The Observer
42 09.01.22 Comment & Analysis
Poitier’s legacy
The death of Sidney Poitier
is a moment of great
sadness for many, but
especially for people like
my parents, who remember
him being the fi rst Black
actor they ever saw on TV.
Raised in the Bahamas by
tomato farmers, he was the
youngest of seven children
and came from extreme
poverty. He moved to New
York aged 16, where he
worked as a dishwasher,
took acting lessons
and taught himself
how to read, write
and enunciate by
reading newspapers
and listening to the
radio. He was the
defi nition of a self-
made man.
When he won
an Academy Award
for best actor in 196 4 ,
he was the fi rst Black
person to do so. He was
proud of his victory
but, admirably, wasn’t
blinded by it. “I don’tbelieve my Oscar will be
a sort of magic wand that
will wipe away restrictions
on job opportunities for
negro actors,” he said in
an interview. He wasn’t
wrong. It would be 38 years
before another Black person
(Denz el Washington) would
win a best actor Oscar.
Poitier’s authenticity,
whether thoughtfully
navigating the racial politics
of Hollywood or turning
down roles that he felt were
typecast, made him more
than just an actor, but a
formidable force in setting
a precedent for Black actors
in leading roles.Analogue love
A year ago, I was given a
record player by fellow
poet Malika Booker and
I welcomed it with open
arms. Throughout my
early 20s, I bought vintage
items such as typewriters
and sewing machines
purely for the aesthetics.
But hearing Grace Jones’s1981 album Nightclubbing
on vinyl for the fi rst time
felt transcendent. Brandon
Taylor recently wrote about
the experience beautifully :
“You can’t mistake it for
some imaginary thing that
comes out of the air like
digital can sometimes be.
With a record, you know
there’s another person on
the other side of the music.”
I wish I had known sooner
that streaming takes away so
much of the ritualistic magicof music. Of course, saying:
“Hey Google, play I’ve Done
it Again” is an effortless act,
but whenever I take a record
from its sleeve, set it down
and delicately lower the
needle , I feel I’ve achieved
something. Perhaps
that’s why I bought some
disposable cameras before
a recent trip to the Lake
District. There are 26,186
photographs on my iPhone,
so I clearly lack self-control.
But with only 27 exposures
on a disposable , I took my
time. I waited for good light.
I enjoyed learning the art of
composition.Wise up, Molly-Mae
A clip from an interview
with 22-year-old infl uencer,
ex-Love Island star and
PrettyLittleThing ’s creative
director Molly-Mae Hague
has been circulating on
social media, in which
she quotes the internet’s
favourite proverb: “We all
have the same 24 hours
as Beyoncé.” I hate thisproductivity-shaming
axiom that seems to forget
that Beyoncé employs six
nannies. This mythical
belief that ‘‘working hard”
is the answer to success
is just another way to call
poor people lazy. When
people talk about working
hard, they rarely mean
working to the best of
your abilities. They mean
accepting low pay and
compromis ing ethical and
moral standards.
What Hague fails to
realise is that success is
unlikely a consequence of
graft alone. In most cases,
it’s down to privilege,
luck, geography, nepotism
and, more often than not,
exploitation. Does she
think that her seven-fi gure
deal with PrettyLittleThing
came from working her
“absolute arse off” and
not from the fact that the
brand, owned by Boohoo ,
was selling clothes made
by workers paid as little as
£3.50 an hour?Riddell’s view
Sidney Poitier in The Slender
Thread (1965).To buy this print or others by Chris Riddell for £35, go to guardianarchive.theprintspace.co.uk or email [email protected]Po
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