Prime Time 8. Coursebook plus Semester Self-checks, Schulbuch

9 Of quotas and alibis Reading: At times I feel like a plastic Paki a) Read the text by a mixed-race journalist. First decide whether the statements (1–6) are true (T) or false (F) and put a cross ( ✘ ) in the correct box. Then identify the sentence in the text which supports your decision. Write the first four words of this sentence in the space provided. There may be more than one correct answer; write down only one. The first one (0) has been done for you. 1 VIP file Anvar Khan is an award-­ winning freelance journalist and author, radio and TV presenter. She works as a columnist for The Guardian and a number of Scottish newspapers. V Fact file Ethnic slurs The article by Anvar Khan contains two expressions to refer to ethnic groups in a disrespectful manner: • • The term “Paki” is an insulting expression for immigrants especially from South Asia and sometimes the Middle East. • • The word “Whitey” is a term for a Caucasian, commonly used in a derogatory manner. F When your nationality is an accident of geography, a mere matter of an atlas and joyous circumstance, you have to admit that the colour you are when you get
here is just as ludicrously fateful. As a mixed-race Scottish Asian I have to admit
I care as little about my colour as I do about the mating rituals of the Tasmanian mongoose, yet in the predominantly white media my racial identity has a currency and a value. It both fascinates and appals me that I am in a position where my voice
is important because it comes from a brown person. My colour is neither my responsibility nor my fault. Yet it is a passport into debates that Whitey is too
scared to gatecrash. Whether on Jeremy Vine or BBC News 24 my subjects have included the Islamic treatment of women and whether Asian youth are truly proud to be British. A white reporter would not be asked to comment on any race-related issue, and frankly I have a problem with that. The British media are in the sad and desperate situation of not having many high-profile black or Asian journalists, and even fewer wannabes. It’s a hard
place to be. As long as the media are overwhelmingly white then the industry will always be open to accusations of racism. When I asked the former BBC director general Greg Dyke, in a programme
I was presenting for Radio Scotland, if he thought the BBC was “hideously white”, his agreement created uproar and division throughout the media world. Whitey wrote concerned and outraged letters to The Guardian and The Times , sore at
what they perceived to be his betrayal of his own race. Quite. And it’s here in
this peculiar and complex sphere, where white racial sensitivity equals that of
any highly-strung Muslim demonstrator, that I work. As a writer, as just another journo, but one who by the nature of my parents’ coupling has the option of
taking up racial comment as a career move. And all because the media operate a voluntary self-censorship, where white journalists aren’t allowed, or do not choose, to speak candidly about race.
Paranoid and self-protective, the industry chooses to spotlight Asian journalists rather than discuss Asian issues freely. It is not compulsory for a white journalist to defend or attack views from minorities, but it is for me. I almost do it as a favour. The liberal, left-leaning media are so terrified of causing offence to any minority that they look to a person of colour to do their arguing for them. When controversial subjects erupt, regarding Shabina Begum’s so-called right to wear the jilbab at school or the preponderance of ham sandwiches at council meetings, whatever, the white media turn tactician, and, in order to deflect any potential criticism, recruit brown faces. That’s where I come in. The logic is obvious; an Asian person can call another Asian a bigot, but a white pundit cannot. I suspect many more white writers could comment if they did not sit at their laptops in fear of being called racist for any view that does not flatter the ethnic minority. I am hired simply because the media has decided, albeit perhaps subconsciously, that the subject of race is the domain of people of colour. This is hypocrisy. The basis of equality is that you are not treated differently. Yet black or Asian journalists are asked to carry the burden of racial comment. It’s a double standard that demands I take my skin colour far more seriously than I would like. […] There are times 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 65 70 75 80 85 90 102 Ideals and reality Nur zu Prüfzwecken – Eigentum des Verlags öbv