Clive Nwonka
@CJNwonka
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Associate Professor of Film, Culture and Society at University College London @ucl | Black Boys: The Social Aesthetics of British Urban Film @BloomsburyAcad 23
NW London
Joined May 2012
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Really pleased to announce that I’ve won a major AHRC grant to conduct a 3-year study on racial inequality in the UK film industry. Totalling nearly £1m, it will analyse the
@BFI
Diversity Standards and how people of colour experience film culture with the fab
@_SaritaMalik
A major new study looking at racial inequality in the UK film industry launches this autumn, led by Dr
@CJNwonka
for
@UCL_IAS
@ArtsHumsUCL
with Prof
@_SaritaMalik
@Bruneluni
, funded by
@ahrcpress
and working closely with
@BFI
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Leading institutions in the UK cultural/creative industries for over 20 years are filled with leaders earning £100,000+ with degrees in the humanities (English/History/Languages) but drawn from the social elite. The factor isn't a degree's earning potential. It's race and class.
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This. The cover of Black Boys: The Social Aesthetics of British Urban Cinema has dropped. Giddy gad.
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So that unifying national spirit the England squad generated over the last few weeks was really as long and deep as 12 yards? That a missed penalty is all it takes to resurrect vile racism is an inditement of a national culture that places a different value system on Black life.
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Black Arsenal: a public talk with Paul Gilroy
@bungatuffie
where we’ll be discussing research on the historic relationship between
@Arsenal
, Black British identity, conviviality and visual culture
@BarbicanCentre
this Autumn. Public booking opens tomorrow
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I feel blessed to be able to share the news that I've now been promoted to Associate Professor at
@ucl
@ArtsHumsUCL
I'm hugely thankful for all the support I've received from some fantastic colleagues across so many departments over the years. The ride has been different.
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Devastated to hear of the passing of Benjamin Zephaniah. The sense of recognition and pride I felt as a young Black person when Benjamin joined my department during my PhD studies was immense. Rest in power and peace.
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This. The full book jacket for Black Arsenal: Club Culture, Identity, Published by
@wnbooks
29 August 2024.
@Arsenal
@IanWright0
@pauldavis_8
@1kevincampbell
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February 2020 - May 2023. Writing this book was an absolute ride.
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Some personal news: really excited to announce that I'll be joining
@ucl
in Sept as Lecturer in Film, Culture and Society in
@UCL_IAS
Sad to be leaving great colleagues at
@UoYEnglish
but also looking forward to being part of a fantastic research/teaching culture at
@ArtsHumsUCL
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As the post-mortem begins and the inevitable CorbynOut narrative starts, its worth remembering that Corbyn set in motion a political culture that was anti-racist, anti-elitist, pro-equality and inspired a generation of young BAME people to be involved politics for the first time
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I spent years as a PhD/academic being the only black person at conferences in my discipline. The issue is about the racial exclusivity of HE as much as about the ambitions of BAME students.
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No. This isn't protecting students, but protecting an ideology of a class-based HE system and the continued attack on the Humanities. No government should dictate to students what a good degree is in terms of monetary value.
One in five graduates would be better off if they hadn’t gone to university.
That’s unacceptable.
So
@RishiSunak
is cracking down on rip-off university degrees and boosting skills-based learning.
Here’s how👇
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Delighted to announce that my research on Black identity and
@Arsenal
is to be published in the book 'Black Arsenal:Race, Cultural Memory & Black British Identity' co-edited with Matt Harle and published by
@wnbooks
@orionbooks
in 2024. More details here:
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“Political Blackness should make a comeback”This. Last night’s lecture by Ruth Wilson Gilmore was spiritual.
#LSEGilmore
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Gad. A few years ago me and
@Anamik1977
had an idea for a 2nd iteration of a landmark conference/publication on Black British film from 1988. These arrived. Priviledged to have worked with some fantastic colleagues on this. Hope we’ve done Kobena Mercer and that 1st book proud..
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This. "Rivers of Blood" (1968), "swamped by people with a different culture" (1979), and "hurricane" of migration (2023). Different eras, but the same language, the same party, the same meaning and crucially, the same hateful intent.
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Really pleased to announce that my first book The Aesthetics of British Urban Cinema will be published through
@BloomsburyAcad
in 2020. It will explore the genre through a range of optics including race/class, realism, architecture, politics, criminology, film allegory and music.
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Nov 2017. Walking along Oxford Street at about 11pm during a dark time at LSE.
@davidgraeber
sees me, crosses the road, says that he noticed that I seemed a bit low when he saw me earlier in LSE, asked how I was, and invited me to come with him to meet his friends for a chinese..
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So this. What a beautiful book on Stuart Hall’s still so relevant theories on the media by
@DukePress
and a fantastic introduction/editing by Charlotte Brunsdon. An essential book for anyone concerned with race, power, ideology and identity within the media’s functions.
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'The black British urban genre should be as valuable to British film culture and academia as the French new wave and British social realism'. Huge thanks to
@aamnamohdin
for this feature on the new book 'Black Boys' in
@guardianculture
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Will never forget coming home from school on a Friday evening and seeing the image of Stephen Lawrence across the news. It’s a picture that, for so many of us, became so traumatic, consuming, and powerful over the days, weeks, months and years. Rest in power
#StephenLawrenceDay
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So good to see the cover for the latest Stuart Hall book by
@DukePress
and read Charlotte Brunsdon's intro on Hall's contribution to how we understand television and the media. Hall was our finest example on what it truly means to be a public intellectual.
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Part of the Race/Gender diversity crisis in the Film/TV industry is that they are quick to publicise diversity plans but reluctant to reveal data when they fail. But its only by knowing where failings are can we develop more radical equality policies. Bad data is also good data.
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Sinéad O'Connor's 'Black Boy's on Mopeds', about the death of 21 year old Nicholas Bramble who was killed after being chased by police who wrongly deduced the moped he was riding was stolen. Me and my sister listened to this album so much as kids. RIP
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"The Small Axe films have allowed black Britain to congregate over an extremely rare televisual representation of black identity". My piece for
@BigIssue
on black British film, the black family, identification and Small Axe filling 'the spiritual void'.
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Been reading a LOT of Stuart Hall this week, trying to make sense of it all and (inspired by
@alim1213
@Anamik1977
) thinking about how Hall would describe everything. I’m not qualified to answer, but want to put somethings out for others to pick up, add, contribute. THREAD
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The shocking but predictable outcome of a film industry built on stardom, status, prestige, influence, self-importance, narcissism and the gender-based accumulation of power. The industry is structured precisely to permit and conceal sexual harassment.
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The use of diversity as proof of racial equality is exactly why institutional racism thrives. The UK can be surface level diverse and be structurally racist. Any success we've achieved has come in spite of institutional racism, not because it doesn't exist
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Really pleased be able to share the cover for Black Film British Cinema II, design by yours truly with a little homage to the 1988 edition and a couple of the key thinkers that that made the book so significant. Big thanks to everyone who has contributed to this book.
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The absolute state of these comments. If ever there was a 'what would Stuart Hall say?' moment...
Multiculturalism "has failed because it allowed people to come to our society and live parallel lives in it"
Home Secretary Suella Braverman gives speech on migration in Washington DC
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This. If there was ever a film that so powerfully articulated the Black conditions in Britain its Horace Ové's Pressure.
Check out the new trailer for Pressure, edited by Damla Duru, the winner of the BFI x
@1NTERMISSION
competition!
Our new restoration of Horace Ove’s masterpiece premieres at
#LFF
and
@TheNYFF
.
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At such a crucial political, social and cultural moment, the
@DukePress
Stuart Hall Selected Writings series offer a timely reminder of the relevance of Hall’s work for making sense of troubled times. A couple of fantastic new additions to that endeavour...
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This. Remember this moment so well. Articulated what so many of us felt and still feel about the British honours system and the legacies of empire.
Benjamin Zephaniah on his refusal to accept an OBE.
'No way Mr Blair, no way Mrs Queen. I am profoundly anti-empire.'
Rest in power.
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Can't help but smile at the hypocrisy of those parading their
#BlackLivesMatter
virtues but ignore racism within their own institutional corridors as it does not align with their subjective interests. If black lives really matter, make it your standard, not just your aesthetic.
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‘Race and Ethnicity in the UK Film Industry: An Analysis of the BFI Diversity Standards’ an
@LSEsociology
study into how 235 films cited race/ethnicity within the
@BFI
standards and across film genres, production location/settings and production budgets.
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Hmm...because the mass gentrification of Peckham has not already been a 15-year project in the making, right? This is peak.
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This...a great episode of
@BBCRadio3
Sunday Feature on the life and work of Stuart Hall; there is something deeply moving here in both hearing, and then understanding his voice..
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For anyone wanting to understand why the treatment of racialised groups in the media is an issue of social justice and not just inclusion, and why we need to shift from racial representation to how (and why) the media ‘makes race’, this book by
@Anamik1977
is an intervention.
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Literally this. The very concept of The Black Neoliberal Aesthetic was developed upon that post-multiculturalist use of Smith as the avatar of a Neoliberal Black cultural value.
But also the particular feel good cultural euphoria of the Blair period and at Oxford then if not now disciplinary conservatism, anti cultural studies for example Stuart Hall? Never.
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This Wednesday sees the publication of the
@LSEsociology
report 'Race and Ethnicity in the UK Film Industry', a data analysis of race in UK 235 feature films that have adhered to the
@BFI
Diversity Standards. How responsive have productions been to racial diversity on/off-screen?
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I know. Independent schooling, two Oxbridge degrees and he still thinks the black political tradition of taking the knee is actually a work of televised fantasy fiction. Decolonise education, now.
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"Little China girl. “Paki doctor.” “Black bitch.” These are just some of the racist slurs directed at NHS nurses and doctors as they work on the frontline" Timely piece by
@soniasodha
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NEW JOB: Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Race and Ethnicity in the UK Film Sector at
@ucl
working with me and
@_SaritaMalik
on our new
@ahrcpress
research project on racial inequality in the UK film industry with
@BFI
Please contact me with any questions.
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Been working on this for a while, so delighted to be introducing a number of UK screenings of the fantastic Brixton-set
@BBCTwo
film Storm Damage (2000) beginning with
@BFI
NFT1 on 13 April + Q&A with cast/crew including
@AdrianLester
and
@AshleyWalters82
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New study by me and
@_SaritaMalik
for
@FilmTVCharity
on the 20 year history of diversity policy that reveals both an absence of transparency from UK film/TV organisations on the impact of policies and 'lost generations' of Black and Brown film/ TV talent.
Landmark U.K. Studies Find There Is ‘No Formal Accountability’ for Film and TV Industry Around Racism (EXCLUSIVE)
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The sacking of Suella Braverman has come about 10 months too late. The mobilisation and violence of the far right on Saturday was an inevitable occurrence encouraged and stoked up for months by the rhetoric of a Home Secretary who should never have been given the post.
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New Article 👀Building on Stuart Hall's 'New Ethnicities',
@_SaritaMalik
and the idea of hegemony, this research considers how neoliberalism has impacted how the screen industries conceive and present Black British film/TV.
@EJCS_Journal
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Thanks to all who were able to attend the Black Film British Cinema II book launch at
@ICALondon
last night. And I hope me and
@Anamik1977
can speak for all in saying that
@Such_Mayer
and
@SharleneWhyte
beautiful tribute to the late Sophia Ramcharan was the evening’s highlight 🙏🏽
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Some stunning footage of the late Stuart Hall in this BBC feature on the work of
@Iniva_arts
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Sir Horace Ové. We owe you so much. Rest in Power.
We're deeply saddened to hear of the passing of Sir Horace Ové.
Photographer, painter, writer, and pioneering filmmaker, Ové's career spanned four decades and encompassed cutting-edge drama and documentary. He worked outside of the system, showing generations of Black filmmakers
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Writing an undergraduate lecture on Steve McQueen's film aesthetics and had to remind myself (and hopefully demonstrate to them) how and why this scene in Widows is insanely good. A film that deserves much more scholarly attention than it gets.
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‘It’s not about how many black or brown authors are on the reading list’ . Me,
@desai_manali
an
@drsadhvidar
on how to decolonise the university
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If anyone wants further evidence of the racism endemic in the UK film industry and how meaningless the diversity agenda is in the sector, take a look at the BAFTA nominations. This is apalling
#BAFTAssowhite
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So proud to be part of what was an emotional night at
@BFI
for the screening of the fantastic Storm Damage with its director Simon Cellan Jones and cast
@AdrianLester
@AshleyWalters82
Kate Ashfield and Alexis Rodney. The response to the film from the audience was amazing.
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'a landmark form of Black visual culture that warrants a central place in British film and television history'. Marking its final season, a piece I've written for
@BFI
exploring the textual, cultural and industrial significance of
@topboynetflix
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"It’s not just about black people working on black films, it’s about black people working in film and television, period" . Powerful words by McQueen. My forthcoming report on race and ethnicity in the UK film industry investigates this precise issue
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'Diversity is no universal principle but one conditioned by a set of industrial and cultural variables underpinned by structural racism'. In
@SightSoundmag
on how DS passing films produce racial difference. My fee for the article is to be donated to Brixton's
@bcaheritage
✊🏾✊🏾
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Imagine, I first started lecturing/researching
@topboynetflix
in 2011 in an inherently white academic field that saw the study of televisual Black urban identities as nothing beyond a novelty with no analytical value. 11 yrs / 4 seasons later, my sense of vindication is real ✊🏾
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The point I was making on
@bbc5live
before the connection was 'lost' is you cant 'make' diversity. It is not a product, its an experience. Its what we feel/see naturally when systemic racial inequality is dismantled. Diversity is the OUTCOME of racial equality, not the beginning.
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Honoured to see my book 'Black Boys: The Social Aesthetics of British Urban Film' longlisted for the Kraszna-Krausz Awards 2024
@Kraszna_Krausz
alongside fantastic books by some great moving image scholars including my
@ucl
colleague
@sinclairdootson
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BOOK LAUNCH ‼️ Please join us for the launch event/talk for my new book 'Black Boys: The Social Aesthetics of Black Urban Film' at
@ucl
on 2 October 18:00 with contributions from some fantastic colleagues
@UCL_SPRC
@ArtsHumsUCL
@UCL_IAS
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Loved the teach out by
@saramsalem
@o_rutazibwa
and colleagues at my old battle ground, LSE. These are spaces of so much precarity and casualisation and its accompanying racism, sexism, classism and ableism. This is why we fight.
#UCUstrike
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The key to linking Rocks with gender equality in film is what happens next; will the acting talent get to develop long term careers in film/TV? Will its off screen talent get to make second and third features? This has to be a platform for new voices.
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Sincerely hope the term 'systemic racism' being used by the cultural creative industries today supporting BLM will also be sustained when considering the inequalities in their own institutions, and not hidden in a benign language of 'lack of diversity' and 'underrepresentation'.
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For the
@BAFTA
policy to be really impactful we also need change at the level of film production to ensure that diverse filmmakers are supported to make a body of culturally/economically valuable films for this new membership/voting system to nominate
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Rest in Power Earl Cameron, one of Britain's greatest black actors. Beyond Pool of London and Sapphire, his character Gabriel Gomez in Flame in the Streets brought to the screen issues of interracial love and racism within the trade unions in the Windrush era.
#ripearlcameron
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Big job❗️Lecturer in Film: British and Minority Cinemas at
@FilmStudiesQMUL
with specialisms in Black British/British Caribbean/African cinemas/Asian British film. A fantastic, rare and really important Film Studies post in a great department.
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He didn’t turn up for the talk the next day, but I was cool with it. He offered the spirit of generosity, selflessness, affinity and horizontality. The things we see so little of in academia, but the things that actually matter the most. A good, good man. ✊🏾
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"Baldwin’s ideas and thinking on race, culture and love remain so present in London’s social, political, cultural and creative consciousnes". Piece by me in
@EveningStandard
on Baldwin's influence on the city's creative imagination and racial politics.
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And we lose another towering pioneer. From To Sir With Love to In the Heat of the Night and beyond, his screen presence was always phenomenal. Rest in Power.
Breaking News: Sidney Poitier, the first Black performer to win an Oscar for best actor, is dead at 94. He was known for his portrayal of determined, dignified heroes in films like “To Sir With Love” and “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner.”
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So ironic that hours after Stormzy is lambasted for (a wilful misrepresentation) of his comment on racism in the UK the world is subjected to another instance of racial abuse in the Premier League. Suddenly, the substance of his comment takes on a new significance
#KickOutRacism
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Absolutely this by
@jeffreykboakye
and echos the still so relevant critique by Stuart Hall and Maggie Steed in 1979 on the sometimes subtle, sometimes overt, but always consequential forms of racism of the British media.
The optics tell you EVERYTHING.
The victim unnamed, sidelined and dismissed, the killer shown in hero poses and made intriguing. Why? because white supremacy SEES the world in this way.
If you aren’t disgusted by this I have nothing for you. RIEP Daniel Anjorin.
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Good to see Steve McQueen's Small Axe series be recognised for the groundbreaking Black cultural experience it was. It transcended television.
#BAFTATV
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BIG JOB ‼️ Lecturer in Film and Literature at
@UoYEnglish
with particular expertise in Black film, literature and race. A fantastic FT/permanent post in a great department. Feel free to contact me with any questions if interested.
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As a former London Underground worker, nothing but absolute solidarity with all those striking today.
@RMTunion
#RailStrikes
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'Why was this cinephile spurned by Hollywood?' Great piece by
@Lanre_Bakare
on James Baldwin's love of cinema, rejection by Hollywood and his film criticism that inspired my new
@BarbicanCentre
film season 'The Devil Finds Work: James Baldwin Through Film':
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At the
@LSEnews
naming of the Sir Arthur Lewis Building, named after the Saint Lucian Nobel Prize winning economist who became LSE’s first Black faculty member. Massive congrats to my former student
@brianwalks
for taking this from an idea to its fruition. A big achievement 👏🏽
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‘The obsession with cachet at top universities holds back anti-racism efforts. Less prestigious institutions are leading the way’. My take on why decolonisation must become deracialisation in UK HE
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@AcademicDiary
I can't believe this. Our chance discussion in your office all those years ago was a significant moment in my career path. That you've been driven to this decision by Goldsmiths practices is appalling.
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Tell me this isn’t the best academic conference badge you’ve ever seen?..
#blackportraitures
@nyuniversity
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Thanks to everyone who attended the Black Boys book launch
@UCL_SPRC
, and the great responses from
@AbenaKJohn
Suzi, Anamik, and
@rikjaz
. Important that I mentioned
@MediaLSE
Shaku Banaji: without her efforts against anti-Black racism in HE this book would not have happened✊🏾
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John Humphreys on
@BBCr4today
showing a catastrophic lack of understanding of the importance of media studies degrees by saying it can be taught in '5 minutes'. Its precisely this kind of ignorance that creates the perception that the media/humanities degree are of no value.
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'‘People will be disturbed’: Steve McQueen on airing his Grenfell film'.
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Classic moral panic over urban(black)film; black youths are somehow pathologically inclined to film influenced violence, whilst the ultra-violent James Bond films which have made a bigger cultural imprint than any urban film coming to cinemas near you soon
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"Ordinary working people, considered superfluous or unwanted, are exiled to a grey zone where justice cannot enter and their less-than-worthy lives count for next to nothing". From
@bungatuffie
powerful exhibition essay for Steve McQueen's Grenfell film
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New Article 👀 I take
@BaggieJohn
idea of the 'discipline of race relations' of the 70s to understand how various state agents policed radical Black British film through censorship and classification. Thanks
@Anamik1977
and
@SuzanneHall12
for their comments on the draft.
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I’ve been researching programming on race/racism in the early 90s at
@BFI
mediateque and found this ep of LWTs The London Programme from 1993, broadcast a month after the murder of Stephen Lawrence. Remember watching this ep as a young child, still had the same affect 29 years on
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So been working on something....Was an honour to be asked by
@Arsenal
to guest edit the
@AFCProgramme
for the game against
@SheffieldUnited
this Sat to mark the club's Black History Month celebrations. Huge thanks to
@andyexley72
and colleagues for all their work with this.
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This. The ethics of dramatising mass traumatic events should always be determined by those being depicted. Without this praxis the re-enactment of Grenfell as a cultural/social value can become detached from the needs of those visualised within its frames.
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Pleased to announce that me and
@Anamik1977
will be editing the 2nd edition of the landmark Black Film British Cinema, continuing the amazing contributions over 30 years ago through
@bungatuffie
Kobena Mercer, June Givanni, Coco Fuso and Stuart Hall's landmark 'New Ethnicities'.
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At a time when so many need reminding of the contemporary purpose, function and importance of public service broadcasting/television,
@RoganProduction
have produced a vital documentary of an untold part of British history.
#Defiance
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I take no pleasure in pointing back to this
@nytimes
article from less than 2 days ago. Anyone expecting an instant, continued and sequential flow of racial difference across the
@BAFTA
awards needs a much more sophisticated understanding of how the politics of diversity works.
'It would take five or six years to get a full sense of the review’s impact'. My contribution to a wide ranging and timely piece by
@fnayeri
on tomorrow's
@BAFTA
Awards noms, racial difference and the interventions made by BAFTA since
#BaftasSoWhite
2020.
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