When did I GIVE UP?
I've watched a couple of TV biographies including that of Kwame Kwei-Armah who's AD at the New Vic. It shocked me to notice that his rise to fame began at the same time I left London...
...I don't regret leaving London for my health: I was stressed and frustrated by a big buck salary for a stupid job that wanted to keep me on for window-dressing and there was a growing tension in the air so that when "7-7" happened, I don't think many people were that surprised. In terms of my 'career'... It has been a disaster... Well perhaps that is a bit dramatic, but it is clear that having an advocacy role which required 'speaking truth unto power' on behalf of minority ethnic creative professionals was always going to be a thankless job. The smallness of the creative sector up here is a boon and a curse: it is a boon as long as you stay cosy with the prevailing cliques, I was on the outside from the beginning as I worked for the regional development agency representing community sector organisations which the agency patronised at best. They were unprepared for my commitment to community development which saw me at odds with the agency's 'core strategy' of attracting large employers to the region (whch proved to be short term and unsustainable as I predicted).
But having criticised the powers that be, and working for a Board of Trustees who didn't want to actually rock any boats, it became more difficult for me to get back into the sector once that organisation was defunded. I launched Community Hubs Network cic in defiance as the latest version of my freelance practice, but my successes were limited- largely because the way I wanted to work was new to people with whom I tried to associate. I think the worst thing was the Sal Lumsden Archive Project (SLAP); I made my usual mistake of being democratic about it and enabling as many people to be involved as practical which led to some people in positions who were unable to do things at least as well as I could have done them! ONE of the people I involved as a member of the Steering Group, who received all the plans etc went on to come up with pretty much the same idea, marketed differently and run through the university where he works. Although the scope of the project was narrower, this person managed to get a lot of notice FOR HIMSELF and now, during 'LGBTQ History Month' NOTHING has come from him at all.
I stepped back from that because there was no way I could have won the inevitable conflict: the guy was popular and young and a university lecturer central to a cohort of homosexualists in which I am not welcome. It is ironic that I have a reputation as a bruiser who likes to argue, when there are so many times I walk away from 'fights'- mainly because I know that if I use all my powers and energies in a fight I will alienate more than I win over. It may sound like a whining excuse, but it is true that I often won't argue or challenge someone because of fear of being called a bully! I feel that my ethnicity as much as my physicality are contributors to that.
It is no news that I was crushed by the collapse... no, that is not accurate: by the SELL OUT of the North East Sustained Theatre group by the Arse Council. Nearly seven years of my life working towards creating a creative centre for Black and minority ethnic creative professionals in the North East was quietly dismissed with a little jiggery-pokery which involved bribing the woman who took over from me as 'Chair' by making her (dubious) "company" an NPO. He, he, he: that did backfire when the company was censured for dodgy finances. The hardest part was that the guy who I replaced as Chair (Garfield Allen) had warned me that the Sustained Theatre grant would end up in London, which is pretty much what happened.
I thought of things I'd done but not fulfilled their potentials often because of the fears or conservatism of the 'Trustees' and 'Directors' I've served:The London Lesbian and Gay Centre, The National Centre for Black and Asian Performing Arts, The Bird's Nest Theatre, 'Beatiful Thing at Marlowe's', The From Boyhood to Manhood Foundation, The Actors Centre/Tristan Bates Theatre, Talawa Theatre Company - I mean: any ONE of those would have been enough for most people, I ended up NEARLY getting there on all of the above and am able to show that in almost each situation, the reason potentials were not reached were because of the people to whom I reported. LOL I know what that sounds like but I can prove it!
So the last thing I did was running The Stanhope Centre for Durham County Council. I left because I was underpaid in relation to other management and adminstration staff to the point where I couldn't afford to run the car I needed for work. Since then I have appled for HUNDREDS of jobs, to no avail. I KNOW that my name is poison in some quarters, I've also applied for jobs that would have presented no real challenge and not been shortlisted. It has taken six or so years for me to realise that i am not going anywhere, fast, so perhaps it is less a case of me giving up but of me having been given up on.
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