Farrukh Dhondy | Did ‘Woke’ Ads in UK Trigger Racist Backlash Against Asians & Blacks?

The cat licked it clean --

No one cried

Broken heart?

Repeatedly been --

No one died

Falsely accused?

Through a veil of green --

The ink has dried!”

From The Hymn Book of The Akela

Sarah Pochin, an MP of Britain’s Reform Party, said in a TV show: “It drives me mad when I see ads full of black people, full of Asian people.” This remark was condemned by Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer and other ministers as racist, though Nigel Farage, Reform’s leader, simply reprimanded Ms Pochin for using “ugly” language.

Ms Pochin apologised for the language but didn’t withdraw her implication.

What caused her remark? It is a fact that TV ads feature, in terms of the make-up of Britain’s population, a disproportionate “representation” of blacks, though not very many Asian, actors and models.

Today on British TV and one will inevitably see ads with black males, possibly their white wives and their children selling stuff. An objective statistical survey concluded that in 2022, over 40 per cent of TV ads featured black people persuading the viewers to various products, whereas the black population of Britain is barely six per cent. Yes, disproportionate!

But! TV ads are not instruments of “representation” in any sense. They are produced to flog the advert company’s clients’ toothpaste, coffee, cars or whatever, and are not constitutional instruments of democracy. Shouldn’t Ms Pochin realise that black people in the ads are not necessarily in favour of the product they are selling. They are, for God’s sake, actors, hired to mouth persuasive lines to target consumers.

It’s unlikely that the advertising agencies who conceive, write and produce these ads, are simply targeting black consumers. They aim to sell their clients’ products to the largest number of people and might assume that white buyers are just as likely to be persuaded by black actors flogging the product as all white ones.

What Ms Pochin was moaning about was her perception that even advertising agencies are being “woke” by including black, Asian, gay and disabled actors in advertisements.

Decades ago, I was a founder member of two theatrical groups, the Black Theatre Co-op (BTC) and later the Asian Co-op Theatre (ACT), and wrote several plays for them, which were performed all over the country. At the time, in the 1980s, there were other groups of black and Asian actors, directors and playwrights getting together to produce stage productions. My interest was to find dramatic expression of the experience of the black and Asian population of Britain -- its “new communities”.

Obviously, these directors and actors shared, to some extent, this purpose or ideal, but certainly for the actors in these growing theatrical outfits there grew cultural pressures and demands for what was then called “integrated casting”. I wouldn’t go so far as to say that these were “demands”, as were the growing movements for fairness in employment, education, housing, etc, of the black communities, but they were certainly concerns of the cultural sections of them.

The mainstream theatre companies, including the National Theatre, the Royal Shakespeare Company, etc, took note and adopted the principle. In the decades that followed, the birth and productions of the BTC, ACT and other companies reflected this. One could go to the theatre and be not at all surprised to see a black Julius Caesar or an Asian Portia (but not quite yet a white Othello?).

I must confess that though I regarded this development as a victory and a triumph, my own interest remained in writing about the experience of blacks and Asians rather than their insertion into the classics or contemporary soap operas.

Yes, I would, and have, adapted Shakespeare in “ethnic” versions – monologues for female Asian actors -- and have written Hindi feature films, including Indian versions of A Midsummer Night’s Dream and even King Lear. (Any interest from producers/directors, do get in touch --fd). (No adverts for your rubbish here! --Ed. Sorry yaar, kuchh tho amdani ho jaye? --fd)

Ms Pochin’s party, Reform, is at present scoring 35 per cent of tentative voting intentions in the public opinion surveys, posing a serious, if tentative, threat to the Labour Party. The 2029 elections are still four years away. Reform and Nigel Farage have, in the last weeks, apart from the Pochin nonsense, faced some setbacks.

As a party, Reform has been called far-right and from some commentators even “fascist”. If one peruses their public principles, agenda, promises to the voting public and the records of their representatives, two directions and dedications emerge.

They are desperately, inhumanely, in racist stances against anyone who appears in Britain as an asylum seeker, legal or illegal. They have promised the British voter that they will “rid” the country by deporting them all.

This pledge, in its various avatars, veers into clear anti-Muslim and then anti-immigrant policies, even though a few of their prominent members and office-holders are Asians -- all Uncle Tomashas!

Alongside with this, Nigel Farage has promised to nationalise certain industries, making energy cheaper for everyone and to cut the public welfare budget by £92 billion -- or at least he did till this week when, in a public U-turn, he said this ridiculous pledge would have to be re-examined and rescinded. It has already been questioned by the main parties and economic experts who say it’s not feasible.

But there you have it: extreme nationalism and untenable promises to the voters.

Holocaust and Volkswagens, anyone? National socialism?

What did the Germans of the 1920s call it?