Mad, Sad and Bad with Paloma Faith - Afua Hirsch: My Afro Was “Too Big” For TV News

Episode Date: March 25, 2025

Afua Hirsch is an activist, writer, broadcaster, and an incredible storyteller who exudes inspiration. Her ability to express herself with diplomacy while never compromising on her convictions is seriously impressive, so I was thrilled to invite her round for a chat!In this conversation, Afua opens up about making sense of her dual-heritage identity, and how challenging western beauty standards has helped her to reconnect with her own body, beauty ideals, and culture. Afua also discusses her experiences as a TV news reporter; from being told her afro was too big for TV, to hearing that racism doesn’t exist from an all-white panel, and why she’ll never seek approval from industry gatekeepers.Through her activism and writing, Afua has helped countless people to understand and articulate the black-British experience. She is a true inspiration and a force to be reckoned with!#AFUAHIRSCH #PALOMAFAITH #MADSADBAD—Find us on: Instagram / TikTok / YouTube—Credits:Producer: Jemima RathboneAssistant Producer: Magda CassidyEdit Producer: Pippa BrownEditor: Shane O'ByrneVideo: Jake Ji & Grisha NikolskyVideo Editor: Josh BennettOriginal music: BUTCH PIXYSocial Media: Laura CoughlanMarketing: Eleanore BamberExec Producer: Jemima RathboneExec Producers for Idle Industries: Dave Granger & Will MacdonaldSenior Exec Producer: Holly Newson Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hello, I'm Paloma Faith and this is my show. Each week I welcome someone fantastic into my home to talk about what makes them mad, sad and bad. Roll recording. Cozy in here, thank you about. How have you been? It's freezing. It's really cold. I'm not built for this by there. I'm applying lip balm every five seconds.

Stop them falling off my face. Cutting through to the liverman. Thank you. Oh wow. She's a writer and broadcaster known to question authority and query history. She's a best-selling author of British and decolonising my body, speaking on different topics, articulately calling out unconscious bias and the intricacies of prejudice. She's hosted the TV show Enslaved with Samuel L Jackson

and writes for publications, including Vogue and Time, and last year was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. She is a speaker and activist, a podcaster, an all-round inspirational woman. But to me, she's a woman who I admire for her diplomacy. She masterfully manages to not start fires with her opinions, something I'm personally in awe of. An example being when Boris Johnson once said to her at a party,

he wished he was black. How she didn't deck him then and there, I have no idea. It's for her. Thank you. Thanks for coming for my house. It's such a pleasure. There's so many amazing things you've done. And what out of those things are you most proud of?

It's funny, I never really gave myself props for the fact that I didn't deck Boris Johnson. Well done. That should be on my list of accomplishments. I think the thing I'm proudest of is like following my own part and not ever really seeking approval from the system. You know, not just kind of like climbing the career ladder and going for the rewards, but really knowing when I need to stay true to my beliefs and my opinions. And that's what's allowed me to always voice my business. views because I've never been compromised by having to say the right thing or tow a corporate line

or to a political line. And I think that's one reason that people do have confidence to me because they know if I say something, it's because I've really done my homework and bought it through and I believe it and I'm only sharing it because I think it's useful for everyone. So that's what I really pride myself. Bye. My friends have arrived, I think. I've got some friends popping in. How sweet. Hopefully someone will let them in. This is like a whole party. Yeah. Hi. This is this is. This is. I. Aya Hadir. Hi, Aya.

And this is Janelle. Hi, Janelle sings with me in my band. Wow. And is a solo artist. And Aya is an artist, a fine artist. He's done loads of work on displacement and migration. And she's from Lebanon originally. And is very amazing and inspiring.

So they're going to come. We come and chat in a bit. I can't wait. I can't wait. Make a cup of tea. Make a cup of tea. Come in. So I just wanted to ask you based on what you said,

like, what do you think led you to have the confidence to do that, like to have the courage of your convictions, not try and fit in? Like, what about your background or your personality or whatever, nature, nurture, I don't know, made you have the confidence to do that because most don't? Yeah, I do think about that a lot because I'm sure you can relate to this. You never set out to be different or, A spokesperson. Or spokesperson.

I never have the audacity to hold myself out as the voice of anyone other than myself. But you find yourself in that position. And then you wonder why. In fact, even now, whenever I say something that I'm not really seeing said, I've always kind of assume someone else is also going to be saying it. And then I'm really surprised that I don't see other people speaking out. And then it makes me think, what is it about me then that I'm the one who will say it out loud?

Both sides of my family come from histories of empire and violence. My mother came from Ghana during a time of real colonial upheaval. Ghana was achieving independence from Britain, had to fight really hard for it, and then suffered the turmoil of Britain and America continuing to interfere in its politics. My father's father was a child refugee from Nazi Germany, a Jewish unaccompanied child refugee in 1939. And I, through both sides of my heritage, feel a sense of what it means when those rules don't work, when your humanity is not valued, when you're part of an oppressive system. And so for me, growing up as well, like, I had quite a privileged upbringing.

I grew up in Wimbledon. I went to private school. I had this really, like, leafy environment and safe streets and all this promise and opportunity. I had to reconcile what I knew had happened to my ancestors with the world I was living in where people had these, like, real middle-class conventions and everything seemed rosy, and people felt really self-satisfied about how civilized Britain is and how wonderful the democracy it is and how it spread these values throughout the world. And I knew in my DNA, the dissonance, that that was not the true story. And it was a cover up. It was a cover up. And I guess I have a strong sense of justice. I don't like it when people don't tell the truth. And in this case, I think a lot of people in this country are maybe not

deliberately not telling the truth. They've just been miseducated or lied to. But that's where curiosity comes in. Because no matter what we've been taught, none of us have been given an education that really equips us to navigate or understand this. But the information is there for you if you want to find this. If you understand the humanity of other people who are different to you, and if you're curious about the real story, then you look deeper. You self-educate. You talk to people.

You read things that weren't on your curriculum. You ask questions. And I think I do have that personality. So it's a combination of things that I could see that the stories I knew didn't match the narrative that I was being told. And then I needed to understand and make sense of it. And then for me, you know, as a writer. and a storyteller, I think the fact that it was so hard to ask those questions also bothered me.

It wasn't like I had a whole vocabulary. I could talk about oppression or racial othering or microaggressions or systems of power or white supremacy. None of that language was really available to me. I had to really find it and work it out. And that's in spite of generations of scholars and writers who've already done that work. It was still so hard for me to find it and engage with it. That's how hidden it was.

So I really wanted to make it easier for other people around me to use that language, to name the things that we were seeing. Because if you don't have names for things, no matter what your sense that there's something going on, it's hard to actually articulate it and communicate it to others. And that's a real problem in Britain. I think we've had this whole mentality where if you don't talk about it, it doesn't exist, nothing to see here. I don't see race. Everything's fine. You know, black, white, blue, green, we're all the same. No need to talk about that. That's so divisive.

It's irresponsible. And it's just a massive national act of gaslighting because what that means is we don't talk about it. We don't acknowledge it. And it's so unfair because there are so many of us who know that those phenomena exist. They're our family stories. Yeah.

And you can't tell somebody what their experience is if it's not your experience. Imagine being told your devices for telling your actual family history. Yeah. That's so crazy to me. So tell me something mad that you've come up with. I mean, even as we're talking, I'm thinking like basically, yeah, My whole existence in a way made me mad. It's mad.

I'm not an angry person, but it's driven me, like, the sense of anger at unfairness, at gaslighting, at erasure, at racial injustice has, it's my anger and my madness towards that that has actually propelled a lot of what I've done. I feel like the fact you teach and that you've got a daughter leaves me with a sense of hope, though, because you are passing this on to the next generation and they're all really lucky. Thank you. that's amazing that you get to impart that knowledge and that research and encourage that curiosity.

I appreciate that. I mean, I definitely feel like the reason I do a lot of what I do is to reach my younger self. And, you know, I was like a really confused young person. I had dual heritage, you know, a black parent or white parent growing up in this very like gaslighty, polite white society. And I, like I was saying, knew that there were all these things that weren't being talked about or mentioned or articulated. And now I can explain it to you And I've written about it But at the time I was just angry

As a teenager I was just angry Because I was always called fiery Because I was always about justice As oh she's Spanish She's got Spanish heritage Rather than listening to what I was actually Trying to articulate

That's also crazy how we do that To kids especially It's like oh she's difficult She's fiery She's rebellious Also more words that we use To not actually see a person person. Like I think when the young people are angry, there's always a reason. Yeah, I think that

about as a mother, and I'm sure you do. Like, from day one, I've always felt that my kids were crying for a reason or having a tantrum for reason or whatever. And sometimes it is a practical reason. You're like, oh, my child's tired or whatever. But it's not always, because I remember growing up, my mum being like, you're tired and me being like, no, it's not because I'm tired. This is a really, like unjust thing you've done. I didn't do what you said I did or whatever. Yeah. But it's the same in social, like I guess the kind of overarching,

like the power is the parent and the injustice. Yeah. And then now how do you feel as kind of like a bit of a spokesperson? Like do you like that role or do you feel like it's annoying when people like me go, I want you to come and talk about, you know. It's definitely not annoying to talk to you. Otherwise I wouldn't be here. I actually enjoyed the conversation because I feel like if these conversations had been available on these platforms, when I was growing up, it would have made life easier for me.

I would have been able to tap in and listen to other people and feel as well that I was living in a society that talks about these things. And that you weren't mad. And it's very... Because you're always accused of that. Exactly. It's very... It's recognition. Like, it's affirmation that what you're going through isn't some product of your imagination.

It's real. And other people are going to. through it. And that was a really crazy experience when my book British came out because that book was very hard to write. I thought I might get cancelled. You know, it seemed so radical because I was talking about things I'd never talked about publicly. I was describing things I'd never described. Even within my own family, we hadn't had many of those conversations. And I was really unsure. And I'm really... What kind of thing? Just in terms of like what it was like growing up, feeling very alienated, feeling like I had to fight so hard to make sense of my identity. You know,

You know, my parents, my dad's white and he grew up in a predominantly white society. My mom's black. She comes from a predominantly black country. And so I think, you know, if you're part of the majority, it doesn't necessarily matter what that majority is. You don't have that experience of being minoritized and being othered in the same way. And so I think a lot of African immigrants, for example, who spent most of their life in an African country and come here don't necessarily have the same sense of being a racialized.

They often say, I mean, Chimamanda and Goseley, Dice, who's one of my favorite authors, says she didn't know she was black until she came to America. Because growing up in Nigeria, you're not black, you're just a person. Black is normal. Like white is a thing, but to be black is just to be a person. And so, you know, a lot of our parents didn't really anticipate the ways in which our identities would be weaponized against us growing up here from birth. You don't have another identity to fall back on. You're very susceptible, like vulnerable almost to the narratives about race in the British media

because it's all you've got. They're the ones who are telling you what it means to be black and British and that's not going to be cast in a positive light when I was growing up. To be black and British was to be involved in some kind of gang, to be involved in selling drugs.

If you're a girl, probably to be like hypersexual and the agent of some kind of moral decline. Even the things that were supposedly compliments, like you're so good at dancing and singing, we're really pejorative. Minimising. minimizing. And then if there was anything about the countries of your heritage, in my case, in West Africa, it was like warlords, famine, genocide, you know, it was so, so loaded. And if you

grow up here and you've not even necessarily been to the country of your black heritage, you're at the mercy of the conversation happening around you about what that means. It was really embarrassing to be from Africa in Britain in the 80s and 90s. And this is all the legacy of colonialism, this divide and rule, you know, like a lot of people, Caribbean heritage were told that Africans were savage. And a lot of Africans were told that they took the bad slaves, the bad Africans to be slaves and the Caribbean were like the rejects from their own societies. I mean, really pernicious, toxic narratives that are all products of European colonialism. And they continue till today. So, you know, I remember when I was growing up, like, it was really cool to be Caribbean because it was the era

of jungle and, you know, it was like the street culture was very much West Indian infused. And, you know, you would get called an African boo-boo or a booty scratcher. you know, all these like horrible names. So in fact, one of the turning points in my life is my mom caught me on the phone. You know, in those days we had landlines. So you had like limited options as to where you could have your phone conversations. And my mum overheard me on the phone telling someone I was Jamaican heritage. Oh, no.

And she was like, what are you doing? What's happening? And I, and she also, I think that was when it landed for her that I really didn't understand where I was from because I'd never been there. And like how much I was being influenced by the, media narratives around me. So that was the first time she decided to take me and my sister to Ghana and really like help us understand what our specific heritage was. Yeah. Is there a particular example of a time like a specific anecdote where that all of these like themes have been really apparent to you like that's made you feel really mad like a time on a personal level? I would say like

probably the most triggering period of my life was when I worked in TV news because. there's something about, like anyone who's listening to this as well who's like an actor or like a singer or somebody, a performer, there's something about your body being part, being your instrument that gives a whole raft of people permission to have a view on your physical appearance. If you're female generally. And if you're female and in this society, which is still so patriarchal and has so much racist baggage, it's inevitable that those problematic ideas are going to influence. their view of your body. It would be weird if it didn't really, given the context that we're in. So that was my first, because I've, you know, I've never been. What happened?

In vision before in my work. So I was a TV news reporter and I anchored the news. And when you do that, especially for like a big corporation, there are people whose job it is to make sure the way you look matches the corporate brand in terms of your clothes, your jewelry and your body, your hair. And that was like a can of worms because. there were so many ways in which the way I looked didn't fit the corporate image requirements. And so just crazy things got said to me, you know, like, I'm not being racist, but always an interesting start to send.

Usually means they're about to be. Your Afro, followed by hand gestures, takes up too much of the screen. That was said to me. Another one. I've been analysing your presenting and it might be that your legs are too muscular for TV. And I remember these things being said to me and just being like, and this is not... How your legs could distract from your presenting?

I was like, how is this okay? Like, this person has power over your career. And your income. And is the gatekeeper to you doing your job? Like, if they say your legs are too muscular for TV and you can't be on TV, then you can't do your job. So it's really weird. And, you know, there was not really anything I could do

except internally what I did was vow that I would do whatever it took to be out of a position where I ever had to gain the approval of a gatekeeper like that again to do what I do. Yeah. Because... So you carve your own... It's always going to be something. And I don't think I will ever work for a corporation again.

I definitely won't make my message dependent on passing through the gatekeeping of some middle-aged white man. and his views about my appearance. And, you know, again, it wasn't personal. He was just channeling all of the misogynist, racist, and, like, capitalist ideas of his company, you know. It's so depressing that he even felt that he was be permitted to say something of like that. And, you know, like in hindsight.

And there's so many layers to it. There's so many layers. Because we could sit and talk now for two hours about what it actually and decode it. Exactly. And now I do like think about it and analyze it. But at the time, you feel so. objectified and so violated in a way because like your body is your body. I then started doing these TV debate shows where you would basically discuss issues in the news like racism,

where I would be the only black panellist and I would have people basically saying, you say there's racism, prove it. And that's basically a demand that you share all of your trauma and all of the experiences you've had of being discriminated against an other. So that they can judge whether. they think that means their standard of racism or not. And it's so, you know, that's even worse because in a way you would think that you, if you are willing, which is an act of generosity to share any of those stories with someone, it would help them understand the experience of being somebody who's racialized.

But it's not somebody who's racialized responsibility to educate everyone else. And if you do decide to do that, which I wouldn't choose to these days, you would think that they would be quite humbled by the information and insight. But instead, you just get this like. judgment. Actually, I don't, I've never, the funniest one is when I've been on panels and a white panelist and said to me, well, I've never noticed racism being a problem. This is bizarre to me though, because I've actually, and I've said it, like, as like a white person,

I was a, I had a music video and I was invited to America to meet a sort of the head of a record label. And one of my really close friends was the love interest in it. And I don't know if you know. I think you know Dennis Aquara, do you? Yeah. So he was like my boyfriend in my video. And I love him.

He's got amazing stories from Uganda. Like he was, you know, came out of awful situation as a refugee. And like, to me, he's like an inspiring person. And I was like, he's going to be my boyfriend in the video. Anyway, I was flown to America on a business class flight and asked, do you want to break America with this song? And I was like, absolutely, of course. And they were like, you'd have to reshoot the video

because we can't have someone that white with someone that black and America won't buy it. And they actually said that out loud like that. In words. That's the difference between Britain and America. It was an African American music exec who said it. And I said, I can't believe you're an African American saying this to me to him. And he said, yeah, but this is business.

And I said, I'm not willing to do this type of business. And he said, what do you mean? He said, well, you and me between us know what our views are, but we want to make money. And I said, not on those terms. And then he flew me back on an economy flight. You're joking. Oh, my God, the pettiness.

Yeah. So he was like, there you go, back in economy. Do you know what? A friend of mine always calls people like that foot soldiers for white supremacy. So tell me something that makes sense. you said. Yeah, you know, when I wrote decolonising my body, I wrote about surgical procedures, cosmetic interventions. And it's delicate because I'm a feminist. I don't believe in anyone policing women's bodies. Like I believe that we have the right to make choices about our own body.

So the last thing I want to do is sit in judgment on decisions that other women make. And what I was trying to do with decolonizing my body was say, we make choices about our bodies without understanding where those ideas come from. You know, if you think it's better to be thin or fair-skinned or to have no body hair or straighten your hair, understand where those ideas come from. And if you still choose them, then you're making an informed choice.

But the problem is, all of us are making decisions about our appearance without understanding the context or how we've been programmed to think certain things are desirable. When I personally found out where some of my own ideas about my own attractions came from, I was horrified. It's like, for example, body hair. I mean, I discovered that the origins of hair removal are all linked to this social Darwinian racist ideology from the 19th century where people discovered that humans evolved from primates and that freaked them out. And then white people wanted to show that they were more civilized and further removed from our animal past by being hairless. And then this craze for removing body hair arose. And I was like, if it has its origins and those racist ideas, because those are the same ideas that said black people were closer to animals. you know, and Asians are closer to animals.

I don't want anything to do with those ideas. I reject them completely. So why am I endorsing them by using the same body hair removal that they promoted? And so then it made me really think about my own attitudes towards body hair. And I realized, you know, when I was younger, I think it was disgusting to have hairy underarms and hairy legs and that I thought that those were my thoughts. But it was actually brainwashing.

Just I've been brainwashed by the media and by all of these ideas. And these ideas all have a history, a really toxic history. And it's similar with, I think, cosmetic procedures that we live in a cult of youth in this part of the world. Many parts of the world really admire age, you know, that a woman in my Ghanaian culture becomes more desirable, more attractive, more powerful as she gets older. The most successful people in the community are elders. That's considered success to live to a old age, to have supported generations beneath you, to have improved your community, which you can only do with time and dedication. that is regarded as success in life. And it's an aspiration to become old in many cultures.

And, you know, when I really thought about this society, we've been promoted this idea of youth, it's such a setup. Because the one thing that's going to happen to all of us is that we're going to age. So it's designed from scratch to make sure we all feel bad about ourselves. With each passing year, we feel more and more bad about the way we look and the way our body is changing. And I think this whole new industry is selling women products, that prey on that dis-content and insecurity, and it's really predatory.

Do you feel like with all your research, with all your intellect and knowledge and everything, you are completely now removed from that pressure? It's so funny because my partner asked me, he said, where are you going today? So I'm going to talk to Paloma on her podcast about decolonising my body. And he said, what are you decolonize now then? Yeah, I'd like to know. Yeah, that's really good. I said, you know, it's a journey, it's a process, because a lifetime of being...

Because I'm only asking because I struggle as well. And as a feminist, I feel that I'm quite proud of getting older. And I also feel better inside than I ever have. But it's, there's often a thing that will pull me and I go, oh, old thoughts, old thoughts. We're living contradictions, aren't we? And we're, you can't undo like a lifetime of brainwashing in one or two years. And you were also just like inherently contradictory. I mean, I really now believe in resisting this idea that youth is desirable.

And I actually am excited about getting older. I mean, on one level, like, money wouldn't pay me to go back to my early 20s. Like I just, I love the way I am so much more comfortable in my skin. I know who I am and what I'm about. And, you know, I really value that. And I was really kind of like tormented when I was younger. And now I feel quite a sense of like. security in who I am. But at the same time, like just yesterday, so I saw someone

hadn't seen a long time and they were like, wow. You look so young. You haven't aged at all. And I was like, thanks. And then I was like, see what I did there. See what I did there. Thank you. Thank you. Like that's such a compliment. They were like, you haven't got any wrinkles. I was like, and then I was like, see, like I'm still buying into the idea that that is good. And it's hard to take out your mind. And even in medicine as well, like listening to you speak about the sadness of it. Like, I, when I was little, I had pubic hair from really young. Like, I was five.

And it didn't, it wasn't until I was 26 that I made peace with it and felt normal. And it was because a man told me that I was normal. And then he was like, I don't know what you're talking about. And I was like, but my whole life I felt like a freak because of childhood trauma, you know, like when I was a kid, the whole thing. the whole playground stopped speaking to me for a few weeks because everybody, somebody had seen it swimming when I was like sits and saw that I had some cubic hair. And then I was just so embarrassed and everyone else was not speaking.

They were like, she's a freak, she's a freak. And even then, like, I don't know about whether it's on purpose or what, but like, you know, people, the questioning was like, have you got any Asian blood? Have you? You know, like, because my mum took me to a doctor and was like she's been made to feel a freak, what can you do? And it was all like, what ethnicity are you? Like, you're just like, what?

I don't know, it's like a weird sort of medical perpetuation of also racial slur. I mean, the whole medical profession has its origins in the dodgiest ideas about race and science. You know, like all those pseudo-scientific theories about the categorisation of people and the hierarchy of the hierarchy of species within humanity. I mean, they're so pernicious. I wrote in my book about, you know,

women who actually had a disorder that made them have an unusual amount of body hair who were like exhibited, you know, like freaks, their whole lives buried in open casket so people would have made great money then. That is a positive spin on it. That is a positive spin on it. I'd like to bring my friends in, if you don't mind.

I'd love that. Because these guys have got a good take on it as well. Beauty standard. Yeah, so, Janelle and Iya are here, and I just wanted to bring you in here because I saw this article the other day, or image, of this, the best-looking woman in Persia in like the 1700s, and she was a princess. Did you see it? She's in my book.

Oh, amazing. And she had a moustache and a monobrow, and she was like what we would say was overweight. She was considered, like, the most desirable. The most beautiful woman. And she looks quite like, you know, she looks, I guess, manly by, you know, Western current beauty standards. And I thought it was like amazing because we've come so far that like this was Persian beauty.

And I guess it was maybe more subjective, more personal culture by culture, country by country without globalisation. And I just wondered what your take on it was. Because you were talking about body hair, weren't you? Yeah, what I was saying, so I'm from Lebanon and I was talking a lot about kind of beauty standards or the expectations. When I used to go back home, I used to, you know, I grew up here, but I'd go back every summer, every winter.

And it was like this, when I go back, it was almost like this, this aesthetic that needed to be kind of upheld where everyone, everyone had to have straight hair and makeup caked on, this like level of perfection had to be maintained all the time. And every single time without fail, I'd be going in at customs, the guy who'd be like stamping the passport would always, always make a comment on me, whatever physically, would say things like, yeah, because I have quite a rounded nose and you'd be like, oh, it would be so, you'd look so much prettier if you kind of shave your nose on me.

In passport control. In passport control. So I've quite thick curly curly hair. I've lost a lot of it since my kids. Every child's taken a bit more of my hair. She's got four kids. Wow. But I used to have a proper, proper big, curly, curly, big, big, main.

And I would always, always get told, I think you should straighten your hair, always straighten your hair. And I felt the pressure. Like, when I was a young teenager, I absolutely, it would cost like a couple of quid to get your hair straightened. And I would always go and get it straightened because I felt like the need to... When you landed. When I landed. But it's interesting, isn't it? Because you came from like a Western place and went back to...

to like, I guess, like your home turf. And then it was even worse there. It was worse there. What is it about Lebanon though? Because I think Beirut is like one of the plastic surgery capitals of the world. Like it's next level the way that they've so embraced the kind of like Insta face. Yeah. Do you know what I think is.

And also nose jobs like lots, you know. And this was one of the things that made me sad in my book was when I wrote about how your face is your ancestry. Like if you have a certain nose, like that's your ancestor's nose. and so many people commented on that and said to me, like, I never thought about it like that. You know, I was so busy trying to make my nose conform to, like, what Hollywood says is beautiful. I never stop to think, like, it has a story, it carries my ancestors.

I think, and this is just my complete, like, my placing of it. It's nothing to do based on any theory necessarily, but I feel like, you know, I thought I for that, I'll tell you whether it's true or not. But if, you know, if you go to some places, some really deprivation, there are places around the UK. There's always betting shops and there's always a nail bar that stays open. And a tanning shop.

And I really feel when people have real deprivation and there is no money, they'll always keep spending on themselves. To look. To look. I don't know why, but they always have their nails done. They always look, they always need to look a certain way.

And in Lebanon, I mean, it's a completely collapsed society. There's levels of insecurity, instability. There's always threat. and danger, even till now, as long as I've known it, and the tanning shops, but the hair salons, the nail bars were always, always, always be heaving. People have literally lost, we lost all our money. All the banks collapsed and stole all our money.

All our money was wiped to zero. People have nothing. And so my cousins would bring cash in for their families to buy food. The level of inflation, like a chocolate bar, would cost $40, and still they would have money to pay to get their hair done. If you think about, you think about like the tech billionaire, right, the Silicon Valley bros who wear flip flops, they don't iron their shirts, you know,

they rarely get a haircut. In a way, that's like the height of privilege that your physical appearance doesn't matter because you own assets, like you own the land, you own the IP, you own like billions in stocks and shares. So they have the luxury of not needing to invest in their appearance because they are like they literally own everything. And the reverse is true. If you go to poorer countries where people don't own anything, like they don't have control over. with their water or power, they don't own the land. They're at the mercy of like these really violent capitalist systems. The one thing they have agency over is how they dress.

Like Ghana, people don't have power. They are running water. They are washing twice a day. They iron everything within an inch of its life, like hairs done, nails done. They look perfect. And they're in like a chaotic environment. But that is the thing they can control. So you invest all of that into your physical appearance.

So all of us four on this couch are proud mothers of daughters. she's got boys as well. So of you. But we all are mothers of daughters. So I think, like, speaking to them about beauty, how can we make sure as mums that we are enforcing, like, non-toxic opinions on beauty to our kids, do you think? I would go first.

I think it's actually modelling, like, non-toxic ideas, which is a lot harder than it sounds. Yeah. Because, like, we're so deeply brainwashed with some of these. ideas that if we don't deprogram ourselves, we're going to be acting out the things we don't want them to do, you know, like being really critical of how we look or trying to lose way or, you know, like complaining about our own hair or skin, you know, like if they see us doing those things, or if they see us buying into the way beauty is presented in the media, then regardless of what

we say or what books we give them or what like things we try to expose them to, they're going to see the hypocrisy. And I find that like really easy in theory and really hard in practice because it means I can't get away with any like problematic thinking about my own body. My eight year old recently said to me, why are you on a diet again?

And I was like I'm not on a diet. I'm doing healthy eating. I just don't think sweets are good for us because of our health and then it's been proven that sweets mean we take more medicine and she went, I just want to be fat and I don't care.

And I said, well, I'm really proud of you with that. But just try not to like die too soon because sugar isn't that good for you. You know, like if that, you know, it's like a... It's a difficult balance. It's really hard. But because the health and wellness industry is still so intertwined with like the really toxic. Yeah. Like a cult of thinness and cult of richness and cult of whiteness. It's quite hard to like...

It's just difficult. Unpick them sometimes. I mean, Missouria. I was going to say with my daughter. So she's got shapes and curves already. And she's very aware of it. And she went through a phase where she would be so self-conscious. And we're like, Mommy, only want to eat fruits for dinner.

I'm like, no, we can't do that. So we created a little song. And I'm like, baby, you got back. So now it's like you're going to embrace all of these wonderful bits you've got as a black woman. You're going to have volumptuous curves and what have you. So now she's putting jeans, like, my mom, I'm like, yeah, we do that little song.

And I'm like, you're going to love everything about. you and that was my way to kind of try and combat it because I could see her going down the road and I could see where it was ending. It was like, no, you're conscious about your hair already. You're conscious about your bum already. It's just too early. Too early. One thing I wanted to say is as a mum to three boys, I'm so conscious as well that as transparent as you have to be with your girls, you also have to be with your boys. So my boys see me like when on my period or if I'm just wearing a t-shirt and I haven't waxed my legs or if I'm, I don't know, whatever it is, or just my hair or the fact that I don't want to make, things like that,

like just being comfortable in my own skin and not to feel like everything has to be immaculate for the men, you know, all the time. So true. Thank you both. Coming in. Thank you for having it. Tell me about something where you felt bad and your teenage rebellion. Yeah, I was really rebellious teenager.

It's funny, like my mum's now getting her revenge because she's sitting back with the popcorn, watching me raise a teenage girl. I was really rebellious and naughty and broke every rule. But in hindsight, I think I had legitimate grievances. Like I was saying earlier, I knew that the world around me wasn't fair and wasn't honest in many ways. And I was really exploring that. But, you know, when you're young, it doesn't manifest in like a really well-thought-out argument that you can put in a non-viction book. It manifests in like breaking your curfew and like hanging out with like boys that you shouldn't be hanging around with or like who are older than they should be or going to places that aren't really appropriate. And I started writing for the voice newspaper when I was 14, Britain's oldest

black newspaper. And I started writing fairly harmless stuff. But then I discovered the world of music journalism. Never forget, like the first time Usher came to the UK in like 1997. I think he was 17 and I was 16. And I interviewed him. We got on really well. And then we were hanging out. And this just kind of like opened up this world of like music journalism where you get to like meet your like hero artist and hang out with them and be backstage at the party and then the VIP at the club and I was like a 15, 16 year old girl. That was like heaven. So I may have gone a little off the rails because I was trying to do my GCSEs and A levels at the same time. So there were quite a few times where I'd be like at the club, backstage at the concert and then

going straight to school the next day. Yeah, I feel really bad for my mum. That must have been a handful. That was a big job to get at 16 though, writing for the boy. I know. I started off doing one day's work experience. You'll appreciate this. actually in 1995, I think it was, a one day's work experience, and basically they needed an article about Faith Evans. And this is obviously like totally pre-Google. This is all me. I've got goosebumps and I went through like the archive and I just found everything, all the clippings I could about Faith Evans. And it wasn't like original journalism. I just cobbled together a piece from everything, like all the secondary sources I could find. And they published it and the thrill I felt from like

something I wrote being in a newspaper and like published on newsstands. And then, And then they said, like, if I wanted to, I could keep coming back. So I started writing for Young Voices, which was like the page where they, it was like the young people page. And they were lots of like kiddie competitions, stuff like that. But I started writing about issues affecting young black people, drugs and teenage pregnancy, but also like music, black British hip-pop. At the time, the big question was, can any British artist ever rap with a British accent or we always have to pretend to be rich. Remember that era?

I remember that era. I think by the same age. Yeah. This is like, yeah, mid-90s and it was like really intense. But it was weird because I felt like I don't know about you, but at the time I felt like French could do it, but British couldn't. Right. Well, they can't pretend to sound American.

In a way, it was like a constructive thing that I was doing. Yeah, it's constructive rebellion. My question though about rebellion is like, is rebellion revolution? Like, do you think that, because, in my opinion, like, on a cultural level, you're quite revolutionary. It's sort of annoying that you are because everyone should think like you. But I think that, like, is somebody who's naturally rebellious, like, a good thing? Because you become beacons of cultural change in a way? I hear what you're saying.

And I do think I wish everyone thought like that. Like, I don't respect rules. because they're rules. Yeah. I will question their value and sense for myself. Nobody ever innovated without breaking rules. Right. And it's true.

And like a lot of the, the worst things that have happened in history are because good people did nothing or didn't ask questions or just accepted something because that's what they were told to do. Apathy or lack of curiosity or lack of empathy or just lack of like intellectual rigour. So yeah, I do always question things.

And I think as a teenager, like now as a parent myself, I can recognize having a child who questions every rule and wants to make their own mind up about things is pretty challenging. But I am proud of those traits in a way that they've made me who I are and they're why I'm intolerant of injustice and unfairness and I will always ask those questions. So I think you're right. Like there is, when I look at people I admire, they've always been people who didn't necessarily abide by the rules either and question things. And I do aspire to continue to be that person. Yeah. So I think my younger self would would be happy to see who I've become and it would

make sense to her. I'm so glad. And so because I'm now glad, just to end on something that makes you feel glad. Something that makes me feel glad. I just feel, I mean, I can go high and I can go low. I'm really, I feel really blessed. I'm really grateful for my life. I really wouldn't change anything. I feel so happy every single morning that I wake up and realize I don't have to go to work at a I don't have a boss. I don't have a place I have to be at a certain time just because I have to be there. I don't have anyone telling me what to do. Like I am in charge of my own destiny. And like that anyone who's self-employed or is a creative knows like the pressure and stress that can bring. But for me it's like freedom. I'll take the pressure and stress any day. Like I love to be the

captain of my own shit. And I'm, and I literally, I wake up in the morning and I'm like, I still don't have to go to work. I still not have a job. That's so inspiring. It's been really fascinating to talk to you. Thank you. And I hope that people at home are watching and just feel what I feel, which is that you exude inspiration.

And it's been brilliant to speak to you. Thank you. Thank you so much. It was such a pleasure. I find you so inspiring. I could do a whole series with you. I receive it. You can receive it.

Thank you. You deserve it. Bye-bye, thanks for coming all this way. See you. Bye. Well, wasn't that great? All of the links of everything we mentioned in the show can be found in the episode description. Oh, and while you're there, why not subscribe and follow the show too?

See you all next time! Later's potatoes!