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Thinking in Colour
Thinking in Colour
May 19, 2024 6:04 PM

Author:Gary Younge,Gary Younge,Robin Miles,Amaka Okafor,Full Cast,Ricky Fearon

Thinking in Colour

Gary Younge explores race, society and Black history in thesefivefascinating documentaries

Author, broadcaster and sociology professor Gary Younge has won several awards for his books and journalism covering topics such as the civil rights movement, inequality and immigration. In this documentary collection, the former Guardian US correspondent turns his attention to current American political and social issues, including populist conservatism, and African-American identity.

In Thinking in Colour, he examines racial 'passing': light-skinned African-Americans who decided to live their lives as white people. Looking at the topic through the prism of Nella Larsen's 1929 novella Passing, Gary hears three astonishing personal stories, and probes the distinction between race and colour.

Recorded shortly after the historic 2008 election, The Documentary: Opposing Obama follows Gary as he travels through Arkansas and Kentucky, talking to people who see Barack Obama's presidency as nothing but bad news, and hearing their hopes and fears for the future.

In The Wales Window of Alabama, Gary recounts how the people of Wales helped rebuild an Alabama church, where bombers killed four girls in 1963. Hearing of the atrocity, sculptor John Petts rallied his local community to raise money, and subsequently created a new stained glass window that has become a focus for worship and a symbol of hope.

InEbony: Black on White on Black, we hear the history of Ebony, the magazine that has charted and redefined African-American life since its launch in 1945. But what is its place in the world today, and does it still speak to contemporary African-Americans?

And in Analysis: Tea Party Politics, Gary assesses the Tea Party movement, a US right-wing protest group that objects to big government and high taxes. He finds out what sparked this grass-roots insurgency, who its supporters are, and analyses its impact.

Production credits

Presented by Gary Younge

Thinking in Colour

Produced by Caitlin Smith

Executive Producer: Tony Phillips

With Bliss Broyard, Anthony Ekundayo Lennon, Georgina Lawton and Professor Jennifer DeVere Brody.Excerpts from Passing by Nella Larsen read by Robin Miles

First broadcast BBC Radio 4, 6 May 2021

The Documentary: Opposing Obama

Produced by Neal Razzell

First broadcast BBC World Service, 1-8 February 2010

The Wales Window of Alabama

Produced by Nicola Swords

First broadcast BBC Radio 4, 10 March 2011

Ebony: Black on White on Black

Produced by Mark Burman

Readers: Ricky Fearon and Amaka Okafor

First broadcast BBC Radio 4, 10 June 2013

Analysis: Tea Party Politics

Produced by Emma Rippon

With Andrew Neil, Frank Luntz, David Frum and Rand Paul

First broadcast BBC Radio 4, 1 March 2010

©2021 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd (P)2021 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd

Reviews

A wide-ranging, landmark summary of the Black experience in America: searing, rich in unfamiliar detail, exploring every aspect of slavery and its continuing legacy . . . Again and again, The 1619 Project brings the past to life in fresh ways. . . . Multifaceted and often brilliant

—— The New York Times Book Review

A remarkable reframing of American history in which slavery and the Black experience are at the heart of the narrative

—— The Guardian

Visionary... imaginative, all-encompassing... the sheer breadth of this book is refreshing and illuminating, challenging each and every reader to confront America's past, present and future

—— BookPage (starred)

[A] groundbreaking compendium... bracing and urgent... This collection is an extraordinary update to an ongoing project of vital truth-telling

—— Esquire, “Best Books of Fall 2021”

Readers will discover something new and redefining on every page ... This visionary, meticulously produced, profound, and bedrock-shifting testament belongs in every library and on every reading list ... [an] invaluable and galvanizing history ... revelatory

—— Booklist (starred)

This invaluable book sets itself apart by reframing readers' understanding of U.S. history, past and present

—— Library Journal (starred)

A sweeping study of the "unparalleled impact" of African slavery on American society... The result is a bracing and vital reconsideration of American history

—— Publishers Weekly (starred)

A much-needed book that stakes a solid place in a battlefield of ideas over America's past and present

—— Kirkus Reviews (starred)

Restores people erased from the national narrative, offering a motivating, if sobering, origin story we need to understand if we are ever going to truly achieve 'liberty and justice for all'

—— Women’s Review of Books

The ambitious project that got Americans rethinking our racial history... expanded into a book incorporating essays from pretty much everyone you want to hear from about the country's great topic and great shame

—— Los Angeles Times

The groundbreaking project from The New York Times, which created a new origin story for America based on the very beginnings of American slavery, is expanded into a very large, very powerful full-length book

—— Entertainment Weekly

Pleasingly symmetrical... [a] mosaic of a book, which achieves the impossible on so many levels -- moving from argument to fiction to argument, from theme to theme, and backward and forward in time, so smoothly

—— Slate

From Brexit Britain and Donald Trump's America to the cynical politics of Poland and Hungary, she feels beset by a new chauvinist right that has no regard for rules, truth or institutions. Ms Applebaum evokes an acute sense of betrayal as people she trusted turn against her, quicker than she thought possible. Her personal story is a parable of what can happen to alliances in the absence of a common adversary, and when the hardships such enemies inflicted fade from memory.

—— Economist

This is an illuminating political memoir about the break-up of the political tribe that won the Cold War.

—— David Goodhart , Literary Review

Equal parts memoir, reportage, and history, this sobering account of the roots and forms of today's authoritarianism, by one of its most accomplished observers, is meant as a warning to everyone. ... critically important for its muscular, oppositionist attack on the new right from within conservative ranks-and for the well-documented warning it embodies. The author's views are especially welcome because she is a deliberate thinker and astute observer rather than just the latest pundit or politico. In the spirit of Julien Benda, Hannah Arendt, and Theodor Adorno, Applebaum seeks to understand what makes the new right "more Bolshevik than Burkean."... A knowledgeable, rational, necessarily dark take on dark realities.

—— Kirkus Reviews

In this powerful and elegant book on James Baldwin, Eddie Glaude weaves together a biography, a meditation, a literary analysis, and a moral essay on America. Like Baldwin's own essays and books, it is at times both loving and angry, challenging and uplifting, and always beautiful. Both Baldwin and this book speak directly to today

—— Walter Isaacson, author of Steve Jobs and Leonardo Da Vinci

A powerful study of how to bear witness in a moment when America is being called to do the same

—— TIME 100 Must-Read Books of 2020

Glaude's book is neither straight biography nor straight history, but rather historiography, reaching back and forth in time to show what Baldwin - whose centenary will be celebrated in 2024 - has to say to us and to teach us through his many writings at a time when "the idea of America is in deep trouble"

—— Liz Thomson , Arts Desk

A powerful, genre-defying work

—— David Terrien , ArtReview

Fascinating . . . An urgent and honest overview of Baldwin's work

—— Chartist

Many complicated human relations are on display in these irresistible diaries . . . The editor deserves the greatest praise. He has rightly included everything that brings Channon's shimmering brittle world to life . . . He has a gift for the sharp, striking phrase which bring events to life. If diaries are to achieve immortality, the diarist must be a first-class writer. Channon passes that with flying colours.

—— Lord Lexden , House Magazine

Better than any history or histories of these two decades . . . like a fusion of Debrett's and the Almanach de Gotha . . . Scrupulously scholarly . . . Simon Heffer has done a great service by revealing in this extraordinary new edition of the Channon diaries the decadence and complacency of the English political and upper classes.

—— Denis Macshane , The Tablet

The abundant footnotes . . . swarm with everything you might want to know about the British aristocracy between the wars . . . It's like reading Bertie Wooster set loose among the pages of Burke's Peerage, with lots of sucking-up where the jokes ought to be . . . His pen portraits of friends and rivals alike are etched in acid.

—— Anthony Quinn , Observer

The fascinating, unexpurgated interwar diaries of the Tory MP and social alpinist Henry "Chips" Channon, who met everyone who was anyone from Hitler to kings, the Pope and the Mitfords. Bonking, snobbery and bitchy remarks abound in this big beast of a book.

—— Times

I did enjoy the Chips Channon diaries, the new first volume. My most pleasurable reading experiences are diaries and letters. History unfiltered, not refracted through a historian's imagination. The Chips Channon diaries bring alive a section of society in the 20s and 30s with great vividness.

—— Robert Harris

Chips Channon wrote witheringly about everyone-except Hitler. But his diaries still make for strangely addictive reading . . . [Simon Heffer] has done a superb job.

—— Chris Mullin , Prospect Magazine

These unabridged, risqué, waspish, snobbish, social-climbing diaries have been worth the wait . . . All credit to Simon Heffer for his masterly editing and annotation.

—— The Field

The diaries are indeed indispensable for anyone seriously interested in the political and social history of interwar Britain.

—— History Today

Brilliantly and painstakingly edited by Simon Heffer. The enlarged Channon diaries have rightly attracted a great deal of attention . . . they are more detailed and more frank, and maybe more honest, about the opinions and sexual escapades of some of the leading figures in British politics and high society in the years between the world wars.

—— UnHerd

It sounds perverse to say that Channon's snobberies and prejudices make the diaries, but the unabashed exposure of these failings gives you an oddly impressive picture of a person in the setting of his time - the picture, I mean, is absorbing, whatever the subject's shortcomings. And though this colossal self-portrait describes much that's misguided, vain, and idiotic, it prompts you too to imagine those perishable qualities that history and biography so often fail to capture: the charm, generosity, personal magnetism, and brilliance of conversation that must have explained and sustained Chips's progress, the "success after success" that the diaries record and celebrate.

—— Alan Hollinghurst , New York Review of Books

One of the most talked about books of this year . . . compelling and significant.

—— Caroline Knox , The Scotsman

Channon's jaw-dropping account, lovingly curated by the historian and former Mail writer Simon Heffer, is compelling.

—— Daily Mail, Best Books for Summer

Delicious, dangerous and utterly compulsive.

—— The Week

Dripping with bons mots, anecdote and scandal, [these] are addictive, even if they elicit repulsion as well as delight.

—— Daily Telegraph, Best Summer Books

A momentous publishing event. Candid, unabashed, vivid and manifold. They will be prized for their powerful evocation of social milieux . . . Heffer's footnotes are always informative, just and accurate, often amusing, and can seldom be faulted.

—— Richard Davenport-Hines , TLS

An unadulterated masterpiece . . . A larder of quotable treats.

—— Sasha Swire , Tatler

Scintillating wit, memorable descriptions and compelling gossip. Heffer has done a magnificent job. Riveting.

—— Leo McKinstry , Daily Express

Whatever you think of him Channon ranks among the great diarists. He is at turns brilliant, witty, trivial and spiteful, with observations about some figures whose names have stood the test of time. Simon Heffer has done an excellent job as editor and his copious footnotes are often as entertaining as the diaries.

—— The Quarterly Review

An inspired diarist. After devouring this volume readers will be salivating for the next.

—— Andrew Roberts , The Critic
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