Black sentimentality? No thank you, says author
Photo credit: Lawrence Watson
While the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement making many people reconsider their attitudes towards race, author and Kingston University lecturer Diran Adebayo warned against what he called “sentimentality” towards Black people as a response to racism.
Adebayo, who teaches creative writing, said he was worried the arts are at risk of joining the temporary hype of activism.
“My fear in the art world as we begin talking is that as publishing responds to BLM, they will seek to sort of catch the BLM buzz,” he said.
“[After] the Black Lives Matter protests, a number of positive things came about, but I do fear that it will play into something that has been going on all my life in different forms which is sentimentality towards Black people.”
Sentimentality is defined as exaggerated and self-indulgent tenderness.
Adebayo touched upon this in his first novel Some Kind of Black with the line “It’s like we’re the children of the world”.
He said condescension is something Black people have faced a lot. He gave the example of the idea that “Black people need role models”, in education and the workplace.
“[There is a] sentimentalisation around things like Black people, from day one, are born under the curse of racism,” he said. “That wasn’t true for me and I don’t think it's true for [others].”
People often, mistakenly, seek out Black, Asian or minority ethnic (BAME) voices, expecting them to have faced a racial struggle. Adebayo insisted that this was not always the case.
Identity politics
Having a sense of identity is important for everyone, and as people grow up, they tend to establish this. But there remains a sentimentality around this too.
Adebayo said that, unlike many others, he did not like the phrase “Black and proud”.
“I'm absolutely pro-Black,” he said. “[But] why would I be proud to be black? I was born black and I'm proud of my achievements. This is a sentimentality, unearned emotion.
“When people are sentimental towards you, it still means that they're not looking at you properly.”
