‘The joy is an act of resistance’ – Clara Amfo on conquering hate
Among a sea of statements about police brutality in the wake of George Floyd’s death, DJ Clara Amfo’s stood out for its vulnerability – and honesty about the mental toll of being a Black woman living with insidious racism. Grazia’s Kenya Hunt asks the woman trying to now conquer hate with joy about whether we really are on the brink of real change
by most accounts, 2020 has been a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad year. A turbulent climax following a moody decade that preceded it, in which each year grew increasingly more unpredictable than the last. And yet here I am, on a video call with Clara Amfo. Giggling. Having a kiki, as my American girlfriends and I would say, over everything from the incredibly good storylines in Issa Rae’s wholly addictive TV show Insecure to the delicious joys of homemade red velvet cake (Clara has been making a lot of it in lockdown) and the shared experience of having very supportive, very vocal mothers.
‘The joy is an act of resistance,’ she says, referencing the idea made famous by the feminist icon, Audre Lorde, that the preservation of one’s happiness and peace of mind is a key part of activism. ‘Being a joyous Black person is radical,’ Clara adds. In theory, we should be angry, exhausted and indignant. In the past two weeks, both Clara and I – and many, many, many other Black women in media – have been thrust into the position of being asked, repeatedly, to comment on racism as the world (or at least, scores of its non-black inhabitants) wakes up to the fact that, yes, it is alive and
‘OPRAH TOLD ME, “YOU’VE GOT A LIGHT. I CAN SEE IT. I CAN FEEL IT”’
real in the aftermath of the murder of unarmed George Floyd. Suffocated under the weight of a white police officer’s knee, the Texan’s videotaped death was an all too common act of brutalisation.
The horror stirred a wave of protest and unrest that was so unprecedented a friend back home called it the American Spring. So the media, and civilians alike, turned to the Black people they knew for commentary, guidance and validation. It was draining. ‘MY PHONE HAS TURNED INTO A RACE HOTLINE AND I HATE IT,’ author Candice Carty-williams memorably tweeted in all caps, summing up what many of us were experiencing.
If you are one of the millions who tune in to her mid-morning show on Radio 1, or one of the 170,000 who follow her updates on Instagram, you’ll know that Clara is a woman who epitomises Black joy. It’s so palpable, Oprah even once commented on it. ‘She told me, “You’ve got a light. I can see it. I can feel it.” And she just held me and she told me, “You are standing on the shoulders of everyone who has come before you.”’
Clara has an Oprah-like knack for connecting with people herself. She’s the woman commanding a theatre full of VIPS and media insiders – normally a tough, unimpressed crowd – with a thrillingly easy effervescence at the Black Panther premiere in 2017. She’s the DJ dancing in the booth while Harry Styles sings a surprise cover of Lizzo’s Juice on Live Lounge in 2019. She’s also the woman who is consistently in the middle of the group who seems to be having the most fun at whatever party she is at. Clara is the woman you want to hang out with. The person whose end of the dinner table you want to be sitting on. A quote famously attributed to Maya Angelou says, ‘People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.’ Clara is a woman whose enduring positivity makes you feel happy.
But recently, she’s become famous for doing the opposite. Days after footage of Floyd’s killing went viral, waking waves of people up to the reality of racism, Clara gave a speech that laid bare the heartbreak at the root of the Black Lives Matter movement. ‘We talk a lot about mental health, and mine was in a really, really bad way yesterday,’ she said, explaining why she wasn’t on-air the day before. ‘And it has been for the last few days, in particular in relation to the death of George Floyd, an unarmed Black man who died while being held under arrest. I did not have the mental health to face you guys yesterday and ask: “How was your weekend?” like I usually do with my happy intention because I know my weekend was terrible.’ In the no good, very bad year that is turning out to be 2020, Clara was effectively telling listeners, it’s OK to not be OK. In fact, if you’re not angry, you’re not paying attention.
‘Last Tuesday, it was quite emotional for me,’ she explains later during our Zoom. ‘I was coming out as a Black woman to my listeners. They know I’m a Black woman. I’ve never hidden that. I’ll speak about my mum or mention that I need to get my braids done. Or that I was in Ghana for Christmas. They’ve always been given signifiers of my Blackness in the most joyous parts. But they weren’t aware of my Blackness in the pain and trauma.’
One in a sea of statements against police brutality that have now been made, Clara’s words stood out for their simplicity and vulnerability. Social media had become a messy scroll of words – contained corporate statements, indulgent, long confessionals and sheer outrage. But there was something about hearing a voice, Clara’s, cracking as she attempted to swallow tears, that hit differently. Her fellow BBC Radio 1 presenter Chris Stark called her speech ‘one of the most incredible, powerful, moving bits of radio ever’.
But to Clara it was a release. ‘I think, for me, the moment was like breathing out. It’s like when you’ve had on a super-tight pair of jeans all day. And then after I said what I said, I felt like I had undone my top button. The summation of absorbing Black pain through media, seeing what happened to Breonna Taylor, Sandra Bland, Ahmaud Arbery, Stephen Lawrence, the various cases in the UK. Black people. I love us. To see the mistreatment and disregard for Black life is painful. But don’t feel sorry for me. I love my Blackness.’
Since then, Clara’s inbox has been a pile of messages from listeners looking to share stories of their own awakenings. ‘I’ve never been more proud of the listeners who told me they are seriously committed to antiracism and putting it into practice.’
Growth, identity and evolution are recurring threads during our chat. Clara grew up in south London as one of six siblings in a tight-knit family. Her parents emigrated to London from Ghana in the ’70s. Her father studied medicine and became a microbiologist for the NHS. ‘He passed away five years ago. We had very similar personalities,’ she says. Since then, her relationship with her mother, which became Instagram famous when she set up an account dedicated to her mother’s Whatsapp critiques of Clara’s red-carpet looks, has reached a new depth. ‘I’ve fallen in love with her in a whole new way. She’s a very strong, joyous person.’
As different as the two are – Clara’s mother is a church-goer, while Clara likes a party and ‘a little cocktail’ – one can sense, in hearing Clara talk about their relationship, that the two share an innate optimism. And that hope seems to be powering Clara through these final weeks of upheaval and lockdown. ‘Something about these protests feels different. I think we’re going to see real change. My forever mood is that I want to show up for the child version of me. The young Black girls who are where I was,’ she explains. ‘You literally can’t be what you can’t see.’ Oprah would be proud. Hear Clara Amfo on BBC Radio 1, Monday to Thursday, 11am – 3pm
Kenya Hunt’s book, ‘GIRL: On Womanhood And Belonging In The Age Of Black Girl Magic’, will be published this autumn