English | African American
I identify as a ‘Stolen African’. I never felt I had much in common with the Black British, or anyone else for that matter, I was called red, yellow, everything but Black. But when I saw the Ronettes on Top of the Pops in 1964 I realised I looked more like them than the family I was born into. I blossomed in New York in the late seventies, Bloomingdales invited me over. I instantly felt at home, they got me, and I got them.
My Mother is English, my Father is Black American and was a jazz musician, playing woodwinds with some important people. They met when he was stationed with the 352nd U.S Air Force band in Bushey Park. I don’t think my parents combined their cultures. American culture, especially jazz, was attractive to certain White British girls in the 50s. My Mother had a lot of friends who actually married and went to the U.S. But she has told me she was afraid, you couldn’t make calls that easily or cheaply, it was a big wrench.
I don’t think it matters being in an interracial relationship today, it’s cool. I grew up in Thames Ditton in Surrey, it was Whiter than the ghost of oatmeal. I was the darkest thing for miles, my infant school teacher introduced me to the class as ‘one of our dusky cousins’.
I’m homosexual (hate the word gay) and my first partner was non-Black. But every subsequent one has been Black, I feel less objectified. I relate to razor bumps and stretch marks, I have them too.
The minute I went out into the world I was treated as an exotic. I never felt constrained, being homosexual, mixed-race, and even left handed, I never felt the pressure to conform. In N.Y having an English accent was definitely a positive experience, and I can fit in anywhere from South America to UAE (some Arab girls in Bayswater thought I was Egyptian once, and in Harlem they thought I was ‘frontin’ once because of the accent). I found it hard to be taken seriously as a creative or intellectual because of my colour, but that could also have been because I was considered ‘pretty’ when I was young.
I think because of travel and work I have very broad interests, musically I go from Scriabin, Wagner and Scarlatti, to Talib Kweli to Bobby Short and back to Jay-Z. I don’t see divisions culturally today and if there were I would find it limiting. Interestingly it was two Jamaican friends that got me into opera years ago.
I lived and worked in N.Y. Stayed with family in California. I guess I identify with Black American culture. I grew up in England on Motown, Diana Ross was my first introduction to glamour and she was a Black woman. I don’t think I had an outlook regarding my heritage until I left home. I embrace it and still do. I believe in reincarnation and I want to always come back as a man of colour (I know it doesn’t work that way).
I no longer work due to health issues. I had a couple of heart attacks a few years ago. I was fortunate in that I worked in a creative environment, so sexuality and culture weren’t an issue. My boss in NY told me he hired me because I was a Black man with a snotty English accent (he was Black btw) and an attitude, so no, it only ever worked for me.