(Speech by Sir Lenny Henry delivered at the second anniversary of the Centre for Media Diversity on 20th May 2022)
Hello my people. Don’t you all look fantastic! Everyone having a good time?
Big up the Midlands massive! Anybody here from the black country? Can I have a lift home?
I am so thrilled to be celebrating two years of the Lenny Henry Centre for Media Diversity. Can I get a hell yeah?
This is literally a dream come true.
It was a dream to set up a Centre dedicated to increasing diversity in the media industry. And here we are two years in and going from strength to strength, thanks to all the hard work and support we’ve received from so many of you in this room.
Now I’ve been speaking about racism and the lack of diversity in the media since… well, biblical times. Jesus had twelve disciples, the brother can’t have one black friend?
When I started my career in the 1970’s there were hardly any Black people on our screens or behind the camera. When I first went to work at the BBC it was me, Floella Benjamin and Moira Stewart - all picking cotton in the Blue Peter garden.
I was the only Black person on the Black and White Minstrel Show – which, for the younger people in the room, was a racist TV programme where white people sang and danced in black face. I still struggle with that, but it illustrates the lack of options available to young black people in those days.
Fun fact - the UK kept their version of the Black and White Minstrel show - long after the US had dropped its. Americans were like “if we’re gonna get a white guy to wear too much makeup and say racist stuff on TV, let’s at least make him President”
I have heard racial slurs.
I have been the only black person on a film set.
I have been stereotyped.
But this isn’t a sob story - I’m simply illustrating how far we’ve come and reminding us progress can, must and will happen.
And what I have learnt is that we must turn protest in progress. We need to transform our complaints about the lack of diversity into real tangible results. And that is what the Centre is all about.
Let me tell you something about the key ethos of the Centre. Like I said I’ve been talking to people about diversity and racism for years, and no one paid too much attention. Occasionally it would make the news, but it’s actually not that helpful when ITV runs the headline “Ainsley Harriot calls for more diversity”
But in 2014 something changed. In addition to talking about diversity, I also began to address the structure of the film and television industry.
I still talked about a lack of Black and Asian people, but now I also addressed how much power we have – or, crucially, don’t have.
As well as talking about the number of disabled people on our screens or the lack of women behind the camera, I focused on how many of those people were in the positions that control the money.
Because money is power, commissions are power. I learnt that first hand when I started appearing on TV. After growing up poor, suddenly I had money.
I bought my mum a new telly, new carpet and eventually a house. In Caribbean families, having money brings huge respect and when I bought her the house, she moved Dad from the head of the table and put me there instead. And then she gave me the biggest cut of meat.
That must have been tough for my dad. All day long he had to listen to bigots at work complaining about black people coming over here and taking food out their mouths – then he came home to find one of them was his son!
It was when I started thinking about diversity as a structural problem that everything changed.
And that for me is what this Centre is all about.
It’s not about hunting out the unconscious bias or playing eye spy the racist - it’s something beginning with Boris Johnson by the way - the centre is about how we change the way the industry is run so we can make it more inclusive for everyone.
The genesis of this can be traced back to an open letter in 2014 where I teamed up with the likes of Doreen Lawrence Amma Assante Kwame Kwei Armah and Idris Elba to ask broadcasters for ring-fenced money for programmes directed by black people. We also asked them to put more money into programmes directed by women.
From that moment on I have always recognised the importance of financing in trying to achieve real diversity and inclusion.
That letter also taught me another important lesson. The power of allies.
We felt that if it was just non white people who signed, we could be dismissed as a bunch of angry black actors with an open letter in their hands.
It was a simpler time - these days if an angry black actor is holding something in their hand, it’s usually Chris Rock’s face.
So we added Richard Curtis CBE, Russell T Davies OBE, Harry Hill, Sir Richard Eyre CBE, Lord Alan Sugar, Matt Lucas, Emma Thompson and a raft of other people to the letter. It was magic
So having the support of allies is key in giving you strength - and even cover from possible push back from the powers that be.
Let me illustrate with a section from the book Access All Areas, which I wrote with Marcus Ryder.
“If we want to create a culture where people are not scared to speak their truth, we need to create a culture of allies. If you are a Black man, you need to support your female co-workers when she is calling out sexism.
If you are a White woman, support your Black co-worker when they are advocating policies to combat ethnicity pay gaps.
And White men? Well, you guys just have to support everyone!”
After we sent that open letter in 2018 I took things up a level - and with Marcus Ryder again, as well as some of the other people on the letter, we campaigned for diversity tax breaks for films and certain TV programmes, that meet key diversity criteria.
We went to Downing Street, the Mayor’s office, we met with Nicola Sturgeon and even went to the treasury. Luckily this was before the only way to get a tax break from them was to be married to Rishi Sunak.
And this is when we hit a big hurdle – while politicians paid lip service to supporting the idea, we were told by the Treasury that we didn’t have the evidence that diversity tax breaks worked. We hadn’t modelled it.
And that my friends, is why we are all here today – because in 2020 we set up the Centre for Media Diversity at Birmingham City University – so we would always have the academic work to support all of our diversity policies.
Two years in and this centre is doing great work, including consultancy for the Financial Times, Channel 4 and the BBC.
And I’m very proud to announce this evening that the Centre is now in the process of doing the hard academic work of modelling those tax breaks. We will get there.
This Centre has proved that change will happen – people are taking notice, broadcasters, newspapers and trade unions are all using our work to improve their policies and increase diversity.
I’m so proud of the achievements this centre has made, but more importantly I am so excited about the road that lies ahead.
I can’t wait to see where that road takes us and I’m delighted to have each and every one of you on the journey.
Thank you for listening.
(Printed with kind permission by Sir Lenny Henry)
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