Tony Hendriks, Contributor
AT A recent show at Yaa Asantewa Arts Centre in London the audience was 99 per cent black. You'd figure it would be in a venue named after the Ashanti Queen Mother of Ghana.
But sitting at a table in front of the stage was a white man with his black wife, girlfriend, or partner as they say in the UK, the politically correct term that avoids being gender specific.
There were four comics on the bill of varying backgrounds either from the UK or some sort of mix. The lone female on the bill has French and Nigerian genes and fits into them exceedingly well. There was a youth from Hackney of Ghanaian parents, a cross-dresser who plays a multitude of characters from the Caribbean and there was me who as you know is Anglo-Afro-Franco-Duco-Judo-Christo, you know, Jamaican-born and half-bred.
The show was a cracker. West Indians are the same anywhere; they came to have a good time and did. Afterwards as the punters filed out (none filed suite) a few hung back to chat with us comics and show appreciation. I came out of the dressing room last as I'd been onstage last and the lone white man was standing in a group chattering away.
Eventually I ended up at his group and was introduced. My first impression was, "He's sick!" I hadn't noticed while onstage, the lights were on me, but I now saw his skin was translucent. "Maybe he's had a face lift!" was my second thought as I shot another brief glance towards him but as he pumped my hand with a cold grip and smiled, I took a good look and knew, "He's in the witness protection programme."
Wrong on all counts. He was black! The BBC was making a documentary. A TV crew had been shooting that night and asked us if we minded clips being used in a show about multicultural comedy in Britain. Hello? Of course not! I had hoped they would film me a bit more but I had no idea they were focusing on this other "white" person until then.
The documentary's concept was to put a white man in a black man's skin and see whether he felt affected by this and if so how, then reverse the situation and shoot a black man -- I mean film a black man in a white man's skin. Damn! If they'd only known about me before I could have saved them a lot of trouble.
The intent was not to entrap anyone, videotape racist comments or expose a sick underbelly of society but simply to see how a white man felt when he is black and vice versa. Of course, no white man would know what it is like to suffer as a people oppressed for centuries, feel the constant pressure of being a role model in the new millennium or even have the heart-stopping palpitations of knowing there are so many women and so little time. No, all he had to do was walk up a street in a black neighbourhood like Brixton as a white man, then again when he was black and tell what difference he felt.
The white man said he felt safer as a black man. Which just proves he has absolutely no concept of reality! He was worried that a black man might attack him? Damn fool should have been worried the police would come along and kick his black covered white ass up and down Coldharbour Lane!
The flip side of the experiment was to get the black man made up as a white man. As well as the comedy show he went to the dogs, the racetrack that is, apparently predominantly white male territory, made up as a white man. Only trouble is that as a black man he would have felt quite comfortable at the track. All he had to do was pretend the dogs were horses and he'd feel right at home. In fact he got on extremely well with a large skinhead who showed him around and together they laid bets and won a hundred quid. When he went back as a black man the skinhead said: "I don't care what fg colour you are mate." Of course not, the camera was there and he was 50 quid better off!
All in all it is an interesting concept but if the BBC want a groundbreaking documentary they should dress a white American male in a traditional Afghan costume and send him into a redneck bar to ask for some couscous and a lamb kebab, then ask him how he feels.
Better yet, film the prisoners in Guantanamo Bay eating some of their own al Qaeda suicide pretzels just like the one that attacked Mr. Dubyah Bush.
Tony Hendriks can be reread at www.JamaicanPaleface.com or e-mailed and roundly chastised via: JamaicanPaleface@aol.com
