SOS – Shonda Rhimes

In the world of script writing and media production generally there is a literary crisis in the making regarding UK Black women and the UK  needs your help. Black women are  being seriously and subtly deformed in the public image.

Lets start with proximate causes. In the Uk there has been a lost generation. They do not  generally have any historical memory of the previous generations that struggled for them. Most of them look on the ‘Black Radicals’ as troublemakers and instinctively distance themselves. In their minds these radicals were trouble makers that prevented Black people from getting on in Britain. Even their names are forgotten. They do not even know that  these people fought for:

  1. An end to discrimination in housing – banning adverts that stated ‘No Blacks or Irish’ etc
  2. An end to employment discrimination either overt or covert;
  3. An end to massive discrimination in schools and the jettisoning of large  numbers of Black children as educationally sub normal.

You may think I am exagerrating but a comic episode should clarify it for you.

I was invited by a friend (now with a Queen’s honour!)  to join a Black discussion group. These members mostly  repeated the mantra that Black radicals were causing all the problems. When I challenged them and pointed out the true politics behind the struggles one of them responded in a sneering email: ‘At least we will get jobs!’ I had to respond that I was a partner in a major City firm! In their minds even if what I was saying was true that was  not the way to get a job. 

Think this through: what they are saying is that in their minds the only way to get a job is to crawl on your hands and knees and do or say whatever is asked. This is not in fact true and in technical sociological parlance is called ‘excessive-compliance’. Let me quote:

Implications of Compliance

However, excessive compliance can also have negative consequences. It can stifle creativity, critical thinking, and individuality, as individuals may fear deviating from societal or organizational expectations’

( https://easysociology.com/general-sociology/understanding-compliance-in-sociology/)

I attended a meeting of young Black writers seeking to get into the UK media and witnessed exactly the same attitudes, particularly among the talented young Black women. There was a lack of historical knowledge of how they, as an ethnic group, got to where they are now. But most shocking to me was the clear signal they were giving ( I have been an employer for many years so I read ‘signals’) that they were willing to say, write or do anything whatever to get into the media world. There was not even the first sense of ‘negotiating’ anything.  They would dish their brothers (saying Black males were clearly incompetent) at a drop of the hat.  Just ‘tell me what to do …’

Apart from the dreadful politics of all this behaviour, excessive compliance will stifle creativity so in the end they will not make much success of their lives!

One of the dreadful consequences of all this is the misperception of Black women. If you rank men in five groups  A-E and do similar for women, then most A women will find life hard living with a C man. This has nothing to do with colour of skin. Seldom do we see A women married to D men for any length of time. Ambitious Black women tend to marry ambitious white men if they marry a white man. (Think Tina Turner, Oprah Winfrey) But in British media we have Black A women apparently falling heavily in love with a patently  D class white male.   Racism in Britain is often subtle. Emotionally these scripts do not work, just unbelievable. I have seen this so many times I no longer believe it is any one individual failing.. But I suspect the actress says she wants the work and seldom gets much, and if there are any Black script writers involved  they do not challenge the casting. These are issues I find that many ‘White’ women do not wish to discuss. Only ‘white’ women can be victims. I seldom see such absurdities in US dramas. All the scrapes in Scandal are emotionally believable.

This younger UK Black generation will not listen to any earlier generation person with political street smarts because they worship fame and money. If nothing is done about this, a genre of fiction will arise which inevitably will be exported to the US as well, and even to the rest of the world. You, US Black media writers, have fame and money.  They will listen to you. SOS Rhonda Rimes!