In 1988, as United States Ambassador to the United Nations, Andrew Young made a statement few in a US administration would have had the guts to make publicly without jeopardising the “special relations” which has been the bedrock of the US-UK relations for centuries. Ambassador Young stated bluntly that the United Kingdom “practically invented” racism via her pioneer role in the Slave Trade.
Whatever response the UK had for Ambassador Young and the world it had a long time incubating. Now as the USA is fighting its white racialists who take guns to people of colour, the picture here is of a carefully choreographed and subtle campaign to deal with racism not only now but more especially in the future.
The first step is to disabuse the minds of young children of inherent racism, from the core, and inculcate in them that the same red blood courses through out all of us, beneath our skins whether white or black. Believing that children are readily influenced by what they see on the silver screen, TV has become one of the most effective ways of getting ahead of racism. Various advertisements and programmes targeted at young kids show white and black children interacting and interfacing seamlessly, and in most cases the black kids are given a leading role.
Not many will doubt the immeasurable benefit to young children of this method of educating as well as disabusing their minds of inherent prejudice.
At the same time older people are reminded of the oneness of the human race which a good number of them appear to have forgotten. In one striking advertisement, a white woman accosts a black woman in the skin care section of a Department Store. She runs up to the black woman and showers her with compliments on her skin! The black woman is as surprised as the rest of us to hear a white woman compliment her skin as “radiant” and “glowing!”
You rarely nowadays watch a programme, an advert or film made in the last two years since Floyd George’s killing in the US without a cast of coloured people. Oti Mabuse, a vibrant South African women, has appeared in several hit shows including Dancing on Ice and recently hosted her own show Romeo and Duet. She is now on a UK-wide tour deliberately titled I Am Here!
A significant number of TV news and current affairs programmes are headlined by black and brown personalities like Rageh Omah and Faisal Islam,
the Economics Editor of the BBC.
Britain has more legislation against racism than any other former colonial power. Of course you can make laws against outward display of racism but you cannot legislate against prejudice in people’s hearts. The targeting of young kids can address this genetic prejudice.
No one deceives him or herself that a prejudice that has existed for centuries can be wiped clean in two short years. But as the UK battles ahead she is reminded that a good deal of racial prejudice lurks in institutions like the Police and the National Health Service. And of course in the general public. A 26 year old black woman who was elected Miss England has been subjected to racialist torment. One tormentor asked her: “How did a (black) woman like you get chosen?”
The future of the current experiment holds the answer to that ignorant question.
