Chad What kind of thing are we talking about here?
Shahid Go around abusing Pakis, niggers, Chinks, Irish, any foreign scum. Slag them under my breath. Kick them up the arse.
Riaz Open your heart.
Shahid The thought of sleeping with Asian girls made me sick. I wouldn’t touch brown flesh, except with a branding iron. Even when they came on to me, I couldn’t bear it. I thought, you know, wink at an Asian girl and she’ll want to marry you up.
Riaz Oh, how is this done?
Chad You didn’t want to be a racist. I’m telling you that here and now for definite. And I’m informing you that it’s all all right now.
Shahid I am a racist.
Chad You only a vessel.
Shahid I wanted to join the British National Party. I would have filled in the forms if they have forms. How do you apply to such an organisation?
Chad Would the brother know? Listen. It been the longest, hardest century of racism in the history of everything. How can you not have picked up the vibe in this distorted way? There’s a bit of Hitler in all white people — they’ve given that to you.
Riaz Only those who purify themselves can escape it. Racism turns us away from ourselves. But there is another way. I am honoured to know you, Shahid.
He hugs him.
Shahid I’m pleased to have met you tonight.
Riaz Thank you. I too have learned.
Chad (to Shahid) I am hearing every moment of your soul cry. Call me Chad.
They embrace.
(To Riaz.) We need to sort things for the meeting.
Riaz Hat’s papa doesn’t want us to meet in his café any more.
Chad But Tahira’s bringing all the petitioners there!
Riaz Tell her to delay until we find another place — I have too many petitions and letters to work on for everyone to meet in my room.
Shahid You can meet here.
Riaz (delighted) Al-hum du’lilla — you are a Pakistani at heart!
Shahid I’ll just put my books and Prince collection away and –
Chad (quickly) You say Prince?
Shahid Yeh, I’ve got all his records — even the Black Album.
Chad No way, man — I mean brother — that bootleg.
Shahid Picked it up in Camden Market.
Chad Right. Right. It good for bootlegs.
Shahid Want it?
Chad Never! We are slaves to Allah! He the only one we must submit to.
Shahid It’s only music.
Riaz Only those who purify themselves can escape it.
Chad (to Shahid) The brother mean your soul — you got to clean yourself inside from all that white shit.
Shahid Prince is black.
Chad There’s more to life than entertaining ourselves! Brother, you got a lot to learn.
Riaz gets up.
The brother need fresh air. We all do. Phew.
Riaz We are pleased to have you with us.
They leave.
Shahid returns to his computer. Music. The college bell rings.
SCENE THREE
Morning. A run-down, inner-city further education college. Noisy class. Wolf whistles and comments fly as Deedee strides through the room.
Deedee Our subject today is the Black struggle in America –
Various excited comments fly around the class.
— as reflected in popular culture.
She clicks on a slide: a photo of young Emmett Till. Comments fly around on the look of this young, fresh-faced Black young man.
Fifteen-year-old Emmett Till — a boy living in Chicago in the 1950s. One day, he went to visit his relatives who lived in a small town in Mississippi. On the High Street, he saw a young white woman –
Someone in class lets out a wolf whistle.
Stop that! He did it for a dare. That night, the woman’s husband and brother paid him a visit. They took him to a warehouse, broke his wrists and ankles, gouged out his left eye and shot him through the head. Then, they tied his neck to a seventy-pound fan used for winnowing cotton and dumped the body in a nearby river — where it was found by fishermen three days later. This is what Emmett Till looked like after his trip to the South.
She clicks on another slide — photo of Emmett Till in his coffin.
Emmett Till’s mother wanted the whole world to see what had been done to her baby. So she insisted on an open coffin at his funeral.
Tahira How did the whites react?
Deedee Many accused her of being eager for publicity –
Tahira That’s blaspheming, right?
Deedee Only in the sense that it blasphemed the reality of what happened to her son.
Tahira So the blasphemers were racists?
Deedee You could say that.
She starts another set of slides, depicting the Civil Rights movement and popular Black musicians, writers, sportsmen and other artists.
I want you to focus on the extraordinary creativity that emerged from America by artists questioning segregation.
Shahid How’s the music of Prince relate to the Black struggles, miss?
Tahira Prince? He’s a total dushman!
Hat Yeah — he ain’t apna.
Deedee Good question, Shahid. We’ll make that the assignment for next week — how Black musicians responded to racism.
Tahira Why you shoving us always to music and them fripperies — what about the Nation of Islam?
Deedee Let’s have an essay from you on Malcolm X and how the Nation of Islam helped in the Black struggles, Tahira — when you can get your head out of Khalil Gibran. The rest, concentrate on Black musicians. On my desk by next week. And as the mathematicians say, go forth and multiply.
Hat (emulating a move of Michael Jackson’s) Thriller! I’m bad!
Tahira whacks him. Laughter from the class as they disperse while Deedee picks out Shahid.
Deedee Why do you like Prince?
Shahid Well, the sound.
Deedee Anything else?
Shahid He’s black.
Deedee And half white, half man, half woman –
Shahid Half size –
Deedee Feminist –
Shahid But macho too.
Deedee He can play soul and funk –
Shahid And rock and rap.
Deedee How are you coping?
Shahid Never been so alone before. But I’ve run into people who excite me. Your lectures fire me up to spend the time reading and writing.
Deedee You’re a good student.
Shahid (diffident) Could you — have a look at something I’ve written? About a friend?