Mark my words…

There’s a season of films on BBC2 beginning this evening entitled “WHITE” – Is White Working Class Britain becoming Invisible?

The comments and sparks for each programme have begun to fly and there are a lot of predictable things being said. As soon as the BBC put ‘white’ into the title they knew that they’d evoke a discussion based on colour. It is extremely divisive.

I hate the media for that – I want a true picture of Britain’s working class today – not some loaded emotive racist name calling pap. I want the facts and the figures.

Unfortunately there is very little, if any, factual information about Britain’s workers and benefit claimers available in the media and so it reads as all of the comments – heresay, unfounded gossip and glib generalisation – so that’s like reading The Sun, The Mirror and the Daily Mail all rolled into one.

I don’t live in the UK any more and I have referred here to my feelings about it when I am there.

I think the BBC has been incredibly irresponsible to pitch these programmes about the working class as “WHITE” – If they want to get people talking, if they want true healthy discussion about issues in Britain concerning the Working Class then there are far better ways of achieving that.

This season will cause a lot of people a lot of anxiety and grief – this is not the way to get Brits to interact. I think the BBC has a duty to inform — NOT to provoke.

~ by thiswoman on March 7, 2008.