A black
activist has called on black people to refuse to pay
the license fee after it broadcast a drama that has
drawn accusations of racism.
Shoot The Messenger, starring Spooks
actor David Oylowo and written by black playwright Sharon
Foster, depicted a black teacher whose attempts to improve
the lives of his young black students are met with hostility.
Falsely accused of assaulting a pupil,
he blames the attitudes and actions of black people
for all his woes, and begins to lose his grip on sanity.
The deliberately provocative drama
- originally meant to be titled F*** Black People -
included lines such as 'Everything bad that's ever happened
to me involved a black person' and 'we should go back
to slavery, we were good at that'.
Now Toyin Agbetu, founder of Ligali,
a black media campaign group, has called on black pople
to withold their license fee until the BBC 'stop showing
things like this and start treating black people with
respect, not just as entertainers or musicians or criminals.'
He said: 'I personally refuse to pay
my licence tax, as I prefer to call it, and we would
urge people to withhold theirs in support... I am not
prepared to support a film that characterises our community
in such a negative way'
Return to Press
Cuttings index
|
