"With skillful manipulating of the press, they're able to make the victim look like the criminal, and the criminal look like the victim..
One of the shrewd ways that they use the press to project us in the eye or image of a criminal: they take statistics. And with the press they feed these statistics to the public.. ...at the local level, they'll create an image by feeding statistics to the press--through the press showing the high crime rate in the Negro community. As soon as this high crime rate is emphasized through the press, then people begin to look upon the Negro community as a community of criminals. And then any Negro in the community can be stopped in the street.
"Put your hands up," and they pat you down. You might be a doctor, a lawyer, a preacher, or some other kind of Uncle Tom. But despite your professional standing, you'll find that you're the same victim as the man who's in the alley."
Malcolm X, extracts from speech made in February 1965. Researched by Ahmed Sule, taken from Black History Walks newsletter
The 'Telegraph' recently ran one of its deliberately sensationally-named and undeniably biased articles about antiracism in early years education.
Dress witches in pink and avoid white paper to prevent racism in nurseries, expert says
You just know that the journalist, Julie Henry, would prefer to be writing in green ink. The article is the usual misintrepretation of anti-racist practice, quoting Margaret Morrisey, who appears to be on the journalist's speed-dial for these matters. It's heartwarming to see the 'Baa Baa Black Sheep'myth regurgitated, even if spelt incorrectly.
'Margaret Morrissey, a spokeswoman for the Parents Outloud campaigning group disagrees. She said: “I’m sure these early years experts know their field but they seem to be obsessed about colour and determined to make everyone else obsessed about it too.
“Not allowing toy witches to wear black seems to me nonsense and in the same vein as those people who have a problem with 'Bar Bar Black Sheep’ or 'The Three Little Pigs’.
Children just see a sheep in a field, whether it be black, grey, white or beige. I have worked with children for 41 years and I don’t believe I have ever met a two year old who was in any way racist or prejudice.”'
Media bias is a troublesome and enduring foe. I've recently been looking into the life of Claude McKay, a Jamaican poet and revolutionary, who worked along side Sylvia Pankhurst in early 20th century London. He tried to take on the the British labour movement's newspaper, the 'Daily Herald', whose editor endorsed the most objectionable views about France's use of African troops in Germany :-
'The African race is the most developed sexually of any. These levies are recruited from tribes in a primitive state of development... Sexually they are unrestrained and unrestrainable.'
In short, the paper asserted, completely without evidence, that the black soldiers were rapists and all white women and girls in Germany were at risk. McKay embroiled himself in a big row trying to challenge this, finding few alliances, other that Sylvia Pankhurst, to support him.
Jump forward nearly a hundred years to modern day USA. The Diversity in Media Institute has published a case study highlighting the media's negative bias against Islam, using Park51 as an example. The Muslim community centre, including a fitness centre, a culinary school, a September 11 Memorial and a book store, received approval to be built a couple of blocks away from the World Trade Center site in New York. Conservative bloggers affiliated with “Stop Islamization of America,” launched a campaign against the project, renaming it the "Ground Zero Mosque”. An international controversy was born.
The report concludes:-
Citizenship education should address questions relevant to the role of media in multicultural societies.
Individuals should be aware of how the media deal with migrants, multiculturalism, and, in this particular case, Islamic culture and religion.
They should be enabled and encouraged to develop critical thinking skills in order to differentiate media messages and identify stereotypes, Islamophobia, radicalism, and racism within the media discourse.
But perhaps there is something more than that? Claude McKay had to fight his battles in isolation. What should we be doing to support each other when faced with similar challenges?
For information about Black History Walks and to sign up to the newsletter http://www.blackhistorywalks.co.uk/
For more information about Uncovering Media Bias: The “Ground Zero Mosque” Case Study, please visit: http://uncoveringbias.wordpress.com/
For more about the Media Diversity Institute see http://www.media-diversity.org/en/
For more about Claude McKay - start with Winston James's chapter 'A Race Outcast from an Outcast Race' in West Indian Intellectuals in Britain edited by Bill Schwarz, published Manchester University Press, 2003
For more about the Daily Telegraph - sorry, you're on your own with that one
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