Racism
Universities don’t need to be lectured about racism
I’ve been contacted by a professor at a leading Russell Group university who is worried about the spread of progressive…
A 90-minute slog up to a dazzling peak: ‘Master Harold’… and the boys reviewed
Athol Fugard likes to dump his characters in settings with no dramatic thrust or tension. A prison yard is a…
An elegy for New York
New York The master of the love letter to New York, E.B. White, eloquently described the city as a place…
A decorative pageant that would appeal to civic grandees: The Secret River reviewed
The Secret River opens in a fertile corner of New South Wales in the early 1800s. William, a cockney pauper…
The joys of Radio 4’s Word of Mouth
I first heard Lemn Sissay talking about his childhood experiences on Radio 4 in 2009. At that time he was…
Trump heals the nation…by attacking Beto for his ‘phony name’
The Democratic party, mired in infighting only a week ago, has reunited over racial division. New Jersey senator Cory Booker…
Trump’s truths about Baltimore
‘You would think you were in a Third World country,’ the millionaire white New Yorker of retirement age said of Baltimore’s heavily…
America’s brutal borstals: The Nickel Boys, by Colson Whitehead, reviewed
Novelists will always be interested in enclosed communities — or the ‘total institution’, as sociologists say. When you separate a…
Racist incidents are down since Trump’s election. Yes, really
The election of Donald Trump has, of course, unleashed the latent racist which lurks within millions of Americans. We know…
Is now a good time to talk about Jews and money?
Is now a good time to talk about Jews and money? The Jewish Museum in London thinks so, and perhaps…
Why Gomorrah could never have been made by the BBC
Boy often likes to rebuke me for having impossibly high standards when it comes to TV. ‘Why can’t you just…
The intoxicating languor of the Caribbean
Ian Fleming’s voodoo extravaganza Live and Let Die finds James Bond in rapt consultation of The Traveller’s Tree by Patrick…
The mind-readers who know we’re all racists inside
For months I’ve been looking forward to the Guardian’s much-heralded report on racism in Britain, which was unveiled this week.…
One of the best plays I’ve ever seen: I and You at the Hampstead Theatre reviewed
Lauren Gunderson’s play I and You opens in the scruffy bedroom of 17-year-old Caroline. Lonely, beautiful and furious, she’s unable…
Identity politics are – by definition – racist
To mark last weekend’s one-year anniversary of the violent right-wing demonstrations in Charlottesville, Virginia, a meagre two dozen card-carrying white…
Baseball is perfect. Don’t make it all about race.
Los Angeles Baseball is the best American sport. It’s great because it’s timeless — it exists in a space beyond…
Video games like Fortnite are fun — so they must be bad
It was only a matter of time. The headteacher of a primary school in Ilfracombe in Devon has banned ‘Flossing’,…
Benjamin Zephaniah once found the leg of a man in the back of a Ford Cortina
‘For me rhyming was normal,’ said Benjamin Zephaniah, reading from his autobiography on Radio 4. Back in the 1960s, on…
Racism and the RSC: why I was a sitting duck for the arts mob
Our ducks are back. Two wild mallard have spent the last five springs on the brook which gurgles past us…
Can you prove you’re not a racist?
After an essay in this month’s Prospect about literature and freedom of speech, it seems I was cited on Twitter…
What can we learn from Jeremy Bentham’s pickled head?
Under the central dome of UCL — an indoor crossroads where hordes of students come and go on their way…
Rarely has the West End seen such a draining and nasty experience: The Exorcist reviewed
The Exorcist opened in 1973 accompanied by much hoo-ha in the press. Scenes of panic, nausea and fainting were recorded…
Goodbye London, Reykjavik here I come
I have a message for the London mayor, Sadiq Khan: you and your policies stink! While the fuzz are busy…
Racism is a grey area
This book is an exercise in crying wolf that utterly fails to prove its main thesis: that Europe is abandoning…
Perishable goods
Labour of Love is the new play by James Graham, the poet laureate of politics. We’re in a derelict…
