How discrimination still works.
Is there anything the media loves more than a good scare story, particularly when it involves the other? When it also plays on the desperation of those who have lost a child, the cynicism takes the breath away. The story from Greece of little blonde girl found with a Roma family she has no biological link to doesn't have any significance outside of eastern Europe whatsoever, and yet thanks to global coverage of this truly shocking discovery the authorities and charities have received thousands of inquiries from those who hope the child may be theirs.
Quite apart from how the case seems likely to lead to Fritzl style demands for every Roma child in that benighted country to be investigated, something of great help to the Golden Dawn movement, the last thing it ought to have inspired is raids elsewhere. Just as we had idiots a few years ago who thought every blonde child in a foreign clime with parents of the wrong skin colour could be Madeleine McCann, so it seems the garda acted after a numbskull thought a gypsy couple couldn't possibly have produced a blonde girl. 48 hours later, and after the Mirror had splashed on the "panic", it unsurprisingly turns out the child is theirs. The parents now seem certain to take legal action. Rather than offer an apology, the garda has instead restated they "take extremely serious all reports received from members of the public concerning child welfare issues", which seems to suggest anyone acting upon prejudice and age-old racist assumptions still has a friend in the Irish police.
The Roma really are the last racial group it's socially acceptable to discriminate against. Nor is it just in Europe, as a headline in last weekend's New York Times made clear, asking whether the Roma are primitive or just poor. The body of the article is in fact, as you would expect from the NYT, a perfectly sensitive account of the attitudes towards the Roma on the continent, but the idea the paper would run a headline asking whether any other racial group is primitive or just poor, or cultured or just rich is laughable.
As Joseph Harker writes, whereas we now have endless discussions about whether or not a celebrity of one kind or another has said something racist, with what seems like an incident every month or so, the latest being the ridiculous mini-furore last week over Roy Hodgson's use of an old joke as an illustration, we don't seem to want to talk about genuine discrimination. There was almost no wider coverage of BBC London's investigation into letting agents that suggested some were more than prepared to abide by stipulations from landlords that they couldn't let to those of an Afro-Carribbean background. It's even more surprising when allegations of misogyny are thrown around in regards to the silliness surrounding a fucking baking reality show, and so much was made of the way women who come into the public eye were being treated on Twitter. Like with so much else, we focus on the ephemera and neglect that which lurks just out of our line of sight.
Quite apart from how the case seems likely to lead to Fritzl style demands for every Roma child in that benighted country to be investigated, something of great help to the Golden Dawn movement, the last thing it ought to have inspired is raids elsewhere. Just as we had idiots a few years ago who thought every blonde child in a foreign clime with parents of the wrong skin colour could be Madeleine McCann, so it seems the garda acted after a numbskull thought a gypsy couple couldn't possibly have produced a blonde girl. 48 hours later, and after the Mirror had splashed on the "panic", it unsurprisingly turns out the child is theirs. The parents now seem certain to take legal action. Rather than offer an apology, the garda has instead restated they "take extremely serious all reports received from members of the public concerning child welfare issues", which seems to suggest anyone acting upon prejudice and age-old racist assumptions still has a friend in the Irish police.
The Roma really are the last racial group it's socially acceptable to discriminate against. Nor is it just in Europe, as a headline in last weekend's New York Times made clear, asking whether the Roma are primitive or just poor. The body of the article is in fact, as you would expect from the NYT, a perfectly sensitive account of the attitudes towards the Roma on the continent, but the idea the paper would run a headline asking whether any other racial group is primitive or just poor, or cultured or just rich is laughable.
As Joseph Harker writes, whereas we now have endless discussions about whether or not a celebrity of one kind or another has said something racist, with what seems like an incident every month or so, the latest being the ridiculous mini-furore last week over Roy Hodgson's use of an old joke as an illustration, we don't seem to want to talk about genuine discrimination. There was almost no wider coverage of BBC London's investigation into letting agents that suggested some were more than prepared to abide by stipulations from landlords that they couldn't let to those of an Afro-Carribbean background. It's even more surprising when allegations of misogyny are thrown around in regards to the silliness surrounding a fucking baking reality show, and so much was made of the way women who come into the public eye were being treated on Twitter. Like with so much else, we focus on the ephemera and neglect that which lurks just out of our line of sight.
Labels: discrimination, Greece, gypsies, media analysis, media coverage, racism, Roma, stupidity, tabloid stupidity
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