The creativity of author, designer, broadcaster Ben Arogundade
Ben Arogundade’s New Black Lives Matter Book - Hollywood Blackout - Talks Of Racism At The Oscars
IN RESPONSE TO THE MURDER of George Floyd, and the reaction of the Black Lives Matter movement, I have written a new book which tells the story of discrimination at the Oscars. By Ben Arogundade. June. 25, 2024.
GRAPHICS OF RESISTANCE: A Black Lives Matter protester sits below a mural to George Floyd, the African American murdered by a white police officer on a Minneapolis street on May 25, 2020. His death sparked worldwide protests and marches, which have become the catalyst for a new civil rights revolution.
WE WERE SHOCKED and appalled by the murder of George Floyd, and many other unarmed black citizens, and heartened by the resistance of Black Lives Matter. For me, like many black people, such events have brought back memories of my own experiences of racism. I have been called the ‘N’ word, both in the street and in the workplace, which went unchallenged by my white bosses. I have been falsely arrested by the police, and subjected to the humiliations of being handcuffed and strip-searched. I have routinely been discriminated against everywhere from the jobs market to online dating sites. My parents also suffered racist abuse after they arrived in the UK from Nigeria as part of the Windrush generation in 1961.
MOVING ON
What matters most is not this painful past, but what we are going to do now. I am determined to transform my feelings of anger, pain and sadness into something positive and inclusive, which gathers and unifies citizens of all ethnicities who believe in fairness, equality and love. Hopefully that is you.
This is the most important time in the history of the struggle for racial equality since the death of Martin Luther King in 1968 — and the Black Lives Matter movement is its global, multi-racial spearhead. I have written before about the history of the black experience, in a book called Black Beauty published in 2000. It went on to become a bestseller, was honoured by the New York Public Library and become the subject of a three-part BBC documentary.
NEW BLACK LIVES MATTER BOOK
My new book continues this literary journey into this new century. Beginning where ‘Black Beauty’ left off, this book, called Hollywood Blackout, will become an important educational and historical document that will both inform the growing audience of people seeking to understand how we got here, and also help ensure that the aims and values of the Black Lives Matter movement continue to resonate.
