director after he wrote a series of Facebook posts undermining concerns about systemic diversity problems in the UK television industry.
in a deeply personal MacTaggart Lecture. “I’ve been so crushed by my experiences, so isolated and disempowered by the culture that exists within our industry, that I have had to seek medical treatment for clinical depression,” the presenter said.Lenny Henry Teams With Russell T Davies For ITV Drama On Caribbean Immigrants Forging New Lives In Britain
Olusoga also recalled an anecdote about seeing Black colleagues being served food after their white counterparts while filming on a reconstructed slave plantation in Jamaica. “Without informing me it had been decided that the actors and the crew were to eat first, the extras would get their lunch afterwards. Standard procedure perhaps, but the unintentional effect was that white people ate first and black people only after they had finished,” he said.
Clarke later doubled down on the comments in an interview with BBC Radio 5 Live — an interview that Finn posted a link to with the comment: “The sheer arrogance of this fucktard: “nobody was fired”, oh no they were just “let go”, as freelancers are, because budgets aren’t unlimited, and you can’t just hire extra crew, so yes you got some white people “let go” to assuage your own agenda.”