The Talk: being Black and Irish
A new RTÉ Player show features young Black Irish people talking about what it’s like to experience racism from fellow citizens. H ere, Dub liner Conor Buckley tells his story
In e Talk, four young people sit down with a friend or loved one to have a conversation about the issues that a ect them. In the rst episode, four duos of young black Irish people discuss their personal experiences of racism in Ireland. Each pair has questions to ask each other, including the infamous ‘Where are you really from?’ ey describe their experiences in school, on the football pitch and the pub and how racism a ects other aspects of their lives including dating, social media and work.
During his ‘Talk’ with his brother Darragh, Conor Buckley speaks about how much his mother, the celebrated activist Christine Buckley, inspired him as a child.
“I guess my mum was well-known for her campaign work and activism. She passed away in 2014, but she is still well-known for creating a documentary called Dear Daughter about her life. My mum was black and my dad Donal is white and from Cork. My grandad was from Nigeria, so that’s kind of where my ancestry is from. If I’m asked I would refer to myself as ‘mixed heritage’ but maybe ‘mixed ancestry’ is the correct term. These terms are evolving all the time.”
Does he like the phrase ‘Black and Irish’? “It’s an interesting one. Originally, if you were to say to me describe yourself, I would say ‘Irish’. When I was younger, I probably wanted to lean more towards being white, because, y’know, everyone just wants to fit in when they are young.
“As I got older, I was definitely more comfortable being ‘mixed heritage.’ I don’t like the phrase ‘mixed race’ because there’s just one race, the human race. When we start dividing up races, that’s when the problems start.” Conor learned confidence from his mother. “I remember my brother asking my mum ‘Why can’t we look like all the other boys in school?’ and my mum answering ‘Everyone is different. The world is made up of different people – that’s what makes it a great place.’ I love that because she didn’t try and say ‘You’re kinda like them’ but instead to be proud of who you are. I loved that strength in my mother. I speak to black people in the UK or even the US and they at times feel like they need to be a bit invisible, and shrink themselves down. My mum never shrank herself down – she was really proud and a bit of a force of nature in lots of ways. She had so much confidence and that really helped us. She inspired us to be ourselves.”
Christine was pretty straight-forward when it came to dealing with racist incidents directed at her children too. “She could have brushed that sort of stuff that happened at school under the carpet and said ‘Don’t mind them, Conor’. But she called up to the person’s parents that day and said ‘Listen, you need to tell your child that he can’t say things like that to my son or anyone’s.’
“At one point, she had us grow our afros really high for about a year. We really wanted to get rid of them, but she wouldn’t. It’s funny, a couple of years ago, I grew an afro again. Now it was partly because I was cold, but I think part of it was about acceptance and pride too.” When the producers of The Talk came along, Conor decided to get involved for a number of reasons. “Generally, Irish people are really good people, but I wanted to help people understand how casual racism and microaggressions affects everyone. Sometimes, that can be seen as just a joke or whatever, but it can affect people, because it builds up – the trauma builds up – so it was about informing people.
“I also wanted to talk about the correct terminology, because it is a minefield. If people have the right intentions, then that is maybe more important than always using the exact PC phrase.”
Doing the show was also therapeutic, as Conor and his brother talked about memories and incidents they hadn’t discussed before. “It was really nice to openly speak about moments from childhood and actually, I said to Darragh on the way home after recording the how, ‘Look, even if that never gets played on TV, that was brilliant for you and I to share that time together and discuss those moments that upset us in the past and even more recently.’ Like he told me that when George Floyd was killed [in May 2020], he was feeling really sad about it. He told me that the company he worked for was offering counselling and he was going to avail of it. That got me thinking about how upset black people everywhere were after that death, in a way that I hadn’t before. “I would love things to change so that if I was out with a group of people and someone said something to me, that they would stand up and say ‘That’s not acceptable.’ It needs for people, out and about and on social media, to always say when that sort of behaviour is not right. It’s not an easy thing to do, especially when you’re younger, but that is the only way things will ever change.”
The world is made up of different people – that’s what makes it a great place
It needs for people, out and about and on social media, to always say when that sort of behaviour is not right