Freeman says racism is totally wrong yet insists multiculturism divides rather than unites people
Politely, I comment on his lovely house and the tranquillity that surrounds it.
“When I moved up here this woman I know said, ‘Ooh! There are a lot of whiteys up there’, and I said, ‘I love white people; I’ve no problem with them at all.”
The idea was that I was going to complain because there weren’t enough blues dances out here; not enough ragga around. But I’m not bothered by it.
“Multiculturalism hasn’t and doesn’t help, because rightly or wrongly it polarises people so much,” he continues.
“Racism is one thing—and I don’t agree with that in any form—but noticing that there are differences is normal and fine and to be encouraged.
“We’ve reached a state now where it’s, ‘You shouldn’t notice. Why are you noticing he’s got a bomb and has a beard and is Muslim and wants to kill your family?”
“There is no country in the world like this. If all of a sudden all the traffic wardens in Ghana were Welsh, they’d really notice and might not love it? We give ourselves a hard time in this country in a sort of mea culpa way. But if we were that racist, people wouldn’t come. Very simple.”
“I really liked hip-hop until the gangsta rap took over. I come from a time when not every rap record was ‘nigga’ this and ‘nigga’ that; an earlier socially and morally conscious hip-hop sensibility, when it was, ‘Don’t call people nigga’.”
“But now it’s nigga, nigga, nigga, and it’s not funny or interesting politically, artistically or socially. I really don’t like it.”
