Bashy Interview In Metro

This is crazy to me.
It makes me question peoples thought patterns in the world today!

Taken from A Tribe Called Next Website

Speechless at the incompetent journo’s of today. Interviewer JAMES DAY interviewed Bashy for the Metro’s 60 seconds. It flowed well until he came out with:

“Is music a way out for young black people now, like boxing used to be?“

PAUSE.

Bashy:
There are so many more opportunities out there now for black people, we just need to take them. It’s not like 40 years ago when my mum and dad were growing up. In saying that, there are always going to be people who fall through the cracks

Read the full interview here.

I have had to stop in my tracks to post this. This is not so much a race issue but more of a question from someone uneducated. Actually the more I think about it, it’s almost humorous. A way out of what? A lot of ‘ young black people’ have taken offense to this and has now resulted in a bombard of complaints. Davina from The Voice wrote to the Editor and raised some points on the question in hand, and this was his response.

Hi Davina


Thank you for your email and my apologies if you found the question offensive.

It was asked as a short-hand way of raising exactly the questions you ask. The 60secs format is very tight and every word is at a premium. I think you read far too much into very few words.

Surely it is undeniable that employment opportunities for black teenagers have been - and are - limited? Watching Britain’s Got Talent, it was great to see dance acts Diversity and Flawless doing so well. But seeing that, for example, you can’t help but ask why we see so many black faces in music or sport but still so few in, for example, the law, politics, the City, or, indeed journalism.

Bashy certainly didn’t find the question offensive - it fact, it was the one he was most enthusiastic about answering as that was part of the reason we were interviewing him - and took it to heart, providing a long answer - which we sadly didn’t have room to include fully - detailing how his parent’s generation struggled to find the opportunities that are only now opening up to his. It is part of the art of interviewing to give questions that provide the subject an opening to give an interesting answer and Bashy has been working hard to encourage all teenagers - not just black ones - to chase their dreams.

I find that this question is now the subject of a chain complaint - some from people who obviously have not read the entire interview. I find it sad that when Metro interviews someone such as Bashy, the reaction is so negative, with, frankly, the ‘racism’ card being waved so readily. The only possible outcome will be to make minority subject even less likely to be interviewed by our team wary of facing such accusations over seemingly innocent questions.

I considered this a positive interview with a positive role mode. So did Bashy’s team - who have just called to thank me for it and ask me and James Day out to lunch.

regards

Kieran Meeke