The BBC's post coverage of the US elections was totally unprofessional and utterly biased. I watched the news every hour only to be greeted by Huw Edwards exclaiming that Barak Obama is the 1st black President of the United States.
The amount of times the word black was mentioned was astonishing; perhaps it makes up for all the times they have barred its presenters from using the term when discussing a murder case or violent crime, in case they 'appeared' racist for even mentioning a vague description of the criminal.
It was as if all other terminology went out the window - he was 'black' and nothing else mattered! What astounds me is that the once labelled 'hideously white' institution was bending over backwards to accommodate this notion ahead of all other attributes. Obama has spent this whole campaign not even mentioning race, yet the BBC is still stumbling around in the murky rhetoric that white and black alike wanted to avoid.
The BBC made little reference to the fact that that he is in fact mixed-race and that it would have been more appropriate to run with a narrative that spoke of Obama's mixed cultural and biological make-up transforming race relations. This unique and modern synergy being the ties that could bind America into a post-racial nation. His story spans 3 continents - Africa, Asia and of course the US (Hawaii and the continental US) His story is a migrant story, it is an American story.
Obama's aim has been to transcend the black-white divide, as he may never feel comfortable as one or the other. For example, not fitting in during his stay in Indonesia as he looked too 'dark skinned,' flip that over to his stay in Chicago where the black population viewed him with suspicion as too 'white' in nature, too intellectual and too foreign to understand their plight. In his books he has made it clear he decided to anchor himself to America after years of living a nomadic life.
None of this made in into the BBC's version of events, preferring to highlight skin deep actualities over the man's substance. It flies in the face of Martin Luther King's icon statement:
"I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the colour of their skin but by the content of their character. "
If only the BBC has the gumption to not tip-toe around racial issues, to not opt for tokenism as they usually default to, but to appoint BBC staffers by the content of their character.
It was as if all other terminology went out the window - he was 'black' and nothing else mattered! What astounds me is that the once labelled 'hideously white' institution was bending over backwards to accommodate this notion ahead of all other attributes. Obama has spent this whole campaign not even mentioning race, yet the BBC is still stumbling around in the murky rhetoric that white and black alike wanted to avoid.
The BBC made little reference to the fact that that he is in fact mixed-race and that it would have been more appropriate to run with a narrative that spoke of Obama's mixed cultural and biological make-up transforming race relations. This unique and modern synergy being the ties that could bind America into a post-racial nation. His story spans 3 continents - Africa, Asia and of course the US (Hawaii and the continental US) His story is a migrant story, it is an American story.
Obama's aim has been to transcend the black-white divide, as he may never feel comfortable as one or the other. For example, not fitting in during his stay in Indonesia as he looked too 'dark skinned,' flip that over to his stay in Chicago where the black population viewed him with suspicion as too 'white' in nature, too intellectual and too foreign to understand their plight. In his books he has made it clear he decided to anchor himself to America after years of living a nomadic life.
None of this made in into the BBC's version of events, preferring to highlight skin deep actualities over the man's substance. It flies in the face of Martin Luther King's icon statement:
"I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the colour of their skin but by the content of their character. "
If only the BBC has the gumption to not tip-toe around racial issues, to not opt for tokenism as they usually default to, but to appoint BBC staffers by the content of their character.
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