Racist The Hunger Games Tweets Highlights Why Fiction Writers Need to Stop Making their Characters Ethnicity Ambiguous and Address the Issue of Race

By Donalea

Interestingly during this month’s Black Feminist UK meeting we discussed how white authors often fail to include ethnic characters or specify the ethnicity of their characters in their writing, only for the news headlines the very next day to report on the racist outbursts The Hunger Games fans had been unleashing on twitter due to the film casting black actors in some of the important roles, what are the odds!

I found the meeting discussion fascinating since I had never really thought about it before let alone noticed that I like many others in the group envision fictional characters as white (where their ethnicity is not specified). Since the discussion I have been trying to recall fiction books that I've read where the characters ethnicity is actually stated and not just me making the assumption, as well as any ethnic characters which may have appeared in these books. Needless to say I found the task hard and have only been able to come up with one book (Harry Potter).

Now it would seem this ambiguity fiction writers use to imply their characters ethnicity instead of out rightly stating it has caused quite a stir with the press picking up on the string of racist comments made by fans of The Hunger Games who are finding it hard to digest not just the amount of black actors casted as characters assumed to be white but also whether black actors can authentically portray characters written to have integrity. Thus is the case with the character Rue being played by 13 year old black actress Amandla Stenberg, having seen the film (though I have not read the books) Stenberg's character is innocent, kind and very endearing with her death being very emotional and heartbreaking to watch, though from comments made on the social network site by making Rue black this somehow discredits her characters ability to sweet and innocent, with comments including:

"EWW, rue is black? I'm not watching."

“Why does Rue have to be black? Not gonna lie, kinda ruined the movie.”

“(Ok) call me a racist but when I found out Rue was black, her death wasn’t as sad.”

“Why did the producer make all the good characters black?”

Extremely shocking and disturbingly racist comments though it does highlight that film audiences (as well as Hollywood) still hold racist perceptions of the black presence in film, with those that hold these views being more comfortable seeing Octavia Spencer play a 'feisty' maid to white employers over Stenberg playing a well mannered, kind spirited, sweet and innocent young girl.

While I can only assume from the comments made that The Hunger Games author Suzanne Collins didn't specify the ethnicity of her characters, otherwise I'm sure the film's bosses would not have casted the character Rue to be black; it does bring to light how our default ethnic setting seems to be set on white. This white by default line of thinking is the privileges of white supremacy, it's what makes us generally assume that someone with a 'western' name or an ambiguous fictional character in a book are white since not specified otherwise; it’s also what has made us blasé to images of a Britain whitewashed as done on the ITV programme Midsomer Murders or the film Notting Hill.

The harsh reactions towards the casting of The Hunger Games has made me question whether literature needs to be censored more, I'm not saying we should apply over the top political correctness to publishing though why is it that we allow books to perpetuate this racist notion of whitewashing its characters (by default) yet we don't stand for it in films and TV without speaking out? It’s also important to point out that The Hunger Games is aimed at the teenage market, therefore by allowing such books to propagate this racist notion to our youth then as adults they’ll grow inclined to this way of thinking.

Food for thought.

John Derbyshire, The National Review and the Conservative Movement

Recently a columnist for the American conservative magazine The National Review decided to write a column titled ‘TheTalk: Nonblack Version’ about some advice that he gives to his kiddies.

John Derbyshire littered his 1,500 word piece with such gems as “Stay out of heavily black neighbourhoods”, “Before voting for a black politician, scrutinise his / her character much more carefully than you would a white” and “Do not attend events likely to draw a lot of blacks”.

He also stated that some black people “go to great lengths to inconvenience or harm [white people] and that the “mean intelligence of blacks is much lower than for whites”.

If you want to read the whole piece in its original, warped glory then head over to Taki’s Magazine, which is run right-wing socialite Taki Theodoracopulos who has himself had a bit of the dabble with the old racist remark.

Although the column was not published in The National Review and the editors can take no responsibility for Derbyshire’s actions they took the decision today to fire him calling his column “outlandish, nasty and indefensible”.

Of the incident The National Review's editor, Rich Lowry, said: “His latest provocation, in a webzine, lurches from the politically incorrect to the nasty and indefensible. We never would have published it, but the main reason that people noticed it is that it is by a National Review writer. Derb is effectively using our name to get more oxygen for views with which we'd never associate ourselves otherwise. So there has to be a parting of the ways.”

Now I’m not going to sit here and write a thousand words about why Derbyshire is a self-important, miseducated racist who uses random news stories and events and shapes them around whatever vile dialogue he wishes to spit out. I’m sure you are all intelligent people and you can figure out why Derbyshire might be a bit of a knob. I can’t stop thinking about the National Review’s response.

They fired him because of the media storm created around the article because, as everyone knows, it kills careers and reputations (well only for a few months) to be labelled as a racist and the magazine didn’t want to be linked to that. So, I can understand why, even though the offending article was written for another publication, they still had to take a strong stance. What I don’t understand is their utter surprise and shock at the fact that a man who once described himself as a racist and a homophobe, who said that women should not have the right to vote and that their attractiveness peaks at around 15-20 years old would at some point put all of those views to paper with devastating results.

Any good editor knows what his staff are like, how they work and what their weaknesses are. Lowry would have to be an incompetent fool to not know Derbyshire’s views and he would have known it could all blow up at some point.

So why did Lowry, and Taki’s Magazine, pander to Derbyshire and employ him. Well, it could have been for many reasons. It could be that they knew if he toned it down and played the whole ‘I’m just telling it like it is’ then he would appeal to the majority of American conservatives who believe Obama just looks a bit dodgy and rely on gut instinct rather actual intelligence. It could also be the case that the magazine as a whole shares the same or similar views as Derbyshire. That would not be too big of a leap. The whole conservative movement in America right now is built around politicians, writers and news anchors making quasi-homophobic, quasi-racist and quasi-sexist statements that most people can see for what they are but others believe to be statements of absolute truth. Its almost as if all these white conservatives feel like they’ve somehow been repressed for years and years by minority groups and now they’re getting their revenge. They feel they are the minority, we are the threat and they deserve to keep us down so they dedicate all of their culture to biased, poorly reported stories that confirm their narrative.

There are a lot of conservative writers that could have tripped over the invisible racism line that goes from banter and ‘telling it like it is’ to vile, disgusting hate speech. Derbyshire was just the one that had his mask ripped off him today, but there are thousands more like him, brainwashing the masses with hate speech. The National Review has just taken down one man to save the machine. They know what they’re doing.

By Steph Phillips

Black / White Twins - a tired curiosity

When I read this article in the Guardian about a set of fraternal male twins, with one born 'white' looking and the other born 'black' looking, I felt the fury rise in my throat.

Because, I'm sorry, but is this 1976 South Africa, where we actually give our time and effort and direct activity of our brain cells to think about these 'questions'? Is it?

I mean, what is the assumption here - that quite light looking babies can be born to black people is a remarkable thing? Stop just about any black person on the street of London (and any metropolis in the UK probably) and ask them whether to their knowledge they have anyone in their family who could pass for a 'race' other than black and most would say yes - and if not in their family, then in a friend's.

It's really not surprising. It's really not uncommon. It's playground racism akin to 'ooooh, let me touch your bouncy hair' that drives columnists to write articles that sound to me like 'ooooh, and your son is so much lighter than you'.

Yeah, like i'm the same shade as my mum, and dad, and brother, and sister. Well, I'm not. Are you going to write an article about how my sister's hair is straighter, or how some people think she is Somalian? Is that interesting? NO, because it's not 'white'. It's not interesting that black people have variation except when that variation looks white, because that is encroaching on the ever-threatened 'whiteness' and then it's worthy of a tv programme and 2200 words in the Guardian. It's the white that is surprising, that it pops up in our (black) families. Because, you know, if white people are really black then how can we tell white people from white (but really black) people. That's scary, isn't it? Is that what this is? Or maybe you think pointing this out is a way to end racism, or something delusional and grand like that?

I wonder, because I don't think we can expect an article in the Guardian about how one fraternal twin brother has brown hair and the other has blonde hair - because that phenotype difference is common among white people, it's almost expected, it appears, even changing looks like babies born with blue eyes that changes to green and then to brown - by the way, why not write about that? As a black person, someone born black who stayed black, I think that is amazing. Why no column inches? Because my racial ignorance doesn't make headlines, does it? But white racial ignorance parading as a stab at enlightenment does.

Ok, so maybe they thought it was educational to write this article. (White) People need to know that some black people have children that look white. But come on, I think it is at Key Stage 4 / GCSE (ages 14-16) or before that we learn that mummy looks this way, daddy looks that way, and if they have four children, these genes will be passed on in this way - gene inheritance. Just in case you missed that class, don't worry, it's here thanks to BBC Bitesize.

See, but I think many, if not most, Guardian readers got to high school and stayed into the last say, two or three years and went to science class. So they know this already. It's not remarkable when a white woman has a 'black' looking child. What maybe the Guardian didn't think was that people would realise that black people might have some white in them. Because that turns everything on its head doesn't it? I mean, white people who are black, black people with white in them. This whole 'race' thing is beginning to look a little shaky, isn't it?

Oh my gosh i'm so bored by this drudge.

Just in case you think the article can't be as bad as this, here are some snippets that caught my attention as I tried unsuccessfully to read to the end:

"The boys' colour was the most obvious, and extraordinary, difference."

Like I said earlier, that is to white people who have very little insight into black experiences, to black people it's definitely within the range of normal to have some kids lighter and some kids darker.

"When James was born he was the spitting image of Errol, and I remember seeing his curly hair and thinking – he's just like his dad. It was another two hours before Daniel was born: and what a surprise he was! He was so white and wrinkly, with this curly blond hair."

I take it James didn't have blonde hair, then? And that Errol is black. And that James is therefore black, because the fullest description is of Daniel, who is white looking because THAT is the surprise, isn't it. Not the whole 'twin' thing, but the 'white' thing (but, covered this, so see above).

"It wouldn't really be possible for a black African father and a white mother to have a white child, because the African would carry only black skin gene variants in his DNA, so wouldn't have any European DNA, with white skin variants, to pass on," he (geneticist) explains.

I'm not sure this is correct. Early last year I was genuinely interested to read the story of two Nigerian parents who gave birth to a white child. So stop telling the people lies. Stop making out there's the world of difference between black and white because real scientists know that race is socially constructed and that black people and white people have more genetic difference within their respective racial groups than between.

"But most Caribbean people, though black-skinned, have European DNA because in the days of slavery, many plantation owners raped female slaves, and so introduced European DNA into the black gene pool."

Incredibly simplistic account of race relations during slavery and since in the Caribbean. ARGH!

"The Caribbean father will have less European DNA than African DNA, so it's more likely he'll pass on African DNA – but rarely, and I've worked it out to be around one in 500 sets of twins where there's a couple of this genetic mix, the father will pass on a lot of European DNA to one child and mostly African DNA to the other. The result will be one white child and one black."

I'm no biologist, but is this man trying to say that African DNA blights European DNA? When it comes to skin tone, maybe, but I'm not sure this is the case for DNA that relates to other things. Maybe it's just bad editing by the Guardian. But I know black people who have had their DNA tested and it led them right back to Ireland, not West Africa.

"Why does a child who is half-white and half-black have to be black? Especially when his skin colour is quite clearly white! In some ways it made me feel irrelevant – as though my colour didn't matter. There seemed to be no right for him to be like me."

Apart from the fact that I do think this young man does look like he has some black in him, and I do think his twin looks like he has some white in him, I'm worried that they were raised as 'white' and the other 'black', and that they were encouraged to call themselves either white or black, because if they are twins from the same parents aren't they both white and black?

"It is interesting that it was the white twin, Daniel, and not the black twin who was on the receiving end of racism – but, though it's counter-intuitive, Alyson agrees that it betrayed very deep-seated prejudices. "Those kids couldn't stand the fact that, as they saw it, this white kid was actually black. It was as though they wanted to punish him for daring to call himself white," she says."

No, it's not interesting that the white twin was experiencing overt racism. It's obvious because white is seen as superior and black is seen as inferior, but his mother is telling him that he is white so therefore has a right to call himself white and goes out into the world doing this, but his brother who is darker, is not told he has has the right to call himself white, so he doesn't and no one attacks him for wanting to 'trade-up' his race like they do with his white looking brother. That's not surprising at all to me.

I couldn't read any further, I was so disheartened.

Racism and the Media

Proud and Prejudiced- Channel 4

If you’re a TV addict like me you might have noticed that there has been a wealth of programmes tackling racism in the past few weeks, particularly focusing on the growing racial tensions in Luton.

My Hometown Fanatics, BBC Three, and Proud and Prejudiced, Channel 4, both focused on the Luton-based extremist groups the EDL and Muslims Against Crusaders. Another Channel 4 show about racism and multiculturalism is Make Bradford British; a Big Brother-esque two-part series that throws a mixed group of people from Bradford who failed a British citizen test into a house together to see if they can figure out “what it means to be British”. Yep, that age old question. Considering that we’ve been debating that for a while now it seems that they’ve been set up to fail really.

Now I have absolutely no idea why TV executives have decided that now is the time to discuss racism. Maybe they only just realised it actually existed. Maybe someone, a friend, acquaintance or even a passerby on the street, took them aside and whispered into their ear: “Oi you know that racism that you read about once. It still happens, you should do a programme about it.” Who knows how it happens, I suppose we can only imagine.

What I do know is that as a black woman who craves any type of representation in the media you would think I’d be happy that to have a debate about racism in Britain today on a nationwide stage. I would love that but I don’t believe that is the main aim of any of these programmes and that is why I was so desperately disappointed with all of them.

Make Bradford British sets out from the start deciding that multiculturalism has failed. I think that’s bollocks but everyone is entitled to their opinions not matter how much they frighteningly mimic David Cameron and his ridiculous world view. The housemates are all from a variety of backgrounds and are given the overwhelming task of deciding what it means to be British. Many of the housemates have their own prejudices and the programme is full of triggering and offensive language.

My main problem with the first episode is the way one of the Muslim housemates was set up to be the ‘problem’ of the house. Rashid was played out as the episode’s villain because he would not compromise missing out on praying at the Mosque to join the group on certain outings. Although he did finally give in and prayed while going out with the group, leading one white woman to realise that his faith and hers were extremely similar, I do not think the public will perceive him well. Rashid was portrayed in a negative light for the majority of the episode confirming many British people’s attitudes towards Muslims. I do not believe the one revelation about his character and faith at the end of the episode makes up for it. There is still another episode due to air Thursday 8 March, which could take a more positive turn but I do not believe it will because the makers of these shows are only interested in drama and shock value which leads me to the other two shows.

My Hometown Fanatics featured BBC Three presenter Stacey Dooley talking to the EDL and extremist Muslim groups with the aim of finding out why extremist groups are popping up in Luton. As you’ll probably be able to guess Dooley comes to no clear conclusion and, due to her truly terrible journalism skills, probably makes things worse.

Instead of taking a clear, rational look at what both groups had to say and using their own contradictory and nonsensical words to trip them up with Dooley decides to argue with every person she sees even going so far to say that it’s a “shame” that some Muslim women protesting had been rude to her. A “shame” is it. That a few women have in your eyes brought down all Muslim women because of what ‘they’ said. That’s a whole other blog post that I will tackle later because this one is already far too long. All the viewer learns from this programme is extreme, radicalised views that are great for getting annoyed at but do not actually tackle the real problem in Britain.

Proud and Prejudiced takes a slightly more removed view but still has the same result. The opposing groups both had chances to show themselves and show themselves up, which they did. The EDL leader, Stephen Lennon, repeatedly claimed that the EDL were not a racist group yet when Lennon brought out an Asian EDL member to speak at a rally the crowd turned, spat out racist remarks and several fights broke out. In turn Muslims Against Crusaders had their remarks countered by another member of the Muslim community who says the leader, Sayful Islam, did not know as much about the scriptures as he claimed.

In the end all three programmes are made for entertainment rather than to actually inform viewers. Producers will focus on drama and extreme views, which people can talk about in the office the next day, rather than a frank discussion on race.

What I would like to see is an hour dedicated to a roomful of people, a moderator and the free flow of ideas, experiences and values. Not to say that this would bring about the end of racism as we know it, but wouldn’t that be lovely, but it would at least inform the nation about what’s really going on in the lives of black people in Britain today. A safe space to take part in an honest discussion is the stepping stone to first understanding what racism is and then to breaking it down. But, I guess that would be boring to watch, or would it.

By Stephanie Phillips

Let us talk about racism when discussing identity, belonging and multiculturalism

I read the speech of David Cameron, Prime Minister, to the Munich Security Conference with more than a little anger at the partial nature of his analysis.

He was talking about Muslim young men turning to extremism and violence because they did not feel British, and this is all he had to say about racism:

‘So, when a white person holds objectionable views, racist views for instance, we rightly condemn them.’

That is it. Not mentioning impacts of racism on feelings of identity and belonging not only shows a complete lack of understanding, but decontextualises the situation and denies the reality of the power dynamics at play.

‘…we have allowed the weakening of our collective identity. Under the doctrine of state multiculturalism, we have encouraged different cultures to live separate lives, apart from each other and apart from the mainstream. We’ve failed to provide a vision of society to which they feel they want to belong. We’ve even tolerated these segregated communities behaving in ways that run completely counter to our values…. instead of encouraging people to live apart, we need a clear sense of shared national identity that is open to everyone.

If this analysis is correct, I should be among the immigrants to the UK most likely to feel British. I moved here when I was five. I have never lived in areas with big Asian communities. We have always been one of very few black families in the area so I have never experienced these ‘segregated communities.’ So why did it take me until I held a British passport, age 18, to even start feeling English? Why did I, at the age of seven, automatically support the football team playing against England even though I had no idea which country it was?

The reasons, as for many black immigrants and communities, is not due to the ‘failures of multiculturalism’ or 'living in separate communities.' Rather, the cause is years of racism, everything ranging from the direct attacks to the daily grind of living in a country that has policies, institutions and discourse that do not take you into account,

We lived in Oldham when we first moved here in the late 80s/ early 90s. Believe me, learning to read ‘Paki go home’ and getting beaten up regularly because I was a ‘Paki’ was not a fun induction for a five year old Indian girl to the ‘British way of life.’ While at university, I had stones thrown at me on the street in Nottingham because 'your people bombed the Twin Towers.’ My Asian male friends were asked to leave a pub in Leeds because they were making others feel uncomfortable. Obviously a group of Asian men together are terrorists plotting to blow up the country. Last year, I had a skinhead spit at me on a Sunday afternoon while I was waiting for the bus at Finsbury Park tube station in north London. I had told him to stop harassing an Asian couple, quite newly arrived in the UK. Apparently 'their lot' had not only stolen his mates' jobs, but also beaten them up. Luckily the bus came before he hit me but nobody waiting at the bus stop did anything to stop him in the meanwhile. I was told afterwards that perhaps I should not have intervened because it was not safe. However, I can handle this more than the couple that was getting harassed in the first place, having experienced similar things ever since I can remember. I wonder if David Cameron has ever felt as ashamed of the United Kingdom and ‘being British’ as I did then? It is not surprising that I felt closer to this woman and man who had spent just arrived in this country than the British people waiting at the bus stop who, like me, had grown up here.

I know I am not the only black person who has had such experiences.

Saturday morning (perhaps just before Cameron delivered his speech?), I passed a group of men walking down the road singing/ chanting. I first thought it was a protest that I’d missed out on finding out about. They joined their mates outside a pub. I noticed the England flags and actually thought of going to check out the England match that had somehow slipped under my radar. That’s when I noticed the men wearing the EDL jumpers. I later found out that they were on their way to the demonstrations in Luton.

I do not think David Cameron will ever know how I felt at that moment; an instinctive physical and visceral reaction. It was broad daylight, there were plenty of people around but I was still scared. Why did he not talk about the fact that I, in the country in which I was brought up in, did not feel safe walking the streets of London this weekend? What sense of belonging are we supposed to feel?

I know I am not the only black person who feels this way when they walk past EDL or BNP supporters.

What and whom was he trying to signal, knowing the EDL were marching the same day? He says it was an unfortunate coincidence, but this is the effect it had:

Some of crowd were jubilant, saying that Cameron "had come round to our way of thinking". Paul Bradburn, 35, from Stockport, said Cameron was "coming out against extremism". He added: "The timing of his speech is quite weird as it comes on the day of one of the biggest EDL demos we've ever seen. If he wants to start sticking up for us, that's great."

Coalition approval ratings are down, but is going for the BNP/ UKIP vote really the way forward?

I know the EDL are not reflective of the majority of Britons. However, I can say the same to David Cameron. He talks about Islamic extremism. Why is he not talking about the racism on the streets, in our schools (it would be good to learn about slavery, the British empire and colonialism by the way), in our policies, in our institutions and perpetrated by individuals?

They point to grievances about Western foreign policy and say, ‘Stop riding roughshod over Muslim countries and the terrorism will end.’ But there are many people, Muslim and non-Muslim alike, who are angry about Western foreign policy, but who don’t resort to acts of terrorism. They also point to the profusion of unelected leaders across the Middle East and say, ‘Stop propping these people up and you will stop creating the conditions for extremism to flourish.’ But this raises the question: if it’s the lack of democracy that is the problem, why are there so many extremists in free and open societies?...These are just contributory factors.

Really? The UK has invaded Afghanistan and Iraq in the last 10 years, propped up Middle Eastern governments and dictators for their own ends for decades and that’s not to mention Britain’s historic and continuing role in Palestine and Kashmir. Surely anger and despair over foreign policy decisions is more than just a contributing factor here. Don’t take this from me. Michael Scheuer, the CIA analyst who led the CIA’s hunt for Osama bin Laden has said attacks are motivated precisely because of foreign policies: ‘They hate us for what we do, not who we are.’ I don’t particularly trust CIA analysis, but I assumed it carried some weight with David Cameron.

…we have encouraged different cultures to live separate lives, apart from each other and apart from the mainstream…

Integration into society works both ways. I’m guessing by speaking against these segregated communities, the Tory government is going to get rid of faith schools, free schools and even private schools as well? I cannot think of a way to divide people faster than have children spend hours every day in the company of others just like them. How well are government ministers integrated into ‘mainstream’ British society? What is the mainstream anyway? This kind of language assumes a model of the white person, with anything outside it as deviant and ‘other.’ How many close black friends do people in the government have? I am guessing David Cameron does not have many friends in his inner circle from outside a narrow white, upper (middle) class background. I do not consider that to be mainstream either.

The failure, for instance, of some to confront the horrors of forced marriage, the practice where some young girls are bullied and sometimes taken abroad to marry someone when they don’t want to, is a case in point… do they believe in universal human rights – including for women and people of other faiths?

Can everyone please stop using the rhetoric of fighting for women’s rights to justify any of this? Quite frankly, I have had enough of white people and black men talk over the heads of black women about black women, about our bodies, our experiences and our realities, using gender equality and culture/ tradition arguments to justify their racism, imperialism and sexism. The continuing occupation of Afghanistan is now justified in the name of the liberation of women. As Kandiyoti argues, ‘the challenge to platforms for gender equality comes not just from actors with fundamentalist agendas, but from a conjuncture where women’s rights have been opportunistically intrumentalised to serve geopolitical goals, and neo-liberal policies have severed social justice from gender equality concerns.’

Implicit in all this is a positioning of ‘liberated’ white women against the oppressed black women that smacks of orientalism. Of course, neither characterisation is true. Black men are not savages, black women are not victims and white people, including the government, are not saviours for black women. Yes, ‘the horrors of forced marriage‘ are very real, but violence against women is not limited to black communities. Let us not forget only 6 percent of reported rapes end in a successful prosecution and that 2009 showed a dramatic increase in the numbers of women killed by violent partners in the UK. This includes all women. White women are not living in some feminist fantasy utopia of equality and opportunity and black women are not all oppressed.

I do not trust that Cameon has the best interests of black women truly at heart, I really don't. He may say he does, he may even think he does, but he really does not. If he really cares about black women, he would talk with us and listen to us seriously when we identify what we need.

The reason why some people living in this country do not feel British is not solely because of the nature of the communities in which they live but rather also the nature of mainstream British society and UK government policies. It would have been much more honest of Cameron to acknowledge there continues to be problems with racism, systemic, institutionalised and individualised, in this country. By not mentioning the role entrenched racism plays in all of this, he just ignored our lived reality and experiences. David Cameron needs to stop perpetuating a white-centric view of race relations and have a long hard look at himself, as well as at British society, institutions and policies.

Frankly, I’m just bored by this whole debate. The speech showed a lack of new analysis and seemed aimed at bolstering the popularity of the Tory led government. It seems David Cameron has missed it but we have been having this same debate about multiculturalism since 2004. There is nothing new in his speech, just as there is nothing new in what I have written here. Why do we have to keep saying the same things over and over again? Can we move forward please to the proper debate that is needed?