Anthony Ekundayo Lennon's parents and grand parents are white but he still got funding meant for black minorities

Is he Black or White

Anthony Ekundayo Lennon's parents and grand parents are white but he still got funding meant for black minorities
Anthony Ekundayo Lennon’s parents and grand parents are white but he still got funding meant for black minorities

 

Face -off White actor pilfered  £400k funding meant for black minorities. Anthony Ekundayo Lennon applied as a “mixed-heritage” to Talawa Company and won a paid traineeship as “theatre practitioner of colour” said “he went through struggles of a black man” despite being born to white Irish parents. A white director who was given a job intended for artists of colour has found himself in the centre of a debate controversy.He wore black identity like a costume, and has actively chosen to take up space and pinch resources that was never meant for him.

According to The Stage, people from Black, Asian and minority Ethnic (Bame) backgrounds just made up only 8 per cent of chief executives, 10 per cent of artistic directors and 10 per cent of chairs in 2016-17. The theatre industry decision makers and gatekeepers have an overwhelming majority including Lennon are white. The funding of £406, 000 award from Arts Council England as part of a residential traineeship which Lennon received specifically meant for the development of theatre practitioners of colour,

Lennon’s flirtation with a new racial identity came about soon after his acting career as a self-professed white man, in predominantly white spaces, totally failed, but he decided to chose a name for himself from an African book –leaving Anthony “Taharka Ekundaho” Lennon.

In a book called Photo Id, he wrote: “ I was at a stage in my life where to address me Anthony Lennon did not fulfil me ; it didn’t seem to allow me to express myself as I saw fit.”