TRIGGERnometry - Dr Tony Sewell on Fatherlessness, Gangs and Knife Crime

00:00:00.000 Hello and welcome to Trigonometry. I'm Francis Foster. I'm Constantine Kisson. And this is the

00:00:10.160 show for you if you're bored of people arguing on the internet over subjects they know nothing

00:00:14.760 about. At Trigonometry, we don't pretend to be the experts, we ask the experts. Our fantastic

00:00:20.960 expert guest this week is Tony Sowell, who's the founder of Generating Genius, which is a charity

00:00:26.220 that helps inner-city kids get to top universities here in the UK.

00:00:29.840 Tony, welcome to Trigonometry.

00:00:31.160 Thanks for having me.

00:00:32.240 It's so good to have you here.

00:00:33.580 The question we always like to ask at the beginning is,

00:00:36.080 how are you where you are?

00:00:37.200 What's been your journey through life?

00:00:38.980 Well, I suppose, I mean, my journey is an interesting one

00:00:41.820 because I think it sort of defines really, for me, what's happening now.

00:00:49.880 And I look back at that past and see a kind of a line going in.

00:00:53.780 I think the line was always how do I kind of disrupt what is given for me so for example 0.86

00:01:02.080 I was given a crap school yeah crap secondary school where all of us were expected well what 0.93

00:01:08.800 happened was quite interesting the the white kids in the school went and got jobs usually 0.98

00:01:14.060 with their uncles or whatever or friends and they had those connections and it seemed to be that's

00:01:20.000 quite interesting how they got work uh the black boys in the school well we we had a hard harder

00:01:25.900 time I mean a lot of us were unemployed but um and and really the way out for us um this is a

00:01:32.740 boys school was was harder I would admit that this was back in in the 70s yeah and I think that um

00:01:39.300 I think for um me uh the route then became almost how do I how do I now kind of redefine myself

00:01:49.540 in this interesting situation where nothing was really happening.

00:01:54.680 I remember I used to bunk off school basically to go to the library

00:01:58.280 because that was really good to try and educate myself.

00:02:02.420 You're such a rebel, Ty.

00:02:03.880 That was my rebellious thing, going down to the library

00:02:07.380 and trying to get some things.

00:02:08.820 But my mother was quite smart on this one. 0.91

00:02:12.040 So what she did was she, and there was three of us,

00:02:15.560 my brother and my sister, and she packed us off quite early

00:02:19.080 to an Anglican church, you know.

00:02:23.440 It wasn't a high Anglican, it was another one. 0.57

00:02:25.460 And it was, I mean, an Anglican church of England

00:02:27.280 and in a very middle class setting, all white setting.

00:02:30.520 And so we just went in there and we were the token black kids

00:02:33.880 in that church.

00:02:36.280 But they were really nice people and, you know,

00:02:38.420 we did nice things.

00:02:39.940 But what was interesting was that it changed our perception

00:02:42.640 because suddenly we had a, I think for,

00:02:46.000 But I always look at this for anybody as a sort of adolescent growing up.

00:02:52.160 Your peer group is going to define a lot of who you are and how you work.

00:02:55.560 And so, in a sense, we were suddenly given this new peer group of middle class kids and they went off to university and they came back in the summer.

00:03:05.940 And so, OK, they were our new friends.

00:03:08.760 And so that's what you do now, because in our schools, nobody went to university.

00:03:12.520 But for us, that was a change.

00:03:14.120 just all right i want to be like my friends so i better go off to university so we all we all 0.98

00:03:19.900 we all said about how are we going to do this because we've got to go to these crap schools

00:03:23.620 how are we going to get there uh and and so we just i suppose but it it's quite interesting that

00:03:29.800 that didn't seem to be that difficult and i i say that because if you're it's sort of so some of

00:03:35.780 this stuff is about motivation is about that drive in to do something is there obviously you do need

00:03:43.120 to have some of the stuff in place but to be socially mobile a lot of it and that's why I

00:03:50.820 began to think about social mobility that a lot of it was quite intrinsic yeah and so therefore

00:03:57.820 that set us off on that journey or me on that journey to to sort of go off to university and

00:04:04.100 And I think ever since then, I've always had the tension between almost like middle class people trying to sort of work out what I am and who I am and that kind of desire to do something different.

00:04:22.000 So, for example, if you, I remember going to, I mean, I'm also defined by my Jamaican background as well.

00:04:32.300 My parents were in Jamaica and all of that was very important in the 70s for us.

00:04:37.660 But it wasn't the sole thing that defined me.

00:04:41.880 I had another part of me, which was, I don't know, just another part of me.

00:04:45.580 I love classical music, for example, and I love Bach and things like that.

00:04:48.460 and I remember going to the South Bank

00:04:50.200 and

00:04:51.340 I don't know if you remember this band called

00:04:54.340 Osi Bisa, I don't remember

00:04:55.540 that's an African band and they were

00:04:58.360 playing on one corner and then

00:05:00.200 in the Purcell rooms

00:05:02.200 Bach was playing in the other, I got my ticket to go

00:05:04.440 to the Purcell room and I remember

00:05:06.100 the guard, the guy

00:05:08.440 at the door actually blocking me

00:05:10.560 from the Bach concert saying 0.97

00:05:12.400 that you've got to go over to New York because that's where the black 1.00

00:05:14.540 people are, he didn't actually say that but 0.93

00:05:16.140 he just said put me in there

00:05:17.680 You know, because it might have been something was going to harm me if I was going to, because I was going to be there, I was about 17 then.

00:05:26.080 And something was going to harm me if I was going to go in there and listen to Bach music, being the only black.

00:05:33.120 But I've got to go and jump up with all the other black people at Ursy Bisa. 0.99

00:05:36.440 that's where you 0.82

00:05:37.400 and if you like that kind of thing

00:05:40.220 was continually

00:05:41.840 kind of

00:05:43.660 you go in as

00:05:45.920 one of the reasons why I'm adamant

00:05:52.120 about this is that I had a recent interview

00:05:54.180 with the Sunday Times

00:05:55.160 which I don't want to slam the journalist

00:05:57.700 but it was a good interview

00:05:59.260 he's about to slam the journalist

00:06:00.240 now

00:06:03.400 we have some offices in central

00:06:06.200 london it just happened that my pa she booked an office which was i mean the three of us are quite

00:06:12.420 comfortable here i mean it was a very small room yeah and there was and she brought her intern in

00:06:17.180 there so there was three of us in the room and we were talking and i was relaxed as you can see i've

00:06:22.000 got a south london accent i i'm i'm i'm hopefully i'm fairly articulate with it i'm comfortable with

00:06:27.060 my accent i love my south london background yeah i've got a south london accent and i'm far less

00:06:32.040 articulate than you mate so you crack on you're fine anyway um when i read the piece after we had

00:06:38.000 done this um her thing was i'm six foot two i mean i must admit i don't think i'm i don't know

00:06:43.960 if i'm that kind of intimidating anyway her first comment was um uh we're we're in this cramped room

00:06:54.060 with Tony

00:06:55.680 who has a massive

00:06:57.860 frame and a

00:06:59.740 raspberry

00:07:00.640 Croydon accent

00:07:02.680 and that was the first

00:07:06.760 definition of

00:07:07.940 I was kind of wondering

00:07:10.000 it reminds me of the scene

00:07:12.120 have you ever seen Mel Brooks' Blazing Saddles

00:07:14.860 do you know that film?

00:07:15.820 yeah I know

00:07:17.560 I haven't seen it in a while

00:07:18.600 in the scene there's

00:07:21.360 a black sheriff

00:07:24.040 who comes into town 0.97

00:07:25.160 Melbrokes is very good at usurping

00:07:28.100 things and the sheriff comes into

00:07:30.160 they've killed the

00:07:32.100 existing sheriff so a new one

00:07:34.240 comes in but this is sort of like

00:07:36.260 in the backwoods of

00:07:37.720 Western and of course 0.98

00:07:40.180 the new sheriff is a black guy coming in town 0.98

00:07:42.540 and so he gets up on the 0.98

00:07:44.280 stage and

00:07:45.600 starts addressing the audience and then

00:07:47.900 puts his hand just slightly down to 0.99

00:07:50.280 where his dick is and then suddenly all 1.00

00:07:52.280 the women go 1.00

00:07:52.800 as if something terrible

00:07:56.820 was going to happen

00:07:57.560 and that kind of scene

00:07:59.980 reminded me of that

00:08:01.140 because I said

00:08:01.600 what was wrong with her

00:08:03.160 I mean

00:08:03.560 and then of course

00:08:04.120 all my friends

00:08:04.980 and it's quite interesting

00:08:05.940 they missed the article

00:08:07.700 and they just went straight

00:08:09.080 for that

00:08:09.600 to say well

00:08:10.140 Tony what was wrong

00:08:11.140 with this woman

00:08:11.600 I wrote to her

00:08:12.740 and I said to her

00:08:13.440 look you know

00:08:13.980 I didn't really

00:08:15.140 I didn't understand

00:08:15.700 you distracted

00:08:16.420 you detracted

00:08:17.460 from the other bits

00:08:18.440 in the piece

00:08:19.140 by just saying that

00:08:20.180 and she said

00:08:21.500 oh no no

00:08:22.340 we have to always set a context for our guests you know the other piece so in this case the 0.86

00:08:27.720 context was that you're black intimidating and also there was a little there was a little kind 0.79

00:08:34.100 of working class thing which i think all of working class people get i i i wore a nice suit

00:08:38.740 yeah in there because i wanted us i wanted us to get a nice sharp shot for our charity 0.50

00:08:42.680 and i had some patterned shoes i thought they looked kind of sharp so i was wearing those as

00:08:47.260 well and then she pointed to oh he was wearing this posh suit and patterned shoes and it was

00:08:51.800 like you know it reminds me of the thing in uh only fools and horses where rodney's always you

00:08:57.620 know the drinks thing he has a flash drink as if working class people are trying to be posh you

00:09:03.340 know what i mean that kind of so it's kind of slight that that that kind of and that's a dual 0.57

00:09:08.600 thing you get and it's a very english thing you know you got on the other hand you're a black man

00:09:13.020 and they're always current they're always obsessed with your size and whatever and on the other hand

00:09:17.500 And there's this whole kind of class thing about your accent and what that tells you about your accent.

00:09:24.240 Constantly obsessed with it, you know, which does actually, and I could be wrong.

00:09:29.120 I don't see it happening in other countries.

00:09:31.280 I think they're a very English thing that we do with accents.

00:09:34.340 And I can see people continually struggling with that at times, you know, and even those people who have made it, you know, you can see them always referring back to that kind of tension.

00:09:47.300 So that was an interesting thing.

00:09:48.860 But then, you know, who cares?

00:09:50.560 I did quite well.

00:09:51.380 I got a CBE from Prince Charles.

00:09:53.140 He was all right.

00:09:53.960 He's got a funny accent.

00:09:56.620 That's the most South London thing I've ever heard in my life.

00:09:59.480 I got a CBE from Prince Charles.

00:10:01.000 He's all right.

00:10:03.280 So things went up.

00:10:05.080 So, I mean, that's sort of part of the journey.

00:10:08.220 And then, yeah, so that's it.

00:10:10.020 Well, let's talk about generating genius,

00:10:11.680 because you've talked about being stereotyped

00:10:14.340 and what you're just talking about there.

00:10:16.240 But actually, you're someone who who talks extensively about the fact that in terms of educational outcomes and things like that, it's not racism that prevents people from advancing.

00:10:26.240 But it's a lack of values or lack of fathers.

00:10:29.420 And tell us a little bit about that.

00:10:30.540 I mean, the thing is, it still is, even though I tell that story because it's not that I'm here to sort of cry about racism or about what is me.

00:10:39.760 I actually think that we can talk about that and we can go over that.

00:10:43.960 But you have to, you accept the realities that the society has problems, but it's not going to hold you back.

00:10:51.660 You know, that's my mother's attitude. And that was that was how we. 0.51

00:10:54.940 But what I find is in the balance of things, I still would say that what we what we do need is is is is this sort of almost a kind of a kind of sense to tell young people that they've got the age.

00:11:11.620 I call it the agency, to actually kind of get over this.

00:11:16.000 It's not insurmountable.

00:11:18.300 You shouldn't have to face it, but on the other hand,

00:11:21.360 and it's certainly not as bad as it was in the 70s and 80s.

00:11:25.640 So there's actually progress in the society.

00:11:27.800 One of the problems in all of this is that if you don't say that,

00:11:32.900 then young people get locked in to a world, 0.93

00:11:36.060 and they feel they can't get out of it.

00:11:38.120 Hence the title Generating Genius,

00:11:39.740 is because if you surround poor people or people who are oppressed

00:11:45.040 with this sort of sense that they can do, yeah?

00:11:49.300 So generating...

00:11:50.300 Genius is always kind of a sense of it's out there,

00:11:53.200 but you can just...

00:11:53.900 Anybody can become a genius.

00:11:55.340 You have to put the things together, the opportunities,

00:11:58.100 and then you can fly, yeah?

00:12:00.220 So what I did is I also wanted to prove to myself

00:12:04.280 that that formula was true.

00:12:07.780 And so what I did is I found the group that was,

00:12:12.120 and that was black boys who were actually underachieving 0.75

00:12:16.860 the worst in the society at the moment at that time, 0.66

00:12:20.100 and it's improved to a certain extent now

00:12:22.100 in terms of school outcomes and exclusions.

00:12:25.400 And I wanted to set them a task to say, right,

00:12:28.040 can I get a group all the way through from the poorest backgrounds

00:12:34.880 all the way through to, say, Imperial College or Oxford University.

00:12:38.720 And let's not do an easy subject like we did English.

00:12:43.060 Let's do some sciences, yeah?

00:12:45.180 Stuff that's not associated with them.

00:12:47.240 OK, right?

00:12:48.220 And in a sense, there is a sense, and I say this,

00:12:52.100 it pervades the society as well that, you know, 0.99

00:12:55.620 black boys really are not that bright, really. 1.00

00:12:57.760 I mean, you even hear it from Watson saying, 0.99

00:12:59.240 not really that bright.

00:13:01.040 They're basically best at just doing a bit of DJing and stuff like that.

00:13:05.500 But they're not really belonging to laboratory discovering stuff.

00:13:10.420 So let's find the hardest thing, the thing that isn't even associated with them,

00:13:14.800 and let's put them on that track and see what happens.

00:13:17.640 So it was almost like a laboratory experiment, really, for myself.

00:13:21.620 And I found we started with 10, and then we increased it to 100.

00:13:28.340 And there were certain prerequisites around.

00:13:30.300 yes they had to be bright yeah we knew that and had to have an interest in science but they had

00:13:35.680 to be the first in their family to university dirt poor backgrounds and certainly none of their

00:13:40.880 schools sent anybody to university in fact more of their schools were sending them to jail than

00:13:45.220 university wow yeah so that was that was the kind of uh setup we had and and i got them at 14 and

00:13:53.480 then really i just worked with them and a part of looking back now i look back at that 100 and

00:13:59.160 i would say the vast majority of them now are at top universities they're in our alumni in fact

00:14:04.900 last night we uh i say last night a couple of nights ago we had a uh a reception for those

00:14:11.080 ones who came when they were 14 now they're 24 yeah so the god and the program how it works is

00:14:16.740 you stay with us from 14 to the point that you're at university and we work with you in the out of

00:14:22.440 school space in holidays or etc just doing lots and lots of sciences so it was like it was i was

00:14:28.340 like the Pied Piper I'd have this group of black boys running around the Imperial College Cambridge 1.00

00:14:33.880 now what I did is I used all my connections I'd had for my journey I just because I just know a

00:14:40.740 lot of people in that sense because I just go everywhere and everybody at that point wanted to

00:14:44.820 help so it wasn't as if there was nothing really stopping it happening you know all they needed

00:14:50.200 was somebody in the middle to facilitate it and I think that that's the thing in England what's

00:14:55.020 happening is that it's not that nobody wants to do anything for poor people or nobody wants to do

00:14:59.760 anything for it's just that we can't seem to connect we have a very difficult way of doing

00:15:05.380 this somehow stuff's over here poor people are over here and no one's in the middle doing the

00:15:12.300 link it's not as simple as that I know but it's some of it is just about that yeah and and that

00:15:17.760 That can be for a number of reasons.

00:15:20.220 I think it's a lack of understanding about the expectations that, in fact, what you can do is you can put some...

00:15:29.280 So, for example, some of the universities, some of the colleges genuinely probably didn't think that if you came from a poor part of Brixton in the 70s, 80s, you could get to Oxford.

00:15:40.440 They probably didn't understand.

00:15:43.160 So they wouldn't go for that.

00:15:45.120 And then, of course, the other worst thing

00:15:47.340 is that those people already in there

00:15:49.600 don't think they can get there.

00:15:51.640 That's worse, really, in some ways.

00:15:53.840 So you have this equation of nobody's going to...

00:15:57.000 Because nobody wants to...

00:15:58.260 They don't think they can get there,

00:16:00.480 and they don't want them to come.

00:16:02.840 It's what Anurin Bevin said about poverty of ambition

00:16:06.060 in the working classes.

00:16:07.920 Because it's like you said,

00:16:09.520 if you're not surrounded by people who are aspiring to do that,

00:16:12.880 Then why would you aspire to do it?

00:16:15.180 And we've got a concept called People Like Me, which is really good.

00:16:18.700 It's just a simple kind of thing of bringing the...

00:16:21.140 So that alumni is quite powerful.

00:16:22.920 So you can imagine our new cohort of little kids now waiting,

00:16:26.420 and they can see that lot of achieves.

00:16:28.840 Once the cycle starts going, it perpetuates itself.

00:16:34.260 It sounds like an amazing thing that you're doing, Tony,

00:16:36.480 but from your Sunday Times piece,

00:16:38.840 what you were talking about there is the fact that

00:16:40.860 you can't seem to get the politicians to actually listen to what you're talking about.

00:16:45.360 I think that where I've not been able to engage this

00:16:52.460 is because I'm adamant that I have not gone down the route

00:16:56.440 of saying that the fault of all this is racism.

00:17:01.020 I think that's really been the...

00:17:02.840 And the power has been changed.

00:17:05.900 If I'd gone and started waving the flag and said,

00:17:08.080 all these boys are oppressed because of

00:17:10.500 systemic racism, I think

00:17:12.480 I would probably get more attention

00:17:14.700 ironically, but I haven't

00:17:16.480 said that, I've said that it is this thing

00:17:18.520 of the driver of

00:17:20.360 ambition to make it happen

00:17:21.940 and yeah, I don't

00:17:24.000 honestly think that that is an issue

00:17:26.180 and I also think that there just

00:17:28.240 are people who are just totally hopeless

00:17:30.560 who shouldn't be, they're in

00:17:32.420 positions of

00:17:33.640 authority and power

00:17:36.540 trying to sort out the fact that working class

00:17:38.660 people are not getting

00:17:40.280 their rightful due, and these are

00:17:42.600 people who run these agencies

00:17:44.580 and they don't know what they're doing

00:17:46.220 and honestly I think that is the case

00:17:48.120 I see it in terms of universities

00:17:50.540 I see it in terms of

00:17:52.460 charities, I see it in terms of social agencies

00:17:54.900 I can keep going around

00:17:56.360 and I just see a lot of people

00:17:58.160 trying something, but it doesn't really

00:18:00.640 it's not really working

00:18:01.800 and in the end it's almost like

00:18:04.640 they say and this is where it gets really bad oh your problems are so complex that they can't be

00:18:12.560 solved you know i mean i keep hearing that oh the problem knife crime is too complicated there are

00:18:17.520 too many things that we don't we haven't got any solutions the mayor says it's going to take 10

00:18:21.480 years to solve it now so so in a sense the the the the salute the people who can come to the

00:18:28.760 solutions are just not at the table and i just i don't know why that is i mean maybe we just don't

00:18:32.880 know you buddy i don't know i mean but that's been a problem for me and i and i and i want i i try and

00:18:38.360 push myself and i'm not it's not me alone i'm thinking that i know other people who should be

00:18:44.140 in there you know that place called the house of laws for example where you've got people who are

00:18:49.120 strategically overviewing laws and things like that but hardly any of them sound or look like

00:18:55.920 me in there and also the answers they're not they're not they're people who might have some

00:19:00.980 of the answers and they're not they're not really getting it so in a way we've got to try and

00:19:05.780 completely redefine i think something's happening at the moment with brexit where we're really

00:19:11.060 questioning and i like that i like the disruption that we're having at the moment people say oh

00:19:14.840 this is this is horrible but what's going on is i think people are waking up to the fact that the

00:19:20.260 so-called experts this is it are not the experts and that's that's really what's going on here they

00:19:26.680 don't know and they've managed to get in their positions but mainly because of who they know

00:19:31.580 and I think that's that's beginning to change now and I'd love to see if I had a chance just people

00:19:38.540 who do know what they're doing in that position and politically it would be different it wouldn't

00:19:43.340 necessarily be a liberal thing as well it'd be different people from different backgrounds coming

00:19:48.040 in and really trying to sort this out so I think that's that's where it's been stuck. I mean you

00:19:53.160 touched on in the article as well about the lack of positive male role models at home and i remember

00:19:58.560 reading that and i read the article in the sunday times and i i sort of gasped when you you know

00:20:03.800 when you said it because it's an issue that we took we've tiptoe around i've taught in deprived

00:20:08.620 schools in east london and a lot of the children that do go on to join gangs they don't have a

00:20:13.660 father figure let me just tell you what's happened in the you know in the in the research sector in

00:20:18.640 the university, in the discourse that's been happening, in the people that hold almost

00:20:23.600 the power over our knowledge, you would have thought that the issue of boys would have

00:20:30.620 been a key thing. In America and other places, they have looked at this issue. In England,

00:20:34.960 the literature on this is very sparse. There's hardly anything on it. You get some people

00:20:40.380 that we don't understand boys' development. We don't understand what they're doing. Yet

00:20:45.920 our prisons are full of them, yet they're the ones that are disrupting most of the society.

00:20:52.940 And yet we carry along with this. And I think it's because what's happened is we've had a kind

00:21:00.220 of guilt reaction in regard to feminism. And I say that because what's actually happening here is

00:21:07.640 that there's a sort of sense that women have been blocked, but they've been blocked by the wrong

00:21:15.420 kind of it's not that it's this not it's not these type of men that are really doing the blocking you 0.66

00:21:20.020 know it's the so they so in a sense these poor boys or black boys are getting beaten up really

00:21:25.900 and they're not it's not them that's really in in the way it's you know boys from eton boys from

00:21:31.800 these are the these are the boys that are really up there doing all all the oppressing so the me

00:21:36.220 too movement should go after them really and in a sense what's actually happening is working class 0.84

00:21:41.200 boys and black boys are really at the bottom of the rung here and and and and and their only way 0.99

00:21:48.320 of disrupting the society often is is is by being violent at the bottom so we've got this kind of

00:21:55.000 mismatch you see and and i i'm i'm i'm all for the me too movement i think there should be a me too

00:22:00.860 movement for black and working class boys and white working class i do think they need and one

00:22:06.100 of them one of the key elements for them is they need we need to sort of seriously ask about the

00:22:12.560 family and the home and not just accept this idea that fathers are allowed to walk away or be thrown

00:22:21.240 out by whoever or or the courts or wherever and not have access to those boys why is it important

00:22:28.460 for the for the boys to have father because it's a back to this sort of people like me let me give

00:22:32.660 you an example, and that's where the Caribbean community is a very kind of interesting kind

00:22:38.680 of development. If you look at the way girls, and girls are doing now really well in the

00:22:46.180 science, teenage pregnancy is gone virtually in England. You hardly see it. Those numbers 0.99

00:22:51.680 are gone. I mean, basically, we've got a society now where the girls are doing very, 0.98

00:22:56.120 very well. University rates for girls are just high, nearly 50, 60% of the campuses.

00:23:01.140 the girl will be at home on a Sunday night

00:23:05.100 seeing the legs between her mum 1.00

00:23:06.720 combing her hair

00:23:07.740 and they're talking

00:23:09.660 and they're talking their business

00:23:10.700 and they're having a great time together

00:23:12.720 because they're doing girl stuff 0.59

00:23:15.140 and she's got a role model with her mum 0.97

00:23:19.600 and her mother is that identifying figure

00:23:22.240 the boy, the little boy

00:23:25.460 can do some of that when he's small

00:23:27.500 when he's tiny

00:23:28.340 but there's a point in a boy's life

00:23:30.960 And it doesn't really matter if even if you're homosexual, your sexuality has got nothing to do with this. 0.63

00:23:37.100 There's just a point in a boy's life where he's going to want to push away from that mother figure and find another another person.

00:23:46.640 Yeah, usually that looks to be like the father, hopefully, to carry out that kind of intimate work.

00:23:53.800 Now, if the dad isn't there to do that job, he'll find it in other boys.

00:23:59.660 Hence, that's why boys like to go around with each other.

00:24:02.380 And it's just about identifying with people that look like you

00:24:06.400 and you feel an empathy with that.

00:24:09.440 And I think that's fine.

00:24:11.220 The problem is, the other thing is about boys,

00:24:14.480 and this is where it gets quite controversial,

00:24:15.960 is that biologically we've got, I don't know if you're left-handed,

00:24:21.000 but right-handed, we've got a strong right arm.

00:24:24.600 and that means that physically

00:24:27.580 we can do a lot of damage

00:24:29.540 our ancestors realised that

00:24:31.180 that strong arm can actually

00:24:33.820 tear to pieces a village

00:24:35.760 so what we've got

00:24:37.820 to do, it's quite interesting, knife crime

00:24:39.940 is interesting because that's another thing about the right arm

00:24:42.040 what's that doing

00:24:43.240 so what

00:24:45.460 the father does often

00:24:47.700 and I can see in their interactions with

00:24:49.660 their sons, they are like

00:24:51.920 the police force, they come

00:24:54.020 in and they restrain those boys yeah i always remember when you you you look at the risk taking

00:25:01.300 that a man does with his son you know it's very interesting going out there son yeah especially

00:25:06.220 when they're doing riding their bikes you know it's like i've seen it all the time because

00:25:10.140 there's a stereotype yeah right you know he thought the boy falls off the butt get up come

00:25:15.120 on son get up you just fell off it's a little bruise yeah get on with it you know and i'm

00:25:19.440 stereotyping, I see the

00:25:21.420 brothers around the boys, and it's kind of,

00:25:23.220 oh, no, no, no, and it's kind of like, no,

00:25:26.000 you know, I mean, and they

00:25:27.460 get that, they get that, they get that difference,

00:25:30.020 yeah, that risk

00:25:31.480 taking that you want, go on boy, get on

00:25:33.460 with it, and actually, to

00:25:35.480 a certain extent, the boys like that, they

00:25:37.420 like that kind of sense of,

00:25:39.520 but they want also

00:25:41.100 somebody there to say no,

00:25:43.440 thus far and no further,

00:25:45.580 and that kind of, my dad used to play it, my dad

00:25:47.380 used to be the sort of, he used to be,

00:25:49.100 in my home

00:25:50.540 my mother used to do, when we had 1.00

00:25:53.160 Corporal Punishment, my mother used to do all the 1.00

00:25:55.280 beating in the home and she used to try her best

00:25:57.400 and then

00:25:58.420 beating, she was really good 0.98

00:26:00.360 she was practising every night

00:26:02.760 she used to beat, whatever 1.00

00:26:05.140 we used to beat, I used to give her our time 0.80

00:26:07.000 but then my firewood was like the

00:26:09.120 nuclear weapon, you know what I mean

00:26:10.460 so he would be sitting there

00:26:12.240 and you knew that was the kind of

00:26:14.960 almost, you know

00:26:16.440 that was the kind of thing that held everything

00:26:18.680 all the thing in play

00:26:21.060 that if you were referred back up there

00:26:22.960 that that would be a serious

00:26:24.820 and so she

00:26:26.080 and you could see there was like a power thing going on

00:26:28.800 and I just feel

00:26:31.740 that that's with the fathers

00:26:33.060 that figure of authority

00:26:35.520 that is missing

00:26:36.320 so therefore it's not surprising

00:26:38.620 that you look at the

00:26:40.420 I mean you can see this

00:26:41.520 the amount of boys

00:26:45.220 that are on the street

00:26:46.700 at night just not who is actually telling them to come in i'm talking about like 12 13 in fact

00:26:53.240 sometimes even younger than that wow um on the street at 11 12 at night i mean i don't know but

00:27:01.500 not you ask a policeman when the policeman picks up that son and this might be a massive stereotype

00:27:07.520 i know but ask any policeman you were in the full they take that boy back home and they're taking

00:27:12.860 them back to a single household yeah there's no man in that house yeah so that debate we can't

00:27:21.380 have in england because somebody will turn around to you and say what you're doing is you're you're

00:27:27.780 really beating up on the single mother and that's become a sacred thing now the single mother 1.00

00:27:33.420 so and they're looking at us now all these men talking about all the same old thing it's all

00:27:39.260 against the women and we're blaming them and that's the it's not that that if you what i'm

00:27:44.260 trying to get with you're blaming the fathers for not being there yeah and i'm and i'm also saying

00:27:48.400 that the fathers should be allowed back here now some of them say well whoa what's what's going on

00:27:52.000 here some of those men are abusive some of them may be but not all of them and they need access

00:27:57.260 to that and and the other thing is i think with this is that it's actually we need to be able to

00:28:02.700 support those mothers i get calls every week because of what i do from single mothers saying

00:28:09.080 I can't cope with this boy.

00:28:11.140 Dr. Sewell, have you got any ideas?

00:28:13.220 She's reached a point,

00:28:14.200 especially when he's a teenager.

00:28:16.020 Now, everybody knows this.

00:28:17.680 Social workers, lawyers, politicians,

00:28:19.940 they all know this.

00:28:21.240 But nobody wants to go over that sacred line

00:28:24.020 of saying that, look, we can't do this.

00:28:28.860 Can we have some help here?

00:28:31.560 Because we're saying that

00:28:33.280 we are in the era of superwomen.

00:28:35.520 They can do everything.

00:28:36.980 They can go to work.

00:28:37.820 They can raise girls.

00:28:39.080 they can also raise boys they can do everything so how dare you step over on that line I think

00:28:46.520 that's where we are politically that's where we kind of a mature discussion on it um what will

00:28:51.780 happen is you'll have a discussion and the women will turn around and say you're just blaming us 1.00

00:28:55.920 you know or or it's one where it's it it it's not about this it's about poverty or it's about the

00:29:03.500 fact that um the boys haven't got um uh you know sort of youth youth center to go to or things like

00:29:09.900 that which is not the real reason why they're in this state of of disruption they're in this

00:29:16.000 state of disruption because there isn't a restraining element at home and do you think

00:29:21.100 a lot of the gang problems and the knife problems that we're seeing in in london and elsewhere in

00:29:25.000 the country now is it down to that yeah i know that because i used to work for the youth justice

00:29:29.240 board which was the the the arm in in in the society that looked after children who were in

00:29:35.840 the youth offending area now to be honest that's only about 800 kids it's not a lot of kids you

00:29:41.380 know on the on the on the on the sort of real kind of uh um serious end of it you know um uh and

00:29:48.860 those children in the end what i did was i i kind of went round um and just asked those boys to come

00:29:57.120 tell me what why are you here why what was the reason for the knife crime and two things

00:30:04.680 came out of that kind of interaction um number one uh there was a an admission that that

00:30:12.380 a point in their lives the father leaving or not being there is this issue yeah um and i think the

00:30:20.920 other one which was which was really interesting about them their morality was and this this

00:30:26.340 actually was quite pertinent for black boys was that a lot of them pleaded not guilty for their

00:30:32.900 crime so here is a boy he's found the knife is in the hand the police has arrived this is if they

00:30:40.620 run away the knife is in the in the hand the blood everything is all over him you're a bang to rights

00:30:47.400 yeah he reaches court and he pleads not guilty and and what happens in the in our justice system

00:30:55.300 is if you plead not guilty, you get a longer sentence

00:30:57.680 because obviously you can't bargain.

00:30:59.320 If you plead guilty, then obviously the judge will take that into consideration.

00:31:02.220 So they're copying longer sentences.

00:31:04.940 And I was quite intrigued to find out why it was

00:31:07.520 that those boys were saying not guilty

00:31:09.380 because all the boys I met in all those youths in defending,

00:31:12.640 every one of them was saying they're not guilty.

00:31:14.640 What's going on?

00:31:15.960 And I got it then.

00:31:17.840 It wasn't that the police had got the facts wrong.

00:31:22.380 They genuinely believed they were not guilty

00:31:24.760 Because when the person disrespected them, the original offence for the knife crime, that is what they're referring to.

00:31:34.000 They're saying that that person actually did me so wrong, I was justified to kill him.

00:31:42.240 So what we've got is we've got kids locked up in this situation, men locked up, who haven't got any sense of the morality of what they've done.

00:31:51.020 They actually still believe. No one's done any work on that.

00:31:54.760 They actually believed that they were right.

00:31:56.680 So they're actually literally not guilty 0.91

00:31:58.620 because they were justified to stab them.

00:32:01.780 So when they plead to the judge not guilty,

00:32:04.120 that's what they're saying.

00:32:04.820 They're saying, I'm not guilty.

00:32:07.100 I was justified to do it.

00:32:09.440 That's horrific.

00:32:10.880 It is.

00:32:12.360 You know what I mean?

00:32:13.260 So in their heads,

00:32:15.220 that bit of it isn't a problem.

00:32:19.280 The fact that at the dance,

00:32:21.660 he stepped on my shoe or dissed my girlfriend

00:32:23.840 or whatever it was,

00:32:24.760 right that was the the crime see as you're talking about it now i think back to my childhood

00:32:31.640 i i've i've been dissed in my time as we all have and you go to your dad in my case and you go dad

00:32:40.120 this is what happened like what you know what should i do and he goes well just don't worry 0.95

00:32:43.940 about it the guy's a dick or whatever you know what i mean that's what a father so a father 0.96

00:32:47.960 gives you a sense of where the the limitations are of your retaliation exactly it's the more 0.99

00:32:55.140 it's the moral development what we're going down now is the moral development of those boys

00:32:59.120 the vacuum that's there and and and and i'll be honest that the the the mothers try and and here's

00:33:08.740 another problem with this thing about the mothers there is a significant amount of women who actually 1.00

00:33:15.740 do really well with their boys and take them to the top universities and they do well and so what

00:33:21.080 happens is when you have this conversation they roll out and they say well what are you talking

00:33:26.300 about i had five boys and i sent them all to university super mom you know and um but then

00:33:34.220 i turn around and say well what about the 90 of other women who are not super mom who haven't got 0.85

00:33:41.540 that capacity you know what about them and i think that's that's the problem we have so the society

00:33:47.500 is continually telling us that women can do it all and men are actually useless i mean that's

00:33:54.320 really the message so how do we go about solving this i mean i mean i mean i think i think that

00:34:00.640 the issue for me is that the policies around certainly around some of the settlements for

00:34:08.480 boys when it comes to um uh who has custodies in terms of the breakup of the family we've got to

00:34:16.640 review how this thing works for boys someone's got to kind of talk to some of those judges about

00:34:22.840 that i think there's there's an issue there in terms of because often this happens in the family

00:34:27.720 breakup that happens the other the other the other bit is that i just think that we need to i think

00:34:33.100 that there should be a campaign I think this is the mayor's office should be having a campaign

00:34:38.040 about the fact that um uh you know a lot of men it can be black or white men should be um taking 0.74

00:34:47.560 responsibility of their kids and actually making that more normal thing what what what's happened

00:34:52.400 sometimes in some black community and we've had this in the Caribbean community that it's actually

00:34:56.300 a pride to sort of say I've dropped three or four kids from all these different women a pride of my

00:35:03.020 manhood, that I've dropped all these kids

00:35:05.300 and I've not taken care

00:35:07.480 of them, you know what I mean, and so what

00:35:09.420 because the state can take care of them

00:35:11.340 and that's the issue

00:35:12.720 and those are the people who then fill the prisons

00:35:14.440 exactly, so what you need

00:35:16.460 you need almost a campaign

00:35:18.400 to bring the father back, in a sense

00:35:20.820 not an oppressive

00:35:22.160 but this idea

00:35:23.860 that actually

00:35:26.180 and actually make it not

00:35:28.400 a mark of manhood

00:35:30.700 that you've got all these kids

00:35:32.380 but in fact a good man is a man

00:35:34.960 that takes care of his children

00:35:36.300 and almost like that campaign

00:35:38.460 in the heads of our boys

00:35:40.520 that's what is the expectation

00:35:43.320 at the moment there's just nothing

00:35:44.640 we don't want to go there

00:35:46.140 so I would love the mayor for example

00:35:49.160 to put out a poster campaign

00:35:50.600 I used to remember walking

00:35:53.120 with my daughter with a buggy

00:35:55.140 in the hand and walking around

00:35:56.420 and people would look at me

00:35:58.060 it's a strange thing to do

00:36:01.200 But to me, I didn't do the natural thing to do.

00:36:03.600 I mean, I brought that door,

00:36:05.080 and the mother carried her for nine months,

00:36:07.200 yeah, but I'm part of that person.

00:36:10.720 So I've got to be doing my share, you know what I mean?

00:36:14.180 I mean, I wouldn't even think of anything otherwise.

00:36:16.940 And it's just like, you know,

00:36:18.440 that kind of thing of what does a man look like?

00:36:22.540 So a man would be seen, must be there with his,

00:36:25.040 and I used to meet other guys, you know, it was great.

00:36:27.080 We'd all be together with our buggies,

00:36:28.600 you know, talking to each other.

00:36:30.520 And it was like, and they would say the same thing.

00:36:33.760 People would say, or people would come in and say, well done. 0.99

00:36:36.880 What crap is that? 0.99

00:36:38.380 You know, well done. 1.00

00:36:40.040 So it's like, or people look at it.

00:36:42.000 The other thing, another interesting issue, is to do with child abuse.

00:36:48.280 I think that there's a suspicion that men with younger children, it's not natural.

00:36:55.020 so it's kind of I remember when I was in I was teaching a little boy in a nursery a one-to-one

00:37:02.120 the mother wanted me to do a sort of private lessons and and and she was the owner of the

00:37:09.040 nursery and then of course the mothers came in what's this man doing in here you know as if I

00:37:14.580 was kind of so gonna I'm gonna abuse their kids you know and so there's a kind of nervousness

00:37:19.980 about men and we've made 0.74

00:37:22.060 that kind of a sort of thing about

00:37:23.500 you shouldn't be seen

00:37:25.100 this thing about in the swimming pool

00:37:27.900 should you be seen, I don't know if they're taking

00:37:30.000 pictures but should you be swimming too close

00:37:32.000 to the children

00:37:32.640 subconsciously you're thinking

00:37:35.480 a kid, I remember

00:37:37.540 a little boy, I'm walking around there

00:37:39.440 a little boy just come up to me in the train

00:37:41.160 his mum was

00:37:43.140 the boy just jumped off on me and started to hug me

00:37:46.000 I think he mistook me for his dad

00:37:47.960 and I felt really guilty

00:37:51.940 because I said

00:37:52.340 what's going on here

00:37:53.760 a sort of second take

00:37:55.560 you have to take

00:37:56.040 sometimes as a man

00:37:57.000 when you're around

00:37:58.100 and we've got this

00:37:59.000 sort of thing about

00:38:00.020 are you the sort of

00:38:02.060 Sutcliffe

00:38:04.040 and I just think

00:38:06.500 we've got to kind of be

00:38:07.800 again that normative thing

00:38:09.700 I think it's an English thing

00:38:10.920 I do think

00:38:11.420 that we've got to get

00:38:12.680 back to that kind of sense

00:38:14.420 that we need

00:38:16.420 the males back into play here you know and what's been the reaction by you going you know fathers

00:38:22.500 need to take responsibility they need to look after their children there can't be this attitude

00:38:27.360 that you know you just have you know three or four kids from different mothers and all the rest of it

00:38:31.920 has it has it been supportive no i've found it quite even the people i know my own even in my

00:38:37.240 own family but we've had big debates about this they they keep saying to me tony you're just

00:38:41.480 oversimplifying it i hate those words oversimplifying it it's so many the problem around

00:38:47.480 crime is so complex it's poverty it's that they didn't get a youth club they you know it's to do

00:38:54.080 with teachers and they get it's a whole range of things and so what what when people start doing

00:38:59.000 that that long list shopping list what they're really saying is back to our thing again it's

00:39:04.020 experts who don't know yeah see so they're just giving you this long list because they don't

00:39:07.780 because that means inaction.

00:39:09.680 Because once the list starts going for us five things,

00:39:13.940 then you're really saying to that boy,

00:39:15.420 look, we can't do anything for you.

00:39:17.160 You know what I mean?

00:39:18.040 And so what they're saying is that you've just come to this problem

00:39:20.960 and you're just oversimplifying it by just saying it's about fathers.

00:39:25.260 Yet the evidence is clear for me that disproportionately,

00:39:30.440 especially if a lot of black boys are involved in that,

00:39:33.300 that that's the issue that they face. 0.59

00:39:35.400 and it's not that it might be that knife crime isn't the problem it might be that those boys

00:39:39.720 are just unhappy or they're in that vacuum that moral vacuum that that means that they then commit

00:39:46.960 that crime you know and so we've got to look at the underlying reasons why one of the things that

00:39:52.640 for me is the key to this is the way in which we tackled teenage pregnancy that was a big social

00:39:58.180 problem i don't know about you but in london i used to remember the time i'm sure it's up north

00:40:02.320 as well, where you'd see

00:40:03.940 all these teenage girls with these buggies 1.00

00:40:06.220 walking around on the high school.

00:40:07.840 You don't see that anymore.

00:40:09.720 You don't see that anymore. Not to that extent.

00:40:12.040 Especially in London. In

00:40:13.780 parts of Hackney, we've almost cracked that.

00:40:16.380 So what did they do

00:40:17.600 to develop that? Well, two things.

00:40:20.320 Girls got a much 1.00

00:40:22.140 more positive image about themselves

00:40:24.000 and lots more, you know,

00:40:25.720 and

00:40:25.940 also coincided to a certain extent

00:40:29.760 with some of the positives around social media

00:40:31.940 as well so you know it wasn't cool it's not cool anymore to be a girl with a buggy walking around 0.99

00:40:38.060 town that just doesn't cut it anymore and um the other thing was compulsive compulsive

00:40:45.620 contraceptives are not telling the parents that works that seemed to work as well so you know

00:40:51.840 the injection went in and the girls you know that's just stopped them you know um and i think

00:40:57.540 those two policy things that that we focused on dealt with that problem you know i mean it wasn't

00:41:03.480 too we didn't say oh it's too complicated you know and equally i think with the issue for boys we need

00:41:09.180 a similar kind of thing around how boys and men see themselves our fathers see themselves and

00:41:15.740 making that making it not cool to be a deadbeat dad almost going after them really and and then

00:41:23.580 And then really kind of almost in a sense sort of saying to the boys themselves that, look, here are some positive role models of what you can be like as a man, you know, and putting that around them.

00:41:39.920 So it's a counter narrative to the gangs. You almost got to go counter to what, you know, the other thing. And then you'll get a positive outcome.

00:41:48.240 I mean, it's that kind of policy thing that you need to start engineering around those young people and supporting those single mothers. 1.00

00:41:55.640 I'm not saying to the single mothers, you've got to stay with those men, but at least do what some of the women do. 1.00

00:42:02.100 At least call out for help and don't say you can do it all.

00:42:05.160 You know, that doesn't mean that you're that doesn't put your feminism radar lower. 1.00

00:42:09.760 It just means that it just means that you're saying that, look, I need some support here, you know, and we should be able to support those boys.

00:42:17.300 So I do think that we've done it before and we can do it for young men.

00:42:22.560 And Tony, this is one of the areas that I really wanted to talk to you about

00:42:26.140 because it always rears its head with the police.

00:42:28.920 It's stop and search.

00:42:30.580 Now, a lot of people say that it's a racist policy.

00:42:33.520 Stop and search for our global audience is where police stop young men,

00:42:38.240 mainly young black men, and search them for knives and all the rest of it. 0.99

00:42:40.720 Do you agree with it? Do you disagree with it? 0.96

00:42:42.540 Where do you stand on it and why?

00:42:43.700 I mean, my view on it is quite an interesting area here

00:42:46.840 because it's like we've moved full circle with this.

00:42:50.400 So, for example, you get two voices on this.

00:42:53.880 You get people saying, oh, stop and search is bad

00:42:55.820 and it's oppressive, it goes in for one community.

00:42:58.940 But then when there is a knife crime, the police are blamed

00:43:01.560 because they're not there in it.

00:43:03.040 They say, where are the police?

00:43:04.400 And you usually get that from the victim's side.

00:43:07.380 So suddenly we've got a shift in this

00:43:09.600 and it's more towards saying that, okay, we need more police.

00:43:13.760 So my view on it is I think knife crime does need quite specific policing,

00:43:19.720 but I just think it doesn't need saturated policing.

00:43:22.880 What used to happen in the 70s and 80s was that a crime would be committed

00:43:26.740 and every black man in the radius of about five miles was stopped and served.

00:43:33.900 Just because, you know, you're just... 0.94

00:43:35.720 I mean, that just caused mass problems.

00:43:38.240 I think the police have got enough intelligence on this one

00:43:40.980 to be able to do some targeted things.

00:43:43.600 where they know where those criminals are

00:43:45.900 and where they're hanging out.

00:43:47.440 And I think they should use Stop and Search

00:43:49.160 in that more intelligent way.

00:43:51.400 So I do think you need it,

00:43:52.480 but it just needs to be done better.

00:43:54.800 You know, coming back to the fatherlessness thing,

00:43:57.220 one of the things I found very worrying

00:43:58.700 in the piece that you had in The Times,

00:44:00.600 you're talking about the fact

00:44:01.900 that you're trying to get this message out there

00:44:03.720 that fatherlessness is a problem.

00:44:06.520 And the pushback is that a lot of the white politicians

00:44:09.600 and other people you talk to,

00:44:11.300 they don't want to raise this issue.

00:44:12.560 They don't want to deal with it

00:44:13.500 because of fear of being called racist yeah right so how and and i i can't wrap my head around that

00:44:19.860 that doesn't make sense to me yeah i mean i think that it was even worse when i used to come out

00:44:24.640 with stuff around exclusion from schools and boys and say that black boys and say that um look this

00:44:31.700 this issue isn't necessarily about racism but it's actually about some other things going on

00:44:36.620 in the home in the peer group and we've got to tackle this you know um and i think equally with

00:44:42.260 the knife crime issue.

00:44:44.540 Although I think, I must admit,

00:44:46.540 there is less of a

00:44:48.540 sense now that

00:44:49.740 people are,

00:44:52.460 I think there's more willingness, I think, to go

00:44:54.420 to that area now because of the numbers

00:44:56.560 are so clear that it is 0.86

00:44:58.320 disproportionately black boys that are involved in this.

00:45:01.060 However, I do think that 0.88

00:45:02.380 when we come to the solutions

00:45:04.320 that

00:45:05.480 are aiming this, I mean, and my

00:45:08.440 friend David Lammy is a classic example.

00:45:10.520 I mean, David, in 2012, he was before me.

00:45:14.280 He said, you can just go online, just tap in David Lammy, knife crime, 0.91

00:45:19.200 and up will come all these articles about him saying black homes need black fathers. 0.96

00:45:25.680 I mean, he states that, you know.

00:45:28.120 And yet now it's sort of not politically kind of so correct to do that.

00:45:33.040 I hear he's rowing back a bit on it.

00:45:34.780 You know, he's not coming up.

00:45:35.580 So you get that sort of sense that there's a sensitivity around this

00:45:39.680 and nobody wants to come out and state that as an issue.

00:45:43.600 Why?

00:45:43.800 And I think it's also who says it.

00:45:46.060 I think it's because there is a focus on the victim.

00:45:49.960 One of these is they're saying that the thing that always helps us out

00:45:55.700 is the white male.

00:45:57.440 If we can find anything to hook it on him,

00:46:00.500 then it's a get-out-of-jail card for us. 0.99

00:46:03.980 You're screwed. 0.97

00:46:04.780 so you know in this particular instance you know what way wait a minute you know we can't we cannot 0.99

00:46:13.000 we cannot blame the victim here it's got to be something to do with with with him or at least

00:46:18.980 his his his measures so it's to do with Tory austerity it's to do with um the fact there's

00:46:26.440 a youth club this to do with the police you know and the way they they see themselves it's to do

00:46:32.220 with white teachers excluding them from schools anything and everything but not the home I think 0.55

00:46:38.600 that's the problem so that's really where it is so but once you start going back into the home

00:46:42.800 then you talk about agency then you're talking about responsibility of those those communities

00:46:48.920 and that's that's the difference you see then nobody wants to take that especially if you're

00:46:53.900 a politician who's who's been kind of almost um put up on on the basis that i am here to protect

00:47:04.140 you from that horrible world the wolves out there that are coming to get you so therefore my my

00:47:09.980 narrative has always got to come back to the fact that you're oppressed not for the fact that the

00:47:15.540 oppression might be something to do with what's going on in your home yeah and or another type

00:47:20.720 of oppression that you might be perpetuating yourself no you can't go there and that's where

00:47:26.120 we that's that's where we've become stuck but what i think this this issue has come up is that 0.95

00:47:31.700 as i said i think that particularly black boys they they they they're a problem for for for that 1.00

00:47:38.720 kind of rhetoric they confound that because they as those boys say look the biggest issue for me 0.97

00:47:45.600 was the fact that my old man left or he wasn't there

00:47:48.720 or downstairs I was busy kind of refitting an air gun

00:47:54.740 so that it could be used as a gun

00:47:56.180 while my daughter was upstairs doing,

00:47:59.040 while my sister was upstairs doing her work

00:48:01.000 and my dad or the dads of the three of us,

00:48:04.840 the three different dads, just were not here.

00:48:07.820 That's the reality that I face, you know.

00:48:10.760 um and so so for me that's that's that's where it it lies and so it's difficult for communities to

00:48:19.180 come back and say well we've got to try and sort this out ourselves you see what i don't understand

00:48:23.700 there's a guy in america larry elder i don't know if you're familiar with him right and larry he has

00:48:28.460 some interesting points along the same lines that you make but he he's a guy who just talks right

00:48:33.180 he's a radio host he's very articulate very good but he talks right but you've proven it through

00:48:38.100 the work that you do and still people are afraid to take there should be hundreds of generating

00:48:43.040 geniuses around the country i think that it yeah there should be and i think that people are waking

00:48:47.320 up to it but i think that it's it's it's a harder one i mean what what's also happened is that

00:48:53.340 the and here's another thing about generating genius that makes it a little bit different

00:48:58.580 and people kind of don't get it a bit is that what it's trying to do is saturate the mindset

00:49:04.060 of that community with young people that are doing very well it's a kind of it's almost like

00:49:10.580 a kind of counterintuitive thing because what you usually do in policies is you go you tend to say

00:49:16.120 we're going to stack all our resources on on the very few kids that are causing all this disruption

00:49:22.500 now admittedly that i mean when they kill somebody that's a massive disruption so you've got to do

00:49:26.560 something but what what what we're saying is that actually what you need to do is you need to you

00:49:32.040 need to change the narrative around that group that's what we like what we did with the teenage

00:49:35.740 girls and and so therefore you you actually may be needing to sort of go after um as I say um

00:49:43.720 children who are and making sure that that there is that there is a story for them what's quite

00:49:50.920 interesting is that the the kids on my program come from the same schools that the kids who

00:49:56.140 commit knife crime come from they come from the same schools so it's not like they're going off

00:50:01.060 to Eaton or Harrow or someone like that, the same estates, the same schools, yet they're ending up

00:50:05.600 at the top universities. So that is powerful. You see what I mean? Because you're saying,

00:50:10.740 the same money, the same lack of youth clubs or whatever, austerity, and to a certain extent,

00:50:19.540 same lack of fathers. And that's quite interesting as well, you know, in their homes. And yet one

00:50:26.520 group is doing well another is and the other one that confounds it all is girls at the moment the

00:50:32.980 group that is doing best in London are girls from a West African background and they're doing really

00:50:40.300 well in school so what you've got in some homes you've got the girl upstairs busy doing her work

00:50:46.400 going off to top university and a boy downstairs getting ready for prison and that is happening in

00:50:53.440 a lot of black homes two pathways for the same kid in the same household and so that's that's 0.98

00:51:00.760 what you're what you're saying is absolutely right that in fact what what what you need then is is

00:51:05.900 is is something that's going to tackle the real core of the problem you know not pussyfoot around 0.94

00:51:11.160 it which is really what's what's been happening in the past and it's because we're not allowing

00:51:16.380 ourselves and this is probably i've never had this is the most honest and open conversation i've ever

00:51:21.040 had with any media on this

00:51:23.000 issue. I've never heard people talk about it

00:51:25.100 openly because there's always

00:51:26.980 this, oh, should I say the right thing?

00:51:29.460 You know, and all that.

00:51:30.680 So we never get to it.

00:51:33.840 No, no, but

00:51:34.680 it's amazing what you say. I mean,

00:51:37.140 what part of this, I mean, this is

00:51:38.660 that they, is

00:51:40.920 white guilt where people

00:51:42.980 especially like, you know,

00:51:44.860 like being a white man

00:51:46.940 you just go, I want to ask this question

00:51:49.100 but is it racist if I ask this question?

00:51:51.540 Am I making, you know, just a general assumption

00:51:53.820 about black people or black men in general?

00:51:55.960 Am I going to offend? Am I going to get upset? 0.93

00:51:57.800 And there's also a selfish part of you,

00:51:59.420 one little self-preservation element where you go,

00:52:01.860 well, I don't want to address that

00:52:03.740 because it's just too difficult and too challenging a subject.

00:52:07.320 Yeah, yeah.

00:52:07.700 And I think that bit about it being too difficult

00:52:10.180 and challenging a subject is the one that, to me, gets in the way.

00:52:14.040 But yeah, you're right.

00:52:14.740 There's a lot of guilt running around this thing

00:52:16.540 that's really interesting, and guilt, in a way, is difficult.

00:52:22.900 I'm having difficulties with even films and stories

00:52:28.960 that keep running the guilt story, you know, to the point where...

00:52:33.260 Because, you see, I think that the narrative that says,

00:52:37.420 oh, you know, all these people did this to me, is interesting,

00:52:43.680 and I think to remind people...

00:52:44.980 I started off by telling you a story of that in that room with that journalist, you know.

00:52:49.880 So I'm not unaware of the kind of difficulties that people have in terms of relating to other groups.

00:53:00.300 And women should know that. 1.00

00:53:01.480 This is what is frustrating for me is that where I see women not kind of standing together with me on this

00:53:11.000 is that they almost can, I see their kind of thing

00:53:15.840 as very similar to black boys, you know, 0.98

00:53:19.280 and we talked about this in the sense of obsession with the body,

00:53:23.620 the whole thing about surveillance or whatever,

00:53:26.620 lack of opportunities, all these things,

00:53:28.700 and then agency, the ability to sort of see opportunities

00:53:32.000 and seize it and go for it yourself.

00:53:33.760 They have similar problems, and yet they don't have any,

00:53:37.800 they have very little empathy with that

00:53:40.240 Because what happens is they just still go for the default position that, oh, well, you know, in the end, these are boys.

00:53:48.300 And in the end, you feel like they don't even like boys.

00:53:51.420 And I get a sense that that's almost what's going on here, that our society doesn't like little boys.

00:53:57.780 I mean, there's a kind of sense that they get in the way.

00:54:00.960 Remember, if you're a boy, you're going to have, you're likely to have mum at home, her friends.

00:54:07.120 then you go into school you're going to have a female teacher and the whole environment you 1.00

00:54:12.260 heart you you hardly see a man let me give you something that's really interesting you can go

00:54:17.460 to some of the some primary schools now and it's happened to me on a number of occasions you go

00:54:22.540 into the primary school and suddenly all these little boys start running up running up towards

00:54:28.540 you it's it's quite it's quite scary it's almost like you're santa claus you go in there and it's

00:54:33.480 like oh man they haven't seen a man yeah and they think that they secretly think you're going to be

00:54:38.660 their teacher that's it but they're disappointed you're just visiting you know and they're running

00:54:44.980 up to you they're talking to you they kind of cut because if you sit down with some of those

00:54:49.140 they actually do not have any interaction with any um male adult authority yeah none that's crazy

00:55:00.940 Well, Tony, like you said yourself,

00:55:02.900 it's been a very honest and a very, very interesting chat.

00:55:05.200 We really thank you for coming on, for the work you're doing.

00:55:07.960 And like I said, I hope that as part of this conversation

00:55:10.460 and other media to easily do,

00:55:12.220 there are a hundred generating geniuses around the country eventually.

00:55:16.120 Thanks for having me.

00:55:16.860 Yeah, no, it's been a pleasure.

00:55:18.000 The last question we always ask.

00:55:19.500 It's one which is,

00:55:20.740 what is a thing that people aren't talking about

00:55:23.480 but really should be at the moment?

00:55:25.440 Well, I think we've touched on one of the things.

00:55:26.720 it's got to be that the issue about fathers and men really in the society we've got we've in

00:55:33.340 england we've got to have a proper grown-up debate about about that and and and come to terms with

00:55:39.500 that and i think that just just debating it honestly will take us further okay well that's

00:55:44.380 been absolutely wonderful thank you so much for coming on thanks for coming on tony uh as always

00:55:48.820 uh follow us at trigger pod on all the social media uh we're on paypal if you enjoy the show

00:55:53.620 and want to keep supporting it

00:55:54.800 as you have been many of you

00:55:55.820 on Patreon as well for now.

00:55:57.640 Thank you very much.

00:55:58.560 We will see you in a week's time from now

00:56:00.660 with another brilliant episode.

00:56:01.940 Absolutely.

00:56:02.640 Like and subscribe on the YouTube channel.

00:56:05.200 Click the bell icon,

00:56:06.620 which will tell you every time

00:56:08.240 one of our videos is released.

00:56:10.180 And also as well,

00:56:11.180 you could rate us on iTunes.

00:56:12.640 We'd be really grateful.

00:56:14.220 And if you like us

00:56:15.360 and you're a bit embarrassed...

00:56:17.240 No one likes us.

00:56:17.620 No, no one likes us.

00:56:18.660 It's true.

00:56:19.520 They like the show.

00:56:20.300 They don't like us.

00:56:20.800 Yeah, it's true.

00:56:21.600 Or because you think,

00:56:22.340 well, you're worried about

00:56:23.300 and being judged 0.97

00:56:23.820 because you're a Nazi

00:56:24.740 or whatever else 0.94

00:56:25.520 then just tell somebody

00:56:26.700 in secret

00:56:27.140 without people listening

00:56:28.140 spread the word

00:56:28.920 but guys

00:56:29.320 thank you so much

00:56:30.080 and we'll see you next week

00:56:31.180 see you in a week's time

00:56:31.860 thinking about a career in real estate start with fleming college our real estate council

00:56:57.220 of Ontario-approved programs offer flexible online learning and real-world training.

00:57:02.600 Gain the skills to thrive in Ontario's diverse market and build your future your way.

00:57:07.700 Learn more at flemingcollege.ca slash realestate.

TRIGGERnometry - February 10, 2019

Dr Tony Sewell on Fatherlessness, Gangs and Knife Crime

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript