Thread by @Horsenburger, When I was a kid in the 70's it was so rare [...]

horsenburger

Horsenburger

When I was a kid in the 70's it was so rare to see a black actor in any role on TV except a pimp, prostitute, drug addict or loud police captain. Luckily in the UK we had @FloellaBenjamin and #DerekGriffiths to grow up with and these amazing people, along with my dad's

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total colour blind admiration and friendship of fellow sportsmen from around the world helped shaped view of the planet where everyone is equal and nobody is superior to anyone.

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I still remember when I was really young knowing that it was wrong that every black person on TV was a criminal, and I knew that my black and Asian friends at school were as good, if not better than I was in pretty much everything, plus, their families always

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opened their door (and dinner tables) to me which again shaped me.

I also saw over the years how life changed for them from middle school to middle age and how things got harder and how they had to deal with injustice after injustice that I just didn't have to, all

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my problems have been my physical and mental health, if I had external forces working against me too, I don't know what I would have become.

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This is my teletext tribute to the amazing men and women that have made our lives brighter and also have faced insurmountable odds to do it, and to remind us how close they all are or could have been to meeting wrong police officer or security guard at the wrong time.

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