BBC.Imagine.2017.Maya.Angelou.And.Still.I.Rise.

I was terribly hurt in this town, and vastly loved.

I have to scrape it across those scars to sharpen that point. If growing up is painful for the Southern
black girl, being aware of her displacement is the rust on the razor that threatens the throat. It is an
unnecessary insult.

I was seven. The act of rape is the matter of the needle giving because the camel cannot. The child gives
because the body can and the mind of the violator cannot.

It was the awakening summer of 1960 and the entire country was in labour. Something wonderful was
about to be born and we were all going to be good parents to the welcome child. Its name was freedom.

I had lived around so much violence and been myself violated, and when Reverend King came and said
we can change the world with non-violence, it was like pouring water on a parched desert. I needed
that, and I was ready for it.

He said in Ghana, "I've gone to Mecca, I've taken the Hajj. And I have met men with hair blonde as corn
silk and their faces as white as milk, and I have been able to call them brother. So, obviously, I was
wrong. All white people are not blue eyed devils." Now it takes a lot of courage to say to the world, "You
remember everything I said last week? Well, I don't believe that any more. I want to have enough sense
to see the new thing and enough courage "to say the new thing." I loved him so much.

Everybody in the world uses words uses "How are you? Fine, thank you." Verbs, adverbs, adjectives,
nouns, pronouns. The writer has to take these most known things and put them together in such a way
that a reader says, "I never thought of it that way before". It's a challenge.

One of the things I'm interested in here is the relationship of the Blues to African music. I didn't discover
till |Maya confessed it to me, that her and BB... that the relationship went past lyric writing.
We've heard that ladies will cry when something happen to them. A man won't cry on the outside, but
he usually cry inwardly. It might be one of those funny type of things that you... I feel that you may laugh
at me about it, so I'll get out to myself and I sing about it and eventually it becomes a song. You see
that's poetry. That shows that you're not only a poet in your music. No, it's true. And I said, "If I knew
that, I would have told you to stay away, "because Blues singers give the Blues, they don't get the Blues,
they give the Blues." # How blue can you get, woman? # And he gave her some blues too, cos he gave
her a rough time.

BBC.Ukraines.Musical.Freedom.Fighters.1080p.HDTV.x265.AAC.MVGroup.org

But creating a world-class ensemble from scratch is ambitious. Can they escape the tumult of their
homeland to play on the stage of the Royal Albert Hall? Why is the message they're carrying so
important that they're willing to leave those they love behind? And I'm going to ask whether musical
notes arranged on a page have the power to defy and | ultimately heal. We want to prove that this is
the voice of Ukraine, that you cannot...erase it. You cannot erase the culture.

Ukraine's been the object of desire and aggression for centuries. This imperial legacy has left Ukraine
often embattled, so it's indeed a kind of battleground, but it's also been a proving ground, and a proving
ground for an idea at the centre of Ukrainian national identity, and that is the concept of "volya" -
defiant freedom. Art and culture have expressed that defiant freedom for a very long time, and not
freedom for Ukrainians only, but freedom for all peoples. From the folk songs of the 17th century to the
romantic verse of Shevchenko in the 19th, the dramatic poetry of Lesya Ukrainka in the early 20th, to
what we're seeing now in popular music, with Ukrainian rap taking the stage at Eurovision.

Ian Wright: Home Truths (TV Special 2021)

When we think of domestic abuse, right, it's like an incident, or it's this, like, physical thing but
actually what the damage is, is exactly what you were talking about. That, you know... And
you've been talking about that emotional abuse it getting in your head, telling you that you're not
good enough. But the control element around it as well. Like, even your stepdad just staring at
you. It's like, "What's going to happen? What's going to happen?" How is it making you feel? To
be able to speak about it now and feel like there's other people who have gone through it.....it
makes me feel a little bit lighter.
VOICEOVER: I'm totally knocked sideways to find out it's not our fault. You know, we are
victims. My mum, I absolutely adore and love her and, then, you know, there was times where I
totally hated her but... And I don't know how I feel and I didn't know how I felt. It's so... It's so
complex. I think I need to talk to a professional to try and understand why the things I saw and
experienced have had such a lasting effect. So, I'm going to see Dr Nuri Gene-Cos. She's a
consultant psychiatrist and trauma specialist for adults. She works at the Maudsley Hospital in
South London. Hello. Hello. Come in. How are you? Nice meeting you. This is a squeezy ball.
Uh-huh. Mm? So, what I do normally is, when I need to talk to patients, I ask them to use what |
I call grounding techniques. What do you mean? So when someone... They get fidgety, they
move their legs out, and you're not aware of it because it's the body doing it. A lot of my kind
of... The major things that I remember that makes me feel sad is some of the things my mum
used to say. I've been thinking about Mum a lot and it takes me to... So, while I'm trying
to...trying to have that caring feel, it's like something's there saying, "Remember this? Remember
this? "Remember this? Remember..." And it's very... It's like fighting, the saint and the devil on
your shoulder. And that's a normal reaction. That's a trauma reaction. The worst betrayal in a life
is your mother, is your parents. That's the worst that can happen. It's... You don't expect that.
You expect unconditional love. And, when you betray that person to that degree, not once, not
twice, it creates a different personality, a child who needs to survive. What about what she said?
Cos I learned what the word "termination" meant because my mum was the first person to say
that word...to me. And she used to tell me on a daily basis that she hated me. Well, that would be
considered severe emotional abuse. That would be considered, clinically, severe emotional
abuse. But...you're a grown-up man. And that is the difference. You were a child, you had no
choices then - you were trapped. You're not trapped any longer. But it makes me feel sadder.
Yeah, I understand. Because you never had what you needed from her. And it touches the part
that still wants to have a mother. Sometimes, I feel like I think about it too much. But it's
something I can't control. You then go back to the child part of you? Yeah. Mm-hm. But, no, I
go to the anger part of me, Nuri, because... How old is that anger part? Huh? | Teenager? I think
it's probably the guy who used to be nine, ten. Oh, there you are. I was a child. Yeah. A child
cannot run your life. So, why... So, the anger part is a nine-year-old. That's what you're telling
me and that's what it is. It's stuck there. So, what do you think that nine-year-old would like to
have? Love. Great. How would that child | like to have love? How? By being hugged? Yes,
tactile love. Great! Just do it. The grown-up you can do it, inside. You can still have that one.
That little one made you survive. That one was so brave, that little one. This ball is good. Yeah?
Yeah. You're OK now. You're not in... You're not in danger now. No... It feels quite simple|
when you say it like that. Just to speak to her was brilliant. When Nuri said, "You are a
victim..."..of severe abuse"..just like that - bam - I was like, "Wow. I've never heard that." Never
heard that. Giving me that nine-year-old | analogy, in a way, who's angry, I think that is going to
be...That's going to be a massive breakthrough for me.
So, the kids ask me that sometimes. "Mr Alexander, what's your actual job?" And I say, "My
job's just to make sure you guys are happy." But lots of circumstances mean that there are some
things our kids don't get or can't get. And I feel that our job here then is to try and plug some of
those gaps. Have you seen the difference? Yeah, definitely. And that's always a nice thing. We
can't necessarily change their home situations, but what we can do is, while they're here, this is
where we flood them with all of those positive things, all of those ideas that they can - you can
achieve, you can do this, you can do that. I'm not going to change and we're not going to change
everyone just because we do fantastic stuff at school but my hope is that they'll be able to look
back and say, "Because of the help I got here, "that helped me to be able to do this." And that's
the success. I might not get to see it in the next ten years but, then, 12 years down the line, if I
see them on the street and they're really happy, and they're doing really well, and, you know,
even a smile to see you again and say, "Oh, Mr Alexander," and they remember you and you're
like, "Yeah." That alone, for me, is like, "Yeah, you remember me." My guy! My guy! It's so
important that we can try and reach kids that may be in these vulnerable environments.....and try
to get them to understand what they're going through and what's happening. Catching the kids at
a young age so they can deal with the emotions, so it doesn't fester, it's got to be a good thing.
If I could talk to that nine-year-old me, the one who was scared and lonely, I'd say, "You will get
through this. "You ARE strong and you ARE worth something." Abuse creates a vicious cycle,
and it's up to all of us to stop it.

Roman Kemp: Our Silent Emergency (2021)