In
2004, the Ligali organisation made a recommendation
to the BBC suggesting they establish an independent
African British Advisory Council, similar to the BBC’s
Asian Network Advisory Council, which allows representatives
from the community to discuss and advise on BBC services,
programmes and general affairs relating to African British
audiences.
In its arrogance, the BBC dismissed
the idea with a supercilious ‘we know best’
response. Less than two years later, front page newspaper
headlines read “Fury at Racist BBC Drama”
as the BBC film, ‘Shoot the Messenger’,
which was commissioned under the title ‘F*ck Black
People’, is attacked for its relentlessly, negative
caricatures of African people. The writer of the film,
Sharon Foster, who publicly stated that slavery is boring,
was asked to produce programmes for the BBC’s
series on the 2007 bicentenary commemoration of the
parliamentary abolition of slavery which is set to include
the re-screening of the offensive, “How to make
a million out of slavery” documentaries.
Despite the community’s lack
of faith in the BBC, the CRE saw fit to bestow them
with The Media Organisation of the Year Award for the
second year running at its annual Race in the Media
Awards, for apparently making “a significant contribution
to public appreciation and understanding of race relations,
integration and diversity”. The move that had
many reeling in anger and disbelief, further compounded
by Trevor Philips, Chair of the CRE, claiming that if
there was a prize for the “most egregiously negative
contribution to race relations in the past year…
the worst offender would probably have been from my
own [African Caribbean] community”.
The occasional quality product from
the BBC is far outweighed by its relentless onslaught
of racist programming. Last December, the BBC failed
to apologise and update its editorial guidelines despite
repeatedly being criticised for the frivolous usage
of the ‘n word’ during its early morning
broadcasts. When challenged over the use of the word
on the bi-weekly Radio One Westwood show, Ian Parkinson,
BBC’s Head of Specialist Music and Speech Programmes,
amazingly claimed that the BBC "and the overwhelming
majority of the audience" did not interpret use
of the ‘n word’ as racist.
It doesn’t stop there. In March
2006, the BBC granted the lecturer, Frank Ellis, a two
hour long platform to spread his anti-African rhetoric
citing the grossly offensive theory that African people
are genetically intellectually inferior to Europeans.
In this instance, they refused to enact the same editorial
controls used to prevent the views of the alleged holocaust
denier and historian, David Irving, from being propagated
at the risk of offending the Jewish community. Most
recently, british Empire apologists were invited on
to Radio Four to institutionalise their views.
Under the BBC formula “African
= Problem”, the BBC commissioned an unrelenting
stream of anti-African programmes ranging from the racist,
apologist toned ‘Big Ron – Am I a racist?’
to the three part documentary ‘The Trouble with
Black Men’. The ‘Murder Blues’ series
highlighted the issue of gun crime as did the BBC film,
‘Bullet Boy’.
Africans on the Continent do not fare much better as
the BBC joined in with the wider media demonisation
of African Christians. Its sensationalist “Witch
Child” documentary drew condemnation from a coalition
of 33 African British church organisations who stated
that the BBC have a “vendetta against the black
church community in the UK” which was “right
alongside right-wing newspapers”.
This week, a well timed press release
from the BBC, seemingly designed to defuse the furore
surrounding ‘Shoot the Messenger’, announced
that the next Doctor Who companion will be the 27 year
old African British actress, Freema Agyeman. This will
represent a first in the 43 year history of the popular
sci-fi series. Whilst it may indicate a token gesture
in the right direction, it must also be recognised as
the politically motivated move that it is. As part of
the deal Agyeman is to lose all but the physical evidence
of her African identity to play the assimilated eurocentric
sidekick, "Martha Jones". If the BBC were
genuinely concerned with making real progress in addressing
its historically narrow representation of African people
then it would have the vision to recognise that the
regenerative nature of the Doctor Who character does
not exclude the possibility of a truly revolutionary
change that could see him emerge as an African.
The aforementioned examples scarcely
scratch the surface of the BBC’s agenda to exploit
and denigrate African people, history and culture but
they do convey how as license fee payers, the African
British community continues to be short-changed. Even
the BBC’s targeted station, 1Xtra fails to draw
a majority African audience. Therefore, with immediate
effect, I’m invoking my right to be exempt from
payment of the license fee. Be warned, the next time
you read from me it could be from a cell as the government
try to make a symbolic example out of me. The revolution
will not be televised… at least not on the BBC.
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