But in Britain, when it comes to satirical or comedic pieces on race and minority religion, the money, power and creative control tend to be placed in the hands of white people, or at least, out of the hands and reach of people of colour. All are American, the product of a diverse group of creative people. So why, then, does news of Jones’s project, Forty Acres – which has been described as a “a comedy drama about historic slavery” – feel like a kick in the teeth without anyone having seen as much as a still from it? That has much to do with the middle-class funfair that is TV and film commissioning and the power disparities within, but also the history and grand-scale racial illiteracy of our ever-modest country, Great Britain. The TV series The Boondocks, the drama The Good Lord Bird, Bamboozled, Hollywood Shuffle, Paul Beatty’s Booker prize-winning The Sellout, Django Unchained, Jordan Peele’s Get Out (starring Daniel Kaluuya), and the recently acclaimed film American Fiction have all added vital comedic and satirical perspectives to the landscape of understanding Black history and the Black experience. And contrary to popular belief, slavery and other subjects affecting the Black experience are subject to regular satirical inspection.

The who we are project