David Olusoga Delivers Historic Keynote On Race And 2020 At The Edinburgh Television Festival

Broadcaster and historian, David Olusoga gave a rousing speech for the keynote MacTaggart lecture at the virtual edition of the Edinburgh television festival on Monday. 

Past MacTaggart lecture keynotes have included notable names such as Jeremy Paxman, Michaela Coel, James Murdoch, Kevin Spacey, David Abraham and Jon Snow. 

Top points

In his introductory remarks, Olusoga states he was “humbled” to be this year’s keynote and mentioned the tumultuous year 2020 has been for society and the TV industry due to COVID-19 and the subsequent pandemic. 

Following on the historian referenced the “brutal murder of George Floyd and the global movement that has coalesced under the banner of Black Lives Matter”, before referencing the scope of the keynote he was about to give. 

“In the spirit of an age in which millions of people have come to recognise that silence on these issues is a form of complicity, I am going to say what I really think about race, racism and our industry. And I’ll discover if, at the end of it, I still have a career.”

The comments echoed similar remarks from Star Wars actor and Forbes 30 under 30 alumni John Boyega on a June 3rd anti-racism protest at Hyde Park, “Look, I don’t know if I’m going to have a career after this,” he said. “But f___ that.” 

The two statements highlight a worrying consistency in the thought process around the dangers of speaking up on racial issues in the past and present across society, but particularly in media and entertainment.

Olusoga went on to note that he would be speaking from his own perspective as a black person but highlighted that “race, class, gender, sexuality and disability all intersect”, and that the issues he would go on to discuss also affect other minority groups. 

The broadcaster finished his introduction by focusing on the aim that the industry makes 2020 a real and decisive moment of change. 

“…first I want to talk about the mountain we have to climb and here most of what I have to say you will have heard before. You may well have heard it from black and brown colleagues. And in many ways that is the problem. We have heard it all before. But little has changed.”

Stats and figures

Olusoga went on to pinpoint key statistics from prominent entities, Directors U.K. and The Film and TV Charity, showing the industry is still not representative of the British audience at the programme-making level with 2.22% of shows in 2016 made by the very broad base of BAME individuals, with only 3.6% of Directors U.K.’s entire dataset being made up of people who identify as BAME. 

The statistics were capped off with an official report to a government select committee that – even before the crisis – 73% of BAME production talent had seriously considered leaving the TV industry and that astonishingly, “Between 2006 and 2012 BAME employment in UK TV declined by 30.9%. That means more black people left the industry than joined, at a time when the overall number of jobs in the industry as a whole was expanding.”

He again drew a comparison to the lack of retention and inclusion through mainstream director Steve McQueen’s comments on the contrast between the U.K. and U.S. industry, asserting that the lack of inclusion in the U.K. is gone along with “as if it’s normal”. 

“It is wonderful that our industry has figures like Steve McQueen, and the others I could mention. But there is a risk we point to those exceptions and use their talents and achievements to hide from the wider reality.” Olusoga said. 

BBC controversy

The BBC’s latest n-word controversy was also mentioned by the historian after a massive public outcry involving just under 20,000 complaints in which the BBC twice defended their use of the word. The broadcaster’s response was met with more push back after which BBC Director General, Tony Hall, publicly apologised. Many pointed out that a replacement tier-one curse word would never have been editorially placed, regardless of context. 

He hypothesised that in an alternate reality if there’d have been even one member of staff that understood the nature of the word personally – because of their background – if the incident could have been completely avoided.

Olusoga also emphasised that there is hope as 2020 “feels different”, from a movement perspective, than in previous years. He offered the suggestion that Ofcom should have a sector dedicated to overseeing minimum broadcaster standards and that the industry should take on the diversity problem similarly to that of the issue with the tough route of entry into the TV industry for people and companies based outside of London. 

Generation now

The broadcaster was also enthused by the younger generations of the present time and their attitude towards the subject

“This generation’s attitude to race and discrimination is profoundly different from that of previous generations. They don’t just oppose racism, they are repelled by it – disgusted by it. 

“Young people in this country – both black and white – simply do not want to live in a society disfigured by racism and racial inequality. And they are willing to have the difficult conversations that the generations before them chose to avoid.”

Key quote

The historian capped off a ironically historic speech by calling attention to the overwhelming disparity numbers-wise between BAME individuals in-front of the camera to behind the camera and how skills are often used as an industry scapegoat. 

“Even when black people overcome those barriers and scale the high walls of TV they are, too often, caught in a trap. They are the victims of a way of thinking that contains within it the same twisted logic of a witch trial. They are said to be lacking the experience to land the big, career-advancing, reputation-enhancing jobs, which means they rarely get those jobs, which in turn means they never get the experience to dispel that portrayal. I spent part of my career in exactly that state of limbo.”

The uncomfortable sociological balance that has been sewn into the perplexing nature of the trope that a consistent, and seemingly all-encompassing, lack of skills is the overriding reason that people from any minority ethnic background are not afforded the same opportunities, yet that very same thought process is not given to any majority ethnic group within the U.K. is at its core – and by definition – a dehumanising and racist sentiment. 

Perhaps as an industry, specifically in the U.K., it is time to truly do some soul-searching and self-education as to why our zeitgeist is rampant with uninformed theories and a predictable lack of tangible action that is seemingly often steeped in systemic ignorance.

Read the full keynote speech here.