IT’S NO laughing matter when the comedian Gina Yashere urges us to start the hashtag STOP THE WHITEWASH as she did in her Twitter rant about the oh-so-white front pages of the national newspapers on the morning after many people across the country clapped for the NHS.
She is right when she asks, ‘where are all the people of colour on those front pages?’
With the exception of this revered newspaper, I could not find a single national paper which showed a balanced view of what the NHS actually looks like.
As many Martians looking at us from that red planet will have observed, the NHS is (apparently) all white. Because that is the impression that is being given.
No doubt the Martians will be laughing their heads off like in that advert from back in the day for mashed potato where they could not contain themselves at the sight of humans still peeling potatoes in the future.
Like I say, it’s no laughing matter but the Martians must be laughing their heads off that the NHS is still (seemingly) not making use of the diverse talents within its grasp.
So the first question is, is this what the media mean when they say they are ‘colour blind’?
Because if it is, colour-blindness is not all white. Back in the day my cockney friends would always reassure me that they were not ‘racialist’ as we called racists once upon a time when we were coloured.
And yet they used to love to chant:
W*gamatter Dotun
You browned orf?
Go black home and you’ll be all white in the morning….
Could it be that newspapers like The Sun, The Mirror, The Metro and all the rest of them want us to go black home and be all white in the morning?
For that is the impression they are giving by totally ignoring any form of applause to the multiplicity of diversity in the National Health Service.
This service was built on the backs of people of colour coming over on the Windrush and subsequently.
It should not have escaped historians that the NHS was founded in 1948.
That year the Windrush Generation started arriving in this country and were subsequently encouraged to take up the low-paid jobs of the NHS.
You see, I didn’t want to say none of this. I wanted corona virus and the battle against it to be a joint effort – over and above questions of race.
But as Gina points out, if it isn’t about colour then why didn’t they put any faces of colour on their NHS coverage the day after the big national applause? Why oh why oh why?
That is the profound question that we have to keep asking.
A question that passed us by on the morning after the ‘clap’ (so to speak) because most of us really have become colourblind.
So that when we see the news we are not thinking, ‘why aren’t there any black faces in it?’
We just go along with whatever the media serves us without thought for the prejudice in the ‘algorithms’ of the news producers.
If it isn’t about colour then why didn’t they put any faces of colour on their NHS coverage the day after the big national applause? Why oh why oh why?
That is the profound question that we have to keep asking.
Surely, if they exclude us from the ‘clap’ (so to speak) we cannot trust them. Our health is not safe in their hands.
The joke ting is that most of us didn’t even bat an eyelid. So pernicious is discrimination in this society that we have become conditioned to the ongoing ‘whitewash’ of every day issues, particularly issues that will go down in history.
Until Gina pointed it out I, like you, wasn’t even thinking about what was going on those front pages.
But once somebody poses the question that you find so hard to answer in any other way but a racial one, then you start to question yourself.
Have we become so desensitised that we don’t even know racial prejudice when it slaps us in the face? Have I become so blasé about race?
If so, the consequences will be felt by our children and our children’s children. We know that, don’t we?
Of course there are other consequences to this behaviour by the media. Once upon a time, my father used to tell me, an NHS doctor on television declared that that they weren’t looking for black blood donors because black blood was inferior.
My father says he saw this clip and it stuck with him for the rest of his life. He never stopped telling me about it, so great was the impact it made on his life.
He was subsequently always reluctant to give blood. Oh, my old man did give blood because my younger brother has sickle cell so he felt being a blood donor was a duty despite his misgivings.
If it isn’t about colour then why didn’t they put any faces of colour on their NHS coverage the day after the big national applause? That is the profound question that we have to keep asking.
Dotun Adebayo
But he was convinced until the day he died that the reluctance amongst many black people to be blood donors comes from that one television clip.
You can see where he’s coming from can’t you?
If you extrapolate from it the ‘all-white’ clap for the NHS, then you should not be surprised if amongst the nearly one million people who have volunteered to support the NHS through this crisis (many of that million being people of colour who want to lend their hand as best as they can) there will now be a drop in interest.
Not intentionally, not even consciously, but subliminally, the messages that are being sent out by the government stick with us and lodge somewhere in our minds.
And it’s not that we need a pat on the back neither. It’s just that we are so used to not getting a pat on the back for doing exactly the same work as our white colleagues who are rewarded with not just a pat on the back but a salary raise.
Thank goodness for The Voice newspaper – online and printed – at a time of crisis like this.
It feels like it’s the only thing that black people who have faith or don’t have faith have got left to cling to. How else are we going to hear about the half that has never been told?
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18 Comments
Are we really surprised? Really?! Although the language of disdain aimed at us is not quite as prevalent and mainstream as it once was, the intent bubbles just below the surface. It is reflected in our continued inequality and absence in most areas of society, despite over 55 years of race equality legislation.
It’s up to the Voice to address the inbalance and show many many pictures of our own people in the Voice paper and social media platforms of all who work in the NHS.
Well said that man, and well done The Voice for holding them to account. Missing the virtual jukebox, and hoping BBC 5 Live will recognise the need for a little late night entertainment to take our minds off everything. As an essential profession, thank you for what you do for us Dotun.
As usual late to the starting line
Racism in Britain is rife even at a time when people are dieing from Covid-19, indiscriminately. As an African descendant, I see the injustices outplayed in the newspaper and the television coverage, at large.
Africans and Africans descendants break their backs to keep the NHS afloat – pre Covid-19 and they will continue to do so post Covid-19. In an era when stakeholders use the word diversity to give a sense of unpredjudiced inclusiveness, its an opportunity missed to really promote the practical meaning of ‘diversity’.
The bottom line is, the United Kingdom is still racist. It is racist from the top and not only in random pockets of the British community.
OMG! I was saying the same thing!So there no black doctors,black nurses or black care workers in the NHS?
Since the pandemic began,all you see in the media being represented Is white people playing saviour.
Testing times like this and racism still rears it’s ugly head.
Having a family member in the NHS ,putting her own life and her family at risk ,caring for others and not getting the recognition they rightly deserve is a bitter pill to swallow.
You need help
This was published on Facebook by Orlando Gittens & sums it up perfectly
When I sneezed my mum the Nurse was there …..
A video on Instagram featuring one of my favourite comediennes Gina Yashere is currently doing the rounds , in it she chastises the British press for publishing front page pictures extolling the virtues of our NHS hero’s & heroines. Remarkably not one picture included any Black people.
As Gina pointed out It wasn’t just one paper it was a slew of them!
Gina was totally outraged & quite frankly so am I.
Let me tell you a story….
My Mother & Father both landed on these cold shores in Winter 1957. My Mother, like the majority of women who travelled with her, entered the medical profession as a nurse, & up until her retirement at 60 she remained a nurse working up-to 60 hours a week for 42 years. She enjoyed a paltry 5 years as a retiree then sadly passed away.
My memory of my Mother was predominantly of her in a nurses uniform.
My Father also entered the medical services as a hospital porter at the famous Great Osmond Street & worked there in service to sick children for his entire working life.
After living in retirement for 15 years, most of them pining for for his departed wife, he also sadly passed away.
Again when I remember my Father it is always in tandem with the hospital & the pride he had in working there.
My Sister, the only one amongst the siblings to continue the medical tradition, is currently Assistant Director for the entire Borough of Waltham Forest.
My family were not unique & many many many many like them gave their lives for this Countries medical needs.
That tradition is still being upheld today with over 50% of the UKs medical staff being made up of Caribbean, African, Asian & Chinese people.
So in order for my parents to lie in peace & for my Sister to know she is one of the heroines , here for the benefit of the Press is the type of picture we should all insist they use in future !
One in which all of the heroes & heroines who make up our brilliant NHS are applauded & shown.
So from now until this terrible moment in our lives has passed, at 8pm, I will be clapping & shouting for
ALL OF OUR NHS STAFF
I noticed as soon as NHS staff were being singled out for their selfless efforts, even though there are so many other keyworkers also risking their lives daily to help others during this Covid 19 pandemic.
I thought that the NHS staff photo doesn’t represent the NHS as I have seen it for decades. Never have I seen just white doctors and nurses when I have had to go to the hospital.
It feels to me like a deliberate effort by the media to exclude the BME community from positive coverage.
Such action is especially sad because the four doctors who have died so far while risking their lives to save others have all been from the BME community!
They are really out and proud with their racism nowadays, look at how they hounded Meghan Markle out of the country; they just couldn’t deal with the fact that the trashy side of her family is the white side.
I’m going to be honest, it scares me that we’ve all clearly become so blind the to institutionalised racism in this country that I didn’t even notice the obvious snub, having worked in the NHS for almost 6 years I can tell you the only portion that is prominently white is the corporate management side (for obvious reasons) but when it comes to Dr’s and Nurse the majority are BME, so that must explain why they aren’t able to show an image of more then 8 white Dr’s standing together and even that is impressive. Must have been cropped to a fraction of its original size.
Maybe someone should ask who will be saved by doctors when they make decisions. Maybe also ask why its largely bame patients dying from virus in uk?
Why doesn’t The Voice publish its own weekly tribute to black NHS workers?
I want to share a real picture reflecting our NHS. Are there any out there? Can we organise? This needs to be seen. It’s a f*****g scam. This song says it right.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ny2tcNlScDs&feature=youtu.be
According to government statistics, the NHS is 80% white.
It is not remarkable that white people should appear in photos taken in a majority white country. Stop race-baiting. Stop trying to see racism everywhere where it doesn’t exist.
I beg to differ
https://theglobalherald.com/thank-you-nhs-staff-clap-for-general-public-staying-at-home/358751/
These are the fact of BME (black and ethnic minorities) in the NHS, UK:
https://www.ethnicity-facts-figures.service.gov.uk/workforce-and-business/workforce-diversity/nhs-workforce/latest
-Tom Hummel
Gina Yashere complains about the media not being colour blind, but the fact that she has noticed there are more people with one type of skin colour featured than those of another skin colour reveals that she is the one who is not colour blind.
To illustrate If we went to a farm and the farmer showed us predominantly brown cows, would we take offence because he had not shown us the black and white ones, would we think that he had some inbuilt cow racism or would we just accept that we had seen some cows on a farm?
Only if we ourselves had some kind of preference for seeing black and white cows would we be upset at seeing predominantly brown cows, other than that why would it bother us in the least?
Martians would not be laughing at the pictures,
they unlike Gina Yashere, would just see people who live on planet Earth, irrespective of colour. The fact that the people who were pictured had lighter skin tone would not equate with them, it would be meaningless as they would be colour blind. They would recognise them simply as human and not Martian.
People need to stop defining themselves as a colour, You are not black or white or yellow or pink or brown. You are first and foremost a person, that is all, and the sooner we all wake up to that fact the better!
On TV I never see black people clapping for the NHS etc? I see Asians, and white people but very very rarely nlack people. Why not?