White Middle Class Angst.

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So there I was, under the bright studio lights, perspiring slightly and certainly not enjoying myself. With all the cameras around me I was conscious of my every move, my every word. But I’d done okay so far; I’d made the presenter laugh with my anecdote at the beginning and then I’d answered five questions right and one question wrong, and that had been a real toughy.

I was down to the last question, get it right, as the jovial quiz show host had just informed me, and I’d walk away with £3000 pounds, get it wrong and I’d leave... with nothing. I took a deep breath, looked at my shoes and then looked up and smiled into the camera, just like the floor manager had told me to.

‘Now, all you need to do to win the money is… to name this famous sportswoman.’ The host said while the producers brought up a picture of a black woman that I’d never seen before. 

They say in pressure situations your mind goes blank, but my mind didn’t go blank. On the contrary my mind worked faster than a supercomputer beating a master at chess. It was in overdrive, at risk of burn out.

The problem was my mind wasn’t going through its database of black sports women. No, my mind was embroiled in a moral dilemma that there was surely no satisfactory conclusion to. I wasn’t only looking for the correct answer, I was looking for the politically correct answer.

I knew I didn’t know who the woman was, but I could guess, have a go, maybe pluck a correct name from somewhere. But therein lay the problem.  I could say Venus Williams or Tessa Sanderson or Maggie Alphosi but I was pretty sure it wasn’t any of them and... wouldn’t I be leaving myself open to the accusation that I thought that  ‘they all look the same’?... Oh god, my white, liberal mind was in turmoil. Was I about to make a racist gaffe on prime time TV?

Of course, I could have simply said ‘I don’t know’, that would have saved my blushes, but that didn’t cross my mind. 

‘I have to push you for an answer.’ The host said. Three cameras, red lights shining, pointed at me. The studio lights seemed unbearably hot. I willed a name into my mind and my prayers were answered.

‘Steffi Graf,’ I said confidently.

There was a collective intake of breath from the studio audience while the host looked at me like I was mad, which I just might have gone.

‘Steffi Graf?’ He repeated, ‘well let’s look and see if ‘Steffi Graf’ is right.’

The producers pressed the button and a red cross appeared on the screen signalling, as  everyone had known, that my answer was not correct.

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