Tomiwa Owolade and Tony Sewell

Literary and cultural critic Tomiwa Owolade and charity founder and government advisor Dr Tony Sewell discuss the history, challenges and successes of increasingly diverse black populations in the UK and ask what lessons can be learned.

In This is not America: Why Black Lives in Britain Matter, Owolade argues that we must acknowledge the differences if we want to build a long-lasting and effective anti-racist agenda. The UK has distinct communities and cultures distinguished by language, history, class, religion and national origin. Owolade writes about social, cultural and literary issues for The New Statesman, The Times, the Sunday Times, the Observer, UnHerd and the Evening Standard. He won the top prize at the 2001 RSL: Giles St Aubyn Awards, which support new writers to author their first work of non-fiction.

‘A calm and insightful voice in an often overheated debate.’ Kenan Malik

Sewell is a former teacher, founder of the charity Generating Genius and chair of the UK government’s Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities, which produced the 2021 Sewell report. In Black Success: The Surprising Truth, he looks at why the Windrush generation became so prosperous, why Nigerians are achieving highly in the education system, why Hollywood is casting Black British actors and why so many Jamaicans are winning Olympic gold. Sewell asks what lessons can be learned for young black people in low-income communities.