Hi my name is Jay – or Jeremy, as some of you may know me by.
I am the Black members Rep and I try and represent all the ethnic minority groups including black, Asian and other races.
What is strange is that the in the world there are more BME than there are white LGBT so maybe the budget should be bigger, if dealing with international problems.
I am a mixed race person myself, half Chinese and half Caribbean.
I have been to some countries like Dubai where I lived for 4 years, Singapore, Austria, Germany where I lived for 4 years and Holland and Belgium.
I also lived in Devon as well for about 7 years. I think most of the places I have been been I may have been the only black person in the area. In that kind of position you are very aware of that you are different and of your colour. I think the main problem was always having people to identify with and who knew how you felt or could share with about the kind of prejudice or discrimination that you received.
I am An Aries and born in the year of the sheep – strange as they are nearly identical signs for both the Chinese and English Zodiac sign…
Favourite films – do not get me started or I could be here all day. I will pick some of my favourites.
Color purple – the film seems to be me and my life especially Celies and Shug’s spirit.
Prince of Tides - a film about confronting our past, misery and even healing.
Fried green tomatoes - a story about friendship, love of two women and their friends through two eras that are connected.
Joy luck club – women – daughters, mothers and grandmothers – what stories – don’t I know the feelings of these women – I have been through what a lot of them have.
Lord of the rings - trilogy – an adventure of epic scale – containing all the elements of love, friendship, honour, adversity, growth, action, drama and everything – what fab films.
Crouching tiger – much better than hero and centred around the lives of three women and a man. such poetry of movement and words.
Titanic - slated but what a film to bring out what really happened – in a way I felt I was there.
Letter to Brezhnez – what a film and an adventure – Liverpool will neer be like that again.
Beautiful thing - loved the film and the soundtrack and have a whole CD of mama cass now.
Maurice - what a fab film and you can get a double disc of the movie with over 1 hour of extras.
Spiderman – what a film – loved the action and story – Tobey was fab.
Others - Flashdance, fame, xanadu, some great gay movies now – Lillies, circuit, latter days, my beautiful laundrette, green plaid shirt, page turner, Billy Elliot.
Favourite tv – Roswell, Dawson creek, monkey, charlies angel, mork and mindy, bewitched, voyager, deep space nine, star trek, knots landing, dynasty, sex and the city, will and grace, six feet under, George and Mildred, birds of a feather, wonder woman, thorn birds, pride and prejudice, wives and daughters, space 1999, bionic woman, buck Rogers, miss marple, grizzly Adams, cagney and lacey, Dallas, queer as folk USA, kung fu, kids from fame.
My biggest passions are Diversity work, standing up for peoples rights, music – writing and performing, dance, I like to paint, love films and actually did a course all about film techniques, love all kinds of music especially late 70s and 80s disco soul and divas.
The list would be too long but I would include Michael Jackson, Madonna, Celine Dion, Donna Summer, Diana Ross, Barbra Streisand, Abba, Boney M, Belinda Carlise, Olivia Newton John, Mariah Carey, the Carpenters, chic, five Star, Billie Holiday, The Jacksons, Janet Jackson, Bee Gees, Andy Gibb, Irene Cara, Imagination, Shalamar, Linx and David Grant.
Discrimination takes all forms and it is not just white people against black either. There is prejudice and discrimination within the Asian and Black culture.
Some parts of the cultures also do not like you going out with people of other cultures and black girls can get abuse from black men for going out with white guys.
Within the Chinese community you rarely will see a Chinese man or woman with an Asian man or black man. It is not something you will that often, as people can be cut off from their community for doing this.
At the end of the day I am not an expert but I believe in Equality and White male oppressors have treated many races across the centuries unfairly over the years, whether it be slavery, the way the aborigines or Indians were treated or how the Africans and Asian people were treated through the rule of the Empire.
Treat others as you would like to be treated”.
Don’t judge a man until you have walked 2 moons in his shoes” .
Simple famous phrases but so true.
How dare you tell your brother to get a branch in his eye when you have a log in yours.
If you what or how it feels to have prejudice against you, then it is not right for you to do the same to others because they are different or a minority like you.
If it is Ok for you to discriminate or beat someone up or shout abuse to others who are different then you have no right shout discrimination and compensation when it is done to you.
You cannot have equal rights when you deny equal rights to others. Someone should tell that to Bush. He is a good example of a man with a log in his eye.
We will look at getting different perspectives from people so that we have a black page or two on the Proud magazine with regular articles from the members.
We will be pushing for Diversity pages in the PCS news and make sure Diversity is given more back up.
