Wednesday 6 August 2008

It's not about the truth


We have now reached the point where our media tells us blatant lies with such ease and arrogance that they no longer seem to care whether anyone will actually believe what they say.

A minor example of this phenomenon being the recent BBC news report in which a reporter explained to us with a straight face that, a year after smoking was banned in all public places, the reason that across the land pubs were closing down at unprecedented levels, whilst others struggled to survive, was due to the fact that Britons had unaccountably “lost their taste for beer”.

Occasionally the media seems also prepared to ignore lies if they are the lies which they want to be told. Recently on one of those allegedly balanced Channel 4 studio debates regarding teenage knife crime in Britain, a black woman stated forcibly in response to a nervous comment about black street culture “Knife crime is not a black problem, it is a 'youth' problem and an economic problem, which exists equally in all parts of the community”. Amazingly neither the Channel 4 host, Jon Snow , or any member of the panel or the audience challenged her on such a brazen falsehood. After that, it became obvious that the programme had no real intention of solving knife crime, and that the truth was certainly not going to be allowed to trump political correctness.

Race is not the only issue which people are allowed to lie about with impunity. Whether or not you share the Green Party's concerns about climate change (which I personally do) some of the more fanciful rhetoric at the environmental protest outside the Kingsnorth coal powered power station this week was given plenty of uncritical airplay. One harridan in an anorak loudly justified her support for unlawful action by claiming that illegal action “ended the slave trade and won women the vote”. One can, of course, accept the occasional historical inaccuracy from a harridan in an anorak , however, when the same claim in relation to women's suffrage was repeated unchallenged in a live interview by the Green Party's principle spokesperson, Caroline Lucas, it is easy to understand how legends become acknowledged truths when those with power, and a means of mass communication, want them to.

However, global warming and smoking aside, at this point in our history, race is the subject which the media seem to lie about the most, Unfortunately, sometime lies cost lives. Let us hope that the popular lie regarding Caribbean men, (NO not THAT lie!) that they are merely jolly jack the lads , with an occasional taste for blow and a natural rhythm, who make great friends and would never harm anyone, did not lull a recently wed couple from Wales, into befriending the wrong holiday companion whilst on honeymoon in Antigua.


However, I suspect that it may have done. If so , Ben and Catherine Mullany, may have become the latest in a very long line of victims of the fact we are not allowed to tell the truth about race in this country, and that the mainstream media would rather see us die than do so.

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Also posted to The Home of the Green Arrow

3 comments:

alanorei said...

i.e. 'the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth' - CENSORED!

Anonymous said...

I was sent you article obout Nelson Mandela recently and found it very interesting, as I am a white (42 year old)white woman living in Johannesburg. The scariest of everything you say is that we (white south Africans) have gone along with this "lie" because we thought it might bring hope to the NEW generation of this Rainbow nation. Sadly it has not. And with poverty and lack of education, it is easy to feed the lies of greedy white people to this New generation as well.

Anonymous said...

Oh Sarah! I'm in love with you! Your honesty about terrorist Mandela is so refreshing. Unfortunately here in South Africa, if one dares to voice these thoughts, one will find that a new piece of jewellery has been added to one's collection (the infamous tyre)! However, I as a white man am sick and tired of feeling guilty about apartheid. I'm not for one minute saying it was the ideal solution, but think about it for awhile - why did we institute aprtheid? Why did we istitute the pass laws? Because we were being robbed blind by the blacks in this country, just like it is now. I am a great believer in the consequences of ones behaviour, and aprtheid was as a result of the blkacks not being able to or being willing to contribute. No it was a lot easier to let someone else pay for something, and then they jusy came and stoile it. Just like now. Viva apartheid!