TMP Online

A personal view on the Bernard Manning school of humour from TMP regular and GMB officer, Yue Ting Cheng.

I turned on the TV the other day to hear the death of controversial comedian Bernard Manning, at the age of seventy-six. Manning was a comedian who made his career popping jokes at ethnic minorities, and many people regarded him as racist, although he himself strenuously denied this.

Manning was a product of the times and, at his peak in the 1970’s, the kind of jokes and views he projected were seen as “acceptable” to audiences at the time. How times have changed. There are still those that regard him as “misunderstood” or perhaps, in his own words, “some people don’t have a sense of humour”.

My immediate thought upon his death was, what is the general public’s image of him inside their heads? To a lot of white working class people, they may well have laughed (and continue to laugh) at the kind of humour he uses. The unfortunate truth is that I can truly say, hand on heart, that I have met far more racist people in society than those who are prepared to challenge the stereotypes and myths - much of the time its plain ignorance, fear of the unknown, or not knowing what’s around the corner, and not understanding how a changing world produces large influxes of different people. Other times its pure prejudice.

I remember the first day I arrived at school after my family had moved from London to Norwich. I recall very shortly after I was introduced to the class, a pupil from another class made a comment about me that I overheard, and which was fortunately reported. I recall another occasion where I sat down in the dinner hall on a table with some older boys who I did not know and they made racist comments throughout the time I was eating - I had never experienced this living in London (although undoubtedly I was probably more hidden from it at the time). This was the start of a long journey.

Shortly after my parents opened a fish and chip shop in Norwich - we had immediate problems. Regular troublemakers came in to taunt my parents for being Chinese - the usual stuff, imitation of accents, pretending to be “slanty eyed” etc. We had our windows shattered on several occasions, although this was nothing compared to the Indian Tandoori take-away store near us which regularly had people come in and assault them. I always felt we were very isolated throughout my childhood and teenage years, not having much positive contact with our neighbourhood - a deprived working class, run-down, council estate area, rife with social problems, teenage pregnancies, a lack of aspiration and drug problems. 

My parents eventually learned how to deal with some of these troublemakers - or should that be appease - as you couldn’t upset them all of the time, although there were occasions where my father nearly got into physical confrontations with people. I never once worked at the front of the shop - I regarded a number of people in our neighbourhood as “racist bastards” and rightly so.

It was a truly depressing experience to be subject to such isolation and a feeling of being a complete outsider for many years. Many of the people who I encountered in our neighbourhood were not malicious at heart - they did not know anything else - although the same could not be said for a number of individuals who actively went about looking for trouble. A previous Chinese family across the road had been fire-bombed out of their home in 1987 we were told; the only black individual we knew who lived in our area, the kids referred to her as “Mrs Slaughter” - I never got to find out whether it was a cruel monicker or if it was her real name - all I remember is that all the kids at school laughed at her, shoved dogs mess through her letterbox and referred to her as “that crazy black woman with the air rifle who has no friends.”

The problem is that too often the type of humour espoused by the Bernard Mannings of this world fails to comprehend what it is like to be on the receiving end of this kind of this abuse and harassment. Too often people don’t. I’ve always felt like an outsider because of my childhood experiences. There was a distinct lack of any inclusion or opportunity throughout most of my early life and, when we came back to the big city, it took me a while to realise exactly what we’d suffered and how little interaction we had on a community level, and relatively how much potential I’d lost.

I recall even walking into public places, bars, even a trip to the town centre in my youth was often unpleasant - ready to counter-attack - either verbally or physically the next person who might be ready to hurl a racist insult at me. Other friends of mine at school from ethnic minority backgrounds felt the same. An Asian friend of mine, was constantly referred to as the man “whose dad likes to pick up shit”. Once, another schoolfriend of mine (I’ll use that term “friend” loosely in this instance…), referred to another Chinese person as a “chink” whilst I was in earshot, and when I pulled him up about it, he simply told me that “you’re okay, its just her I don’t like…”. Thanks very much.

I once recall some graffiti on a school desk, which referred to Ruel Fox (Former Norwich, Newcastle, Tottenham black footballer and a star winger in the 1990s) as a “mars bar”. I was even more surprised to hear that at Carrow Road, Norwich City FC’s ground (when Norwich were actually good!) was cheered, but opposition black players were booed… how fickle! At that time, John Barnes was the best footballer in England by a mile, but he apparently was “lazy” and “supported the west Indies cricket team” so his heart wasn’t in it!

The sense of isolation undoubtedly affects many individuals and families, be they economic migrants from abroad, asylum seekers desperately trying to find a better life, immigrant families seeking jobs and accommodation in the fifties and sixties only to be turned away because they “weren’t welcome” or “didn’t have the right character”. In fact, the most bizarre accusation I often overhear people say is that person’s bad character is because they come from a certain country or ethnic origin, completely ignoring the fact that they are just a bad person.

So my advice to future Bernard Mannings: try and see it from the other side of the fence sometime; you might be surprised by how tough it is.