Entitlement

We have to exorcise our lack of entitlement, I say to HOME CEO Karen. Or is it to our producer Clarissa? Sauna. Steam. Next door in Innside Melia. 7 individual suites with sofa. Breakfast included. Dinner at Gino D'Campo. £50 a head budget. Champagne. Because of earlier infractions: disrespecting Adam; ineffectual marketing; montage and playlist not working properly; gaslit by Clarissa's unauthorised £900 spend of our budget on a film we didn't want.

Take a Walk on the Wild Side

Lou Reed is playing in the cafe in Marsden. It is the day before MY MUM IS WHITE ends. I am visiting my best friend Sonia.

… She says, "Hey babe, take a walk on the wild side"
Said, "Hey babe, take a walk on the wild side"

I love a walk on the wild side. I am lucky enough to be born in an era where you can take a walk on the wild side. I am only sorry I was born too late to be shagging in a field while bollock naked listening to long haired white dudes singing about revolution. Then the 70s hit. Black Power.

I don't know why I didn't use this phrase in the sword fight. For once, in the 1970s, it is wonderful to be black. I don't give a fuck what you are thinking. I was there. My politics come from my lived experience. I am born in 1959. People spit in my pram. This is one incident. Or maybe it is many incidents. But I have many other incidents. Like my handsome black dad and my witty, soulful white mum getting dressed up on Fridays and walking to the corner pub, the Robin Hood. Where she sings beside the piano.

Crazy
for feeling so lonely
I'm crazy
Crazy for feeling so blue

I knew
You'd love me as long as you wanted
And then someday
You'd leave me for somebody new

Worry
Why do I let myself worry?
Wondering
What in the world did I do?

Crazy
For thinking that my love could hold you
I'm crazy for trying and crazy for crying
And I'm crazy, for loving you

She's a pale ale drinker. He drinks brandy. My dad never gets drunk. I can count the occasions on one hand. He is sensationally 50s cool. Like Sidney Poitier refusing to star in The Heat of the Night unless he can slap Rod Steiger in the face. Rod Steiger agrees. Sidney is a slick city detective. Rod is dense hick policeman. They are not shoulder-to-shoulder. Sidney is one step ahead. Smarter. Cooler. Controlling his narrative. Unpicking the crime from the weave that is trying to give Steiger dominion over him. Like my dad in the 1957 photo at the bar in the Bowling Green where him and my mum meet. His trilby pushed back. Mighty. Holding court. Weaving his own narrative. No wonder my mum ran off with him.

Guess Who's Coming to Dinner.

1967, I applaud, even though I am only 8 years old, as Sidney leans into his dad during an uncharacteristic break down. Sidney annoyed! Full blown angry. An angry black man. Against another angry black man. Sidney's dad. Sidney furious, frothing, spits you did what was your duty to do. He calms. Mesmerising. 'You think of yourself as a coloured man. I think of myself as a man.' Goosebumps. I look at my dad. He looks at me. Shorthand. Meer months later the sanitation workers, black men, bin men, have banners that simply read. I AM A MAN.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3NGfcqlqFI&t=118s

AM I NOT A MAN? He is kneeling. His hands clenched in front of his face. His neck, his wrists, his ankles shackled. AM I NOT A MAN? Scrolled beneath him.

Black men stop asking this question in the 70s. They declare who they are. Am. At black Woodstock. In Aretha Franklin's dad's church. The vocals. The choir. The body language. Flares. A fitted jacket. May be herringbone. The platforms. His little fox fur. They're not following Jimi Hendrix. They emerge beside Jimi Hendrix. Weaving their own narrative. Black Power seems to pop out of nowhere. Angela Davies' afro. 'Do you dig it?' Miles Davies. Hs admirers, outside the bookies. A sleek Pierre Angor top. Leather moccasins. Clean clean jeans. Sharp creases. Ironed on brown paper. Jimmy Cliff's white suit hanging in his light leaking Jamaican shack.

Well, they tell me of a pie up in the sky
Waiting for me when I die
But between the day you're born and when you die
They never seem to hear even your cry

So as sure as the sun will shine
I'm gonna get my share now, what's mine
And then the harder they come
The harder they fall, one and all
Ooh, the harder they come
The harder they fall, one and all

Well, the oppressors are trying to keep me down
Trying to drive me underground
And they think that they have got the battle won
I say forgive them Lord, they know not what they've done

'Cause, as sure as the sun will shine
I'm gonna get my share now, what's mine
And then the harder they come
The harder they fall, one and all
Ooh, the harder they come
Harder they fall, one and all

Plays as Jimmy is chased through the shanty, almost breaking his neck over a stray white chicken.

"We love an outfit,' Says Sonia, last night.

'We love an outfit,' I reply.

Black leather by a graveside. A black beret. Guns. The right to bear arms.

Rapier

Tuesday, 09.09.25, I am trying to say all this when the person shuts me down. Tired, the end of the day, I don't fancy the fencing. I put my hand on my rapier handle. Too tired, I let it go. But polish it over night. Wednesday, 10.09.25, morning, I begin again more patiently. Again I am shut down. She hugs me when she is leaving, telling me how she loves my work. I hug her back. Confused, I say, 'Maybe, I am triggered by you, you remind me of my so called mixed-race best friend who bullied me all my childhood.' Thursday, 11.09.25, morning, the person who keeps shutting me down has allies. I have re-traumatised her. 'What about how she makes me feel?' 'That's a you problem.' lunges straight at me. 'There are 2 hurt people here,' comes from the left. 'I'm not hurt.' is my first and last slice. 'I need a break,' is her broadsword. Our group therapy empties. Covered in blood, I wait silently for my injuries to be carried away. Monday, 15.09.25, afternoon, 3 don't come to our Creative Manchester panel.

Bladerunner

Wednesday 17.09.25, awaiting the crescent moon, I sit in my 9th floor room, looking out onto the Bladerunner-like skyscrapers, sharing a meal deal I bought earlier with project photographer Solomon. Secretly I am anxious. Who has realigned themselves with the project? Who has taken the other directions? Who is coming to the exorcism?

I tell Solomon about Sidney. We discuss how 1/2 an hour previous, we immediately run to racism when the front desk ask Solomon for the booking reference. Me dramatically running downstairs like Solomon is about to be lynched. We discuss how even if it is true that they ask him because he is a tall young black man, he must begin to think of himself as a photographer. You are a photographer. Introduce yourself as the project photographer.

Solomon tells me unasked — I have been refusing to ask — that he saw 2 of the participants in the foyer. I am delighted. And another has confirmed they will be there too. I am ecstatic. I take my hand from my rapier handle. There is no longer any need to throw myself upon it.

Gino D'Campo is civilised. Not hostile civilised — warm civilised. Us girls are a bit dressed up. I have new Doc Martens I bought on the way in without asking the price. Solomon is rocking a stained t-shirt. 'I feel underdressed,' He repeats. 'This is how you roll now,' I assure. The tables conversation is hilarious. Warm. Normal. There are no placards. There is no divisions.

Next door, in Sainsbury's, me and project psychologist Adam buy 7 bunches of white and yellow roses. Us, 5, who have survived, travel together, calmly, to our gallery. Now lit in green tones by our technician Kieran while we were at dinner.