Columns and essays in various publications. Judge on 2024 Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction.
Author of This is Not America.
Contact: tomowolade
@gmail
.com
This tweet has received stinging criticism from many African, West Indian, and black British people - who point out that black Americans do not have a monopoly on the experience of black people around the world. Who knew?
Black British people have more in common with white British people than they do with black people across the rest of the world. My 'take' on the Ngozi Fulani / Lady Susan Hussey affair (with a bit of Harry and Meghan mixed in).
@Nigel_Farage
Hi Nigel. My six year old son Garibaldi would like to write letters to politicians too, but he is too busy translating The Upanishads into English and finalising his PhD thesis at Cambridge.
There's something profoundly wrong with a list of 100 Great Black Britons that doesn't include Trevor Phillips, CLR James, Zadie Smith, Shirley Bassey, Trevor McDonald, any black footballers, a few others. Yet includes Munroe Bergdorf and Kehinde Andrews.
Hans Christian Andersen's 'The Emperor's Clothes' is a great children's story. It shows how we can collude in other people's delusions in order to maintain our social status; and how difficult it is to get out of embarrassing spots, as to do so would be to admit a terrible error.
I am delighted to finally reveal the front cover of my book This is Not America. Many thanks to the cover designer
@jodi_hunt
. The book is out on June 22. You can pre-order it here:
I never fail to be shocked by those who imply some equivalence between "offensive cartoons" and chopping someone's head because of "offensive cartoons".
I'm absolutely thrilled to announce I'm writing a book entitled 'This is Not America'. It will be published by
@AtlanticBooks
in 2023. Many thanks to my agent
@tobymundy
and to Mike Harpley from Atlantic Books.
81 year old female novelist tweets: "Trans rights? Yes. Toxic in-your-face-activism? No". For that she's had her home address shared online and recieved abuse like "suck my dick bitch"; "Margaret Atwood can eat shit and die". Yet it's GC feminists who support violent movements?
I'm absolutely delighted to announce that I've won this year's RSL Giles St Aubyn Award for Non-Fiction. Many thanks to the judges and the St Aubyn family.
Huge congrats to Tomiwa Owolade (
@tomowolade
), our first 2021
#GilesStAubyn
Award winner 👏
Here’s Tomiwa discussing his winning book, 'This is Not America', with judge
#GwenAdshead
⬇️
History is complex; not a morality play. And this means the discourse about race in this country and elsewhere ought to reflect, rather than obviate, this complexity.
I am delighted to say that an extract from my book This is Not America will be published in tomorrow's edition of the Times. You can read it online here.
"Suspending moral judgment is not the immorality of the novel; it is its morality. The morality that stands against the ineradicable human habit of judging instantly, ceaselessly, and everyone; of judging before, and in the absence of, understanding." - Milan Kundera. RIP.
I'm going to be on the BBC Radio 4 programme 'Across the Red Line' tomorrow morning at 9am. I'll be discussing the influence of American race discourse in Britain. It'll be my first ever broadcast appearance, so do forgive any verbal infelicities....
@alexvtunzelmann
Independent and creative thinking do not come out of vacuums. They need to be supported by an underlying structure. Many kids in state schools have dysfunctional family lives and are educated in crowded schools. They need discipline and structure to realise their potential.
This article neatly illustrates the fashionable but pronvincial attitide many people now have on race and culture. Last week I was speaking on the phone to an Igbo friend of my dad. My family is Yoruba. But my dad's friend mispronounced my name.
Here's the extract of Macron being interviewed on
@France2tv
yesterday by journalists with autistic spectrum - this time with English s/t 👇
Amazing TV 👏
@JournalPapotin
@EmmanuelMacron
It is also ironic for black Americans to complain about cultural appropriation because as Ralph Ellison, one of the greatest black American writers of the last century, put it: American culture is a striking example of cultural admixture. From this essay:
Saul Bellow once asked: "Who is the Tolstoy of the Zulus?". To which a writer called Ralph Wiley responded: "Tolstoy is the Tolstoy of the Zulus, unless you find profit in fencing off universal properties of mankind into exclusive tribal ownership".
@OzKaterji
Oz, I have so much respect and admiration for your work. But you have come across very badly today. I am tempted to say something cliched like 'I hope you reflect on this in time', but that would be patronising to you. So I'll be straight: you have acted appallingly today.
Many young white people in London speak in Multicultural London English - composite of cockney, Afro-Caribbean and African intonations. Would be odd to be upset at someone dressing up in West Indian garb but brush over the fact that using the word "ting" is part of how they talk
@alexvtunzelmann
Well, breaking rules in a privately educated setting is probably more likely to set you up in life than doing so so in state comp. But who knows?
I like the French expression "entre chien et loup": between dog and wolf. It's used to refer to dusk, because that's the point at which you can't distinguish between the day and night, the dog and wolf.
This is interesting from Kwame Anthony Appiah on the limits of presuming cultures belong to races. I think it is relevant to the cultural appropriation debate.
Robin DiAngelo's new book, NICE RACISM: HOW PROGRESSIVE WHITE PEOPLE PERPETUATE RACIAL HARM, is out this week. I've written a review of it for
@unherd
:
Frederick Douglass on Ulysses Grant: “a man too broad for prejudice, too humane to despise the humblest, too great to be small at any point. In him the Negro found a protector, the Indian a friend, a vanquished foe a brother, an imperiled nation a savior".
What does English sound like to people who don't understand English? In response to the popularity of American songs in 1960s Italy, an Italian singer called Adriano Celentano made a song which sounds like English but is actually nonsense.
There has been a lot of discussion about diversity and inclusion in academia over the past 18 months, but if you are an intelligent and ambitious person, and don't come from a family with intergenerational wealth, why would you choose to go into academia?
I've got at least 3 relatives called 'Femi', so it's been strange for me to see one particular donkeyish individual has acquired celebrity-like mononym status with that name.