“Heroes across the Sea”: Black and White British Fascination with African Americans in the Contemporary Black British Fiction of Caryl Phillips and Jackie Kay

There can hardly be a more substantial iconographic African American male spokesperson than the filmmaker Spike Lee. Yet his profound ignorance about black British history is revealed by his response to questions from an audience when he visited Britain in 1999. I want to quote the encounter in full to show the flavor of an almost arrogant, condescending, neocolonial response to European blacks. In reply to a question about the difficulties facing black British actors and asking whether he might be able to do anything for them, Lee answered, “I’ve been coming here since 1986 and every time I come I get asked this same question. Spike, What can you do for us? Nothing’s changed. How many years have black people been here? Fifty?” ¹