Heart-warming, heart-breaking and eye-opening. This event was a necessary conversation that details not only the very real experiences of Colin Grant as a Black man in England but also represents the struggle of many of the descendants of the Windrush generation, as he referred to his new memoir ‘I’m Black, So You Don’t Have To Be’.
Grant intrepidly spoke about his own struggles with his father, family constellation therapy and his experience of the ‘talk’ from his mother while in conversation with BBC Radio Sheffield broadcaster Paulette Edwards, who aided Grant with her natural line of questioning.
Grant’s strong words in relation to his antagonising father known as ‘Bageye’, which included claiming that he feared he would die before he had a chance to kill him, added to the intimate and personal nature of his memoir set in his hometown of Luton. This was where he attended a private school funded by his father’s involvement in the selling of marijuana, in which he also served as a ‘bagman’, another captivating story within his memoir.
However, like many other Caribbeans, Grant explains how he still admired his dad’s ‘code’ which included how he would explain things to everyone the same indiscriminately, regardless of their age, in a highly relatable note that may hit close to home for many young British Caribbeans. Also part of Grant’s memory of his childhood in Luton was the heavy Irish population in his school and how he remembered them joking to him about how it may have been worse to be Irish than Black, a fascinating insight into the racial dynamics of society before the 21st century.
Further into the conversation, Edwards asked Grant about his experience of ‘the talk’ from his parents (in other words, advice from them on how to go about life as a young black man in England). He answered saying that his mother told him not to trust English people and make himself as small as possible, not to attract any unwanted attention.
This event was a stark reminder about the state of England during the 70s and 80s, which eventually led to Grant’s uncle Castus telling him ‘I’m black, so you don’t have to be’; a sentence that summarised Grant’s message, the struggle he, his parents and compatriots faced but also the fun he had on the way in his journey, a story expertly told in this Off the Shelf event.
Rating: ★★★★☆
I’m Black, So You Don’t Have To Be was published in 2022. Other Off the Shelf Festival events can be found here
