When We Became the News...

So there are a number of things we need to unpack here. The first thing is what the hell I’m talking about, the second thing is the way in which I have seen this happen online with not only no backlash but with many people agreeing even without reading the article at hand. And the last thing is how I feel about the situation and how it creates even more of a division. Now let’s have a look at what I’m talking about.

Online culture has been ever-growing for the last ten years with even newspapers and magazines becoming slightly obsolete [I still read Empire, Total Film and Sci-Fi magazines, I’m sure there are other people who do because someone has to do the Empire Magazine crossword puzzle]. The online culture of news has obviously meant more viewers of the news and when that happens, normally ideas get spread not only like wild fire but people who would not say things in real life out of fear can now hide behind a keyboard and give this uneducated opinion which is tinged with outright racism. But is it their fault? Is this an opinion they express freely or is this induced by the article itself? The answer is obviously that it is induced by the article. Certain articles with headlines that catch the eye of the conservative viewpoint such as the hashtag for ‘Black Lives Matter’ and the religion of Islam progressing forward into the new world seem to bait people who give a very strange opinion which adds nothing to the general conversation. Now, let’s have a look at what kind of opinions there are and why they happen.

First of all, there is the ‘but I…’ comment. The ‘but I…’ viewpoint is baited normally by statistic articles. We all know by now that if you wanted to, you could find statistics to support absolutely any viewpoint whatsoever. I saw an article recently stating that over ninety percent of BAME and BIPOC people in England have experienced racism. Even though I think this is true, the term ‘racism’ is up for debate about what exactly that is. It can either be physical violence, institutional and systemic racism or even verbal abuse. Personally, I have experienced the last two, but my real difficulty is with the variables of the statistics, it is purposefully gas-lighting by not being specific and therefore, these average people then come online to comment on the article to state that they [who are neither BIPOC nor BAME] have experienced racism from the other side. Their opinion adds nothing to the article or the argument but I can understand why they feel the need to express this opinion. It is because the article of statistics is purposefully vague and therefore, inviting criticism from the more conservative side who cannot normally find reliable statistics to support their beliefs about minorities in England.

The second type of comment is the outright racist. The outright racist is the one who just expresses their opinion by secluding a particular race/religion or people. Normally, the subject of these are the BAME people and so it is only there to support the article itself but the person commenting does not realise that they are feeding into the statistic. They are simply commenting because of the fact that every day they see people making victims out of the BAME community, and as a BAME person, I do not particularly like being lumped in with these statistics who are round-up and generalised as having a collective victim complex, which is not true. The outright racists, because of the daily coverage by the news, now believe that they are counter-cultural and ‘against the establishment’ whereas in reality, they are just becoming and feeding into the statistics that they are reading about. This may be purposefully done by the news in order to expose that the race argument is far more prevalent online than anywhere else.

The third type of comment is the ‘I don’t think so…” comment, which by far is probably the most undereducated statement I have ever seen on this subject. These comments come from people who normally have the country’s flag as their profile picture and also tend to include something about patriotism in their biography section. As a general statement this happens, it does not mean all of these people do that. Also, unfortunately, a vast majority sector of these people are older women who are possibly the same type of people who complained about the recent Sainsbury’s Advert for including a Black Family. They come to comment simply against the statistic: something like “I don’t think so because they…” and then they take part in victim blaming. They are the type of people who blame George Floyd for being killed, who blamed Breonna Taylor for being asleep and would blame the women living in India for suffering rape at the hands of some bad apples in their home country - taking away the fact that all these people were moving in their homes.

These people also normally do not consider BAME people of being native to Western Countries, even if we were born in them. They would also use phrases such as ‘then go home…’ or ‘if you don’t like it here, go back…’ It is a saddening thing because it is the news that is baiting these people. The uneducated opinions of these people are being exploited and shown for what they really are on one, positive hand. But on the negative hand, the online journalist is basically sitting there laughing at these people for their opinions by baiting them into an article in which the variables of statistics are purposefully vague. To which their reply will almost definitely be ‘if you don’t like being [insert racially motivated crime here] then go back to [wherever the BAME person’s parents are from]…’ This comes from the beginning of the argument of ‘I don’t think so…’ on which someone will correct them and thus, the argument will end with the ‘go home’ argument as they do not have any other argument to present. They are purposefully made to look stupid and undereducated and are basically gaslit into giving these opinions and then defending them. But, I do not support this kind of behaviour.

But then again, the worst part about this entire argument is that these comments and thoughts do not only exist but they are so very prevalent that they are now taking the majority argument underneath these posts on the subjects of BAME people. We, online, are now being treated by these people as sub-human, as secondary citizens and as people who do not deserve what we are given in the countries we were born in. Does this sound very pre-Civil Right’s Movement to you? Of course it does. We are moving backwards and the question really is why we are doing so. I feel like the news is trying to be inclusive by recognising our problems, but instead of being inclusive of the topic of everything, they like to divide us into a certain sub-sector of simply BAME people. Now, the experiences of Black People is going to be different to the experiences of Asian People and then Polish People also get racially abused, but they are all different, especially in England where people do not even try to learn about who you are or where your family comes from for the most. Lumping us together as BAME people makes us sound like some sort of army coming to take over, which we are not. All we want is for people to treat us like human beings and through these comments upon the subject of our news - we are being dehumanised every day of the week. Places that are called ‘the most diverse’ of countries and the most multicultural of countries are now despising us. I have definitely noticed being treated differently now to how I was treated about ten years’ ago. Especially by middle-aged and older people.

Since the pandemic has started, there has been a question about whether COVID is racist - the name of a documentary aired on Channel Four. After this, there was naturally a lot of discussion about this and whether BAME suffer more. Again, the statistics show that more BAME people die of COVD but the reason for this being the lack of better care being provided to BAME people is up for debate. Obviously, people who are not part of the BAME community will not see that there is a lack of care being provided in comparison to non-BAME people, but as a BAME person who has been to hospital a number of times, I definitely saw first hand that there is very obviously a difference in care between non-BAME and BAME people. But whether this is the key reason for more BAME people dying of COVID has yet to be investigated and substantially proven. Again, you can find statistics to support anything, but reliable statistics are an entirely different thing altogether.

So here is a message from me, I am not speaking on behalf of everyone else, I am just trying to make a statement about us as a people from my heart: we do not want to be your enemy. We are your friends, your doctors, your cleaners, your teachers, your members of parliament, your freedom fighters, your cops, your fashion designers and more. We want to be a part of your society. Please do not fight us because we are on your side if you’re on ours.