Tony Warner Seminar

Wednesday 16th seminar was held by Tony Warner on the subject of black history month. Tony is an activist/historian passionate about educating people and sharing his knowledge of the heritage of African people in Britain. The talk began by Tony asking a series of questions about black saints and noblemen, looking at how we perceive them nowadays in comparison to how they were perceived 500 years ago. In the 16th and 17th centuries Africans in portraits and paintings had a royal portrayal, one of the first changes was noticed in 1863 in the painting "The Secret of England's Greatness" by Thomas Jones Barker. The painting shows an African king kneeling to queen Victoria as she hands him a bible, in the original sketch they are both standing on the same level, but for some reason the artist later changed the scene to as it is now.

Another question I found puzzling, was that when asked if there were black people in world war 2, no one had any knowledge of their presence in helping Britain in the war, why we weren't taught this in school is questionable. Men from the Caribbean in Trinidad and Jamaica assisted Englishmen alongside 2.5 million Indian men, whom without we may not have achieved the same outcome to the war.

Tony was very interactive with the audience, encouraging us to be vocal about our views, opinions and perceptions. The following main point to be made, was in recognising positive and negative images of black people, then considering which type we see most commonly. We revealed that the media, in particular the television and music industries, predominantly promote the negative images such as violent gangster hip hop music and provocative dancing, opposed to images of happy families, or traditional African culture being passed through generations.

The result of the largely negative representation of black people is reflecting on children of the next generation, tests have been carried out from the fifties on children to analyse their reaction and understand how they feel about the subject. A common test is one using two dolls, one black, one white, the child is then asked a series of questions such as, which is their favourite doll, then select the good doll, then the bad doll and then the doll that looks most like them. The results show that in general most children chose the white dolls as their favourite and the 'good' doll, with the black doll as the 'bad' doll, one young girl even said she didn't like herself because she was black, which is heartbreaking. It's astounding that children so young can have such clear views on peoples appearance reflecting who they may be, or may not be in many cases.

I went into the lecture with a fairly closed mind not knowing what we were about to witness, but expecting to be half asleep by the end, however I was pleasantly surprised. Tony's talk was eye opening and very interesting, he explained his points clearly for everyone to understand, backing them up with photos and the occasional amusing video, I can genuinely say I learnt a lot and am glad I attended.

Tony's Warners website: www.blackhistorywalks.co.uk