Sir
Ian Blair's comments last week about the low coverage
given to murders of black people in the mainstream press
is the tip of the iceberg. Deborah Gabriel examines
the portrayal of black people in the media with the
help of two experts.
As quick as the furore over Sir Ian
Blair’s comments about institutional racism in
the media erupted, so the very institution at the heart
of the argument – the mainstream media is already
burying the story. But this accusation is not new and
Sir Ian Blair was not the first person to raise this
issue.
Sociologist and cultural historian
Dr William Lez Henry told Black Britain that the comment
was made in 2004 at the GLA screening of the Rice n
Peas documentary ‘Bang Bang in da Manor’
by Head of Trident, John Cole.
In the documentary, Dr Henry raises
the issue of the disproportionate media coverage given
to the murders of Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman in
comparison with the murders of 18 year old Charlene
Ellis and 17 year old Latisha Shakespeare in Birmingham.
But the comment did not make headline
news then, presumably because it was made by the head
of Trident, the police operation that deals with ‘black-on-black'
crime.
Toyin Agbetu is founder and head of
social policy and research at Ligali, a non-profit organisation
that challenges negative stereotypes of people of African
descent in the media.
He told Black Britain that the portrayal
of Africans in the mainstream media is different to
the way in which ‘black’ people are presented.
Ligali uses the term ‘African’ as opposed
to ‘black’ to describe people who are of
African heritage, whether they are African Caribbean,
African American or born on the African continent.
Mr Agbetu said: A ‘black’
person constructed in the media has three attributes:
they are involved in criminality, involved in sports
or involved in entertainment. Anything that goes outside
of those classifications is not of interest to the media.”
It is for this reason he argues, that
the media tends to focus on black people as the perpetrators
of crime rather than as victims of crime. The mainstream
media portrays Africans on the continent: “As
impoverished people starving or otherwise are corrupt
dictators.”
By contrast Caribbean people are: “Only
interested in carnival and dancing and of course they
all come from Jamaica and they’re all yardies.”
According to Agbetu this social construct
of what a black person is, is far removed from the reality
of what an African or African Caribbean person is really
like, but nonetheless the mainstream media supports
anything that agrees with their definition of a black
person:
“So black people are troublesome
but exciting for the media. They add dynamics and flavour
and all of this adds impact on why there is a clear
media bias by ethnicity, which is another word for racism.”
Agbetu told Black Britain that black
people are seldom portrayed as victims in the media
because the mainstream places a much lower value on
African life. The labelling of crime within the black
community as ‘black on black’ merely separates
black people as victims from the rest of society and
reduces sympathy for their plight:
“We don’t refer to crime
where the perpetrator and victims are both white as
white on white crime. Part of the problem is this labelling
that goes on, the continual reference to us as the ‘other.’”
The choice for black people is: “Either
to be completely integrated and leave all of our cultural
and value systems behind or we are classed as troublesome
criminals on the fringes of society.”
The ‘acceptable’
images of black people the media love to plug
Although the mainstream media do not
readily portray black people as victims of crime they
devote many pages to coverage of black people in the
areas of sports or entertainment.
Agbetu told Black Britain: “Last
week we saw 50 cents’ new film being promoted
on every major news channel because it fits in with
the image of what a ‘black’ person is –
whether they’re British or African American.”
He added that the mainstream media
are quite willing to give mass exposure to minorities:
“As long as it fits in with one of the so-called
‘black’ categories. All of these elements
clearly point to racism.”
When asked why he thought the murder
of Anthony Walker received so much press coverage, given
that he was a black victim of crime, Agbetu said that
the fact the murder was so horrific and was clearly
racist was a strong factor.
He added: “The second thing is
that he was the acceptable face of what a culturally
disinherited African should be. If he had a black girlfriend
and black friends and had put up a resistance then we
probably would have read that maybe he had been causing
trouble.”
Media lecturer Jaye Williamson who
carries out analysis of media output told Black Britain
that she is struck by the continual negativity that
follows the reporting of black individuals and communities.
A crime involving a white person is
reported as a stabbing , for example, whereas a crime
involving black persons will read as ‘youths’
being suspected or involved. Ms Williamson said:
“A youth is a code for a black
person. Everyone knows this code now. There are plenty
of codes for how they choose to describe us and it’s
very dehumanising.
The point is that we are almost always
negatively portrayed in the mainstream media and if
we are not portrayed our invisibility is enough. It
speaks volumes.”
Returning to Sir Ian Blair’s
comments about racism in the media, it is a supreme
irony that the head of the Metropolitan Police should
point out the institutional racism that undoubtedly
does exist in the mainstream media, given its own history.
However, the added irony according
to Toyin Agbetu from Ligali is that it was the exposure
of the institutional racism within the police by the
mainstream media that brought the issue into the public
domain and forced the police to admit the problem exists
and to take measures to eradicate it.
The problem with the mainstream media
is that it is a law unto itself: “If we look at
the media’s accountability mechanisms they haven’t
any. The Press Complaints Commission is run by the editors
of all the major newspapers, so we have the media investigating
the media.
There is no mechanism in the Press
Complaints Commission for taking the press to task for
making racial slurs against entire communities”
, Agbetu told Black Britain.
Mainstream media reluctant
to admit to racism
Media lecturer Jaye Williamson believes that in making
his comments about the mainstream media being racist,
Sir Ian Blair simply passed the buck. She told Black
Britain:
“It’s already been established
that the police are institutionally racist, the education
system is institutionally racist, the judiciary is institutionally
racist, the west is institutionally racist, so come
on, it’s just splitting hairs.”
However, Toyin Agbetu from Ligali told
Black Britain: “Quite clearly he has a point.”
Speaking of Ligali’s work challenging
the media on the misrepresentation of people of African
descent, referring to recent media coverage he commented
that BBC Radio 4 has behaved “disgracefully”
in its debates where the ‘N’ word has been
used “without hesitation” and that the BBC
were wrong not to apologise when complaints were made:
“It’s a problem when you
have that level of racism in the heart of a British
media institution. Then you recognise that trying to
get them to change by lobbying them is quite pointless.”
Agbetu said that trying to go into
institutions like the BBC with the idea of changing
them from within has never worked as a strategy against
racism. In different arenas in the UK from the police
to the health service it has been tried but the management
in British institutions still remain “hideously
white”as Greg Dyke said of the BBC.
According to Agbetu: What we have at
the moment is tokenism. You’ve only to look at
BBC1 Extra and compare it to the Asian Network.”
Whilst the Asian Network has news,
current affairs, dramas, music and different languages,
One Extra is just music. He said: “If it was an
African station you cannot narrow down African culture
to just music.”
Jaye Williamson told Black Britain
that the whole system has to be changed to change one
aspect of it, but taking on the mainstream media would
necessitate: “fighting a monster of a demon.”
She said action is paramount to ring
in the changes: “We should be lobbying, we should
be writing and we should be complaining.”
Toyin Agbetu from Ligali told Black
Britain that complaining and setting up parliamentary
groups and bodies to legislate against racism in the
media is futile:
“There is an unwillingness in
the media to accept that it is institutionally racist
because the reforms and implications would be enormous
and they’re not prepared to disrupt their services
to take that culpability on and make those changes.
That’s where we stand right now.”
He added: "There is a need for
us to understand that until we hold our own agenda and
set it for others to emulate then it's like throwing
pebbles at a tank. These organisations don't want to
change and that's the problem."
Agbetu feels that the solution is “self-determination.”
He said that although it is important to challenge the
mainstream media when mistakes are made : “The
solution as always has to be to establish our own media
or to support the existing media that does the job without
compromising and which has the moral integrity to do
what’s needed”
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