Lenny Henry is presumably doing a Stewart Lee and producing experimental comedy that is so existential that it is beyond funny. Henry, now no longer a ‘comedian’, but funnier than ever as he struts his black stuff and gets into black culture, playing R&B and going all Black Panther on us working up a head of steam about racism and the way Balck people have been marginalised in society. Can’t say I’ve noticed….Sir Lenny.
Here’s his latest…
‘Some black people stop being black – they become Will Smith’
Veteran comedian Sir Lenny Henry has slammed fellow black actor Will Smith for failing to stay true to his race and using his fame to help improve diversity on screen.
Speaking to the Sunday People, Sir Lenny, 57, said: ‘If a movie makes more than a hundred dollars, some black people stop being black – they become Will Smith.’
Not Sir Lenny though…he’s genuine ‘Black’…look he plays R&B….and sings with an American accent…coz he’s Black and can feel their pain. He’s no sell out playing the fool to whitey anymore.
His claim about Will Smith is bizarre….and in line with other BBC ‘stars’ such as Alvin Hall who claimed the likes of Whitney Houston and Michael Jackson were sell-outs as they ‘sang white’. Hall also said Rap was the ‘authentic voice of the black ghetto’ reflecting the real lives of Black people…and then complained that it was stereotyping Blacks and that Whites were perpetuating this lifestyle by buying the records…the racist bastards making black singers enormously rich.
Hall and Henry racist in reverse? Seems like it.
Henry went on to attack the BBC, again…..
His comments were made as part of an interview in which he also slammed the BBC’s ‘very, very white’ culture.
The beloved entertainer, who received a knighthood last year for services to drama and charity, described the BBC as ‘an oppressive institution’ and said while moves were being made towards improving diversity on screen, there will be no real reform until there is change ‘behind the camera’.
He said: ‘I worked at the BBC for 35 years before I had a meeting with anyone who looks like me. The only people like me were cleaning the corridors and that is not right.
The reason few Black people were in positions high up the BBC was because they had only been in the UK for a few years relatively and were mostly working class….not racism but more likely ‘classism’ and lack of opportunity…how many whites from council estates were in the management seats at the BBC?
Amused to see this in the Guardian…..which trashes Henry’s claim about successful Blacks and a lack of success….
We’re in an amazing black cultural moment. Cue predictable white backlash
Black American culture is experiencing a kind of delicious dominance at the moment. It’s one that might seem odd given its contrast with the resurgence of racism embodied by some supporters of Donald Trump. But Trumpism, as my colleague Steven Thrasher has noted, is just the latest version of a pattern in America: black progress beckons white rage.
So Black culture is ‘experiencing a delicious dominance’….surely not? But what of Trump? Where does he fit in? Can’t say he has said anything that smacks of being anti-Black. Just an example of anti-Trump ‘racism’ I guess…make casual, aggressive assertions about him based on him being white…has he ever ‘raged’ against Black people? No. Have Whites ‘raged’ against ‘Black progress’? ‘Blackism’, just the latest version of a pattern of racism in America.
Oh, hang on, here’s the proof of Trump’s anti-Black racism….
When you, say, reject the birth certificate of the first black president, what you mean to say is that to be American is to be white.
Er…no…he’s not basing it on race but on legality and genuine questions about where Obama was born…the US constitution states that you have to be American to be President…so is the US constitution racist? This is about politics and an attempt to undermine a Democratic Party’s President not about race. Shame the Guardian peddles such trash about race and that Henry laps it all up and regurgitates it in his campaign…pity he can’t think for himself rather than rely on racist thugs like Malcolm X to inform himself.
Henry surfaced on the BBC a few weeks ago making the same complaints and plugging his new alter-ego as an ‘authentic’ black person…’coincidentally’ on the same day the BBC launched this…
BBC to quiz recruits on family background
Staff joining the BBC will be asked about their socio-economic background, as part of a bid to increase diversity at the corporation. Candidates will be asked if they were entitled to free school meals, and if their parents attended university. Anonymised job applications will also be extended for core roles.
The plans come after the BBC faced pressure from ministers to increase numbers of staff from under-represented backgrounds. A BBC spokesperson said: “Almost half of our workforce is made up of women and the proportion of our workforce who are black, Asian and other ethnic minority is at an all-time high.”
In a 5Live radio interview Henry told us of his ‘journey’ to being ‘authentically’ Black…his mentors are unfortunately the ones you might expect some impressionable 13 year old to choose….Public Enemy, Malcolm X and #Blacklivesmatter…..hardly where you’d expect to get a rounded view of the world….which is how we end up with Henry berating Will Smith for ‘acting white’….if that’s not racism from Henry what is?
Henry of course rattles off the names of some Black men ‘assassinated’ by police in America…and includes Trayvon Martin, killed by a Hispanic man in self-defence…though the BBC controversially on Friday suggested that his clearance by jury was ‘controversial’. Henry obviously doesn’t have a clue about the circumstances of the shootings and just recycles the myth that they were ‘executed’ by a racist police force…a narrative that the BBC itself has done much to promote, in an attempt to stir up racial wars presumably….because that would be the inevitable result…as we see even the affable Lenny Henry has been led by the nose down the ‘all Blacks are victims’ route and has chosen as his mentors racists, people who promote violence and those who use the deaths of Black youths to promote a racist anti-white agenda.
As for that video at the top of the post about ‘Public Enemy’…who made that? The BBC’s James Hales…
Public Enemy: Prophets Of Rage
If, like me, you grew up in the 80s, loved loud music and winding up your parents, there’s a good chance you were into Public Enemy.
At one point they were the biggest thing in hip hop and were hugely popular in the UK with both indie kids and rock fans alike.
I was definitely one of the latter, mostly into hard rock and heavy metal. Hey, I was only 13.
Trouble is, he hasn’t grown up much as the video suggests….a very one-sided and overly benign telling of the background to his heroes, Public Enemy, missing out much of the controversial stuff and glossing over the anti-Semitism whilst the man at the centre of that still made the same claims on camera.
Did Public Enemy make a big impression in 1980’s Britain? Doubt it. Only a relatively small niche group would have heard them and an even smaller group would have latched on to any message in their music…no middle-class 13 year old, like Hales, would have bothered…they were just impressed by the ‘Blackness’, the guns, the military uniforms, and the aggressive, anti-Establishment stance…without knowing or really caring what any of it was supposed to mean. It was exciting, different and out of the norm, it was show biz. The politics? Nahh…just turn it up loud.
I suspect that his real beef with Will Smith is that people still want to watch the things Mr Smith makes.
True enough Roland – I sometimes think that there is an almost S and M element to the BBC in that it relentlessly promotes arseholes like Henry who constantly harp on and bite the hand that feeds it -Could it have anything to do with him being a “man of colour” and ticking boxes – I suspect we all know the answer to that one.
As for Algenon Razzamatazz Henry himself – Look mate I am sorry you were forced to accept money and appear on the Black and White Minstrel show.
I am also sorry you were forced to marry Dawn French
I am sorry you have been forced to accept large amounts of money paid for by the BBC licence payers.
I am also sorry that you are so far up yourself that you are incapable of appreciating that you actually have done quite a lot better and have a much more comfortable lifestyle than most people in this country.
I think you have done pretty well so please shut the F##k up or piss off as you are becoming even more boring.
Life is full of knocks and we all do stuff we later regret and the lesson generally is you pick yourself up and dust yourself down and start again.
Lenny you do seem very bitter.
I am sorry Lenny but we are not in the 1970s anymore and most of the pubs I go to now accept blacks, dogs and Irish. And funnily enough most black blokes I meet I do not look at them either as Algenon Razzamatazz or a Black and White Minstrel who has just escaped off the paddle steamer. Just blokes that are black so what really is your problem?
What I think is a shame. Is that there are talented black kids out there, who after reading this sort of shit, could well after taking a knock in life – instead of getting back up and having another go (like the rest of us) will put it all down to prejudice and go all gangsta instead.
Surprised he did not call will Mr Smith an “Uncle Tom” I think all this says a lot more about Lenny Henry than it does about the BBC. I suspect just like all lefties Henry would never be satisfied until all records of the “Minstrel Shows have been destroyed and all of us who remember them have been executed – Even then I suspect he will remain a very bitter man.
I suggest a change of direction for him might make him happier, maybe he should try comedy!
So far as I remember Lenny Henry did pretty well for himself in so called “racist “Britain despite being black.and without quotas. I’m not a Will Smith fan but he has talent and has made it too so what’s the problem.Oh maybe Lenny just wants to keep himself in the public eye.
I came across a radio 4 series “Why I changed my mind” one of the episodes was with Trevor Philips. Mr Philips provides a wonderfully eloquent account of why playing the victim card gets us know where. The whole program is worth listening to..
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b078hlsz
Sir Lenworth of Dudley has been stealing a living for years, I would guess that if he wasn’t black or hadn’t married the nations favourite tubster, he’d have gone the way of Jim Davidson, years ago.
I love it when he tries to play the victim card, it actually amuses me.
Will Smith must be gutted that Lenny has slagged him off, oh wait a minute, Will Smith doesn’t know Lenny Henry exists (probably)
Katanga my friends, Katanga.
You’ll probably find that it’s the same screaming mental retards who called for the black and white minstrels to be buried are now whinging about not enough black faces on our screens.
The thing with Lenny is. Even if he was the only black person in the media he would still get less film requests than Will Smith. Even Will Smith’s kids cna act better than that twat Katanga My Friend
Sorry Alan.
You may well have a point here-even loads of them-but do you think anybody would have got past that fifth paragraph or so-when Sir Lenworth is described as a “beloved” entertainer..
“Beloved”..BELOVED!!!…
No….Victoria Wood is and always will be, Peter Kaye is…as are the two Ronnies, Tommy Cooper etc…
NOT Lenny Henry though…file under the other 80s chancers from so called alternative to comedy movements.
Now if there was ever an argument for a house slave, uncle Tom, Uncle Ben, coconut and all the other epiphets…Lenwarth would have to be top of the scale of hypocrite and sell out.
Yes , he was young and keen to please…mistakes made and all that-but how dare he call out a Will Smith who(to my knowledge) has never ponced around on the same bill as blackface Black and White Minstrels etc.
Spit the Dog was by FAR the funnier talent on TISWAS…and Bob Carolgees is not a beloved entertainer-just an archive detail.
Lenny would be just the same had he not been black…about as funny as a burning orphanage…as Ricky Gervais made clear to us all (PBUH)
Iz it becoz I iz black?
The idiot always did have a huge chip on his shoulder.
To be fair to Lenny Henry his impression of David Bellamy was brilliant, but unfortunately you can’t base a career on just that. It’s almost as though black people wake up one morning, look at themselves in the mirror and think ‘Oh my god, I’m black, I’d better start acting the part’.
I got that impression with Lewis Hamilton as well. When he first got into F1 he was just a regular kid like any other but after a few years he had taken on ‘victim status’ (after he had been hauled in front of the stewards for a few avoidable crashes) and is now covered in tattoos, bling and hangs out with rappers. Apparently after he finishes with motor racing he is going to become a musician (can’t wait).
Agreed. Sir Lenny was a reasonably good late 70s/early 80s comedian. He did some good impressions and was the sort of comedian well suited for kids’ TV. I think the BBC however probably saw him as a way to promote its multicultural agenda, particularly for things like Comic Relief, and promoted him disproportionally to his talent. If it were not for that he would probably now be a half-forgotten comic of that era, like Bob Carolgees or Little and Large.
I am old enough to remember seeing Lenny henry’s first tlevsion appearance on Opportunity Knocks. I we the public knew then what we know now, we would have voted for the singing dog or the guy who blew up hot water bottles instead of that twat
Dont wish to appear pedantic,but wasnt it new faces?
He’s a tosspot anyway
That was like a blow in the guts! I’ve been hating Hughie Green all this time for the wrong reasons!
Try this constant runningonline poll – currently showing 82% LEAVE – credible 43,000 voters (individual twitter account holders – only allowed one vote per account)
http://www.pollstation.uk/eu-referendum/poll/
Lenny Henry has only been a faux-black-radical since he got caught by Dawn French attempting to break into one of her chocolate oranges which led to her divorcing him citing irreconcilable differences as the reason, of course lenny henry attempted to play the race card stating it was a racially motivated attack when she snatched the chocolate orange from him and told him to pick a window as it was time he left…. since then he has spent his time sleeping in a travelodge resembling a black version of Alan Partridge, watching Will Smith on TV and practising his rapping skills using The Fresh Prince of Bel Air tune as a way to gauge his authenticity…. amyways thirty five years ago he wasn`t even working for the BBC he was at ITV doing impressions of African people, dressing like a cannibal whislt promoting the nutritional values of condensed milk sandwiches on TISWAS every saturday morning…. TWAT!!!!