighting on just a few individual role models from these communities, and broaden our focus to “role-communities”. Only then will we give our children a true choice of what it means to be black, without the need to resort to riots.