Hedge fund theatre in Howard Barker yellowface protest: The Print Room 5pm Thursday 19th January

East Asians, theatre practitioners, academics and friends protest against Yellowface casting in Howard Barker play, In the Depths of Dead Love, at the Print Room 19th January

This Thursday (19th January) sees a peaceful protest of Chinese, East Asians, theatre practitioners, academics and friends at the Print Room in London where Howard Barker's play, In the Depths of Dead Love, will be performed by white actors in yellowface casting.

Despite being set in "ancient China", all the Chinese-named characters are played by white actors, rendering us invisible, dehumanised and vulnerable at a time when anti-Chinese feeling is being whipped up by forces who want war with China. In a world rapidly lurching to the right. Barker does the work of the state in denying us our value as human beings.

If this looks familiar, it is. We went through this before when the Royal Shakespeare Company cast The Orphan of Zhao with East Asian actors in only four minor roles out of 17, and none in the main parts. The campaign gave birth to the British East Asian Artists who fought this battle and will continue to challenge all attempts to erase us from our own society and the arts we should all be enjoying fairly and equally on a level playing field.

Blackface has rightly been consigned to the depths of dead prejudice, but East Asians are considered defenceless fair game.

The Print Room, a hedge-fund-financed theatre in Notting Hill (Iraq War co-ordinating bank J P Morgan's Bill Winters is the artistic director's husband who helped fund the theatre), denied that the play was about China, spouting pseudo-intellectual drivel about it only being a metaphor, and that it's actually an English play about English people; the not-so-sub-text being that no-one who looks like me can possibly be English even if born and raised here, absorbing the culture from birth and participating from first word, first picture, first dance, first song.

This disingenuous self-justification has generated widespread mockery.

"No offence was intended and none should be taken ... In the Depths of Dead Love is not a Chinese play and the characters are not Chinese. The production references a setting in Ancient China and the characters’ names are Chinese. These are literary allusions in Howard Barker’s fable and never intended to be taken literally. The allusions are intended to signify “not here, not now, not in any actual real ‘where’ ” and the production, set, costumes and dialogue follow this cue of ‘no place’." From the Print Room's statement

So now I am a mere metaphor: an unreal person from an unreal place. Window dressing for an unutterably dull and pompous exercise in bourgeois angst. His characters lead such drab and tedious lives that perhaps the only way they have to render themselves interesting to themselves, each other  and the audience is to get togged up in chinoiserie drag. This would be the only acceptable explanation but somehow we doubt it. Instead, the paucity of Barker's imagination has him reaching into strangers' lives and ripping the guts out of us.

Like lungfish caught in a rock pool when the tide goes out, Barker, his theatre company The Wrestling School and the Print Room have been washed up in some 1950s version of how British society functions, who is in and who gets excluded. In its more than six years existence, we find that only eight out of 130 actors working at the Print Room have been Black, Asian or Minority Ethnic (BAME). And yet, curiously, they tick the diversity box when it comes to Arts Council funding for their projects. As Clarissa Widya of Papergang Theatre observes, "They are a charity supposed 'to advance the arts for public benefit'. What does that say? Only willing to commit to diversity if someone else can pay for it?"

Howard Barker, our 'greatest living playwright' (according to some), made his reputation as a leftist, so his capitulation to reactionary racist practice is even more shocking. Greater self-love hath no man than this: that he throws what are commonly perceived as the weakest minorities under a bus for his career. If he has any character left I hope that in the wee small hours when there's only him and his conscience, he will think hard and deep about perpetuating yellowface practice and let us know what he's come up with.

There has been a flurry of activity and writing from people who care about our culture and our world, who see the arts as more than privileged rich whites raiding the ethnic dressing-up box for a bit of entertainment. From Facebook and Twitter to blogs and academics and the press, it's not only East Asians who are horrified by this backwards step.

I'll be compiling a chronology of this battle which some are calling The Orphan of Zhao II: This Time It's Personal.

To paraphrase Barker himself, "Howard, I have such a withering knowledge of your soul, its pitiful dimensions. It is smaller than an aspirin that fizzles in a glass. . ."

In the meantime, here's the first of several excellent pieces I'll be posting here, which Mr Barker would do well to read and digest.

Actor and writer Lucy Sheen writes:

FEATURE: IN THE DEPTHS OF DEAD LOVE – THE 2017 PLAY THAT SHOWS ‘YELLOWFACE’ LIVES ON IN THE MEDIA
LUCY SHEEN 17 DECEMBER 2016

In January, London UK Theatre goers and culture lovers will have the opportunity to see a theatre production done using Yellowface. In other words, audiences will see a play which is set in China, about Chinese people, performed by a cast of white actors – In The Depths Of Dead Love.
Copied from the Print Room’s website announcing their first production for 2017:

IN THE DEPTHS OF DEAD LOVE
by Howard Barker
Print Room at the Coronet presents a rare opportunity to see the World Premiere of a new play by “England’s greatest living dramatist.” The Times
Set in ancient China, In the Depths of Dead Love tells of a poet exiled from the Imperial Court and the favour of the Emperor, who scrapes a living by renting his peculiar property – a bottomless well – to aspiring suicides. Among these is a married couple who exert an appalling influence over him.

A play set in Imperial China. By one of the most renowned British playwrights. Cause for celebration, or it should be until you take a look at the cast.

Jane Bertish – Mrs. Hu
William Chubb – Lord Ghang
James Clyde – Chin
Stella Gonet – Lady Hasi

Great cast, but from the character names, I may be going out on a limb here, and guessing that these are East Asian people and not Foreign devils. Not, one single British East Asian actor as been cast.

In other words, ladies and gentlemen of the 21st century, on a UK stage in 2017, audiences will be present with a production that will be performed using the hideous, insulting, disrespectful and yes, racist practice of Yellowface. At a time when we really need to be nurturing and respecting each other, amidst the continued protestations from the creative industry, on how they do really respect and understand that diversity is key and that the lack of BAMEs on stage is something that must be redressed. The Print Room will be giving us a production in Yellowface to kick off the new year.

To be clear Yellowface is not just about actors who decided to change their physical facial appearance to ‘look more East Asian’. Yellowface is about casting decisions, the propagation of racist East Asian stereotypes, caricatures and constant whitewashing of culture which leaves no place for East Asians to be involved with or participate in the telling or retelling of stories and history that directly relates to them. By casting white actors in East Asian roles it continues the underlying inference that East Asians are not “good enough” to be cast. That there are not enough East Asian actors and even if they were their proficiency and professional skill is not as great as that of their white counterparts. We all know (Or should do) that this is not true.

After The Orphan of Zhao casting debacle back in 2013, with media headlines of “East Asain actors seek RSC apology over Orphan of Zhao casting” one would have hoped, and I thought that we had moved on from this deplorable and unacceptable practice.

Sugar-Coated Bullets of The Bourgeoise by Anders Lustgarten with a cast of NINE East Asians, is positive proof that in this day and age there is absolutely no need for any Theatre company, any production to participate in the practice of Yellowface.

The recent theatrical productions of, The Arrest of Ai Weiwei, Chimerica, The World of Extreme Happiness, You for Me and P’YONGYANG you cannot in all good faith tell me that Britain only has a handful of British East Asian actors, because it is obvious it has more and the number is growing.

If it was a new play set in ancient Africa, about the Kush (Nubians) or at Al Kurru (Sudan) would we even be talking about the cast being white? Or a new work about Ashoka, would it even be under consideration, to cast the piece using only white actors? The answer is a resounding NO.

It is not about censorship, who can write what or who can perform what. But about how we, as modern human beings, who understand the nuances of being. Identity, race and acceptance, how important to all of us this concepts and constructs are. How powerful visual reference are. If we were operating on a completely level playing field then the colour of an actor would not matter one jot. We would be seeing non-specific casting across the board. No one would bat an eyelid if Queen Victoria was played by a South Asian and Albert by a Black actor.

But we are not there, far from it. It is perfectly acceptable for a white actor to portray characters that are white, non-white and ethnically specific, but if an actor of colour is cast to portray a role that is outside of their ethnic roots it causes, more often than not “negative debate.” Equality, hardly.

Yet when it comes to the East Asians, time and time again such cultural sensitivity and awareness is not just lacking, but completely absent.

The tragedy is the thinking that is involved surrounding works that are about other British ethnicities such as Black, African, Caribbean and South Asian; never, or seldom seems to be applied in any measure whatsoever, when it comes to works that involve East Asia or East Asian themes and characters. If as a society we can apply such thinking and progressive understanding to other British minorities, why can’t this equality of thought and action be extended to British East Asians?

Why?

Are British East Asians so invisible? Do we as human beings mean so little that we literally have no place, in British society, in its culture? We are expected to contribute to all other levels of society, yet we are denied access to participate culturally?

Our shared histories and sacrifices are of so little consequence because the colour of our skin and the shape of our eyes are different?

Do we mean so little that, the wider British society feels, we don’t even merit the same considerations that are afforded or fellow British Minority Ethnics?

That we are, somehow will be less offended by Yellowface than a Black person would be by Blackface? I have been told on more than one occasion that Yellowface is not the same as Blacking up or Blackface. Well, let me tell you as British East Asian, Yellowface is every bit as insulting, demeaning, disrespectful and racist.

For a one-stop archive of events click on PRINT ROOM IN THE DEPTHS OF DEAD LOVE PROTEST CHRONOLOGY

Lucy Sheen: The 2017 play that shows Yellowface lives on
http://www.weareresonate.com/2016/12/feature-depths-dead-love-2017-play-shows-yellowface-lives-media/

Playwright Jingan Young, South China Morning Post: London storm turns spotlight on ‘whitewashing’ in film and theatre

Dr Amanda Rogers: Yellowface alive and well at the Print Room

Actor Erin Quill 16.01.17: In the Depths of British Theatrical Racism @the_printroom

Actor David Lee Jones, Nee Hao magazine 19.12.16: Why is it not acceptable to cast white actors to play Chinese characters on stage or on screen?

Actor Vera Chok 14.01.16: More thoughts on the Print Room

Brian Law on Facebook 18.01.17: So I went to see the play tonight ...

Howard Sherman, The Stage: Yellowface is wrong and the Print Room's explanation is meaningless

Lyn Gardner, the Guardian: Theatre is coming to terms with its diversity problem. Real progress is vital

Wealth brings power, the power to open a theatre in London's Notting Hill, the power to define human beings as worthy or not of inclusion, of defining whether or not we are English. Rich white women in need of a hobby get to do that to us because they are married to bankers, specifically, senior bankers in JP Morgan during the Iraq War era of wealth extraction and paying Tony Blair £2-3 million pa. These are our rulers in our post-truth new world.

Facebook: Protest Against Yellowface Casting at the Print Room

Director Andrew Keates: letter to the Print Room's artistic director ... It is no more acceptable today asking a Caucasian actor to play an East Asian role than asking another actor to play Othello by handing him a tin of boot polish. Simply put, it’s morally reprehensible.
I ask you as Artistic Director to consider meeting with the creative team of In The Depths Of Dead Love immediately and ask them to reconsider this disgusting and bigoted casting or that you pull the production from your programme until they are able to satisfy its casting requirements without detriment to East Asian actors in London.

Andrzej Lukowski, Time Out: There's going to be an anti-racism protest tomorrow over a fringe play in Notting Hill

The Stage 20.12.16: Equity adds voice to condemnation of Print Room ‘yellowface’ casting ... Equity general secretary Christine Payne also criticised the theatre's response of accusations against it, adding: "The Print Room’s statement is completely unacceptable on a number of levels, not least of which is the suggestion that an 'English' play must be completely white.”

What's On Stage 21.12.16: The Print Room apologises for 'any offence caused' in yellowface dispute (but only makes it worse)

The Stage 13.01.17: Print Room "artistic" director describes our protestations as a "social media attack" proving Mrs Hedge Fund couldn't give a flying one.

Grumpy Gay Critic 04.01.17: Yellowface and ‘In The Depths of Dead Love’. What Next? An Action Plan For Diverse Theatre Casting. The Print Room’s casting for In the Depths of Dead Love is a disgrace, and we’re certainly angry. But how can we move towards genuine change?

Cohan Chew at We Are Resonate 19.01.17: ‘Yellowface’ protest against the Print Room for casting white actors in Chinese roles to be held today

Alice Jones fast off the block in the Independent iNews 19.01.17: Howard Barker and the curious case of the Chinese play with the all-white cast “It is, in fact a very ‘English’ play and is derived from thoroughly English mores and simply references the mythic and the ancient. It has therefore been cast accordingly.” Ah, I see, English roles for English people because all English people are white. What a bone-headed thing to write in 2017, when the British theatre has a large pool of East Asian talent to draw on. Just look at the cast of the brilliant, 2013 smash-hit Chimerica. As Harry Potter actress Katie Leung put it “We are here. We exist.”

Evening Standard 19.01.17: Notting Hill theatre faces 'yellowface' protest for casting white actors in Chinese roles

Let's hope Print Room "artistic director" Anda Winters never joins the diplomatic corps. The Stage 19.01.17: Print Room turns on Equity in ‘yellowface’ casting row

Rage Offstage 18.01.17: The Yellowface is Bad Enough, now we have the whitewash

Two stars from Mersa Auda in The Up Coming 20.01.17: In the Depths of Dead Love at the Print Room at the Coronet ... Admittedly, there are some interesting concepts and a few moments that engage the audience, but there is no doubt that the most memorable and relevant aspect of the play is the controversy it caused rather than its content or delivery.

A compete non sequitur and strawman argument in The Daily Telegraph 20.01.17. Who has demanded that the play shouldn't exist? No-one.: Play at centre of 'yellowface' row is insubstantial, not inexcusable - In the Depths of Dead Love review

Sam Marlowe in The Times gives it two stars 20.01.17: The controversial Howard Barker play is far from worthless, but keeps its audience at a chilly distance Controversy over Howard Barker’s new play kicked off before this production even opened — so much so, that it almost gave a whole new meaning to Barker’s term for his own work, Theatre of Catastrophe. Broadcast on BBC radio in 2013, it’s set in ancient China; Gerrard McArthur’s stage premiere features an all-white cast. This has drawn furious condemnation and justifiably so: while the piece is broadly allegorical, it does lazily appropriate a vague Eastern exoticism as a means of denoting otherness. ...

Mark Lawson, however, earns his keep by insulating the elite from society. In his uncritical interview with "Britain's greatest living playwright" he fails to pursue interesting threads such as why is Howard Barker taking Iraq War JP Morgan money? Why does Barker express such contempt for messages when his own is clear — white domination excluding East Asians such as myself from our own English heritage is somehow artistically heroic. Guardian 20.01.17: Howard Barker: 'I have contempt for messages in plays. I'm not trying to influence anyone'

The Stage 20.01.17: Howard Barker defends Print Room casting from ‘yellowface’ criticisms “The ‘Chinese’ nature of the play is within the setting, which is entirely artificial, and the naming of the characters. It’s entirely European in its sensibilities. I’ve only very rarely ever set a play in my own culture – there’s always a distancing effect,” he said. And added: “You have to understand metaphors. The theatre isn’t a place for literalness. We have to accept that anyone from any place or culture can play any role,” he said in an interview in which he went on to claim he had “contempt” for plays that have messages. “Look, the reason I’m a writer is that I don’t involved myself in political and ideological issues. I’m the opposite of writers who enter the theatre to persuade people of their attitudes. It’s not what I do,” he said. In the interview, Barker also criticised Arts Council England, labelling it “preposterous” and something that belongs “in the Soviet era”. “It’s not really interested in art, it’s interested in sociological benefits,” he added....

Daniel York on finding himself in a Pete and Dud sketch in The Stage 20.01.17: The night I was spat at for protesting ‘yellowface’ ... One senior female theatre industry figure, wearing a rather impressive-looking fur coat, stormed across the street to berate the protestors as “racist”. The entire incident was captured on a camera phone though I must confess, even watching back now, I struggle to follow the thread of her somewhat surreal argument, but it appears to be something along the lines of “Equity has said it’s racist for Asian actors to play Asian roles”. I’m pretty sure Equity has said no such thing but does that mean we get the whole of Downton when they give in and make another series? ... Another couple stormed by and yelled a bunch of expletives at us. I went after them to enquire whether they wanted to have a conversation. The man screamed at me “You’re a c***!” with rather more vehemence than one should ever show a complete stranger. I asked him why I was a “c***”. “Because you’re a c***!” I asked him why again. “Because you’re a c*** because I say you’re a c***, because you’re a c*** because I say you’re a c***. You’re a c***!”. ...

Even the Daily Mail senses something is up 21.01.17: Humans star Gemma Chan joins 'yellowface' protest outside premiere of play where WHITE actors were cast in CHINESE roles

Some of the assumptions being made reveal unconscious prejudices that we are somehow incomplete Xeroxs of human beings and unable to engage fully and intelligently with the issues. Kate Maltby writes in the New Statesman that none of us have read or seen the play whereas I've read it, Daniel York has read it, Dr Amanda Rogers and a slew of others have read it and we've all been discussing it; plus Brian Law and a clutch of others saw it prior to and on press night. [I understand that Maltby has now corrected this claim.] I wouldn't go calling us a "model" protest, either. But we shouldn't let that detract from the article's revelation that, in best Charles Foster Kane tradition, Anda and Bill Winters starred their daughter in the "atrocious" The Tempest. Iraq War money and nepotism — poor kid. 20.01.17: The Print Room’s “Yellowface” scandal reveals deeper problems with British theatre

FURTHER READING ON CROSS-RACIAL CASTING

Donna Dickens makes an idiot-proof argument at UPROXX: Casting minorities as white characters is not a double standard. Here’s why.

The Daily Dot: 7 reasons why reverse racism doesn't exist

The Huffington Post: 4 ‘Reverse Racism’ Myths That Need To Stop

All white at the BBC: South Africa would be proud of Newsnight

I've had the good fortune to be one of the few ethnics who have slipped through the cultural net and been able to make a few good programmes at the BBC, having a great face for the radio. But it's shameful that there's still so much unconscious racism as inadvertently exposed in a recent BBC recruitment film which neglects to mention their Black Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) audience and production staff (absence of). That's how unaware they are in this age of diversity. After all, the Beeb is based in a city that's 44 per cent non-white, so what is their excuse?

"I set the general editorial direction of travel," says Newsnight editor Ian Katz at a meeting rammed with white faces.

I found it useless trying to talk to Katz when he was editor of the Guardian's G2 supplement in 2000. They'd run a controversialist piece by Charlotte Raven about the movie Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon which was storming the box offices: " ... Because they were oriental, everyone presumed this was understatement, rather than woodenness. ... In Chinese, delivered inscrutably, it seemed to contain multitudes."

My disappointment wasn't so much that one writer had written this casual othering of a racial group but more that the G2 editors — the Guardian institution — hadn't sounded alarm bells. I can only guess at how richly ethnically diverse they weren't. I was met with hostility for raising the issue, so I'm hardly surprised that Katz now works in an all-white environment at the BBC. (Here's how it panned out.)

When working on my my play for Radio 4, Red Guard, Yellow Submarine, drawn from my memoir of the same name about being brought up by Chinese communists in Hackney, I walked through Broadcasting House with my producer, Pam Fraser-Solomon, who is Black, and it was notable that the only other non-white face at the time was the cleaner.

It's assumed that white folk do everything best and that any person of colour is there as a token.

Every time we stick our heads up the dominant white establishment tries to shoot us down. East Asians actors were give four minuscule roles out of 17 in the Royal Shakespeare Company's Chinese classic, The Orphan of Zhao — which the RSC then had the cheek to market to Chinese audiences. Trevor Nunn wants to produce all-white Shakespeare histories in the interest of verismilitude, minus the bad teeth and buboes, of course.

The latest lazy dismissal in the Guardian of a rare project made by a non-white team, Reggie Yates: Race Riots USA, would indicate that the liberal media are in nightmarish free-fall into some inner apartheid hell zone. I mean, accusing the lovely calm Reggie Yates of the crime of swagger? How submissive must a Black man be to assuage the white writer's fear?

I suggest they seek help. And I said, "seek help", not "sieg heil".

The Independent: Behind the scenes Newsnight new show blows the lid on the lack of racial diversity on the BBC.

Britain's "liberal" media and UK Chinese: from London Chinatown to the general election

The Guardian has always been sloppy about China matters, but its publishing stable now appears to have given up any pretence of writing about UK Chinese issues informatively.

"It was a genuine community built by the emigrants from Hong Kong who, having been bombed out of Limehouse in the East End in the 1940s, made this patch of London, with its cheap commercial rents, their own," writes Daniel Boffey in the Observer about Soho's Chinatown

Er ... I don't think so. I know we all look the same to the "liberal" media but it was Cantonese and Shanghainese sailors and their families living mainly in the two streets of Pennyfields and Limehouse Causeway, not Hong Kong migrants, who were bombed out during the war: a large number were rehoused in Poplar.

My father was an early Chinese occupant in Soho's Chinatown from 1947 when it was mostly Indian and Jewish. It wasn't until the 1950s — but really the '60s — that waves of Hong Kong migrants got the takeaway industry going after the domestic washing machine rendered laundries largely obsolete. They bought up the fish 'n' chip shops that were going under and started serving their own food.

You wouldn't find many HKers in that early Soho mix. A few Kuomintang diplomats finding new ways to make a living and former Cantonese and Shanghai sailors, but hardly anyone from HK.

In the ten-part series Chinese in Britain, which I presented on BBC Radio 4 in 2007 (repeated last year), we looked at the history of UK Chinatowns including Limehouse and Soho, but the pattern of not allowing ethnic minorities to tell their own story persists in some organs which continue to get it wrong.

At best, invisibility is thrust on us; at worst, the Chinese are still defined as villains. From the yellow-peril Fu Manchu books by Sax Rohmer to the BBC's Sherlock reboot, where even innocent Chinese passers by in Soho Chinatown were portrayed as sinister and "other", the Chinese are dehumanised and excluded. Yet none of the liberal media paused for breath between BAFTAs and plaudits to question why, well into the 21st century, the publicly-funded British Broadcasting Corporation was breathing life back into what should be moribund racist tropes.

In Channel 4's recent  debate concerning the role of the ethnic vote in the imminent general election, chaired by Krishnan Guru-Murthy, only one single solitary east Asian face could be seen in the audience — placed on the corner in the seat nearest to Krishnan where he stood more chance of being picked up by the cameras, presumably after someone panicked on the night at the oversight. None on the platform. Yet Chinese are Britain's third largest Black and Asian minority ethnic minorities (BAME) after South Asians and African Caribbeans.

In a piece for the South China Morning Post magazine last October, I outlined how the ethnic vote could swing results in the marginal seats, with the Chinese key to the outcome in 36 seats including Barnet in May. Still, here are the Chinese being excluded yet again.

So when the Chinese are next accused of being the authors of their own exclusion ... think on.

My article on the Ming Ai Chinese in Britain project for the South China Morning Post magazine.

Pic from Red Scarf

Don't let Disney whitewash Mulan

This is modern identity theft on a grand scale. All those east Asian girls in the West already rendered invisible being denied their greatest positive role model in the popular culture. Please sign the petition.

A banker, a worker and an immigrant walk into a bar … TED Talk by Anna Chen

My TEDxEastEnd talk has just been posted on You Tube.

Genetic science has definitively proved that all humans originate from the same group of East African ancestors. So why do people insist on trying to create divisions between races or nationalities? Anna Chen suggests this is more than instinctive racism – there are economic interests at stake. Political rhetoric about migrants exists to justify exploitation and create divisions. A better world is possible.

Anna Chen is a writer, poet and broadcaster who was born and raised in Hackney, east London, by a Chinese father and an English mother. She is an Orwell Prize shortlisted blogger, and writes and presents programmes for BBC radio and Resonance FM. Her collection of poetry — Reaching for my Gnu — is published by Aaaargh! Press.

http://ted.com/tedx

My TEDxEastEnd talk: Migration and Diversity, mirrors and diversion

I had a great time last Saturday as one of the speakers at the TED x East End event. I talked about migration and diversity, mirrors and diversion, looking at how politics and economics distort the history of human migration since we all walked out of Africa 60,000 to 120,000 years ago.

A banker, a worker and an immigrant are sitting at a table ...

The link is here: http://new.livestream.com/tedx/eastend/videos/74841242

Books by participants at this year's TEDxEastEnd Talks, including mine.

BBC Newsbeat crocodile tears over anti-Chinese racism

While it is always uplifting to see the wicked repent and mend their ways, the BBC Newsbeat item — acknowledging how racism against Chinese Brits is largely ignored — is in danger of providing the corporation with bleeding-heart cover in the absence of measures to rectify the injustice.

The Newsbeat article quotes Michael Wilkes of the British Chinese Project as saying:
"Essentially Chinese people don't like to worry other people. There's a mindset within the Chinese community that we need to keep our business within ourselves, within our own family unit. I'm saying to young British Chinese people now that we can speak out. It's our responsibility - when you're being prejudiced against, you've got to speak up."

Well, that's a powerful get-out-of-jail-free card, allowing the protectors of Jeremy Clarkson's Top Gear petri dish to wriggle off the hook. Blame the victims and take a bow.

It's hard to ignore the utter hypocrisy of the publicly-funded BBC (barring a few enlightened individuals fighting the good fight for genuine balance and justice). The corporation notoriously runs its employment of women along the lines of Logan's Run, where we're mostly bumped off at 50, but also renders east Asians invisible. It declines to cast us in normal roles, which would show us as part of the fabric of British society — which is exactly what we are.

I mean, no regular Chinese characters in Eastenders? Really? Still?

There are plenty of examples of the establishment's fear and loathing of East Asians in general and the Chinese in particular. In Beebland, we are either invisible and excluded or else we turn up once in a blue moon to embody the ugly stereotypes lurking in the fantasy world of the white-bread powers ruling that particular roost.

Their nadir for many was the  Sherlock: The Blind Banker episode: a vivid illustration of the routinely-ignored racism against us. Instead of acknowledging and tackling the glaring and hateful dehumanisation contained therein, they gave the creeps a BAFTA.

The BBC is a BIG part of the problem, rather than even a part of the solution. If the corporation was sincere, there would be east Asians on their channels every night, depicted as normal folks alongside everyone else. The media are lagging way behind the advertisers, who've included increasing numbers of us in the past years because the ad men and women understand that we are not only human beings deserving of equal treatment and representation, but also (in purely monetary terms) a worthwhile slice of the market.

Our absence reflects the prejudice of media gatekeepers, management strata and the theatre establishment (hello, Royal Shakespeare Company). When you create a vacuum, this in turn creates space for nightmares: a blank canvas for the most ghastly of projections. The sleep of reason produces monsters and the BBC has played its part.

It's encouraging to see journalists, editors and producers finally taking this on in the Newsbeat article. However, in context, that piece is a sop thrown to the youth market (which has a more enlightened attitude towards issues of race, gender and sexuality, as well as growing numbers of east Asians) by one hand, while the other ensures the continuation of the conditions that allow such racism to maintain its foothold. Enough of the crocodile tears. Let's see some action.

Yellow Peril Orientalism past and present: awaiting Chris Frayling's new Chinaphobia book

This morning's hypnagogic state was interrupted by a call from Pat Edlin, who excitedly told me about a book by Chris Grayling about yellow peril fears and orientalism that he'd just heard discussed on the Today programme (BBC Radio 4).

I did wonder why a dodgy Tory minister would suddenly break the habit of a political lifetime and stick up for underdogs instead of sticking it to them. The thought of kindness and rationality emanating from John Humphrys and the laughably titled Justice Minister blew my noggin enough to have me reaching for Wiki.

Ah, Pat meant the other one. How unfortunate for academic Chris Frayling to so nearly share a name with the Slippery One: only one letter away on the keyboard for anyone with fat fingers.

I met Chris — the nice Chris — on BBC Radio 3's Night Waves in 2011 when I was talking about Anna May Wong and the dire representation of Chinese and east Asians in general in the media. I'm delighted to see him take on this subject and hopefully give it the Edward Said Orientalism treatment.

Here's a round-up of yellow peril episodes both historical and current that we've had to deal with.

From Anna May Wong having to die every time a white bloke fancied her, Sherlock's Blind Banker episode and propagandist hack Sax Rohmer's villainous Fu Manchu to the government blaming Chinese Brits for for its own failure to contain the Foot and Mouth Disease outbreak in 2001, we've encountered a slew of challenges, and even won a few of 'em.

I'm looking forward to reading Chris Frayling's new book, The Yellow Peril: Dr Fu Manchu and the Rise of Chinaphobia (Thames and Hudson), presumably covering similar ground as Philip Dodds' sympathetic Radio 4 programme, Overwhelming China, that Daniel York, my fellow Fu Fighter, and I were on a while back.

Let's hope we're hitting a critical mass and that all this yellow peril nonsense will come to a swift end.

And then the BBC sacked Jeremy Clarkson, and then I woke up.

Is the media ready to accept East Asians as part of British diversity? by actress Lucy Sheen

Actress Lucy Sheen asks what many of us are wondering.

Is the media ready to accept East Asians as part of British diversity?

So after a hopeful start to last week with the launch of Act For Change campaign, the broad acceptance from ITV and the BBC that quotas for BAME artists and creatives are a good thing, to help ensure the diversity and variety that we experience in reality is reflected back in the media.

That was not what I was expecting to hear, very welcome, but then I’m a cynic. I’ve had over thirty years of watching , being actively involved when I was young enthusiastic and naively optimistic. When I say that I was involved, I was as ‘involved’ as those in power would allow a young East Asian to be involved. Back in the days when I would have been referred to as an Oriental. Yes folks, you read it right. ORIENTAL. Not that such language and terms are being used nowadays …

So when it comes to matters of equality and diversity, especially being an East Asian, where we are a minority within the minorities and still being treated appalling, is it any wonder after thirty years that I have evolved into the cynic that I am now.

Why would now be any different to all the those other initiatives, schemes and past “interventions?”

Well . . .

Since the dreadful Royal Shakespeare controversy back in 2012 with their casting of The Orphan of Zhao things have never quite been the same, in my opinion, within the BAME community. (Sidebar, oh how I wish we could find a better term to use when referring to ourselves. Maybe it’s the dyslexic in me but whenever I see BAME I some how always fleeting see the word BLAME. Anyway that’s a whole separate post on it’s own).

And this is the American production of The Orphan of Zhao. Exact same play produced by the American Conservatory Theater – RSC et el take note

The classical foot in the mouth from the cradle of The Bard was probably the best thing that could have occurred for the British East Asians. It drew together many people from across the cultural and ethnic spectrum which is the reality of Britain. Hell it drew in support from around the world! The Orphan of Zhao wasn’t just seen as an East Asian “problem” and an insult to only British East Asians.

“The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves.”

It is a fault within our supposed multicultural, tolerant liberal society. Differing racial and ethnic groups came together and recognised that the British part of being East Asian, in fact Black or Asian was consistently being ignored and conveniently erased. If used, it was only when it was expedient for others to do so and always at our own expense. The British East Asian Artist group, in my personal opinion, has done more, been instrumental in more and has spoken out more, about the deplorable, lamentable and yes one could say ‘criminal’ state of affairs for British East Asian Artists. More movement, realistic engagement, instigation for change and equality has occurred in the short time since the BEAA (British East Asian Artists Group) was founded in 2012 then in all the previous years. Through the efforts and campaigning of the BEAA (British East Asian Artists Group) East Asians now find themselves at the table in vital and essential talks with the very institutions that have hitherto seemingly ignored British East Asians, such as the BBC (British Broadcasting Company) and Politicians. The BEAA actively supports both Act For Change and the TV Collective and has been instrumental in getting involved and achieving representation in talks with Ed Vaizey MP and the BBC.

The Arts Council of England published the findings of an independent report claiming that the arts and culture sector accounts for 0.4% of gross domestic product, with £5.9 billion worth of gross value added to the UK economy in 2011. London theatres enjoyed record ticket attendances and revenues in 2013, generating £97.5m of VAT receipts for the UK Treasury. Attendances for 2013 were up 4% on 2012 to 14,587,276 with gross sales rising by 11% year on year to £585.5m, according to the figures from the Society of London Theatre.

On stage in 2013 was an amazing year for British East Asian Artists:
The Arrest of Ai Weiwei at The Hamsptead Theatre in April. Chimerica in May at the Almeida Theatre then transferring to the Westend The Harold Pinter Theatre. Yellowface at The Park Theatre in May and then the Royal National Theatre at the Shed, The Fu Manchu Complex written by British East Asian actor, writer and activist Daniel York in September, The World of Extreme Happiness at The Royal National Theatre in The Shed in October and Golden Child at The New Diorama. It was an explosion of East Asian talent on stage and off. The productions found audiences. People bought tickets and put their bums on the seats. Audiences the mirrored the variety and diversity of the British population. People went to see shows about East Asians, with East Asian themes. And shock horror performed by British East Asian actors. Two things it can’t now be said there are no East Asian performers – or yes there are but then consistently only concentrating interest a small meagre handful of performers.

Secondly, no longer can it be said, “oh there isn’t an audience for such plays.”

Britain is a diverse and mixed country in terms of the people who now inhabit these shores.

In London, the 2011 Census, London’s population was 8.17 million, making it the most populous European city. More than 4 out of every ten Londoners (42 per cent) identify themselves as belonging to another group other than Caucasian. What everyone thinks about this state of affairs is an entirely different matter. Britain is not going to suddenly revert back to being a predominantly Caucasian country, sorry (well actually I am not) UKIP et all. The world has moved on, literally and so has its people from country to country, crossing continents and time zones.

So why hasn’t the British culture, our Theatre, Film and Television moved to reflect the diversity we see on our streets? I can’t believe that in the popular media I don’t regularly see characters the reflect me. I’m not talking about the odd Chinese waiter, tongue tied tourist, or the occasional Doctor or Surgeon or even overseas student.

When I turn on my TV, when I see another East Asian, it’s usually a characterisation from a very narrow perspective. Seldom do I see myself, or people who look like like me, portrayed in an accurate and realistic manner, let alone as being British. I have to make do with the heavily accented, menial and or illegal worker. Occasionally there’ll be a Doctor, a secretary or a nerdy student. Apparently there is no in between. As an East Asian more times than not, you’re isolated, socially separated by language, culture and ingrained biggatory.

As an overseas East Asian character you’re allowed to be intelligent, successful and financially well off, but you can also be ruthless, dodgy and somehow an inherently flawed human being. But on the upside you’ll be seen as authentic.

I’m standing right in front of you, as are many others, with not a “me no spleakie” accent, DVD seller or Machiavellian master of crime to be seen anywhere.

Is this continued white washing, an attempt to keep the British cultural landscape western and Caucasian? Is it an almost subliminal subconscious last stand? The last vestiges of institutional and structural racism? An attempt by the old guard in society to divide and rule and thereby some how keep the colonials in their place?

It’s not as if there aren’t the talented and trained East Asian artists out there. Where we fall down is the inability, or lack of willingness on the part of the British media to embrace East Asians. Unlike their colleagues of Black British and British Asian heritage who have been incorporated (to some degree) into the cultural landscape. Comedy shows and serials have been set around or based on their respective communities. Characters from specific ethnicities that draw the audience into an alternative view of British life.

The Fosters (1976-1977), Black Silk (1985), South of the Border (1988), Goodness Gracious Me (1988-2014), Desmond’s (1989-1994), Prime Suspect 2 (1992), The Kumars at nos. 42 (2001-2006), 55 Degrees North (2004–2005), Luther (2010-2013).

The East Asians have had Johnny Ho in the Chinese Detective (1981 – 1982) and that’s it.

It doesn’t happen often enough across the diverse spectrum of British society. The tragedy is why has this not progressed? The world continues to evolve but British popular media and drama apparently does not or will not? When will I be able to see The Lees from nos.8 or Penny Fields or what about Jean and Enid a black comedy set in an OAP home where the central character, Jean (imaginatively nick-named Chinese Jean by the nursing staff) forms an unlikely friendship with Enid new Staff nurse. If you’re interested in the latter then leave me a message and I’ll happily send over a synopsis or meet with you and talk.

I don’t want to be here in another thirty years still talking about the same issues.

As Anna Chen writer, political blogger, performance poet, stand up comedian and BEAA activist recently wrote: "For someone who’s pretty hard to miss, I’m surprisingly invisible. There’s a whole load of us feeling the same way, and we’re getting behind Act for Change."

Attitudes have to change, in the boardrooms, casting suites and commissioning offices.

Something has got to give, I hope that this is the beginning.

Read Lucy Sheen's full article here

When does humour stop being funny and morph into racism? By actress Lucy Sheen.

When does humour stop being funny and morph into racism?

By actress Lucy Sheen

I have a sense of humour. A pretty good one, sometimes it goes a little dark. Hell I loved Nighty Nighty the deeply dark and disturbing comedy by Julia Davis. I even ended up in the second series! Other times it can be very infantile. I don’t think I get overly precious about stuff. I’ve been known to take the proverbial out of myself on many occasions. Our family motto (long story for another time) is:
Si omnia cetera fallunt utique, potest tamen se derideri
If all else fails, at least we can still laugh at ourselves.

I can laugh at a good joke and groan at the Christmas-cracker ones, like everyone else.

Recently though, the way that some people’s funny bones have been digging me in the ribs, I could have been forgiven for thinking I was back in the 1970s. Bernard Manning, Love They Neighbour, The Black and White Minstrel show and Mind Your Language and me dreading school on the Monday. I didn’t have to be a psychic to know that I’d be in for a verbal battering. I’d hope that the battering would remain just that, verbal.

Every Saturday night as a young child, I would be sat down along with the rest of the family to watch The Black and White Minstrel show. Yes, you heard me correctly. Back in the 60s there were only three TV channels. Children watched what the grown ups watched. Did I understanding what was going on? Hey you’re asking a, transracially adopted, East Asian child; who for a while thought that she was actually white! So you’re asking the wrong person.

It was the same for Mind Your Language. I’d watch along with the rest of the “family” but would feel distinctly uncomfortable. I’d spend more time watching my adoptive parents out of the corner of my eye, as they laughed at the linguistic and cultural ineptness of Chung Su-Lee and Tarō Nagazumi. My adoptive parents laughed unreservedly at the images they saw on the small screen. They were laughing at, not with, people who looked just like me.

As a child I was unable to coherently express my discomfort. Even if I could have, I wouldn’t have been allowed. Children in that era were still seen and not heard. I couldn’t verbalise my dislike of that program or why. It was the exact same feeling of discomfort and dis-ease I experienced when I had to pass by the local National Front office. Something I did as little as possible.

Taking the mickey out of people is a national past-time. So is the building up of people only to knock ‘em down. The British media loves doing this and it would appear that the British public love reading about it. So when does this, at times, aggressive jocularity turn from biting humour, into racism?

Is it possible to de-construct the interlocking subtle (sometimes not so subtle) strands that interweave into that which we find, or do not find funny?
Humour is subjective, after all differing cultures find differing things funny.

In an internet study about jokes, countries such as Britain, Australia and New Zealand preferred jokes that involved word play:
What happens to a frog’s car when it breaks down?
It gets toad away.

Americans and Canadians seemed to prefer jokes based on, or that had a sense of superiority – either because a person looked stupid, or was made to look stupid by another person, such as:

Cooper, Gary (Texan, The)_01
Texan: “Where are you from?”
Harvard grad: “I come from a place where we do not end our sentences with prepositions.”
Texan: “Okay – where are you from, jackass?”

Many European countries, like France, Denmark and Belgium, enjoyed jokes that were more surreal:

An Alsatian went to a telegram office, took out a blank form and wrote:
“Woof. Woof. Woof. Woof. Woof. Woof. Woof. Woof. Woof.”
The clerk examined the paper and politely told the dog: “There are only nine words here. You could send another ‘Woof’ for the same price.”
“But,” the dog replied, “that would make no sense at all.”

Humour, nonconformist, varied and not one for following rules. So is it the case that one person’s idea of humour is another person’s insult? Or is there more to the conundrum of humour, than culture, personal taste and what is generally perceived by the society you live in as acceptable?
The definition of humour is actually very interesting.
hu·mor
(h)yo͞omər – noun
noun: humour

1. the quality of being amusing or comic, especially as expressed in literature or speech

2. a mood or state of mind

verb
verb: humour
1.comply with the wishes of (someone) in order to keep them content, however unreasonable such wishes might be.
The definition of humour as a verb is the most interesting and possibly the most pertinent to my initial question. Which makes me wonder even more about the general nature and application of humour.
I have always found jokes that rely on turning a person’s race, ethnicity or colour against themselves, making it a negative, unacceptable trait in society. I don’t find that kind of humour funny. I find nothing humorous in making a person seem abnormal, less than human, devaluing a person’s humanity because the colour of their skin is a different shade. Or the shape of their eyes or lips are different. That to me is not humour, it’s a systemic attempt to maintain a racist and biased view to continue to keep a society content with itself no matter how unreasonable that might be.

There will be those that say I’m reading too much into things. A joke is just a joke, it doesn’t mean anything. But that sounds suspiciously like the verbal prefacing that comes before a racist comment.

If I hear the term Chink, Coolie* or Oriental** I find it offensive. Yes it does depend upon context. In an academic or historical work examining Colonial or the Imperialist world, I get it. As a joke or in a comedy skit nine times out of ten I find it offensive. To me as a British East Asian, it offends me every bit as much as the n-word offends a black person. The word Chink, the term Oriental, these are not words or terms of endearment. It isn’t like saying, “me old china.” Where there would be a double and possible humours meaning as it’s Cockney rhyming slang for mate. No, these words are used to cause insult, to belittle, to demean, to racially slur. These words are meant to be derogatory, to demean, and devalue people like me because I look different. Because my ancestors were treated and viewed in a very specific manner in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. And because, even now in the 21st century, people who like me, we are still considered alien, outsiders, those that are “other.” You only have to think back to the recent BBC- Jeremy Clarkson debacle a recent example of such supposed “humour.”

British East Asians numerically are not as great as their Black British and Asian (South Asian) British counterparts. In my humble opinion, Black and South Asian British are not consistently and routinely excluded from the general debates and concerns that surround British Asian Minority Ethnics. We are, as far as I can see, the only ethnic minority where it is still, in some people’s minds ok to pass racist comments in the guise of comedy or art. I think that we are the only minority in the UK where socially and publicly you can get away with broadcasting material that is offensive. Whether that’s racist jokes or Yellowface in stage productions. Why, because British East Asians don’t complain. We are our own worst enemies. I still see (more often than I should) on national television people passing offensive and racist comments based on my ethnicity. Yet these incidents are “laughed” of as having been meant in an affectionate manner. Let me tell you there is nothing affectionate about Chink jokes, or being referred to as a Chink, Coolie or Oriental. There is absolutely no reason for any theatre productions, Film, TV or radio programme to be practising Yellowface or Yellowvoice.

Yellowface is far more than a Caucasian putting on yellow make up or taping back their eyes to make themselves look more like an East Asian. It is a systemic, institutionalised and structural bias against East Asians and against engaging professional East Asian artist to play roles that are East Asian. It is the depiction of East Asian roles by Caucasian producers, directors, writers and other gatekeepers; those who control the representation of East Asians in the British media and popular British culture, those who make the casting decisions that propagate the continuance of racist East Asian stereotypes and caricatures.

That is not to say that other ethnic minorities have not suffered – or that people have not tried Blacking up or Brownface.

The stark difference is, there have been attempts to do this on a British stage. There have been and there were protests. Questions have been and would have been asked in the House of Commons. There would be, there has been wide-spread condemnation of such archaic artistic practices. But when it comes to the British East Asians - NADA.

And it has happened in the recent past and those of us who have complained were told, go away.

We were told that Yellowface just wasn’t the same as blacking up.
We’ve recently been told by TV Producer that the use of the word SLOPE, although it was understood to be offensive to East Asians; because it wasn’t thought to be widely used or known in the UK, they’d still use it. Why? Because using it here, in the UK, they could fool themselves into thinking its usage was “witty” a clever play on words and therefore non offensive. I also think that the general perception of East Asians in the UK is, they won’t complain. There are too few of us to matter. So they can get away with it, like they always have. Shock horror, I have news for everyone out there that thinks like that, NOT ANY MORE.

So, excuse me if I’m sceptical about the basic ins and outs of humour which is reliant on the use, as far as I can see, of racist stereotypes and caricatures. I personally do not speak (to any small degree of proficiency) Mandarin or Cantonese. I am not small, petite, servile or quiet. I do not work in a Chinese takeaway or restaurant, I am not a maths guru or proficient in computer programming language. Though I used to practice martial arts. I do not speak English with an accent that would make me the butt of a bad joke. I can pronounce all the consonants found in the English language. I am loud and outspoken, when I need to be. All of which I do in the Queen’s glorious English.

As soon as you purposefully target another human being for not being like the culturally dominant; as soon as you imply that people who are not superficially akin to the dominant race in your society, who don’t share the common vocal or physical characteristic, or that people who are different from the majority in your society are somehow less than human and have a lower value in your society - for me that’s not humour.

That’s abuse, that’s racism, that’s setting up behaviours which I consider unacceptable, that society then passes on to the following generations.

If you can substitute another word for Chink or Oriental and the joke still gets a laugh, then my question is, why are you choosing to use those words in the first place?

Read the whole piece with illustrations at Lucy Sheen's website.

Question for the Act for Change Conference: are the political dangers in keeping East Asian British minority invisible fully understood?

Hackney-born Chinese British punk Anna Chen kicks up. Pic by Bob Carlos Clarke

Act For Change Conference, Young Vic Theatre
30th June 2014
Chair: Shami Chakrabarti
Panel: Julie Crampsie, BBC casting director; Steve November, Head Of ITV programming; writer Stephen Poliakoff; film producer Allison Owen; and Ewan Marshall, former artistic director of Graeae Theatre Company.

Dear Act for Change Conference panel,

I would like to ask if the panel is aware of the dangerous political aspect of keeping East Asian Britons (BEA) invisible and excluded in the culture.

How being a blank canvas means that governments can divert social anger onto you.

There have been several occasions when there have been attempts to scapegoat British East Asians out of political expediency, such as the Foot and Mouth Disease (FMD) outbreak in 2000/2001. When the outbreak was clearly out of the government's control — with images of burning pyres of livestock, and farmers committing suicide — someone from the now defunct Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (MAFF) briefed Valerie Elliott of The Times that the outbreak was started by Chinese restaurants in Northumberland.

This was an absurd accusation of a minority based on no evidence whatsoever: just pure prejudice. However, all the mainstream press ran with it except, notably and honourably, Yasmin Alibhai-Brown and Ian Burrell of The Independent. Broadsheets and tabloids alike carried lurid headlines such as, “Sheep and Sow Source”. Nationwide fury towards the government over their incompetence was diverted onto a small innocent group.

It was possible for the accusation to stick in an unquestioning media environment for several scary months, during which there was intimidation, ostracism, threats, spitting and a build-up to physical attacks on Chinese in places like Cumbria, precisely because we are dehumanised by our invisibility. The association of minorities with filth and pestilence has some dangerous precedents in world history, and it is shocking to see that it can be done so swiftly here.

We are a blank canvas upon which anyone can project their own inner demons.

Fortunately, our efforts to challenge the perverse narrative peddled by politicians and press were successful. A delegation of Chinese representatives from across the community had meetings with Nick Brown, the MAFF minister, pointing out the obvious: that there was no scientific basis for the slur. For the first time ever the Chinese went on strike and closed Chinatown. A thousand of us marched to the MAFF offices where Nick Brown vindicated us in front of the world's cameras.

By continuing to collude in this invisibility, the various cultural bodies help to create a climate where social unrest, fears and anger, can be directed onto us.

We are part of the fabric of British society, not an exotic add-on. We expect to be treated as such. Does the panel understand the importance of this?

On a personal level, I was born and raised in Hackney, east London. I was perhaps the first Chinese British punk, hanging out at Vivienne Westwood's shop with other bright disaffected kids in the 1970s. I am as British as they come but I am constantly made to feel like an outsider. I do not want East Asian invisibility and exclusion to continue to adversely affect further generations of British youth.

Read BEA FAQ for the BBC

Actress Lucy Sheen on "Why-am-i-not-feeling-the-liberte-egalite-fraternite-for-british-east-asians".

BEA FAQ for the BBC, casting directors and general media

Originally posted along with the BBC robo-letter, British East Asian FAQ for the BBC, casting directors, the media and anyone working in areas where diversity is an issue gets its own page here.

FAQ about BEAs for the benefit of the BBC, casting directors and reviewers.

Q: Is it true that East Asians can only play East Asians?

A: East Asian people are said to possess a wide range of human emotions. If you are nice to them, they are often nice back. If you are horrid, they may very well get cross. If, for example, you are in an accident, you may be lucky enough to find East Asians willing to call an ambulance, staunch the bleeding and tie a tourniquet, clear your airways, crack a joke to cheer you up and phone your mum to let her know you may be some time. In real life in the UK we find Chinese bus drivers, Korean traffic wardens, Thai teachers, plus scientists, lawyers and doctors from a whole slew of East Asian origins. Look out for them — we're sure you'll find them.

Q: Is it true that only East Asians can play East Asians?

A: Yes, when white actors play East Asians — such as John Wayne as Genghis Khan, Mickey Rooney as Mr Yunioshi or Jonathan Pryce as the Eurasian pimp — it is called "yellowface". Like "blackface" before it, it is considered bad form by nice people who would not kick a puppy or drown a kitten or otherwise do anything horrid to another sentient being.

Q: Do East Asians have lives outside the takeaway, snakehead gangs and business?

A: Should the takeaway, the restaurant and the casino in your drama already have their full complement of ethnic characters, you may well find other areas where East Asians would fit right in. Having a complicated romance, for example. Discovering a cure for cancer. There's a Chinese doctor whose mitochondrial DNA research proves we all walked out of Africa 70-100 thousand years ago. Think of any human endeavour and we bet you could find an East Asian who has already done it or who is working on it.

Q: Is it true that some East Asians have regional British accents?

A: Human beings tend to absorb and reflect their environment. With over 500,000 Chinese and East Asians in Britain, we think it is likely that some of them will speak Cockney, Scouse, Brummie, Glasgie and so forth.

Q: Do all East Asians do kung fu?

A: Yes. This is something we try and deny to throw you off the scent that we are coming for you.

Q: Is it true that East Asians are all clever?

A: No. Emphatically, no. Did I mention no?

Q: Do East Asians have hobbies or do they unplug themselves when they aren't working in the takeaway or selling dodgy DVDs or hacking?

A: Pertaining to the answer above, you can find them writing poetry, painting and drawing, having tragic romances, raising children, keeping pets and fighting da man.

Q: Are there any East Asians training to be actors? We just don't have a wide enough pool of talent to draw from.

A: Ah, you must be a casting director. Contrary to the myth, there have been Chinese actors in Britain since Burt Kwouk was in short pants and Tsai Chin's dialogue was conducted mostly in short pants for the very varied roles afforded her as Suzy Wong and Juicy Lucy, neither of her characters rocket scientists, sadly. We are confident that a cursory investigation of our drama schools will appraise you as to the number of trained East Asian actors emerging to join those who have been here long time.

Q: European actors have so much character — how can East Asians possibly compete?

A: Acting is a very competitive business but East Asian actors are certainly able to “compete” with their Caucasian counterparts. They no longer have to do this by scrunching up their eyes and doing that buck-tooth smiley thing so beloved of Hollywood back when the world was black and white, and the BBC right up to Sherlock: the reboot. There are more roles in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than the Spooks, Fu Manchu and China dolls dreamt of in your philosophy. A cunning ability to make bad Mandarin sound like good Mandarin to BBC ears will also ensure that one day the said East Asian actor will certainly be able to “compete” with the likes of Benny Cumberbatch and Olly Coleman for all those fantastic quality drama roles once you realise that China is a juicy ol' market, a piece of which you might just want one day.

Q: How come East Asians do submissive nookie so well?

A: We learned this at our grandmothers' tiny lotus feet, grasshopper, and imbibed it with our mothers' milk. Or our wet-nurses' milk if you happen to be a Chinese oligarch. Ha! Only choking. Some might say you were just too darn lazy or lacking in imagination to create, say, a working-class Chinese woman, bright, sparky and political with no business sense whatsoever, who dreams of a better world where we are all equal. Oh ... that would be me.

Q: Doesn't the actor have to reflect the character they portray and include things like ethnicity as well as wider considerations of age, gender, physical appearance and so on?

A: Sometimes we suspect you are just too stupid to do this job and perhaps you shouldn't be clogging up the works with your seething prejudice. At other times, we just think maybe you should get out more. To answer your question, yes, which is why Laurence Olivier made such a good Othello.

The Fairy Princess Diaries: When the BBC told the BEAs to take a Slow Boat to China….

Open letter from the British East Asian Artists in response to the BBC letter.

British East Asian FAQs for BBC, casting directors and media

Intrepid tweeting British East Asian (BEA) Bess Chan (AKA Katherine Chan) wrote to me attaching a letter she'd received from BBC about lack of BEA representation on the airwaves. She and her friends had been wondering why it was that American East Asians (Asian Americans) are seen as American, whereas BEAs (East Asian Brits) are seen as foreign.

So they asked the BBC. Back came a letter, long-winded where it should have been enlightening, and gleefully patronising, as if addressing a slow six-year old. In light of the many, many, MANY words we BEAs have written to try and communicate our views about cultural participation, depiction and fairness to the various institutions, we find ourselves puzzled and muzzled. What's a po' BEA to do?

Bess wrote, "We realised that it's all American and wanted to find out why British East Asians don't have same opportunities. We decided to find out why and started with BBC as they're funded in part by the people they won't represent."

Good point.

Now: savour the put-downs! Marvel at the total wilful lack of comprehension by this bureaucrat! Gaze aghast at the Orwellian Ministry of Truth in full effect!

Highlights and lowlights from BBC letter Reference CAS-2709995-Y9CFXK

The first thing to assure you of is that the BBC does take all aspects of diversity incredibly seriously, and we have dedicated personnel, policies and protocols all of which help us to achieve our overall aim of fully and fairly representing and reflecting our diverse audiences from across the UK.

As we mentioned previously, yes there is more to do and things simply cannot change overnight [good frikkin' grief! Overnight? Try 'decades'.], especially in the area of television programmes which as you will appreciate can often be made or parts filmed some considerable time, months and years in some cases, before being broadcast. Nevertheless, we have a strong, public commitment to all issues surrounding diversity both on-screen and on-air, behind the cameras and microphones, and across our workforce, partners and suppliers.

You mention ITV holding open castings for disabled actors, and actually although the BBC is structured very differently to ITV of course [dear god!] - for example they are simply one, smallish company which just operates television channels whereas we are a much larger, much more complex and massively more separated multimedia broadcaster with many different and separate departments and divisions as opposed to one all-encompassing department which oversees absolutely everything.

We do undertake a huge range of initiatives to help us achieve our goals, indeed we have done so in partnership with ITV upon occasion. Some people believe that we as a publicly-funded public-service broadcaster should be subject to formal quotas on diversity, but the reality is that this cannot happen as it would be contrary to the Equality Act and would actually result in unfairness to everyone. This is often called "positive discrimination" but as the name itself suggests, it is still "discrimination" and thus still illegal. Of course any of the theatrical industries including television must be able to maintain artistic choice and discretion in what they do. To put it simply the actors hired are employed on the basis of their judged suitability for the role which has been written. You'll understand that the actor does have to reflect the character they portray and, yes, this includes things like ethnicity as well as wider considerations of age, gender, physical appearance and so on. But that's not to say that there is any bias against or in favour of any group of society in terms of television drama productions, which you mention specifically. Something like EastEnders will over time, aim for a very wide range of characters and thus actors to portray them, but as mentioned above what we couldn't do is simply shoehorn a British East Asian family of characters in for no reason or relevance as that would equate to what we've touched upon above, "positive discrimination". [Shoehorn? SHOEHORN? Speaking as an East Ender ... Limehouse, much?]

Things like storylines and future characters in long-running drama serials are very fluid and constantly evolving, and are not an exact science at all. There is absolutely no discrimination by writers and producers against any section of society when considering such things, it's simply about characters, relevance, what can be brought to the wider context of the show and the series as a whole. For something like EastEnders, producers would consider the reality of the east end of London upon which depictions are based, thus questions would be is there a sizeable British East Asian population/presence/culture in the type of area Walford is meant to reflect. The answer might be that whilst there may be a presence, it perhaps doesn't specifically equate to something that could necessarily be part of storylines. Clearly something set elsewhere where there might be a much more prominent and well-established presence, would be handled differently. So, as you can see, there are very many things to consider in this area, and whilst we are naturally sorry to learn that you feel we do not yet have things quite right on-screen, we can assure you that in everything we do, we are all very mindful of not only our obligations in terms of diversity but also the fact that we want to get these things right for exactly the reasons you suggest, ie that we are a broadcaster which serves and thus must reflect our audiences. [We are your audience. Well ... not me, maybe, as I can't stand thickie fodder like Eastenders.]

Our approach, as mentioned, covers everything from fairness and openness in our staff recruitment and employment, through our many dedicated programmes and schemes and partnerships all of which help us to try and attract and retain personnel especially from groups which may be currently under-represented in our workforce, be that people with a disability, older people, women in particular roles, a broader range of backgrounds and ethnicities and so on. All these things of course help level the playing field and, ultimately, benefit us by making a better, more rounded workforce. The same ideas apply to on-air personnel as explained earlier, in that we want the best and most suitable person for the requirements of the role but whilst no-one is excluded or discriminated against, as mentioned a medium like television does have to allow programme makers the ability to have a very wide choice based on the dramatic and artistic requirements upon them. [War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength, all you Orwell lovers.]

What the BBC cannot possibly do, of course, is be responsible for the talent pool of actors out there, put simply we ourselves cannot create British East Asian actors, we have to rely on schools, colleges, drama clubs and schools, the theatre and so on to identify, train and nurture young talent which then feeds through to the wider British cultural scene including BBC TV and Radio.

We are simply one broadcaster and programme-maker amongst many including countless independent and commercial production companies and so on, all of whom share the responsibility for casting and employing. The BBC does not oversee or govern such things itself, nor should we, as it is not our role to create actors, nor is it our role to guarantee acting work to anyone not least based on their background or ethicity. But what we can and do do is work with many different partners across the country and support emerging talent through schemes, initiatives and projects to encourage talent to come forward, ie to encourage applications and approaches from people from groups which might be under-represented.

Again, this goes back to the notion of wishing to encourage and inspire without "positively discriminating". So, British East Asian actors can compete against any other actor, but the key word is compete because this is one of the most - indeed, perhaps the most, competitive industries there is thus there is huge competition for every role and every position with countless people being left disappointed of course, but that's the reality of the performing arts.

All the above said, British East Asian actors and presenters have and continue to appear across a wide and diverse range of BBC programming. One only has to think of the wonderfully bubbly and popular Pui Fan Lee who of course made her name in CBeebies' international hit Teletubbies and subsequently appeared as herself fronting our children's programme Show Me Show Me amongst many, many others often alongside Chris Jarvis. Indeed she was the first person who appeared on CBeebies when we launched the channel thus she enjoys a hugely high profile on the BBC having also acted in our Chef! comedy series and our gritty drama State of Play. Daphne Cheung has been a film and television regular for many years including on the BBC, most recently in the dramas Holby City and Spooks, and our wonderfully dark comedy series Psychoville but more recently of course in Channel 4's wonderful Friday Night Dinner; Jing Lusi as the inimitable Dr Tara in BBC One's fantastically popular Holby City - across two series; the fantastic and critically acclaimed actress Jessica Henwick as the Bafta-nominated lead in our award-winning Spirit Warriors, plus work across BBC Radio including the Sony Award-nominated North by Northamptonshire, BBC Four's internationally-acclaimed The Thick Of It, BBC One drama Silk of course (and the planned future companion series); the super-stylish Scottish actress Katie Leung in the BBC's GK Chesterton adaptations of the Father Brown crime mysteries, who is also set to appear in an upcoming BBC Two drama; the wonderful Benedict Wong has had many and various roles in a huge range of TV programmes often with Channel 4 but also in a number of BBC roles including Spooks and State of Play plus Peter Serafinowicz's comedy Look Around You followed by BBC Two's The Peter Serafinowicz Show of course; Yao Chin, who is of course more well known now as being a television news journalist made his television acting debuts, after many stage appearances, in BBC programmes including Dalziel & Pascoe and Casualty early in his career.

We did mention Burt Kwok {Er, that's Burt Kwouk to the rest of us.] previously but it is worth reiterating that he has appeared on countless BBC programmes over the years right back to Tony Hancock's radio shows in the 1950s, he was adored by many millions in Last of the Summer Wine for many, many years of course, plus many other high profile BBC series over the decades from Judge John Deed to Silent Witness, to the award-winning Spirit Warriors alongside Tom Wu and others, most recently of course over on ITV as Harry Hill's long-suffering comedy sidekick; and one must not forget the fabulous David Yip in the seminal BBC drama The Chinese Detective all those years ago which remains as a truly groundbreaking, artistic masterpiece of television, a central work in British culture, which led to many and various roles with the BBC and elsewhere, including of course a successful global film career. [This is sounding like BBC Stepford.] The above is simply a tiny snapshot by way of a few examples to try and demonstrate that clearly there is no lack of opportunity for British East Asian actors across the BBC, and whilst some of the above examples are of course historical, we wanted to make the point that some of the biggest and best BBC programmes over many years have featured these wonderful actors including in lead and award-winning and -nominated roles in award-winning and -nominated programmes across all genres from children’s to one-off and serial dramas and comedy to political satire. [And that's it?]

We appreciate that you feel more could and should be done and we share your ambition for more British East Asians to appear on BBC programmes and be part of our workforce to ensure that we continue to work towards becoming fully and fairly reflective of all aspects of modern British culture. In closing, we're again sorry that our earlier reply missed the mark thus requiring you to get back in touch, but we would like to thank you for doing so thus affording us another opportunity to reply to your concerns, concerns which we hope we have allayed to some degree at least here.

Kind Regards
BBC Complaints

That ain't a response — that's a software programme gone wrong.

So bereft of comprehension was it that Madam Miaow felt compelled to write a FAQ U BBC.

FAQs about BEAs for the BBC, casting directors and reviewers:

Q: Is it true that East Asians can only play East Asians?

A: East Asian people are said to possess a wide range of human emotions. If you are nice to them, they are often nice back. If you are horrid, they may very well get cross. If, for example, you are in an accident, you may be lucky enough to find East Asians willing to call an ambulance, staunch the bleeding and tie a tourniquet, clear your airways, crack a joke to cheer you up and phone your mum to let her know you may be some time. In real life in the UK we find Chinese bus drivers, Korean traffic wardens, Thai teachers, plus scientists, lawyers and doctors from a whole slew of East Asian origins. Look out for them — we're sure you'll find them.

Q: Is it true that only East Asians can play East Asians?

A: Yes, when white actors play East Asians — such as John Wayne as Genghis Khan, Mickey Rooney as Mr Yunioshi or Jonathan Pryce as the Eurasian pimp — it is called "yellowface". Like "blackface" before it, it is considered bad form by nice people who would not kick a puppy or drown a kitten or otherwise do anything horrid to another sentient being.

Q: Do East Asians have lives outside the takeaway, snakehead gangs and business?

A: Should the takeaway, the restaurant and the casino in your drama already have their full complement of ethnic characters, you may well find other areas where East Asians would fit right in. Having a complicated romance, for example. Discovering a cure for cancer. There's a Chinese doctor whose mitochondrial DNA research proves we all walked out of Africa 70-100 thousand years ago. Think of any human endeavour and we bet you could find an East Asian who has already done it or who is working on it.

Q: Is it true that some East Asians have regional British accents?

A: Human beings tend to absorb and reflect their environment. With over 500,000 Chinese and East Asians in Britain, we think it is likely that some of them will speak Cockney, Scouse, Brummie, Glasgie and so forth.

Q: Do all East Asians do kung fu?

A: Yes. This is something we try and deny to throw you off the scent that we are coming for you.

Q: Is it true that East Asians are all clever?

A: No. Emphatically, no. Did I mention no?

Q: Do East Asians have hobbies or do they unplug themselves when they aren't working in the takeaway or selling dodgy DVDs or hacking?

A: Pertaining to the answer above, you can find them writing poetry, painting and drawing, having tragic romances, raising children, keeping pets and fighting da man.

Q: Are there any East Asians training to be actors? We just don't have a wide enough pool of talent to draw from.

A: Ah, you must be a casting director. Contrary to the myth, there have been Chinese actors in Britain since Burt Kwouk was in short pants and Tsai Chin's dialogue was conducted mostly in short pants for the very varied roles afforded her as Suzy Wong and Juicy Lucy, neither of her characters rocket scientists, sadly. We are confident that a cursory investigation of our drama schools will appraise you as to the number of trained East Asian actors emerging to join those who have been here long time.

Q: European actors have so much character — how can East Asians possibly compete?

A: Acting is a very competitive business but East Asian actors are certainly able to “compete” with their Caucasian counterparts. They no longer have to do this by scrunching up their eyes and doing that buck-tooth smiley thing so beloved of Hollywood back when the world was black and white, and the BBC right up to Sherlock: the reboot. There are more roles in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than the Spooks, Fu Manchu and China dolls dreamt of in your philosophy. A cunning ability to make bad Mandarin sound like good Mandarin to BBC ears will also ensure that one day the said East Asian actor will certainly be able to “compete” with the likes of Benny Cumberbatch and Olly Coleman for all those fantastic quality drama roles once you realise that China is a juicy ol' market, a piece of which you just might want one day.

Q: How come East Asians do submissive nookie so well?

A: We learned this at our grandmothers' tiny lotus feet, grasshopper, and imbibed it with our mothers' milk. Or our wet-nurses' milk if you happen to be a Chinese oligarch. Ha! Only choking. Some might say you were just to darn lazy or lacking in imagination to create, say, a working-class Chinese woman, bright, sparky and political with no business sense whatsoever, who dreams of a better world where we are all equal. Oh ... that would be me.

Q: Doesn't the actor have to reflect the character they portray and include things like ethnicity as well as wider considerations of age, gender, physical appearance and so on?

A: Sometimes we suspect you are just too stupid to do this job and perhaps you shouldn't be clogging up the works with your seething prejudice. At other times, we just think maybe you should get out more. To answer your question, yes, which is why Laurence Olivier made such a good Othello.

The Fairy Princess Diaries: When the BBC told the BEAs to take a Slow Boat to China….

FAQ about BEA for the BBC, casting directors and media.

In 2005, Ofcom allowed public service broadcasters to keep their equality monitoring "confidential". BAME participation fell off a cliff. BAME workers in the TV industry have fallen 30.9 per cent 2006-2012. In 2010, Ofcom dropped their Broadcasting Training and Equality Programme which evidently didn't help.

Open letter from the British East Asian Artists in response to the BBC letter.