A Whiter Shade Of FAIL (From The Argus)

Get involved: Send your news, views, pictures and video by texting SUPIC to 80360 or email us.

Blogs RSS Feed

A Whiter Shade Of FAIL

10:27pm Monday 13th September 2010 in Blogs Quentin Delahunty 100px By Quentin Delahunty – Liberal. Creative. Brightonian

We, Indeed, Are The World.

On a recent autumnal stroll around the Pavilion Gardens, amidst the soundscape of cooing pigeons, squawking gulls and chattering tourists, my highly trained musical ear picked out a magical sound. Instantly, I was drawn to a secluded patch of pavement where I found the origin of this spiritual music - a Zimbabwean man playing his nation’s national instrument, a mbira. I consider myself quite proficient on a djembe drum (then again, in Brighton, who isn’t?), however, the beautiful ethnic notes caressed by this musical maestro (his name was Harlington) had a moving effect on all within earshot. Alfresco creatives powered down their iPads to listen, lounging students silenced their own ironic chat, sinewy tai-chi aficionados snapped back to reality and even the squirrels stopped chomping on their nuts, with all and sundry wrapped up in a revitalising blanket of Afro-vibes.

This mystical, musical moment highlighted what is arguably the one thing our magnificent liberal idyll of Brighton lacks – black faces. Our (vegan, locally sourced) melting pot may well contain a welcome smattering of Chinese, a healthy peppering of gays, a fragrant pinch of French and a tasty drop of eastern European, however, this international, inter-sexual hot-pot could be all the more tasty had it that one vital missing ingredient – a generous tablespoon of Afro-goodness.

Admittedly, and thankfully, Brighton is not completely free of Afro-Caribbean and African folk. Indeed, not surprisingly, some of my best friends in the area are black (you dig the ironic cliché, yeah?) including my bessie mate from Mauritania, Babacar. Indeed dear Babacar has taught me much about the true meaning of existence and the importance of respecting our planet although mostly about telecommunications (he’s an engineer with BT). However, for such an open-minded, welcoming and progressive uber-hamlet as Brighthelm, the proportion of dark faces is still worryingly miniscule.

I, like the majority of creative and open-minded peeps residing in Brighton town, initially made my way to the sunny south coast from the metropolitan madness that is Londinium.

And coming from a true melting pot like that, Brighton’s whiteness is all the more stark. In London, you are constantly drowning (in a good way) in a multi-sensory sea of cultures, every orifice rammed full of Afro, Asian and South American vibes, to name but a few. Indeed, in one of my former abodes in the capital, a work/live space in Stoke Newington, my neighbours included folk from Chad, China, Chile and Chechnya. I may not have spoken to them much (if at all), or had absolutely anything to do with them, but their collective ethnic vibes made for a better neighbourhood and indeed a better Quentin.

Indeed, without this colourful influx, London would resemble nothing more than an urban Vicar of Dibley, a concrete Songs of Praise without soul or global understanding. Admittedly, outside the big urban areas of the UK, the country still is rather a snow-white Anglo-Saxon yawn-fest. However, surely Brighthelm should be different?

So why there is such a troubling lack of Afro-visages strolling down the twittens or promenading up the promenade of our fine coastal village-sur-mer? Well maybe the question we should be asking ourselves is – are we doing enough to attract these wonderful folk to our hometown?

Well, in my humble (yet highly educated) opinion, there may just be a clever albeit radical way to inject our frothy white coffee of a town with a double hit of dusky espresso bean. By moving (voluntarily, of course) a section of Brighton’s traditional yet painfully out-of-touch white population (the one with the Union Jack and bulldog fixation) out to towns where their own (rather unprogressive) cultural take would be more suited, say Worthing or maybe Hassocks, a healthy slice of local housing would be made available for a more ethnically diverse populus. A monetary inducement could be paid to the outgoing locals, or maybe they could be awarded tickets to see X-Factor? In their place, Afro-Caribbean and African Londoners could move in and set up house, thus swapping their troubled inner city lives for some sunny coastal vibes. Thus, in a move as smooth as Marvin Gaye’s vocals on What’s Going On, that final missing piece of the liberal Brighton jigsaw would be clicked into place, having not been hidden down the back of the proverbial sofa, but rather just 45 minutes up the railway line in London (barring delays).

The closest we seem to get to this influx of colour at the moment is the pier on a sunny summer’s day, when day-trippers of colour make the journey to the south coast and bring with them an exciting cosmopolitan mix of languages, dress sense and religions, all united by their disgust at the price of a go on the bumper-cars. Imagine that multicultural vibe every day?! Revolutionary my idea may be, but that’s just the kind of blue-sky-thinkin’, envelope-pushin’ dude I am.

Let’s face it, do we, the truly forward-thinking Brightonians, really want our town to stay All-White-On-The-Night? I didn’t think so. For as sure as Kilimanjaro rises likes Olympus above the Serengeti, we need our beloved city to be a place of colour, Quentin’s technicolour dream-city, if you will.

Brighton is indeed a wonderful city already, but even this compassionate town needs a heart with just a little more darkness (in a good way).

Comments(45)

fulcrum says...
9:52am Tue 14 Sep 10

I'm sure I saw you months back in the Caxton and you seemed like a well-spoken, intelligent chap. Unfortunately, this unbalanced article makes you look a bit of an inflammatory pandering t1t.

I get the feeling you're just about to upset a whole bunch of the "union jack/ bulldog fixated out-of touch" population via the wonderful internet.

Are you sure you're an ex-Londoner?