The Son of a difficult father: Colin Grant at TEDxBrighton
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0:06 - 0:07This is a photograph
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0:07 - 0:10of a man whom for many years
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0:10 - 0:12I plotted to kill.
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0:13 - 0:15This is my father,
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0:17 - 0:20Clinton George "Bageye" Grant.
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0:20 - 0:23He's called Bageye because he has
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0:23 - 0:26permanent bags under his eyes.
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0:27 - 0:29As a 10-year-old, along with my siblings,
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0:30 - 0:33I dreamt of scraping off the poison
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0:34 - 0:37from fly-killer paper into his coffee,
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0:37 - 0:40grounded down glass and sprinkling it
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0:40 - 0:42over his breakfast,
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0:43 - 0:45loosening the carpet on the stairs
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0:45 - 0:47so he would trip and break his neck.
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0:48 - 0:50But come the day, he would always
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0:50 - 0:52skip that loose step,
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0:52 - 0:54he would always bow out of the house
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0:54 - 0:56without so much as a swig of coffee
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0:56 - 0:58or a bite to eat.
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0:58 - 0:59And so for many years,
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0:59 - 1:02I feared that my father would die
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1:02 - 1:04before I had a chance to kill him.
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1:04 - 1:08(Laughter)
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1:08 - 1:11Up until our mother asked him to leave
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1:12 - 1:13and not come back,
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1:13 - 1:16Bageye had been a terrifying ogre.
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1:17 - 1:20He teetered permanently
on the verge of rage, -
1:20 - 1:23rather like me, as you see.
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1:25 - 1:27He worked nights
at Vauxhall Motors in Luton -
1:27 - 1:31and demanded total silence
throughout the house, -
1:31 - 1:33so that when we came home from school
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1:33 - 1:35at 3:30 in the afternoon, we would huddle
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1:35 - 1:39beside the TV,
and rather like safe-crackers, -
1:39 - 1:41we would twiddle
with the volume control knob -
1:41 - 1:43on the TV so it was almost inaudible.
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1:44 - 1:47And at times, when we were like this,
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1:47 - 1:49so much "Shhh," so much "Shhh"
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1:49 - 1:50going on in the house
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1:50 - 1:53that I imagined us to be like
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1:53 - 1:56the German crew of a U-boat
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1:56 - 1:58creeping along the edge of the ocean
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1:58 - 2:01whilst up above, on the surface,
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2:01 - 2:04HMS Bageye patrolled
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2:04 - 2:06ready to drop death charges
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2:06 - 2:09at the first sound of any disturbance.
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2:10 - 2:13So that lesson was the lesson that
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2:13 - 2:15"Do not draw attention to yourself
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2:15 - 2:17either in the home
or outside of the home." -
2:17 - 2:20Maybe it's a migrant lesson.
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2:20 - 2:22We were to be below the radar,
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2:22 - 2:24so there was no communication, really,
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2:24 - 2:28between Bageye and us
and us and Bageye, -
2:28 - 2:30and the sound
that we most looked forward to, -
2:30 - 2:32you know when you're a child and you want
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2:32 - 2:35your father to come home
and it's all going to be happy -
2:35 - 2:37and you're waiting for that sound
of the door opening. -
2:37 - 2:39Well the sound that we looked forward to
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2:39 - 2:41was the click of the door closing,
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2:41 - 2:44which meant he'd gone
and would not come back. -
2:45 - 2:48So for three decades,
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2:48 - 2:51I never laid eyes on my father,
nor he on me. -
2:51 - 2:53We never spoke to each other
for three decades, -
2:53 - 2:56and then a couple of years ago, I decided
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2:56 - 2:59to turn the spotlight on him.
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2:59 - 3:00"You are being watched.
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3:00 - 3:02Actually, you are.
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3:02 - 3:04You are being watched."
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3:05 - 3:08That was his mantra to us, his children.
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3:08 - 3:10Time and time again
he would say this to us. -
3:10 - 3:12And this was the 1970s, it was Luton,
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3:12 - 3:14where he worked at Vauxhall Motors,
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3:14 - 3:16and he was a Jamaican.
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3:16 - 3:17And what he meant was,
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3:17 - 3:19you as a child of a Jamaican immigrant
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3:19 - 3:21are being watched
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3:21 - 3:23to see which way you turn, to see whether
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3:23 - 3:26you conform to the host nation's
stereotype of you, -
3:26 - 3:29of being feckless, work-shy,
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3:29 - 3:31destined for a life of crime.
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3:31 - 3:33You are being watched,
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3:33 - 3:37so confound their expectations of you.
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3:37 - 3:42To that end, Bageye and his friends,
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3:42 - 3:43mostly Jamaican,
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3:44 - 3:47exhibited a kind of Jamaican bella figura:
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3:47 - 3:50Turn your best side to the world,
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3:50 - 3:52show your best face to the world.
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3:56 - 3:57If you have seen some of the images
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3:57 - 3:59of the Caribbean people arriving
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3:59 - 4:01in the '40s and '50s,
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4:01 - 4:03you might have noticed
that a lot of the men -
4:03 - 4:05wear trilbies.
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4:05 - 4:08Now, there was no tradition
of wearing trilbies in Jamaica. -
4:08 - 4:11They invented that tradition
for their arrival here. -
4:11 - 4:13They wanted to project themselves in a way
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4:13 - 4:14that they wanted to be perceived,
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4:14 - 4:17so that the way they looked
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4:17 - 4:19and the names that they gave themselves
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4:19 - 4:20defined them.
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4:20 - 4:24So Bageye is bald and has baggy eyes.
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4:26 - 4:29Tidy Boots is very fussy
about his footwear. -
4:30 - 4:33Anxious is always anxious.
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4:33 - 4:35Clock has one arm longer than the other.
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4:35 - 4:39(Laughter)
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4:39 - 4:43And my all-time favorite was
the guy they called Summerwear. -
4:43 - 4:45When Summerwear came to this country
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4:45 - 4:47from Jamaica
in the early '60s, he insisted -
4:47 - 4:49on wearing light summer suits,
-
4:49 - 4:51no matter the weather,
-
4:51 - 4:53and in the course
of researching their lives, -
4:53 - 4:56I asked my mom,
"Whatever became of Summerwear?" -
4:56 - 5:00And she said, "He caught a cold and died."
(Laughter) -
5:00 - 5:02But men like Summerwear
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5:02 - 5:04taught us the importance of style.
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5:04 - 5:06Maybe they exaggerated their style
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5:06 - 5:08because they thought
that they were not considered -
5:08 - 5:10to be quite civilized,
-
5:10 - 5:13and they transferred
that generational attitude -
5:13 - 5:17or anxiety onto us, the next generation,
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5:17 - 5:19so much so that when I was growing up,
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5:19 - 5:21if ever on the television news or radio
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5:21 - 5:23a report came up about a black person
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5:23 - 5:25committing some crime —
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5:25 - 5:27a mugging, a murder, a burglary —
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5:27 - 5:30we winced along with our parents,
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5:30 - 5:33because they were letting the side down.
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5:33 - 5:35You did not just represent yourself.
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5:35 - 5:38You represented the group,
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5:39 - 5:44and it was a terrifying thing
to come to terms with, -
5:44 - 5:47in a way, that maybe you were going
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5:47 - 5:49to be perceived in the same light.
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5:51 - 5:54So that was what needed to be challenged.
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5:59 - 6:03Our father and many of his colleagues
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6:03 - 6:07exhibited a kind of transmission
but not receiving. -
6:07 - 6:10They were built to transmit
but not receive. -
6:11 - 6:14We were to keep quiet.
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6:15 - 6:17When our father did speak to us,
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6:17 - 6:19it was from the pulpit of his mind.
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6:24 - 6:26They clung to certainty in the belief
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6:26 - 6:28that doubt would undermine them.
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6:29 - 6:32But when I am working in my house
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6:32 - 6:35and writing, after a day's writing,
I rush downstairs -
6:36 - 6:41and I'm very excited to talk
about Marcus Garvey or Bob Marley -
6:41 - 6:43and words are tripping out
of my mouth like butterflies -
6:43 - 6:46and I'm so excited
that my children stop me, -
6:46 - 6:49and they say, "Dad, nobody cares."
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6:49 - 6:52(Laughter)
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6:53 - 6:55But they do care, actually.
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6:55 - 6:57They cross over.
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6:57 - 6:59Somehow they find their way to you.
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6:59 - 7:03They shape their lives
according to the narrative of your life, -
7:03 - 7:07as I did with my father
and my mother, perhaps, -
7:07 - 7:09and maybe Bageye did with his father.
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7:09 - 7:11And that was clearer to me
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7:11 - 7:14in the course of looking at his life
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7:14 - 7:17and understanding, as they say,
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7:17 - 7:18the Native Americans say,
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7:18 - 7:21"Do not criticize the man
until you can walk -
7:21 - 7:23in his moccasins."
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7:23 - 7:25But in conjuring his life, it was okay
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7:25 - 7:27and very straightforward to portray
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7:27 - 7:32a Caribbean life in England in the 1970s
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7:32 - 7:35with bowls of plastic fruit,
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7:36 - 7:39polystyrene ceiling tiles,
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7:39 - 7:42settees permanently sheathed
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7:42 - 7:45in their transparent covers
that they were delivered in. -
7:45 - 7:47But what's more difficult to navigate
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7:47 - 7:49is the emotional landscape
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7:49 - 7:51between the generations,
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7:51 - 7:55and the old adage
that with age comes wisdom -
7:55 - 7:57is not true.
-
7:57 - 8:00With age comes
the veneer of respectability -
8:00 - 8:03and a veneer of uncomfortable truths.
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8:04 - 8:07But what was true was that my parents,
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8:07 - 8:09my mother, and my father
went along with it, -
8:09 - 8:12did not trust the state to educate me.
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8:12 - 8:14So listen to how I sound.
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8:14 - 8:18They determined that they would
send me to a private school, -
8:18 - 8:21but my father worked at Vauxhall Motors.
-
8:21 - 8:24It's quite difficult to fund
a private school education -
8:24 - 8:27and feed his army of children.
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8:27 - 8:29I remember going on to the school
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8:29 - 8:32for the entrance exam, and my father said
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8:32 - 8:34to the priest — it was a Catholic school —
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8:34 - 8:38he wanted a better
"heducation" for the boy, -
8:38 - 8:41but also, he, my father,
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8:41 - 8:44never even managed to pass worms,
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8:44 - 8:47never mind entrance exams.
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8:47 - 8:49But in order to fund my education,
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8:49 - 8:52he was going to have to do
some dodgy stuff, -
8:52 - 8:54so my father would fund my education
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8:54 - 8:58by trading in illicit goods
from the back of his car, -
8:58 - 9:00and that was made even more tricky because
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9:00 - 9:03my father, that's not his car by the way.
-
9:03 - 9:05My father aspired to have a car like that,
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9:05 - 9:06but my father had a beaten-up Mini,
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9:06 - 9:11and he never, being a Jamaican
coming to this country, -
9:11 - 9:13he never had a driving license,
-
9:13 - 9:15he never had any insurance
or road tax or MOT. -
9:15 - 9:18He thought, "I know how to drive;
-
9:18 - 9:21why do I need the state's validation?"
-
9:21 - 9:24But it became a little tricky
when we were stopped by the police, -
9:24 - 9:26and we were stopped a lot by the police,
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9:26 - 9:28and I was impressed by the way
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9:28 - 9:29that my father dealt with the police.
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9:29 - 9:32He would promote
the policeman immediately, -
9:32 - 9:35so that P.C. Bloggs became
Detective Inspector Bloggs -
9:35 - 9:37in the course of the conversation
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9:37 - 9:40and wave us on merrily.
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9:40 - 9:42So my father was exhibiting
what we in Jamaica -
9:42 - 9:45called "playing fool to catch wise."
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9:45 - 9:48But it lent also an idea
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9:48 - 9:51that actually he was being diminished
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9:51 - 9:53or belittled by the policeman —
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9:53 - 9:56as a 10-year-old boy, I saw that —
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9:56 - 9:58but also there was an ambivalence
towards authority. -
9:58 - 10:00So on the one hand, there was
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10:00 - 10:01a mocking of authority,
-
10:01 - 10:03but on the other hand,
there was a deference -
10:03 - 10:05towards authority,
-
10:05 - 10:07and these Caribbean people
-
10:07 - 10:10had an overbearing obedience
towards authority, -
10:11 - 10:14which is very striking,
very strange in a way, -
10:14 - 10:17because migrants
are very courageous people. -
10:17 - 10:19They leave their homes.
My father and my mother -
10:19 - 10:22left Jamaica and they traveled
4,000 miles, -
10:23 - 10:26and yet they were infantilized by travel.
-
10:27 - 10:29They were timid,
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10:29 - 10:31and somewhere along the line,
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10:31 - 10:33the natural order was reversed.
-
10:33 - 10:35The children became
the parents to the parent. -
10:36 - 10:40The Caribbean people came
to this country with a five-year plan: -
10:40 - 10:43they would work, some money,
and then go back, -
10:43 - 10:45but the five years became 10,
the 10 became 15, -
10:45 - 10:47and before you know it,
you're changing the wallpaper, -
10:47 - 10:51and at that point,
you know you're here to stay. -
10:51 - 10:54Although there's still
the kind of temporariness -
10:54 - 10:56that our parents felt about being here,
-
10:56 - 10:59but we children knew that the game was up.
-
11:00 - 11:02I think there was a feeling that
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11:02 - 11:05they would not be able
to continue with the ideals -
11:08 - 11:10of the life that they expected.
-
11:10 - 11:12The reality was very much different.
-
11:12 - 11:15And also, that was true of the reality
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11:15 - 11:16of trying to educate me.
-
11:16 - 11:19Having started the process,
my father did not continue. -
11:19 - 11:22It was left to my mother to educate me,
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11:22 - 11:25and as George Lamming would say,
-
11:25 - 11:28it was my mother who fathered me.
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11:30 - 11:33Even in his absence,
that old mantra remained: -
11:33 - 11:35You are being watched.
-
11:35 - 11:38But such ardent watchfulness
can lead to anxiety, -
11:38 - 11:41so much so that years later,
when I was investigating -
11:41 - 11:43why so many young black men
-
11:43 - 11:45were diagnosed with schizophrenia,
-
11:45 - 11:47six times more than they ought to be,
-
11:47 - 11:49I was not surprised
to hear the psychiatrist say, -
11:49 - 11:53"Black people are schooled in paranoia."
-
11:55 - 11:58And I wonder
what Bageye would make of that. -
11:59 - 12:02Now I also had a 10-year-old son,
-
12:02 - 12:04and turned my attention to Bageye
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12:04 - 12:06and I went in search of him.
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12:06 - 12:08He was back in Luton, he was now 82,
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12:08 - 12:12and I hadn't seen him for 30-odd years,
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12:12 - 12:15and when he opened the door,
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12:15 - 12:18I saw this tiny little man with lambent,
smiling eyes, -
12:18 - 12:21and he was smiling,
and I'd never seen him smile. -
12:21 - 12:24I was very disconcerted by that.
-
12:24 - 12:27But we sat down,
and he had a Caribbean friend with him, -
12:27 - 12:29talking some old time talk,
-
12:29 - 12:32and my father would look at me,
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12:32 - 12:33and he looked at me as if I would
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12:33 - 12:36miraculously disappear as I had arisen.
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12:37 - 12:39And he turned to his friend, and he said,
-
12:39 - 12:41"This boy and me have a deep,
deep connection, -
12:41 - 12:44deep, deep connection."
-
12:45 - 12:47But I never felt that connection.
-
12:47 - 12:49If there was a pulse, it was very weak
-
12:49 - 12:50or hardly at all.
-
12:52 - 12:54And I almost felt
in the course of that reunion -
12:54 - 12:58that I was auditioning
to be my father's son. -
12:59 - 13:00When the book came out,
-
13:00 - 13:03it had fair reviews
in the national papers, -
13:03 - 13:05but the paper of choice
in Luton is not The Guardian, -
13:05 - 13:08it's the Luton News,
-
13:08 - 13:11and the Luton News
ran the headline about the book, -
13:11 - 13:15"The Book That May Heal
a 32-Year-Old Rift." -
13:17 - 13:20And I understood that could also represent
-
13:20 - 13:22the rift between
one generation and the next, -
13:22 - 13:26between people like me
and my father's generation, -
13:26 - 13:28but there's no tradition in Caribbean life
-
13:28 - 13:30of memoirs or biographies.
-
13:30 - 13:34It was a tradition that you didn't chat
about your business in public. -
13:34 - 13:39But I welcomed that title,
and I thought actually, yes, -
13:39 - 13:41there is a possibility that this
-
13:41 - 13:44will open up conversations
that we'd never had before. -
13:45 - 13:48This will close the generation gap,
perhaps. -
13:49 - 13:52This could be an instrument of repair.
-
13:52 - 13:55And I even began to feel that this book
-
13:55 - 13:57may be perceived by my father
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13:57 - 14:00as an act of filial devotion.
-
14:01 - 14:03Poor, deluded fool.
-
14:05 - 14:08Bageye was stung
by what he perceived to be -
14:08 - 14:11the public airing of his shortcomings.
-
14:12 - 14:14He was stung by my betrayal,
-
14:14 - 14:17and he went to the newspapers the next day
-
14:17 - 14:19and demanded a right of reply,
-
14:19 - 14:21and he got it with the headline
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14:21 - 14:23"Bageye Bites Back."
-
14:24 - 14:26And it was a coruscating account
of my betrayal. -
14:26 - 14:29I was no son of his.
-
14:30 - 14:31He recognized in his mind that his colors
-
14:31 - 14:34had been dragged through the mud,
and he couldn't allow that. -
14:34 - 14:36He had to restore his dignity,
and he did so, -
14:36 - 14:39and initially,
although I was disappointed, -
14:39 - 14:41I grew to admire that stance.
-
14:41 - 14:44There was still fire
bubbling through his veins, -
14:44 - 14:47even though he was 82 years old.
-
14:47 - 14:50And if it meant that we would now return
-
14:50 - 14:53to 30 years of silence,
-
14:53 - 14:57my father would say,
"If it's so, then it's so." -
14:59 - 15:02Jamaicans will tell you
that there's no such thing as facts, -
15:02 - 15:05there are only versions.
-
15:05 - 15:07We all tell ourselves
the versions of the story -
15:07 - 15:10that we can best live with.
-
15:10 - 15:12Each generation builds up an edifice
-
15:12 - 15:15which they are reluctant
or sometimes unable -
15:15 - 15:17to disassemble,
-
15:17 - 15:21but in the writing,
my version of the story -
15:21 - 15:23began to change,
-
15:23 - 15:26and it was detached from me.
-
15:27 - 15:29I lost my hatred of my father.
-
15:29 - 15:33I did no longer want him to die
or to murder him, -
15:34 - 15:36and I felt free,
-
15:37 - 15:40much freer than I'd ever felt before.
-
15:42 - 15:45And I wonder whether that freedness
-
15:45 - 15:47could be transferred to him.
-
15:49 - 15:52In that initial reunion,
-
15:55 - 15:57I was struck by an idea that I had
-
15:57 - 16:00very few photographs of myself
-
16:00 - 16:02as a young child.
-
16:03 - 16:05This is a photograph of me,
-
16:05 - 16:07nine months old.
-
16:07 - 16:09In the original photograph,
-
16:09 - 16:12I'm being held up by my father, Bageye,
-
16:12 - 16:15but when my parents separated, my mother
-
16:15 - 16:17excised him from all aspects of our lives.
-
16:17 - 16:20She took a pair of scissors
and cut him out of every photograph, -
16:20 - 16:25and for years, I told myself
the truth of this photograph -
16:25 - 16:27was that you are alone,
-
16:27 - 16:29you are unsupported.
-
16:30 - 16:32But there's another way
of looking at this photograph. -
16:32 - 16:35This is a photograph
that has the potential -
16:35 - 16:37for a reunion,
-
16:37 - 16:40a potential to be reunited with my father,
-
16:40 - 16:44and in my yearning
to be held up by my father, -
16:44 - 16:47I held him up to the light.
-
16:47 - 16:50In that first reunion,
-
16:52 - 16:55it was very awkward and tense moments,
-
16:55 - 16:56and to lessen the tension,
-
16:56 - 16:59we decided to go for a walk.
-
17:00 - 17:02And as we walked, I was struck
-
17:02 - 17:04that I had reverted to being the child
-
17:04 - 17:07even though I was now
towering above my father. -
17:07 - 17:10I was almost a foot taller than my father.
-
17:10 - 17:13He was still the big man,
-
17:13 - 17:15and I tried to match his step.
-
17:17 - 17:19And I realized that he was walking
-
17:19 - 17:21as if he was still under observation,
-
17:21 - 17:24but I admired his walk.
-
17:24 - 17:26He walked like a man
-
17:26 - 17:29on the losing side of the F.A. Cup Final
-
17:29 - 17:33mounting the steps
to collect his condolence medal. -
17:33 - 17:36There was dignity in defeat.
-
17:37 - 17:38Thank you.
-
17:38 - 17:41(Applause)
- Title:
- The Son of a difficult father: Colin Grant at TEDxBrighton
- Description:
-
Colin Grant has spent a lifetime navigating the emotional landscape between his father’s world and his own. Born in England to Jamaican parents, Grant draws on stories of shared experience within his immigrant community — and reflects on how he found forgiveness for a father who rejected him.
- Video Language:
- English
- Team:
- closed TED
- Project:
- TEDxTalks
- Duration:
- 17:45
Ivana Korom edited English subtitles for Under Bageye's Watchful Eye: Colin Grant at TEDxBrighton | ||
Ivana Korom edited English subtitles for Under Bageye's Watchful Eye: Colin Grant at TEDxBrighton | ||
Ivana Korom edited English subtitles for Under Bageye's Watchful Eye: Colin Grant at TEDxBrighton | ||
Ivana Korom edited English subtitles for Under Bageye's Watchful Eye: Colin Grant at TEDxBrighton | ||
Ivana Korom edited English subtitles for Under Bageye's Watchful Eye: Colin Grant at TEDxBrighton | ||
Ivana Korom edited English subtitles for Under Bageye's Watchful Eye: Colin Grant at TEDxBrighton | ||
Ivana Korom edited English subtitles for Under Bageye's Watchful Eye: Colin Grant at TEDxBrighton | ||
Erica Junghans edited English subtitles for Under Bageye's Watchful Eye: Colin Grant at TEDxBrighton |