March 19, 2025 • 48 mins
Misan Harriman went from picking up a camera for the first time aged 40, to becoming one of the most influential photographers of his generation.
In 2020, his images of the Black Lives Matter protests went viral, capturing a historic moment of resistance and solidarity. He was also commissioned by Meghan Markle to take her second pregnancy announcement portrait and made history as the first Black photographer to shoot the cover for British Vogue's acclaimed September issue
For Harriman, photography is more than an art form - it’s activism. In this episode of Ways to Change the World, he talks to Krishnan Guru-Murthy about using his platform to challenge injustice, why he believes media coverage of major global issues - including the Israel-Palestine conflict - can fuel division rather than understanding, and why he wants to inspire the next generation to make a difference..
Produced by Silvia Maresca.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:03):
Hello and welcome to Ways to Change the World.
I'm Christian Guru Murphy and this is the podcast in which we
talk to extraordinary people about the big ideas in their
lives and the events that have helped shape them.
My guest this week is Misan Harriman.
Now Misan is a photographer, filmmaker, social activist.
You would have seen him on Instagram or other social media
(00:24):
platforms or possibly on stages.And he's very, very wide-ranging
as a creative leader and as someone who believes he is
helping create and build societyin his social activism.
Thank you for joining us, Misan Harriman.
In what way would you change theworld?
In what way would I change the world?
(00:45):
I will make the vibes for the world.
Moral clarity to recognize that the status quo that we have
today can be rebuilt for the better.
Explain. So if we look at the islands of
entrenched rage that are poweredby the algorithms that our doom
(01:08):
scrolling is making us do, If welook at how much of the news
media is very comfortable keeping us angry.
But then you take a bird's eye view and you go to a protest,
you go to a woman's March, climate March, an anti racism
March, and you see average people really are doing their
(01:32):
best to build bridges. You recognize that we can build
community in a way that we are not today.
And that's something that I believe is happening slowly and
it's not going to stop. I mean, this is the way you live
your life and your, your life isremarkable because it has been
transformed, I suppose, over thelast, well, less than a decade,
(01:54):
five years. Through 2020.
You picked up a camera with no training and became one of the
biggest photographers in the world.
And you spend a lot of time on social media being positive.
I mean, sometimes being angry and sometimes being outraged.
But you are, you know, you are the sort of the social media
(02:15):
activist as well. So how has that happened?
I mean, how have you curated this extraordinary change in
your life? Well, certainly none of it was
planned. You know, I, I got a camera for
my 40th birthday for my wife. We're on our way to Rajasthan
and I took a whole bunch of awful images and didn't shoot
(02:37):
too much until we got pregnant and I had my my first born who
was premature. And I'll be honest that I hid
behind the camera the fear of being the custodian of something
so delicate and precious. As a very small baby, I took
photograph after photograph. And as my daughter got stronger
(03:00):
and healthier, somehow the camera helped me learn to love
myself and my daughter in a way that I never expected.
And the quality of the imagery went up.
And a few months into that, George Floyd was killed.
(03:22):
And I did not know what to do. And my wife once again said,
look to your camera. And I went to the streets of
London not knowing if I'll see 500 or 5000 people.
And I documented one of the biggest civil rights movements
of our times. That's how it started.
I had no followers on Instagram.I didn't know anyone in the
(03:43):
fashion industry, but one day I woke up and my images had just
gone completely viral. Because the son of Martin Luther
King had seen my image. I presumed he thought it was
somewhere in America and all my mates started tagging me saying
that's Miss Anne's picture. And then everyone saw it.
And what was the image? It was of my now dear friend
(04:04):
Darcy Bourne, who is a field hockey player for England,
holding up a sign saying why is racism, Why is debating racism,
you know, even a point, you know, And it was taken outside
the US Embassy, 9 Elms Lane. And she almost didn't arrive
there because of all sorts of reasons.
(04:24):
So the paint's still dripping onthe words.
It's just, you know, visual poetry that, you know,
serendipity allowed us to make. And it's one of the most shared
civil rights images in the digital era.
And the people of British Vogue saw these images and did
something incredible. You know, they commissioned a
then unknown photographer to shoot not just any cover, but in
(04:47):
fashion. September is not a small deal.
Yeah. And I shot Mr. Marcus Rash,
Marcus Rashford and and Ajwa Burr, the supermodel and
activists in her own right. I shot both of them in in in the
British Vogue big cover in the year of COVID and George Floyd,
(05:07):
the year the world changed forever for many of us.
And the rest, as they say, is history.
But you, you, you still document, protest social
activism as a documentary photographer and you shoot these
amazing stars and celebrities and royalty and goodness knows
what else. What is the thing that you know
(05:27):
unites these two things in termsof your sensibility?
Well, I mean, the, the, the, the, the heroes I had growing up
were people like Cecil Beaton and Gordon Parks, you know, and
Beaton, you know, is known for his, his royal portraiture, but
he did some incredible photography of the Blitz.
And of course, Gordon Parks is aphotographer, in my opinion,
that had no weaknesses. And he did everything from
(05:48):
shooting high fashion campaigns to the civil rights movements
of, you know, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King.
And I guess I stand on their shoulders.
I I don't think it would be possible for me to just
photograph famous people. I need to observe the human
condition and let's be honest, the world is on fire right now
(06:11):
and if many of us are not trusting of what the news media
is supposed to be doing, then let me at least bear witness
with my lens and let the people decide what they see.
What do you see that is different?
What do you what do you bring tous?
(06:32):
You know, I think between the highlights and the shadows of a
good image is truth. It's truth itself.
You know, I shoot quite cinematically with the lenses
that I choose. But it's truth, you know, So
when you see the the pain of thethe death by 1000 cuts of being
(06:53):
a person of colour and you see that in the protests on the
streets, people react to it. I think when people see my
images, it it's it's not finger pointing.
It kind of breaks down their walls of apathy and allows them
to climb inside a different lived experience, and that's the
(07:13):
work, because that allows peopleto walk in shoes that are not
theirs. But what, what you discovered
very quickly, as well as your ability to take images, was your
voice. And and that's the thing that
has really grown as well. Yes.
You express yourself. You express your outrage and
your anger and your hopes and your fears and it and it catches
on. Yeah.
(07:33):
So how? How did that happen?
Well, I'm neuro diverse dyslexic.
I I didn't do particularly well at school.
My emotions are intrinsically linked to how I'm wired.
So I I've never been good at looking away from something that
I think is unfair. And I think the only real
(07:55):
difference now is I have a platform.
So if children are being abused,if our climate is failing, if
mother Earth is dying in front of our eyes, if there are
despots, you know, having too much power and a billionaire
classes using extractive capitalism to hurt us and our
(08:17):
children's future, how on earth can I whisper about that?
How? I have a platform.
So let me bear witness and hopefully build community of
like minded people that are deeply concerned that maybe
we're moving in the wrong direction and want to do
something about it. How?
How are you building community do you think?
(08:38):
Well, I mean the borderless reach of the Internet, right?
You know, if you know a family is dealing with police brutality
or being stopped and searched too much or are dealing with a
racist criminal justice system, they don't always get on the
news if I go and photograph them, their children or protest.
If no one cared then I wouldn't have a profile.
(09:03):
But when you see grandmothers from Norfolk, caring nurses,
teachers, regular folks saying this is wrong.
I posted a video of a black man playing a piano.
I I don't know if it was a Waterloo station and the guy
just started heckling him sayingI wish you died.
That's not normal. That kind of rage is unhealthy.
(09:25):
So I bear witness, so we can call it out and also do better.
And actually I believe this is how you build bridges, by
recognising the ills of our behaviour so we can forge a
better future. But yeah, I, I think what's
interesting about what you do isthe sort of, you know, the the,
the sort of concerned, memeable social media activist is a sort
(09:51):
of a figure of fun and, you know, and and is much mocked,
but you've kind of done it for real.
And and you, as you say, you know, you've got built a huge
following and have have you ended up sort of actually rather
more optimistic about people as a result, You know, that the
world is a better place. The world is perhaps you
thought, Yeah. Absolutely And and you know,
(10:11):
wouldn't you do it for real? I mean, look, I, I, I've been in
tears in some videos that I've made, right?
I, I've also been in awe of the humanity of some of the people.
So it's much more than people just smashing their keyboards
and having opinions. It's connecting with real people
that are doing their best to swim upstream.
(10:32):
And a lot of us that are not politicians or we're not worth
400 billion, but we are trying to say we can be better than
this. And I don't think that should be
a radical thing. I mean, the, the other sort of
astonishing thing about you is that you've you've gone into
film and your first short film was Oscar nominated.
That's not normal. And you know, the after your
(10:56):
film is this extraordinary pieceof work.
It's only, it's less than 20 minutes long, but it's instantly
very, very emotional. I think it again, it's the same
thing. You've got some ability to be
very emotional very quickly in away that isn't necessarily
cheesy or comical, which is a trap that people can fall into.
So that is something about the way your brain is wired, isn't
(11:18):
it? I I believe so I I my wife also
says that I don't do light. I don't think I'll be making any
comedies anytime soon. Listen the after is an
observation on grief and the celestial nature of children and
what it means for a man to really lose everything and be
able to build himself back up brick by brick and has a
(11:40):
generational performance by David Oyelowa, who has become a
brother of mine, I believe one of the great actors of our time.
And it's what happens when, whenit, you know, post lockdown, a
group of writers, me a great DOP, Netflix putting his trust
in us to make some some art and allowing us to do it.
(12:02):
Fiona Lambti, who was head of UKfilm at the time, really let us
go for it. It's a hard film to watch, but
it's proves that if you put thatout there, people will respond
to it. And I never expected any awards,
but here we are. How much of this sort of sudden
success is down to your privilege, if you like, and your
(12:27):
connections and your childhood and the wealth and and tell us
about your childhood for a start.
Yeah, boarding school from a very young age, straight from
Nigeria to the English countryside in the 80s, which
was, I always describe it as Harry Potter without the magic.
It was a very traumatizing time,if I'm being honest with you,
(12:48):
because privilege certainly doesn't protect you from being,
you know, one of very few black places faces in, in places that
were very comfortable, you know,with overtly racist behaviour,
even in privileged spaces. In fact, the type of racism
privileged spaces is as dehumanizing as you can imagine,
(13:12):
so. Give me an example.
Well, I mean, you know, every, every, everything was colonial
history, right? So imagine coming from a
colonised country and the private school system,
especially in those days, was there to to raise the next
generation of people that come from the colonizers heritage,
(13:35):
right. So my history teacher was, I
think Churchill was next to Jesus Christ for him, right.
And there was no mention of any sort of Bengal famine or, you
know, the Mao Mao, all sorts of other things that I've learnt in
later life. I remember a biology teacher
looking at me and saying Harriman sickle cells of black
(13:57):
disease to the any black boy in the.
I mean, this is normal behaviour, but you deal with it,
you know, and you, you, you codeswitch and you, you find ways to
fit in. You know, I was good at sports
that helped, but it certainly wasn't a wasn't, wasn't an easy
time. And I think that's why I found
safety and solace in the in the pages of books and in, in, you
know, the video club, watching movies and, you know,
(14:19):
discovering amazing photographers.
So what was your life up to the age of 40?
Up to the age you know the. Was it much more conventional?
Conventional, you know, worked in head hunting, you know, in
the city, but always there was that inner voice.
And I will say this to people that ask me how could you do
this post 40. There was always that inner
voice that that was saying you like the creative world, you
(14:43):
love film, you love photography,you love theatre.
But also when you've not done well at school, you don't
believe in yourself. And I had a huge kind of lack of
self love. And then I met my wife and, you
know, she fell in love with all the parts of myself that I was
ashamed of. And there's something very
empowering when somebody sees you and doesn't look away and
(15:07):
she plays a camera in my hand. And it's been a pretty crazy
five years. In terms of the things that
motivate you, that get get you going on social media, I mean,
how, how you know, do you just respond to what you see?
Yeah, I never plan. I never plan, which is why I, I
(15:28):
certainly don't have well lit videos as usually kids are
asleep or just finish the schoolrun heading off to London.
You know what, if I, I feel if I'm moved by something, I'll
talk about it and people will respond to it.
So I think there is an authenticity that is very
different to the influencer perfection where where so many
(15:49):
influencers seem to have all theanswers.
I'm like, listen, I'm a, I'm a middle-aged lad that's just
trying to figure it out. But it but if it essentially
began with Black Lives Matter and and, and George Floyd, what
what has happened on that journey?
Well, I mean, George Floyd for alot of black people, we've seen
a lot of George Floyd's, you know, But what happened is we
(16:10):
were all stuck at home in lockdown and had this moment of
deep retrospection and our, we, we couldn't hide anymore.
So our traumas climbed out of us.
We're all very raw. And to see this man lying in his
own, asking for his Mama while still calling the police
officers that were murdering him, Sir, there was a lot.
(16:35):
And to see the wave of performative allyship that's
happened since then, which is ofcourse going backwards because
lazy terms like woke I used to to blanket just cover any sense
of kindness or gentleness, whichamazes me.
But here we are. But it set me on a on a path of
(16:58):
trying to build bridges with theart that that I make.
What? What do you mean by performative
allyship? Well, I mean, everyone was, you
know, talking about what we're going to do about diversity and
inclusion. I was invited to all sorts of
panels and talks for a year, butI always said to the, the banks
and the, you know, the, the big consulting firms that were
getting me to talk during Black History Month.
(17:20):
How's your board? Show me your board.
Show me your leadership team. Where are the women?
Where are the brown people? Where are the queer people?
Where are the black people? Because you Wheeling me out.
If everything there looks the same, if, if your head of HR
isn't casting that net further afield and it's not about
(17:44):
they're not being talent out there, look at me.
Why did it take 104 years for meto be the first black man to
shoot the cover of British Vogue?
Black men have been holding cameras for a long time.
James Barner, one of the greatest photographers in the
world, is in his 90s, gone in man.
So the talent is there. Give the talent a chance.
(18:06):
That's all we're saying. If they're not good enough,
they're not good enough. How much do you think has been
achieved since the death of George Floyd and the outpouring
that happened, and how much do you think is going backwards
now? I think he's changed George.
George's death has changed the world because it unlocks a new
generation of activists. And I've witnessed things that I
(18:26):
never thought I'd witnessed. You know, I'm amazed and in awe
of our youth, our younger generation.
And I'm really amazed by a lot of older folks that have gone on
a journey of on learning. It's hard if you've lived in an
echo Chamber of confirmation bias and Arrested Development.
You only play golf with the samegroup of people.
You only hang out with people you went to school, uni with.
(18:47):
You go on holidays at the same place.
You just keep all patting yourselves on the shoulders
without realizing that the world's bigger than your view,
and maybe your view was shaped on a viewpoint that is just a
small percentage of the real truth of our lives.
So George Floyd has helped a lotof progressive people go on a
(19:07):
journey. It's unlocked A2 generations of
youth that are never going to look away and are trying to fix
the mess that a lot of us have made for them to inherit.
So yeah, I think it has changed a lot from corporations.
Of course they have to do a lot more work, which they're not
doing for what I can see. Well, aren't they going the
other way? They are because of because of
Trump's war on DEI. They are, they're kissing the
(19:28):
ring and, and, and you know, things are being deleted from,
from, you know, all sorts of places.
People are dropping their diversity policies.
They are. They are.
But you know, corporations are living organisms.
And I think what if they want tosurvive, they have to recognize
that their consumers are growinginto adults and their viewpoint
(19:52):
is very different to Trump's. So otherwise a new Unicorn will
come, someone will build. You look at people are building
profiles in sub stack that are becoming massive, hugely
influential. They're companies like Ben and
Jerry's that are doing incredible things, suing their
holding companies because they have moral clarity.
It's already happening. So they need to think about the
(20:13):
future, not just, OK, the wind'sblowing in this direction.
So let's let's go over that. So when when you see the
government saying, oh, these these sentencing guidelines that
were actually set up by the lastgovernment to try and address
the concerns that happened afterthe murder of George Floyd, we
don't like them because of the dominant ideology of the moment.
(20:36):
What do you think? I mean, what could I possibly
think? What do you think is going on?
I think we need to do better in actually making decisions that
come from a place of moral clarity.
Right is right and wrong is wrong.
Instead of decisions being made because of the, you know, the,
(20:58):
the, the, the change in political temperature.
You know, if we are electing people, I believe we should be
electing people because they arethe best of us, right?
The whole point of a politician is that they're supposed to be
the very best of whatever we've been able to build in in our
(21:21):
communities, and they have to make decisions that reflect
that. If our political class are going
to be working for the donor class, then the people will lose
hope in them. Because there are two things
going on at the moment, aren't there?
You know, we have these two cultures operating side by side.
We have a sort of a backlash culture, a new right on, on the
(21:42):
one hand, and then you have the progressives on the other.
I mean, are are they fighting each other or are they?
But it's more than it's it's, that's very binary.
It's more than progressives. They're just, they are regular.
If you go to any protest, there are lots of just normal people
that are beginning to feel that they have been sold something
(22:05):
that isn't true and they are nowbeginning to unpick it and want
to build some. They don't know what they're
going to build, whether it's Brexit, where many, many of
people I know that believed thatleaving was something that was
better from this country, they've had to just own up to
and say, listen, you know, the newspapers would and politicians
(22:25):
were telling us things that madeus feel this sense of pride and
patriotism is very dangerous sometimes because the right
people can use that to make you make the wrong decision for
yourself. What does patriotism mean to
you? Patriotism means to me where I'm
most proud is when I'm in a protest and I see people that
(22:48):
have listened to Mother Earth. When I see people that refuse
to, to to say that the only way to bring peace to what's
happening in Israel and Palestine is to have children be
annihilated, having limbs removed with no pain relief.
(23:09):
When I see people that are saying we have to find a way to
have shared humanity. And when I see British people
walking the streets, you know, IMarch in the Palestine protest
with the something called the Jewish block.
And there's a guy there, Steven Kappos, and he's it's got to be
80 something, you know, a child of the Holocaust.
(23:29):
And when I see people like him and three or four generations of
his family walking in arms with many Arab and Muslim men and
women, I'm like this, they're all British.
This is who we are at our best. When I see after the far right
riots that we had and we had, you know, amazing protests,
amazing solidarity, we had pensioners offering it up their
(23:52):
homes to migrant workers that have, you know, been very
scared. You know, there are a lot of
good people in this country, buta lot of our newspapers, a lot
of the owners of our newspapers want to keep us entrenched on
islands of rage. And the thing about there's ACS
Lewis quote, how does it go? I've known my anger for so long
(24:16):
that she told me that her real name was grief.
I think a lot of us are hurting right now.
And if you're in that place where you don't know why you're
afraid or angry, you can be manipulated.
And I think a big part of my platform is to say, hey, regular
folk, we're here, let's do better.
And we don't do better by screaming at each other and
(24:37):
saying, you're wrong, I'm right,go away.
And that's possibly why there's some kind of authenticity to to
to how I move online. So it's well is, is there space
for that online? Because I mean, you know, social
media has now become generally so divisive.
Lots of people think it's a, it's a terrible thing and it's
only feeding anger. But you're, you're doing
(24:59):
something slightly different on social media, which is slightly
more gentle and together. Is there really?
Is there really a space? Gentle on to a point like if I'm
if I'm angry, I'm angry, you know, like Balenciaga did a
campaign with children that it was unacceptable to me.
So I was angry, you know, and, and everyone that followed me
(25:22):
was also angry. It's, it's, it's, it's about
responding to things in, in, in a way, you know, there's a roomy
quote. Raise your words, not your
voice. It is rain that grows flowers,
not Thunder. And in general, that's, that's
what my community is like. But we, we are also really
(25:42):
inquisitive and unlearning and unpicking things, right?
So instead of saying that we know, I will post lots of
informative historical things that may help people understand
things in a different way. Now, the sad thing is that there
are not many people doing that online, and that's a question
you should be asking your colleagues and your community
(26:04):
about who you're willing to platform.
In the last six weeks I've seen Nigel Farage on the major cover
of the Evening Standard, the London Standard, and just
yesterday or the day before. There's another major thing on
the time saying he's going to beor he has a chance of being the
next Prime Minister. He's being pushed by serious
platforms, you know. He's the leader of the fastest
growing political party in Britain, yes.
(26:25):
I mean, so he he will be gettingmedia coverage.
Is that wrong? Well.
Now, you can say that, but you need to ask yourself, from his
days in Russia Today, right, to being put on, I'm A Celebrity,
Get Me Out of here. There are, you know, people that
have normalized and I find it astonishing how comfortably he
was platformed by those that should have known better from
(26:47):
his time at a boarding school. He's had views that have been
well documented. And there are a lot of kinda
voices that have never got that level of attention from our
press. And like, that's a question you
should ask your colleagues why over the years.
(27:08):
And we'll see how history remembers what what has been
normalized. And we live in the age where
America has shown that if you normalize things, it doesn't
matter whether you've had 34 criminal convictions anymore.
But. The the press is something you
do get angry about a lot, and I suppose nowhere more so than on
Israel, Gaza. Yeah, I mean, all I'm asking for
(27:33):
is for truth itself, not to be aneedle in a haystack.
Nothing more, nothing less. It is odd that in the UK
everything is reductive and sanitized and when Hin Rajab was
killed some of the reporting is just her.
It's a child we're talking about.
Just take that case then. So tell me what what it was
about that story. Tell me what reminded people
(27:54):
what the story was and how you reacted to it.
I mean Hin Rajab. I mean the, the, the, I think
Palestinian Red Crescent were called.
She was on the phone. The ambulance that was supposed
to be rescuing her was attacked.I think the people in that
ambulance were killed. I don't remember the exact
number of bullets that were fired into the car that ended up
(28:15):
killing her, but it was over 300.
And there were multiple headlines that some some didn't
even call her a child, right? You know every use of sanitized
language that would make you if you were just on your morning
train, you'd think, oh, some young women may have been caught
(28:37):
in crossfire when it wasn't. What happened?
So what do you think is going onwith that kind of coverage?
Well, I think you, being in the industry should be able to
answer that to me. But I should be asking you what
is going on because I'm confused.
You know, as a civilian, that doesn't work in the press.
I keep asking myself why the reporting isn't just saying the
(29:01):
whole point is to hold powerful to account regardless of who the
powerful are. And if you can report using very
specific language about Ukraine,yet the language seems to be
very very different when discussing Palestine, then
people are going to start askingquestions.
I think that's just normal humannature.
You literally have to just pull up how if a hospital is attacked
(29:22):
in Ukraine relative to a hospital in Gaza, something is
very different. But you're, you're shying away
from saying what you think it is.
I mean, do you think it's racism?
I think it's a dereliction of duty.
And is it Islamophobia? I don't know.
Is it some kind of fear mongering?
I don't know. But my point is, you know, the
British people need to know because many of them are going
(29:47):
to just stop believing what theyhear from the news.
And I think that that could leadus into a very dangerous place.
And I do believe that a lot of good people in every media
business that are probably also too afraid to say what's going
on. Some whistleblowers have come
out, There have been articles that I've read that are
interesting. But this is a bigger issue
within your world and your colleagues.
(30:08):
I mean, you, you posted about Omar Al Akkad, who we've had on
this program and his his book and you said it had changed your
life and the way you looked at the world.
Do do you share his sense of alienation around the culture
that you live in because of what's happened in Israel, Gaza?
I think that book should be in everyone's will and testament
(30:30):
that their children and their children's children should make
sure they have access to that book.
It's it's that remarkable a piece of writing.
Omar Al Akad, he, he has a gentle cadence and he's critical
of everyone as well. He's critical of Arab nations.
It isn't the sort of one sided thing and he's not angry, but
he's honest with pure moral clarity about the fact that
(30:55):
we're living through a time where truth has become
completely unimportant in the way that we are being fed what's
happening through a lens that isis very, very angry.
And to have this man who was raised in Qatar, born in Egypt,
raised in Doha and then in Canada, that's seen a lot use
(31:19):
his penmanship in a way that I couldn't.
It felt like he was completing some of you know, where I get
stuck with with my frustration. You know, that was angry
sometimes. He just continues writing and
explains that no, Miss Anne, there's nothing wrong with you.
There's nothing wrong with you getting upset at children.
You know, I'm ambassador for Save the Children at children
getting killed at this industrial scale.
(31:39):
It's not normal for you to thinkyou should just get on with
life. And but he he uses the kind of
words that, I mean, you've interviewed him that I think a
lot of people need to hear that can leave them on a journey of
understanding what an industrialwar machine is, what imperialism
and cronialism has left us in the age that we live in today.
And he does it beautifully. What do you think your kind of
(32:02):
activism is achieving? I think I'm just one voice, but
I hope I'm a voice that helps people build bridges.
I'm not someone that looks down on people that have had, for
example, you know, with with a lot of people with the far right
protests that happened last summer.
(32:22):
We shouldn't look down on these people.
A lot of those people have very valid points and they're angry
for a reason. We should engage with them.
A lot of people don't feel listened to.
So instead of saying, oh, they're just racist, no, they're
scared and a little bit angry. Maybe, you know, cost of living
crisis, unemployment, maybe a lot of crime in their region.
(32:42):
Maybe they don't have a lived experience where they would
understand what an Arab and or Muslim or Indian, whoever
African person is like. And they've been told to fear
what they don't know. But listen to them, build a
bridge with them, walk with them, talk with them.
You know, I lost someone very close to me in 2005 in the in
(33:05):
the London bombings. Anthony Fatih Williams, a lot of
us in the Nigerian community, noand love him.
And I'll be honest with you, I had a choice.
I was in my 20s and I could have, you know, the the news
media was telling me to blame everything on the violent Arab
man. But I decided to go on a journey
(33:29):
and understand why anyone would strap themselves with dynamite
and do such a thing. And of course, it led me.
Those men were not practicing anything close to Islam.
Never. They had gone to another place.
And it led me to imperialism. It led me to Tony Blair.
It led me to George. Both the Bushes actually, you
(33:53):
know, to understand how this cycle of violence just creates
more and more violence. And that's my frustration,
whether it's with Israel, Palestine, in my country, in
Nigeria, we have Boko Haram. You can't bomb for peace.
What is going to happen to the boys that happened in Maine that
become men? You see, some people will listen
to you say that and say, oh, what is he?
(34:14):
Is he excusing terrorism? No, he's saying he understands
why somebody would strap a bag to their cells and blow
themselves. No, I I think I'm excusing
letting rage bury me so I can become, I could become violent.
This is what happens, right? It's a primal rage of men.
(34:37):
If something like that happens, you know, I lost someone I loved
to a terrorist, right? But I need to understand that
terrorist was once a boy, a baby.
What journey did he go on? He wasn't born a terrorist.
You see. We just label and label and
label. We need to look at the roots of
these things and understand how it happened.
(35:00):
And that's what I did, a little bit of critical thinking instead
of just more age. Stay angry, Miss Anne, stay
angry. Let's keep you angry.
And I think this is what we needto do is look at the root cause
of this. Because if we just are happy
with the cycle of violence, guess what's going to continue?
Violence. And those that will suffer most
in the violence are children. It's always children suffer
(35:23):
most. And the work I do with Save the
Children, I see it and it's something that we can do better
than that. I.
Mean you're you're talking aboutsort of building bridges in AT
shirt saying more blacks, more dogs, more Irish.
Yeah, that's a. That's a provocation, isn't it?
Well, I don't know. How well do you know your
history? Well, I know what the sign
comes. From So it's It's a history
(35:43):
lesson to remind us that within our lifetime, this sign, the
opposite of this sign was very real.
So there's a provocation for those two.
You know, people walk up to me and say, I don't understand
more, more what does that they didn't even know.
And that's like, no, no, these were signs outside by landlords.
We should say to anyone listening who doesn't know there
(36:05):
used to be signs outside the houses.
My parents used to go to houses they were trying to rent and
there would be signs saying no blacks, no dogs, no Irish.
Yeah, absolutely. And, and, and then we have a, a
bridge building conversation where I'm educating them that
within 30 years this happened. And then they go on their own
(36:25):
journey just to think, you know,because a lot of people are, are
in bubbles and they're floating around their own, their own
experience, not even thinking about that.
So it's, it's provocation to learn, provocation to prod and,
and, and think about our collective past.
And that's a big part of what I do, even with this T-shirt.
We talked about some of the celebrity photography you do.
(36:49):
You also became famous for photographing Megan and Harry
when they when they were having a baby.
And you've done other royal photography as well.
You're close to Megan anyway, aren't you?
Because you knew her before she was royal?
What? What do you think is going on
(37:10):
with the hate against the hate? Yeah, well, well, thanks for
asking me, because a lot of people don't even ask about
Megan that way. She is a sister to me, you know,
someone I care about deeply and her beautiful children and her
(37:31):
amazing husband. But the, the industrial and very
focused hate machine that I've seen I've, I've experienced
myself due to my proximity to both Harry and Meghan has been
extraordinary. And what I would say is that,
you know, one day, you know, herchildren will be adults and
(37:55):
it'll be impossible to protect them right from the Ledger.
And it is a Ledger of, of hate that mainly the British media
has been responsible for. And what I mean by that is last
time I checked, Megan is not dropping bombs on people.
(38:18):
She's not annexing nations. She's not a paedophile yet.
There is way more coverage and time and words spent directing
hatred towards her than people that are really really hurting
people. And I do wonder how history is
going to remember those that held the pen and the microphone
(38:41):
and kiss their kids good nights at night and pay their mortgages
off the back of focusing hatred to one woman than most of them
have never met. I do wonder how history remember
those that knowingly did that for the sake of the combination
of misogyny, misogynoir, greed, being part of a system that they
(39:04):
were just like, well I was doingwhat my editor told me and not
caring. I do wonder how history
remember. I mean, when you say you've
experienced it, what do you mean?
Because I've had people send me DMS saying, you know,
unspeakable things that they would want to do to her, her
children, her husband, myself, unspeakable things.
(39:27):
And you have to ask yourself, how do we get here?
If you don't like her, that's fine.
If you don't like the, the, the,the, the, the things she puts
out the TV show, write, write, write an article saying you
don't like it. But 24 hours focused hatred on
this one woman, this mother, this human being, this soul.
(39:53):
It's, it's, it's just it's it's unforgivable.
And it is a big there is a bigger issue.
I saw Millie Bobby Brown did an incredible video.
Same thing. You know women were pulling down
Millie, But why writing about her like she she like she
doesn't have a soul. I mean, people will always say,
well, look at what she's done, look at what she's said, that
they are culpable in Subway. Tour Well, as I said, has she
(40:14):
dropped a bomb on anyone? Is she a paedophile?
Because the level of rage is as if she had.
So what? Look at what she's done.
What has she done? Because there's a big disconnect
with this. It's industrial scale.
So how do you explain? You know your your view of the
world and lots of good people out there alongside that.
(40:34):
Well, because it's always a small group of people that can
get larger groups of people to go the wrong way.
And if you look at the ownershipstructure and how hate pays in
terms of the advertising model of media, you know, the good
thing is most of our youth under25 year olds, they don't buy
that they're not interested. You know, they're, they're on
(40:56):
their own journey. But do you think, you know, for
everything you've said about building a community online, do
you think it is worth having this thing, the social media
platforms that are also, you know, weaponizing?
Well, it's a tool, right? And amplifying it.
It's how we use it. It's a tool and I think.
And you're fighting the good fight, literally sort of thing.
(41:16):
Yeah, but but do you think it's,do you think 1 is worth the
other? Well, look, if if you know we're
we are here with this information superhighway and
it's not going away. So now it's we have to curate
our experiences and recognize that we can't expect those that
built it or those that have the loud voices to necessarily have
(41:36):
our best interests. So what's your advice to people
who who were going? I sort of hate my social media
because it's full of hate. How?
How do you make it better? Curate, you know the the
weaponization of mediocrity thatis a lot of social media is
because the loudest voices, the algorithms are so toxic that
they find you, you do the work. You look for voices and
(41:59):
recommendations and it's it happens organically, but if not
ask for recommendations, keep itaway from anyone under 16.
I would say like no phones. In my in my opinion, I don't
know if you've seen adolescence,Stephen Graham and Philip
Baratini's masterpiece, which is, yeah, phones are scary for
children that are not cognitively ready to deal with
(42:22):
the sea of potential bullying and misinformation that leads to
in cell culture or the Android Tate of it all.
But it is also, we have these hyper devices that can help us
unlearn history, help help us really, really be inquisitive
and become climate activists andbecome people that, you know,
(42:42):
want to build community in a waythat is borderless and powerful.
Do you think it is an unmitigated bad for children
though? Given you've talked about being
neuro diverse and being dyslexic, mightn't the phone be
quite good for that brain? Well, I think software.
Software is good, so they're things you can use when you're
(43:06):
reading something. But the social media is
different from a phone. Social media is what I mean, you
know? It's so keep keep kids on social
media, but not necessarily. They can have a tablet or a
device that they can use things for school and that's what I
mean. I'll correct that.
The social media, no way, I'm sorry.
I don't think kids on the 16 should be on social media of any
(43:27):
type. I'm sorry.
You know, and I grew up, you know, I'm 47.
I grew up without as a kid, theydidn't come till I was about
having 18. I got Facebook or maybe 19.
So I had all of that without it.So that's what our kids should
have. How how debilitating was it for
you as a child being neuro diverse?
Oh, neuro diverse. I can't spell at all.
(43:51):
So if I write a sentence, you know, I think Krish is a bit of
a ledge. It would probably say, I think
Krish and my head will think I've written the the rest.
So of course, any written exams,forget about it.
It made me feel like there was something wrong with me.
And now again, technology has allowed me to use apps like
(44:14):
Grammily and certain AI apps that really just give me a bit
more confidence. I use voice notes a lot to
communicate. And those are transcribed really
well now. So it's a lot easier now than
when it was when I, you know, inthe old days when it was pen and
paper, that was not the medium for me.
And I guess especially my younger schools, teachers in the
(44:37):
80s and early 90s were not trained.
You were just a bit dim, you know, You were just, you know,
something written off. Yeah, written off pretty much.
And it's tough for parents because parents need to listen
to teachers. And now we're so much more
informed in all of this. And I really speak openly about
not just my newer diversity, butlike, anxiety and what that does
(44:58):
to me. What I.
You know, how sound sometimes affects me, how I tap my feet
when I'm nervous, all kinds of little ticks that, you know,
when people see me as soon as successful, I want them to know
that this. And I'm just as scared as an
onshore as you all are. And I'm I'm just doing my best.
The last thing I want to look like is some kind of superhuman
(45:19):
person that grabbed the camera and everything just happened.
So what would 15 year old Misan have believed?
What you are now. No, no.
And if I could speak to 15 year old Misan, I would say you.
You're enough and you've always been enough.
And I certainly didn't think I was worth a damn thing at that
age. And and how do you see things
now for you? I mean, you've got this sort of
(45:42):
multi platform world, film, social media, photography
advocacy. Where's next?
We've made a very important film.
Andy Mundy Castle has directed afilm about my life and about
activism and what it means. Very similar to what we've been
talking about, what it means to be an artist.
(46:05):
That in the age where apathy pays what it means to and refuse
to look away. We've been shooting that for
over 2 years and it will be premiering over the summer I
believe. And I can't wait to share that
with the world. It feels like the world really
needs that. And then I have this amazing
working relationship with David Oyelowo, one of the great, you
know, actors of our time who we plan to have a long term
(46:28):
director actor relationship. So we have two films in
development that hopefully we can start shooting one this
year. And with the photography, I'm
lucky. I'm in a place where I choose
what I do. So I'm at as many protests as I
can be. I'm doing some work with the
prison system. I've got a exhibition this
Thursday about black children with Down syndrome because
(46:51):
they're invisible, These beautiful, beautiful souls, the
very best versions of us. I don't know if you know any
Downs kids, but they're just pure light.
So we're doing I'm, I'm supporting that, that charity,
so. Finally, I mean, what, what
would you say to somebody who's,who's kind of listening to you
and thinking it, it's a lot of work.
(47:13):
This, you know, it's, it's a lotof not, you know, not work in
the traditional sense, but it's a lot of emotional investment
in, in a lot of really tough stuff.
What? Why is the kind of activism you
do worth it? Because when you sit in a park
bench next to someone that looksdifferent to you, that has a
(47:36):
completely different lived experience, you end up engaging
with them and you realize that they have the same hopes and
fears as you do. They want the same for their
children as you do, and they're not so different.
That's how you make this world gentler.
When you don't do that and you immediately see someone wearing
(47:57):
a hijab as someone that you justcould never understand, that's
how they keep us on these islands of rage.
And what I do is try and bring people together in a way that
isn't finger pointy, that feels organic, hopefully, and we can
try and look toward the horizon together.
(48:18):
I don't think that's complicatedand I don't think it takes a lot
of emotional energy actually. It's just community building
without being told that you should only stay in what you
know as your community. I don't think that's
complicated. Mr. Harriman, thank you very
(48:38):
much indeed. Thank you, Sir.
Thanks for joining us. I hope you enjoyed that.
You can watch all of these interviews on the Channel 4 News
YouTube channel. Our producer is Sylvia Maresca.
Until next time, bye bye.
Hello and welcome to Ways to Change the World.
I'm Christian Guru Murphy and this is the podcast in which we
talk to extraordinary people about the big ideas in their
lives and the events that have helped shape them.
My guest this week is Misan Harriman.
Now Misan is a photographer, filmmaker, social activist.
You would have seen him on Instagram or other social media
(00:24):
platforms or possibly on stages.And he's very, very wide-ranging
as a creative leader and as someone who believes he is
helping create and build societyin his social activism.
Thank you for joining us, Misan Harriman.
In what way would you change theworld?
In what way would I change the world?
(00:45):
I will make the vibes for the world.
Moral clarity to recognize that the status quo that we have
today can be rebuilt for the better.
Explain. So if we look at the islands of
entrenched rage that are poweredby the algorithms that our doom
(01:08):
scrolling is making us do, If welook at how much of the news
media is very comfortable keeping us angry.
But then you take a bird's eye view and you go to a protest,
you go to a woman's March, climate March, an anti racism
March, and you see average people really are doing their
(01:32):
best to build bridges. You recognize that we can build
community in a way that we are not today.
And that's something that I believe is happening slowly and
it's not going to stop. I mean, this is the way you live
your life and your, your life isremarkable because it has been
transformed, I suppose, over thelast, well, less than a decade,
(01:54):
five years. Through 2020.
You picked up a camera with no training and became one of the
biggest photographers in the world.
And you spend a lot of time on social media being positive.
I mean, sometimes being angry and sometimes being outraged.
But you are, you know, you are the sort of the social media
(02:15):
activist as well. So how has that happened?
I mean, how have you curated this extraordinary change in
your life? Well, certainly none of it was
planned. You know, I, I got a camera for
my 40th birthday for my wife. We're on our way to Rajasthan
and I took a whole bunch of awful images and didn't shoot
(02:37):
too much until we got pregnant and I had my my first born who
was premature. And I'll be honest that I hid
behind the camera the fear of being the custodian of something
so delicate and precious. As a very small baby, I took
photograph after photograph. And as my daughter got stronger
(03:00):
and healthier, somehow the camera helped me learn to love
myself and my daughter in a way that I never expected.
And the quality of the imagery went up.
And a few months into that, George Floyd was killed.
(03:22):
And I did not know what to do. And my wife once again said,
look to your camera. And I went to the streets of
London not knowing if I'll see 500 or 5000 people.
And I documented one of the biggest civil rights movements
of our times. That's how it started.
I had no followers on Instagram.I didn't know anyone in the
(03:43):
fashion industry, but one day I woke up and my images had just
gone completely viral. Because the son of Martin Luther
King had seen my image. I presumed he thought it was
somewhere in America and all my mates started tagging me saying
that's Miss Anne's picture. And then everyone saw it.
And what was the image? It was of my now dear friend
(04:04):
Darcy Bourne, who is a field hockey player for England,
holding up a sign saying why is racism, Why is debating racism,
you know, even a point, you know, And it was taken outside
the US Embassy, 9 Elms Lane. And she almost didn't arrive
there because of all sorts of reasons.
(04:24):
So the paint's still dripping onthe words.
It's just, you know, visual poetry that, you know,
serendipity allowed us to make. And it's one of the most shared
civil rights images in the digital era.
And the people of British Vogue saw these images and did
something incredible. You know, they commissioned a
then unknown photographer to shoot not just any cover, but in
(04:47):
fashion. September is not a small deal.
Yeah. And I shot Mr. Marcus Rash,
Marcus Rashford and and Ajwa Burr, the supermodel and
activists in her own right. I shot both of them in in in the
British Vogue big cover in the year of COVID and George Floyd,
(05:07):
the year the world changed forever for many of us.
And the rest, as they say, is history.
But you, you, you still document, protest social
activism as a documentary photographer and you shoot these
amazing stars and celebrities and royalty and goodness knows
what else. What is the thing that you know
(05:27):
unites these two things in termsof your sensibility?
Well, I mean, the, the, the, the, the heroes I had growing up
were people like Cecil Beaton and Gordon Parks, you know, and
Beaton, you know, is known for his, his royal portraiture, but
he did some incredible photography of the Blitz.
And of course, Gordon Parks is aphotographer, in my opinion,
that had no weaknesses. And he did everything from
(05:48):
shooting high fashion campaigns to the civil rights movements
of, you know, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King.
And I guess I stand on their shoulders.
I I don't think it would be possible for me to just
photograph famous people. I need to observe the human
condition and let's be honest, the world is on fire right now
(06:11):
and if many of us are not trusting of what the news media
is supposed to be doing, then let me at least bear witness
with my lens and let the people decide what they see.
What do you see that is different?
What do you what do you bring tous?
(06:32):
You know, I think between the highlights and the shadows of a
good image is truth. It's truth itself.
You know, I shoot quite cinematically with the lenses
that I choose. But it's truth, you know, So
when you see the the pain of thethe death by 1000 cuts of being
(06:53):
a person of colour and you see that in the protests on the
streets, people react to it. I think when people see my
images, it it's it's not finger pointing.
It kind of breaks down their walls of apathy and allows them
to climb inside a different lived experience, and that's the
(07:13):
work, because that allows peopleto walk in shoes that are not
theirs. But what, what you discovered
very quickly, as well as your ability to take images, was your
voice. And and that's the thing that
has really grown as well. Yes.
You express yourself. You express your outrage and
your anger and your hopes and your fears and it and it catches
on. Yeah.
(07:33):
So how? How did that happen?
Well, I'm neuro diverse dyslexic.
I I didn't do particularly well at school.
My emotions are intrinsically linked to how I'm wired.
So I I've never been good at looking away from something that
I think is unfair. And I think the only real
(07:55):
difference now is I have a platform.
So if children are being abused,if our climate is failing, if
mother Earth is dying in front of our eyes, if there are
despots, you know, having too much power and a billionaire
classes using extractive capitalism to hurt us and our
(08:17):
children's future, how on earth can I whisper about that?
How? I have a platform.
So let me bear witness and hopefully build community of
like minded people that are deeply concerned that maybe
we're moving in the wrong direction and want to do
something about it. How?
How are you building community do you think?
(08:38):
Well, I mean the borderless reach of the Internet, right?
You know, if you know a family is dealing with police brutality
or being stopped and searched too much or are dealing with a
racist criminal justice system, they don't always get on the
news if I go and photograph them, their children or protest.
If no one cared then I wouldn't have a profile.
(09:03):
But when you see grandmothers from Norfolk, caring nurses,
teachers, regular folks saying this is wrong.
I posted a video of a black man playing a piano.
I I don't know if it was a Waterloo station and the guy
just started heckling him sayingI wish you died.
That's not normal. That kind of rage is unhealthy.
(09:25):
So I bear witness, so we can call it out and also do better.
And actually I believe this is how you build bridges, by
recognising the ills of our behaviour so we can forge a
better future. But yeah, I, I think what's
interesting about what you do isthe sort of, you know, the the,
the sort of concerned, memeable social media activist is a sort
(09:51):
of a figure of fun and, you know, and and is much mocked,
but you've kind of done it for real.
And and you, as you say, you know, you've got built a huge
following and have have you ended up sort of actually rather
more optimistic about people as a result, You know, that the
world is a better place. The world is perhaps you
thought, Yeah. Absolutely And and you know,
(10:11):
wouldn't you do it for real? I mean, look, I, I, I've been in
tears in some videos that I've made, right?
I, I've also been in awe of the humanity of some of the people.
So it's much more than people just smashing their keyboards
and having opinions. It's connecting with real people
that are doing their best to swim upstream.
(10:32):
And a lot of us that are not politicians or we're not worth
400 billion, but we are trying to say we can be better than
this. And I don't think that should be
a radical thing. I mean, the, the other sort of
astonishing thing about you is that you've you've gone into
film and your first short film was Oscar nominated.
That's not normal. And you know, the after your
(10:56):
film is this extraordinary pieceof work.
It's only, it's less than 20 minutes long, but it's instantly
very, very emotional. I think it again, it's the same
thing. You've got some ability to be
very emotional very quickly in away that isn't necessarily
cheesy or comical, which is a trap that people can fall into.
So that is something about the way your brain is wired, isn't
(11:18):
it? I I believe so I I my wife also
says that I don't do light. I don't think I'll be making any
comedies anytime soon. Listen the after is an
observation on grief and the celestial nature of children and
what it means for a man to really lose everything and be
able to build himself back up brick by brick and has a
(11:40):
generational performance by David Oyelowa, who has become a
brother of mine, I believe one of the great actors of our time.
And it's what happens when, whenit, you know, post lockdown, a
group of writers, me a great DOP, Netflix putting his trust
in us to make some some art and allowing us to do it.
(12:02):
Fiona Lambti, who was head of UKfilm at the time, really let us
go for it. It's a hard film to watch, but
it's proves that if you put thatout there, people will respond
to it. And I never expected any awards,
but here we are. How much of this sort of sudden
success is down to your privilege, if you like, and your
(12:27):
connections and your childhood and the wealth and and tell us
about your childhood for a start.
Yeah, boarding school from a very young age, straight from
Nigeria to the English countryside in the 80s, which
was, I always describe it as Harry Potter without the magic.
It was a very traumatizing time,if I'm being honest with you,
(12:48):
because privilege certainly doesn't protect you from being,
you know, one of very few black places faces in, in places that
were very comfortable, you know,with overtly racist behaviour,
even in privileged spaces. In fact, the type of racism
privileged spaces is as dehumanizing as you can imagine,
(13:12):
so. Give me an example.
Well, I mean, you know, every, every, everything was colonial
history, right? So imagine coming from a
colonised country and the private school system,
especially in those days, was there to to raise the next
generation of people that come from the colonizers heritage,
(13:35):
right. So my history teacher was, I
think Churchill was next to Jesus Christ for him, right.
And there was no mention of any sort of Bengal famine or, you
know, the Mao Mao, all sorts of other things that I've learnt in
later life. I remember a biology teacher
looking at me and saying Harriman sickle cells of black
(13:57):
disease to the any black boy in the.
I mean, this is normal behaviour, but you deal with it,
you know, and you, you, you codeswitch and you, you find ways to
fit in. You know, I was good at sports
that helped, but it certainly wasn't a wasn't, wasn't an easy
time. And I think that's why I found
safety and solace in the in the pages of books and in, in, you
know, the video club, watching movies and, you know,
(14:19):
discovering amazing photographers.
So what was your life up to the age of 40?
Up to the age you know the. Was it much more conventional?
Conventional, you know, worked in head hunting, you know, in
the city, but always there was that inner voice.
And I will say this to people that ask me how could you do
this post 40. There was always that inner
voice that that was saying you like the creative world, you
(14:43):
love film, you love photography,you love theatre.
But also when you've not done well at school, you don't
believe in yourself. And I had a huge kind of lack of
self love. And then I met my wife and, you
know, she fell in love with all the parts of myself that I was
ashamed of. And there's something very
empowering when somebody sees you and doesn't look away and
(15:07):
she plays a camera in my hand. And it's been a pretty crazy
five years. In terms of the things that
motivate you, that get get you going on social media, I mean,
how, how you know, do you just respond to what you see?
Yeah, I never plan. I never plan, which is why I, I
(15:28):
certainly don't have well lit videos as usually kids are
asleep or just finish the schoolrun heading off to London.
You know what, if I, I feel if I'm moved by something, I'll
talk about it and people will respond to it.
So I think there is an authenticity that is very
different to the influencer perfection where where so many
(15:49):
influencers seem to have all theanswers.
I'm like, listen, I'm a, I'm a middle-aged lad that's just
trying to figure it out. But it but if it essentially
began with Black Lives Matter and and, and George Floyd, what
what has happened on that journey?
Well, I mean, George Floyd for alot of black people, we've seen
a lot of George Floyd's, you know, But what happened is we
(16:10):
were all stuck at home in lockdown and had this moment of
deep retrospection and our, we, we couldn't hide anymore.
So our traumas climbed out of us.
We're all very raw. And to see this man lying in his
own, asking for his Mama while still calling the police
officers that were murdering him, Sir, there was a lot.
(16:35):
And to see the wave of performative allyship that's
happened since then, which is ofcourse going backwards because
lazy terms like woke I used to to blanket just cover any sense
of kindness or gentleness, whichamazes me.
But here we are. But it set me on a on a path of
(16:58):
trying to build bridges with theart that that I make.
What? What do you mean by performative
allyship? Well, I mean, everyone was, you
know, talking about what we're going to do about diversity and
inclusion. I was invited to all sorts of
panels and talks for a year, butI always said to the, the banks
and the, you know, the, the big consulting firms that were
getting me to talk during Black History Month.
(17:20):
How's your board? Show me your board.
Show me your leadership team. Where are the women?
Where are the brown people? Where are the queer people?
Where are the black people? Because you Wheeling me out.
If everything there looks the same, if, if your head of HR
isn't casting that net further afield and it's not about
(17:44):
they're not being talent out there, look at me.
Why did it take 104 years for meto be the first black man to
shoot the cover of British Vogue?
Black men have been holding cameras for a long time.
James Barner, one of the greatest photographers in the
world, is in his 90s, gone in man.
So the talent is there. Give the talent a chance.
(18:06):
That's all we're saying. If they're not good enough,
they're not good enough. How much do you think has been
achieved since the death of George Floyd and the outpouring
that happened, and how much do you think is going backwards
now? I think he's changed George.
George's death has changed the world because it unlocks a new
generation of activists. And I've witnessed things that I
(18:26):
never thought I'd witnessed. You know, I'm amazed and in awe
of our youth, our younger generation.
And I'm really amazed by a lot of older folks that have gone on
a journey of on learning. It's hard if you've lived in an
echo Chamber of confirmation bias and Arrested Development.
You only play golf with the samegroup of people.
You only hang out with people you went to school, uni with.
(18:47):
You go on holidays at the same place.
You just keep all patting yourselves on the shoulders
without realizing that the world's bigger than your view,
and maybe your view was shaped on a viewpoint that is just a
small percentage of the real truth of our lives.
So George Floyd has helped a lotof progressive people go on a
(19:07):
journey. It's unlocked A2 generations of
youth that are never going to look away and are trying to fix
the mess that a lot of us have made for them to inherit.
So yeah, I think it has changed a lot from corporations.
Of course they have to do a lot more work, which they're not
doing for what I can see. Well, aren't they going the
other way? They are because of because of
Trump's war on DEI. They are, they're kissing the
(19:28):
ring and, and, and you know, things are being deleted from,
from, you know, all sorts of places.
People are dropping their diversity policies.
They are. They are.
But you know, corporations are living organisms.
And I think what if they want tosurvive, they have to recognize
that their consumers are growinginto adults and their viewpoint
(19:52):
is very different to Trump's. So otherwise a new Unicorn will
come, someone will build. You look at people are building
profiles in sub stack that are becoming massive, hugely
influential. They're companies like Ben and
Jerry's that are doing incredible things, suing their
holding companies because they have moral clarity.
It's already happening. So they need to think about the
(20:13):
future, not just, OK, the wind'sblowing in this direction.
So let's let's go over that. So when when you see the
government saying, oh, these these sentencing guidelines that
were actually set up by the lastgovernment to try and address
the concerns that happened afterthe murder of George Floyd, we
don't like them because of the dominant ideology of the moment.
(20:36):
What do you think? I mean, what could I possibly
think? What do you think is going on?
I think we need to do better in actually making decisions that
come from a place of moral clarity.
Right is right and wrong is wrong.
Instead of decisions being made because of the, you know, the,
(20:58):
the, the, the change in political temperature.
You know, if we are electing people, I believe we should be
electing people because they arethe best of us, right?
The whole point of a politician is that they're supposed to be
the very best of whatever we've been able to build in in our
(21:21):
communities, and they have to make decisions that reflect
that. If our political class are going
to be working for the donor class, then the people will lose
hope in them. Because there are two things
going on at the moment, aren't there?
You know, we have these two cultures operating side by side.
We have a sort of a backlash culture, a new right on, on the
(21:42):
one hand, and then you have the progressives on the other.
I mean, are are they fighting each other or are they?
But it's more than it's it's, that's very binary.
It's more than progressives. They're just, they are regular.
If you go to any protest, there are lots of just normal people
that are beginning to feel that they have been sold something
(22:05):
that isn't true and they are nowbeginning to unpick it and want
to build some. They don't know what they're
going to build, whether it's Brexit, where many, many of
people I know that believed thatleaving was something that was
better from this country, they've had to just own up to
and say, listen, you know, the newspapers would and politicians
(22:25):
were telling us things that madeus feel this sense of pride and
patriotism is very dangerous sometimes because the right
people can use that to make you make the wrong decision for
yourself. What does patriotism mean to
you? Patriotism means to me where I'm
most proud is when I'm in a protest and I see people that
(22:48):
have listened to Mother Earth. When I see people that refuse
to, to to say that the only way to bring peace to what's
happening in Israel and Palestine is to have children be
annihilated, having limbs removed with no pain relief.
(23:09):
When I see people that are saying we have to find a way to
have shared humanity. And when I see British people
walking the streets, you know, IMarch in the Palestine protest
with the something called the Jewish block.
And there's a guy there, Steven Kappos, and he's it's got to be
80 something, you know, a child of the Holocaust.
(23:29):
And when I see people like him and three or four generations of
his family walking in arms with many Arab and Muslim men and
women, I'm like this, they're all British.
This is who we are at our best. When I see after the far right
riots that we had and we had, you know, amazing protests,
amazing solidarity, we had pensioners offering it up their
(23:52):
homes to migrant workers that have, you know, been very
scared. You know, there are a lot of
good people in this country, buta lot of our newspapers, a lot
of the owners of our newspapers want to keep us entrenched on
islands of rage. And the thing about there's ACS
Lewis quote, how does it go? I've known my anger for so long
(24:16):
that she told me that her real name was grief.
I think a lot of us are hurting right now.
And if you're in that place where you don't know why you're
afraid or angry, you can be manipulated.
And I think a big part of my platform is to say, hey, regular
folk, we're here, let's do better.
And we don't do better by screaming at each other and
(24:37):
saying, you're wrong, I'm right,go away.
And that's possibly why there's some kind of authenticity to to
to how I move online. So it's well is, is there space
for that online? Because I mean, you know, social
media has now become generally so divisive.
Lots of people think it's a, it's a terrible thing and it's
only feeding anger. But you're, you're doing
(24:59):
something slightly different on social media, which is slightly
more gentle and together. Is there really?
Is there really a space? Gentle on to a point like if I'm
if I'm angry, I'm angry, you know, like Balenciaga did a
campaign with children that it was unacceptable to me.
So I was angry, you know, and, and everyone that followed me
(25:22):
was also angry. It's, it's, it's, it's about
responding to things in, in, in a way, you know, there's a roomy
quote. Raise your words, not your
voice. It is rain that grows flowers,
not Thunder. And in general, that's, that's
what my community is like. But we, we are also really
(25:42):
inquisitive and unlearning and unpicking things, right?
So instead of saying that we know, I will post lots of
informative historical things that may help people understand
things in a different way. Now, the sad thing is that there
are not many people doing that online, and that's a question
you should be asking your colleagues and your community
(26:04):
about who you're willing to platform.
In the last six weeks I've seen Nigel Farage on the major cover
of the Evening Standard, the London Standard, and just
yesterday or the day before. There's another major thing on
the time saying he's going to beor he has a chance of being the
next Prime Minister. He's being pushed by serious
platforms, you know. He's the leader of the fastest
growing political party in Britain, yes.
(26:25):
I mean, so he he will be gettingmedia coverage.
Is that wrong? Well.
Now, you can say that, but you need to ask yourself, from his
days in Russia Today, right, to being put on, I'm A Celebrity,
Get Me Out of here. There are, you know, people that
have normalized and I find it astonishing how comfortably he
was platformed by those that should have known better from
(26:47):
his time at a boarding school. He's had views that have been
well documented. And there are a lot of kinda
voices that have never got that level of attention from our
press. And like, that's a question you
should ask your colleagues why over the years.
(27:08):
And we'll see how history remembers what what has been
normalized. And we live in the age where
America has shown that if you normalize things, it doesn't
matter whether you've had 34 criminal convictions anymore.
But. The the press is something you
do get angry about a lot, and I suppose nowhere more so than on
Israel, Gaza. Yeah, I mean, all I'm asking for
(27:33):
is for truth itself, not to be aneedle in a haystack.
Nothing more, nothing less. It is odd that in the UK
everything is reductive and sanitized and when Hin Rajab was
killed some of the reporting is just her.
It's a child we're talking about.
Just take that case then. So tell me what what it was
about that story. Tell me what reminded people
(27:54):
what the story was and how you reacted to it.
I mean Hin Rajab. I mean the, the, the, I think
Palestinian Red Crescent were called.
She was on the phone. The ambulance that was supposed
to be rescuing her was attacked.I think the people in that
ambulance were killed. I don't remember the exact
number of bullets that were fired into the car that ended up
(28:15):
killing her, but it was over 300.
And there were multiple headlines that some some didn't
even call her a child, right? You know every use of sanitized
language that would make you if you were just on your morning
train, you'd think, oh, some young women may have been caught
(28:37):
in crossfire when it wasn't. What happened?
So what do you think is going onwith that kind of coverage?
Well, I think you, being in the industry should be able to
answer that to me. But I should be asking you what
is going on because I'm confused.
You know, as a civilian, that doesn't work in the press.
I keep asking myself why the reporting isn't just saying the
(29:01):
whole point is to hold powerful to account regardless of who the
powerful are. And if you can report using very
specific language about Ukraine,yet the language seems to be
very very different when discussing Palestine, then
people are going to start askingquestions.
I think that's just normal humannature.
You literally have to just pull up how if a hospital is attacked
(29:22):
in Ukraine relative to a hospital in Gaza, something is
very different. But you're, you're shying away
from saying what you think it is.
I mean, do you think it's racism?
I think it's a dereliction of duty.
And is it Islamophobia? I don't know.
Is it some kind of fear mongering?
I don't know. But my point is, you know, the
British people need to know because many of them are going
(29:47):
to just stop believing what theyhear from the news.
And I think that that could leadus into a very dangerous place.
And I do believe that a lot of good people in every media
business that are probably also too afraid to say what's going
on. Some whistleblowers have come
out, There have been articles that I've read that are
interesting. But this is a bigger issue
within your world and your colleagues.
(30:08):
I mean, you, you posted about Omar Al Akkad, who we've had on
this program and his his book and you said it had changed your
life and the way you looked at the world.
Do do you share his sense of alienation around the culture
that you live in because of what's happened in Israel, Gaza?
I think that book should be in everyone's will and testament
(30:30):
that their children and their children's children should make
sure they have access to that book.
It's it's that remarkable a piece of writing.
Omar Al Akad, he, he has a gentle cadence and he's critical
of everyone as well. He's critical of Arab nations.
It isn't the sort of one sided thing and he's not angry, but
he's honest with pure moral clarity about the fact that
(30:55):
we're living through a time where truth has become
completely unimportant in the way that we are being fed what's
happening through a lens that isis very, very angry.
And to have this man who was raised in Qatar, born in Egypt,
raised in Doha and then in Canada, that's seen a lot use
(31:19):
his penmanship in a way that I couldn't.
It felt like he was completing some of you know, where I get
stuck with with my frustration. You know, that was angry
sometimes. He just continues writing and
explains that no, Miss Anne, there's nothing wrong with you.
There's nothing wrong with you getting upset at children.
You know, I'm ambassador for Save the Children at children
getting killed at this industrial scale.
(31:39):
It's not normal for you to thinkyou should just get on with
life. And but he he uses the kind of
words that, I mean, you've interviewed him that I think a
lot of people need to hear that can leave them on a journey of
understanding what an industrialwar machine is, what imperialism
and cronialism has left us in the age that we live in today.
And he does it beautifully. What do you think your kind of
(32:02):
activism is achieving? I think I'm just one voice, but
I hope I'm a voice that helps people build bridges.
I'm not someone that looks down on people that have had, for
example, you know, with with a lot of people with the far right
protests that happened last summer.
(32:22):
We shouldn't look down on these people.
A lot of those people have very valid points and they're angry
for a reason. We should engage with them.
A lot of people don't feel listened to.
So instead of saying, oh, they're just racist, no, they're
scared and a little bit angry. Maybe, you know, cost of living
crisis, unemployment, maybe a lot of crime in their region.
(32:42):
Maybe they don't have a lived experience where they would
understand what an Arab and or Muslim or Indian, whoever
African person is like. And they've been told to fear
what they don't know. But listen to them, build a
bridge with them, walk with them, talk with them.
You know, I lost someone very close to me in 2005 in the in
(33:05):
the London bombings. Anthony Fatih Williams, a lot of
us in the Nigerian community, noand love him.
And I'll be honest with you, I had a choice.
I was in my 20s and I could have, you know, the the news
media was telling me to blame everything on the violent Arab
man. But I decided to go on a journey
(33:29):
and understand why anyone would strap themselves with dynamite
and do such a thing. And of course, it led me.
Those men were not practicing anything close to Islam.
Never. They had gone to another place.
And it led me to imperialism. It led me to Tony Blair.
It led me to George. Both the Bushes actually, you
(33:53):
know, to understand how this cycle of violence just creates
more and more violence. And that's my frustration,
whether it's with Israel, Palestine, in my country, in
Nigeria, we have Boko Haram. You can't bomb for peace.
What is going to happen to the boys that happened in Maine that
become men? You see, some people will listen
to you say that and say, oh, what is he?
(34:14):
Is he excusing terrorism? No, he's saying he understands
why somebody would strap a bag to their cells and blow
themselves. No, I I think I'm excusing
letting rage bury me so I can become, I could become violent.
This is what happens, right? It's a primal rage of men.
(34:37):
If something like that happens, you know, I lost someone I loved
to a terrorist, right? But I need to understand that
terrorist was once a boy, a baby.
What journey did he go on? He wasn't born a terrorist.
You see. We just label and label and
label. We need to look at the roots of
these things and understand how it happened.
(35:00):
And that's what I did, a little bit of critical thinking instead
of just more age. Stay angry, Miss Anne, stay
angry. Let's keep you angry.
And I think this is what we needto do is look at the root cause
of this. Because if we just are happy
with the cycle of violence, guess what's going to continue?
Violence. And those that will suffer most
in the violence are children. It's always children suffer
(35:23):
most. And the work I do with Save the
Children, I see it and it's something that we can do better
than that. I.
Mean you're you're talking aboutsort of building bridges in AT
shirt saying more blacks, more dogs, more Irish.
Yeah, that's a. That's a provocation, isn't it?
Well, I don't know. How well do you know your
history? Well, I know what the sign
comes. From So it's It's a history
(35:43):
lesson to remind us that within our lifetime, this sign, the
opposite of this sign was very real.
So there's a provocation for those two.
You know, people walk up to me and say, I don't understand
more, more what does that they didn't even know.
And that's like, no, no, these were signs outside by landlords.
We should say to anyone listening who doesn't know there
(36:05):
used to be signs outside the houses.
My parents used to go to houses they were trying to rent and
there would be signs saying no blacks, no dogs, no Irish.
Yeah, absolutely. And, and, and then we have a, a
bridge building conversation where I'm educating them that
within 30 years this happened. And then they go on their own
(36:25):
journey just to think, you know,because a lot of people are, are
in bubbles and they're floating around their own, their own
experience, not even thinking about that.
So it's, it's provocation to learn, provocation to prod and,
and, and think about our collective past.
And that's a big part of what I do, even with this T-shirt.
We talked about some of the celebrity photography you do.
(36:49):
You also became famous for photographing Megan and Harry
when they when they were having a baby.
And you've done other royal photography as well.
You're close to Megan anyway, aren't you?
Because you knew her before she was royal?
What? What do you think is going on
(37:10):
with the hate against the hate? Yeah, well, well, thanks for
asking me, because a lot of people don't even ask about
Megan that way. She is a sister to me, you know,
someone I care about deeply and her beautiful children and her
(37:31):
amazing husband. But the, the industrial and very
focused hate machine that I've seen I've, I've experienced
myself due to my proximity to both Harry and Meghan has been
extraordinary. And what I would say is that,
you know, one day, you know, herchildren will be adults and
(37:55):
it'll be impossible to protect them right from the Ledger.
And it is a Ledger of, of hate that mainly the British media
has been responsible for. And what I mean by that is last
time I checked, Megan is not dropping bombs on people.
(38:18):
She's not annexing nations. She's not a paedophile yet.
There is way more coverage and time and words spent directing
hatred towards her than people that are really really hurting
people. And I do wonder how history is
going to remember those that held the pen and the microphone
(38:41):
and kiss their kids good nights at night and pay their mortgages
off the back of focusing hatred to one woman than most of them
have never met. I do wonder how history remember
those that knowingly did that for the sake of the combination
of misogyny, misogynoir, greed, being part of a system that they
(39:04):
were just like, well I was doingwhat my editor told me and not
caring. I do wonder how history
remember. I mean, when you say you've
experienced it, what do you mean?
Because I've had people send me DMS saying, you know,
unspeakable things that they would want to do to her, her
children, her husband, myself, unspeakable things.
(39:27):
And you have to ask yourself, how do we get here?
If you don't like her, that's fine.
If you don't like the, the, the,the, the, the things she puts
out the TV show, write, write, write an article saying you
don't like it. But 24 hours focused hatred on
this one woman, this mother, this human being, this soul.
(39:53):
It's, it's, it's just it's it's unforgivable.
And it is a big there is a bigger issue.
I saw Millie Bobby Brown did an incredible video.
Same thing. You know women were pulling down
Millie, But why writing about her like she she like she
doesn't have a soul. I mean, people will always say,
well, look at what she's done, look at what she's said, that
they are culpable in Subway. Tour Well, as I said, has she
(40:14):
dropped a bomb on anyone? Is she a paedophile?
Because the level of rage is as if she had.
So what? Look at what she's done.
What has she done? Because there's a big disconnect
with this. It's industrial scale.
So how do you explain? You know your your view of the
world and lots of good people out there alongside that.
(40:34):
Well, because it's always a small group of people that can
get larger groups of people to go the wrong way.
And if you look at the ownershipstructure and how hate pays in
terms of the advertising model of media, you know, the good
thing is most of our youth under25 year olds, they don't buy
that they're not interested. You know, they're, they're on
(40:56):
their own journey. But do you think, you know, for
everything you've said about building a community online, do
you think it is worth having this thing, the social media
platforms that are also, you know, weaponizing?
Well, it's a tool, right? And amplifying it.
It's how we use it. It's a tool and I think.
And you're fighting the good fight, literally sort of thing.
(41:16):
Yeah, but but do you think it's,do you think 1 is worth the
other? Well, look, if if you know we're
we are here with this information superhighway and
it's not going away. So now it's we have to curate
our experiences and recognize that we can't expect those that
built it or those that have the loud voices to necessarily have
(41:36):
our best interests. So what's your advice to people
who who were going? I sort of hate my social media
because it's full of hate. How?
How do you make it better? Curate, you know the the
weaponization of mediocrity thatis a lot of social media is
because the loudest voices, the algorithms are so toxic that
they find you, you do the work. You look for voices and
(41:59):
recommendations and it's it happens organically, but if not
ask for recommendations, keep itaway from anyone under 16.
I would say like no phones. In my in my opinion, I don't
know if you've seen adolescence,Stephen Graham and Philip
Baratini's masterpiece, which is, yeah, phones are scary for
children that are not cognitively ready to deal with
(42:22):
the sea of potential bullying and misinformation that leads to
in cell culture or the Android Tate of it all.
But it is also, we have these hyper devices that can help us
unlearn history, help help us really, really be inquisitive
and become climate activists andbecome people that, you know,
(42:42):
want to build community in a waythat is borderless and powerful.
Do you think it is an unmitigated bad for children
though? Given you've talked about being
neuro diverse and being dyslexic, mightn't the phone be
quite good for that brain? Well, I think software.
Software is good, so they're things you can use when you're
(43:06):
reading something. But the social media is
different from a phone. Social media is what I mean, you
know? It's so keep keep kids on social
media, but not necessarily. They can have a tablet or a
device that they can use things for school and that's what I
mean. I'll correct that.
The social media, no way, I'm sorry.
I don't think kids on the 16 should be on social media of any
(43:27):
type. I'm sorry.
You know, and I grew up, you know, I'm 47.
I grew up without as a kid, theydidn't come till I was about
having 18. I got Facebook or maybe 19.
So I had all of that without it.So that's what our kids should
have. How how debilitating was it for
you as a child being neuro diverse?
Oh, neuro diverse. I can't spell at all.
(43:51):
So if I write a sentence, you know, I think Krish is a bit of
a ledge. It would probably say, I think
Krish and my head will think I've written the the rest.
So of course, any written exams,forget about it.
It made me feel like there was something wrong with me.
And now again, technology has allowed me to use apps like
(44:14):
Grammily and certain AI apps that really just give me a bit
more confidence. I use voice notes a lot to
communicate. And those are transcribed really
well now. So it's a lot easier now than
when it was when I, you know, inthe old days when it was pen and
paper, that was not the medium for me.
And I guess especially my younger schools, teachers in the
(44:37):
80s and early 90s were not trained.
You were just a bit dim, you know, You were just, you know,
something written off. Yeah, written off pretty much.
And it's tough for parents because parents need to listen
to teachers. And now we're so much more
informed in all of this. And I really speak openly about
not just my newer diversity, butlike, anxiety and what that does
(44:58):
to me. What I.
You know, how sound sometimes affects me, how I tap my feet
when I'm nervous, all kinds of little ticks that, you know,
when people see me as soon as successful, I want them to know
that this. And I'm just as scared as an
onshore as you all are. And I'm I'm just doing my best.
The last thing I want to look like is some kind of superhuman
(45:19):
person that grabbed the camera and everything just happened.
So what would 15 year old Misan have believed?
What you are now. No, no.
And if I could speak to 15 year old Misan, I would say you.
You're enough and you've always been enough.
And I certainly didn't think I was worth a damn thing at that
age. And and how do you see things
now for you? I mean, you've got this sort of
(45:42):
multi platform world, film, social media, photography
advocacy. Where's next?
We've made a very important film.
Andy Mundy Castle has directed afilm about my life and about
activism and what it means. Very similar to what we've been
talking about, what it means to be an artist.
(46:05):
That in the age where apathy pays what it means to and refuse
to look away. We've been shooting that for
over 2 years and it will be premiering over the summer I
believe. And I can't wait to share that
with the world. It feels like the world really
needs that. And then I have this amazing
working relationship with David Oyelowo, one of the great, you
know, actors of our time who we plan to have a long term
(46:28):
director actor relationship. So we have two films in
development that hopefully we can start shooting one this
year. And with the photography, I'm
lucky. I'm in a place where I choose
what I do. So I'm at as many protests as I
can be. I'm doing some work with the
prison system. I've got a exhibition this
Thursday about black children with Down syndrome because
(46:51):
they're invisible, These beautiful, beautiful souls, the
very best versions of us. I don't know if you know any
Downs kids, but they're just pure light.
So we're doing I'm, I'm supporting that, that charity,
so. Finally, I mean, what, what
would you say to somebody who's,who's kind of listening to you
and thinking it, it's a lot of work.
(47:13):
This, you know, it's, it's a lotof not, you know, not work in
the traditional sense, but it's a lot of emotional investment
in, in a lot of really tough stuff.
What? Why is the kind of activism you
do worth it? Because when you sit in a park
bench next to someone that looksdifferent to you, that has a
(47:36):
completely different lived experience, you end up engaging
with them and you realize that they have the same hopes and
fears as you do. They want the same for their
children as you do, and they're not so different.
That's how you make this world gentler.
When you don't do that and you immediately see someone wearing
(47:57):
a hijab as someone that you justcould never understand, that's
how they keep us on these islands of rage.
And what I do is try and bring people together in a way that
isn't finger pointy, that feels organic, hopefully, and we can
try and look toward the horizon together.
(48:18):
I don't think that's complicatedand I don't think it takes a lot
of emotional energy actually. It's just community building
without being told that you should only stay in what you
know as your community. I don't think that's
complicated. Mr. Harriman, thank you very
(48:38):
much indeed. Thank you, Sir.
Thanks for joining us. I hope you enjoyed that.
You can watch all of these interviews on the Channel 4 News
YouTube channel. Our producer is Sylvia Maresca.
Until next time, bye bye.
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