By Jeremy Miles
The death of the great reggae singer Jimmy Cliff, announced yesterday, brought home to me more than ever the dreadful growth of division and racism in our society.
I remembered an interview I did with Jimmy in 2008 and how optimistic and happy he was that the evils of racism that he had faced when he first came to Britain from Jamaica back in the mid-1960s were gradually becoming a thing of the past.
Arriving in London was a culture shock for a young man who had never experienced life outside the Caribbean before.
“It was very, very strange… and extremely cold!” he remembered, “I’d never seen houses with fireplaces and chimneys before. The record company had got me this small flat in Earls Court, which was fine until the landlady saw me and told me I’d got 24 hours to get out. I was simply too black for her.”
He stood his ground though: “I said, ‘This is my home. You want me out, you’re going to have to put me out on my head’ ”
It was the first of many battles, and Jimmy said he felt that, partly because of artists like him, the world is at least in some ways a better place. “Humanity has grown, people have grown. The essence of racism is ignorance. Universal music has helped change that.”
Sadly, the advances that were made to stamp that ignorance out now seem to be going into reverse. We must do all we can to end this mindless stupidity.
