bellyscratch
10th July 2009, 11:56
During the last one hundred years the concepts of 'race' and 'racism' have evolved, and continue to do so within academia and society. This essay will set out to define the terms 'race' and 'racism', and how they came to exist. It will then show how these concepts have been portrayed in British society from an historical point of view; followed by a discussion of the British Broadcasting Corporation and the British National Party, which will attempt to show the different types of 'racisms' that currently exist in contemporary Britain and what relation they have to each other. Key authors and academics that will be referred to throughout this essay include; Alibhai-Brown (1998), Jordon and Weedon (1997), Mason (1999), and Sherwood (2003).
The notion of 'race', which originally came from the ideological separation of 'white people' and 'black people', is one of recent invention as “Before the trans-Atlantic slave trade, 'Black people' did not exist.” (Jordon and Weedon, 1997: 307). This is because the separation of 'races' was a way to justify the exploitation of 'black people' of Africa during the slave trade. Before this there “were only people from specific ethnic and linguistic groups... people from specific locales and people of different religious communities.” (ibid) but no fixed differentiation between them. The term 'race' suggests “that human groups were differential by nature, and that there was a natural line of separation between them.” (Guillaumin, 1999: 359). However, it has been argued that “classification by race is not natural but arbitrary.” (Jordon and Weedon, 1997: 309).
As can be seen from the origins of the term 'race' and people being divided up into separate 'races'; it is a term that has given reasoning to “a social and cultural system that magnifies differences of skin-colour and phenotype, and links these differences to notions of superiority and inferiority.” (Jordon and Weedon, 1997: 252) i.e. 'racism'. Racism “is based on a conception of differences among people as having fundamentally to do with the traits they inherit, or supposedly inherit, by virtue of being part of the same gene pool.” (ibid: 256). This is “the racist ideology of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries” (ibid: 292).
The word 'racism' did not appear in the English Language until the 1930s and only came about due to “the growing body of scientific evidence which undetermined the idea of 'races' as natural, discrete and fixed subdivisions of the human species” (Miles, 1999: 344). Before this, the term 'race' was widely believed as scientific truth, and with this a racist attitude was also accepted based on the evidence of differences between 'races'.
Even though the concept of 'race' is now not accepted “in biology, it has been common to argue that race remains a legitimate concept... because social actors treat it as real” (Mason, 1999: 8). This means that there are “social processes through which relationships become racialized; that is, represented ideologically as race.” (ibid). This has lead to a 'new racism' which favours the “exclusion of migrants, or segregation of members of differential population groups... [due] to cultural incompatibility” (ibid: 10) between these different social groups. This means that this new racism is ideologically linked to the nation state and suggests that the culture of the state is threatened by 'outsiders' or 'foreigners'. In other words it stems from xenophobia.
Biological racism still exists in society (although not to the same extent as it once did) alongside this new racism, which is now the more dominant form of racism and accepted by large numbers of people. This shows that there is no longer one type of racism, but different types of 'racisms'. Racism still exists because it “is deeply ingrained within the dominant social structures and signification systems of contemporary western societies.” (Jordon and Weedon, 1997: 253).
However, to get the point where racism was ingrained in society it had to gain a basis to do so from an earlier point in history. Sherwood's (2003) research on the historical origins of racism in Britain showed that:
“from the 1840s, racist ideology was deliberately promulgated in Britain. It was spread by all possible means, including popular culture, the media, the churches and missionaries, the education system and spokespeople from all walks of life, as well as by the burgeoning ‘scientific’ and imperialist associations”
(Sherwood: 2003)
This was done to construct a notion of 'Britishness' on to the working class people by the ruling 'elite'. The intention was to lead them to believe, as a nation, they were superior “in relation to ‘the other’ in order to have the right to expropriate lands from the ‘inferior’ and ‘uncivilised’ and to press imperialist expansion under the umbrella of the ‘civilising mission'.” (ibid).
By the early twentieth century “a vast propaganda effort had developed to reinforce a certain view of Britishness” (ibid). An example of this given by Sherwood “was the series of Empire Exhibitions which demonstrated the use of the colonies as producers of raw materials and as consumers of manufactured products.” (ibid). To promote this a leaflet was produced by The Royal Anthropological Society “which warned that ‘many primitive beliefs and customs appear repulsive to the civilised man’. Among the displays were ‘natives’ imported from the colonies and displayed to demonstrate their cultural, linguistic, intellectual and technological inferiority.” (ibid).
Within contemporary society one such social structure, which still promotes the notion of Britishness and the inferiority of the other, is the mass media. Mason (1999) states that:
“Research indicates that the mass media play a critical role in producing and reproducing negative stereotypes of minority ethnic groups, in caricaturing their beliefs and cultures, and in stimulating moral panics around issues such as crime... immigration... [and] urban disorders.”
(Mason, 1999: 112)
One of the most dominant mass media organisations in Britain is the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), which claims to be “the largest broadcasting corporations in the world” (BBC, 2009a). It is also a British “public service broadcaster... funded by the licence fee that is paid by UK households.” (ibid). This shows that the BBC potentially has a large impact on British society and an analysis of it should show that the BBC represents the ideas prevalent within the society. Due to its very nature of being a British organisation to “inform, educate and entertain” (ibid) the British public, there is, to a small extent at least, an attempt to construct a notion of Britishness. The extent of this will be discussed through the rest of this essay to see whether it could be accused of incorporating racism within its programming.
In contrast to the BBC, the British National Party, a legitimate political party, is generally viewed as being on the fringes of society as “Its elected councillors represent less than 1% of all those in the UK. ” (Casciani, 2008) and. However, for “the past 10 years there have been predictions that the... BNP... could achieve a major electoral breakthrough” (ibid), which has come in the form of winning its first two MEPs in 2009. The BNP has been accused of being, among other things, a racist party, which can be seen due to organisations set up to oppose the BNP, such as Antifa, Unite Against Fascism and Love Music, Hate Racism. However, the party claims that it “is not a 'racist' or 'racial' or 'racialist' or 'race-conscious' or 'white' or 'white people's' party” (British National Party, 2005: 1). Yet it claims to be “an 'ethno-nationalist' party” (ibid) and espouses “the interest of the particular ethnic group we belong to” (ibid). The BNP will therefore be discussed, alongside the BBC, to see how it attempts to incorporate a racist message within its propaganda. This will be done without going into detail about specific members that have been involved in racist incidents, of which there have been many.
Racism is based on false stereotypes which need to be challenged by media organisations like the BBC. However, this is not the case and therefore the BBC could be accused of 'Institutional racism'; this is supported by Alibhai-Brown, who states:
“It is not uncommon... these days to find black and Asian viewers who feel that... BBC ethnic programming has failed effectively to challenge the assumptions of British white society; that editors have played it safe in reproducing stereotypes and have only commissioned programmes that display the most negative aspects of black and Asian life.”
(Alibhai-Brown, 1998: 121).
Up until the late 1980s, where the participation of ethnic minorities in media production was still low, there was a “broad agreement that the media did influence and reinforce public opinion and... that on race, the media had the potential to affect attitudes and behaviour.” (Alibhai-Brown, 1998: 111). This therefore “promoted a 'white' perspective” (ibid: 112) in the media. However, even now with higher levels of employment within the media sector for ethnic minority groups, these features still “remain stubbornly in place.” (ibid: 116). Alibhai-Brown implies that one reason for this is that many ethnic minorities working within the media have “absorbed the underlying values of the white media to prove their worth” (ibid: 120) instead of using their position to fight against existing stereotypes. She even suggests that there are “examples now of black and Asian journalists and commissioning editors making racist programmes or writing inflammatory articles of the sort that white people tend these days to avoid.” (ibid). An example she specifically cites is a sensationalist Panorama programme aired by the BBC in 1994 called Underclass in Purdah, produced by an “all-Asian team” (ibid). The programme “claimed that many Muslims in the city were involved in illegal activities like drug trafficking and pimping.” (ibid).
The Western media's condemnation of the Muslim community has only got worse since the terrorist attacks on September 11th 2001 in the USA. Since then, in the media, “very few of the stories 'about Muslims'... have been about anything other that 'the War on Terror'” (Pool and Richardson, 2006: 1). Within these stories “Muslims are most likely to be represented as terrorists... or cited as terrorists, whilst ordinary Muslims are marginalised” (ibid: 5). Apart from being associated with terrorism, Muslims have also been associated with “illegitimacy, criminality, violence, extremity, fanaticism, sexual aggression and disloyalty” (ibid). BBC News reporting has constantly used phrases such as “Islamic terrorist, Islamic militancy... and Jihadi” (Quraishy, 2007: 3). When such words and themes are constantly used when reporting on Islam and Muslims, it creates a false word association between the Islamic faith and socially unacceptable practices. Due to Islam being a religion associated with ethnic minorities, then it gives rise to racism.
One notable and recent example, which led to the BBC being accused that it “has moved from accepting racism and bigotry, to actively promoting it” (Harker, 2008), is a season of programmes aired in 2008 on BBC2 called White. This season aimed to represent the views of the 'white' working class of Britain and presents the “innumerable challenges of being working-class in a liberalised economy” (Hanley, 2008) as being reduced only “to race and immigration alone, with those (and only those) who are white cast as passive victims of policies they didn't choose.” (ibid). With this, the “BBC has made a grave error in locating the problems of Britain's poorest and most pressurised people in race rather than class” (ibid), blaming problems on working class people who happen to be 'white' on “the presence of other working-class people who happen not to be white, or British-born” (ibid).
The constant reproduction of stereotypes of ethnic minorities and sensationalist stories about immigration are likely to help groups such as the BNP, who “subscribe to the basics of White Resistance” (Merkl and Weinberg, 2003: 82). By reading the BNP's 2007 local government manifesto, it is clear that their claims not to be racist are false. If elected they promise “to do all they can to oppose... multi-cultural schemes and target resources at the indigenous ['white British'] community.” (British National Party, 2007: 2). They would also refuse to give “official sanction to foreign cultural and religious expressions” (ibid: 12), they blame the housing shortage in Britain on “the massive influx of bogus asylum seekers and economic migrants” (ibid: 14), “oppose the recruitment of foreign staff by the health service” (ibid: 16) and want to ensure “that all local authorities only employ British citizens” (ibid: 27). There has also recently been an incident with widespread media coverage on the BNP's view “that black Britons and Asian Britons 'do not exist'.” (BBC, 2009b). Instead, the BNP believe they should be called “racial foreigners” (ibid). These are only a few of many views held by the party points to problems that exist in Britain and tries to blame them on 'foreigners' and 'outsiders'.
Despite the fact the BNP implicitly state that they are not racist, their 2005 general election manifesto goes into detail on their beliefs about biological differences between different 'human populations'. It states, “human populations have undergone micro-evolutionary changes while being separated for many thousands of years have developed differences in many fields of endeavour, susceptibility to health problems, behavioural tendencies and such like.” (British National Party, July 2005: 17). Despite that they claim that they do not think “that any particular ethnic group or race is 'superior' or 'inferior'” (ibid), it resembles the biological racism of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Also, using the word 'difference' instead of 'superiority' or 'inferiority', “attracts those who persist in thinking in racist terms, but no longer dare use the word 'race'” (Guillaumin, 1999: 360).
Also within the 2005 manifesto, they say that they would stop immigration from the following parts of the world; “Africa, Asia, China, Eastern and South Eastern Europe, the Middle East and South America” (British National Party, July 2005: 15), which are areas largely populated by 'non-white people'. It does not mention the immigration from areas such as North America, Oceania, Western and Northern Europe, who are (coincidentally?) populated largely by 'white people'.
There are elements of racism within both the BBC and BNP, undoubtedly to different extents, but still there. Within the media, the BBC is not the worst offender as “many newspapers continue to peddle the worst xenophobic and racist messages in ways that you would not get on radio and television” (Alibhai-Brown, 1998: 118) but often portrays stories in ways that make them “more subtle and acceptable” (ibid). It must also be stated that the BNP uses language that makes their racist ideology more subtle and acceptable in comparison to openly racist political parties of the past. The racist messages are still there in both mainstream and marginalised parts of society, but just in a more complex and subtle way that one-hundred years ago. Even though the concept of 'race' is now widely disputed by academics, it is a term that is still in general use in society, and as Bulmer and Solomos state:
“where members of society make distinctions between different racial groups, at least some members of that society are likely to behave in ways which give rise to racism as a behavioural and ideational consequence of making racial distinctions in the first place.”
(Bulmer and Solomos, 1999: 5).
Bibliography
Alibhai-Brown, Y (1998) The Media and Race Relations, in Blackstone, T. et al (eds.) Race Relations in Britain: a Developing Agenda, London and New York: Routledge.
BBC (2009a) What is the BBC? Available at <http://www.bbc.co.uk/info/purpose/what.shtml> [10/4/2009].
BBC (2009b) [I]BNP leader defends policy on race, Available at <http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8011878.stm> [27/4/2009].
British National Party (2005) [I]Rebuilding British Democracy: British National Party General Election 2005 Manifesto, Available at <http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/bsp/hi/pdfs/BNP_uk_manifesto.pdf> [7/4/2009].
British National Party (July 2005) [I]BNP Language & Concepts Discipline Manual, Available at <http://www.bnp.org.uk/organisers/store/general_guides/language_discipline.pdf> [7/4/2009].
British National Party (2007) [I]British National Party Local government Manifesto 2007, Available at <http://www.bnp.org.uk/organisers/store/ideology/2007_bnp_local_manifesto.pdf> [7/4/2009].
Bulmer M. and Solomos, J (eds.) (1999) [I]Racism, News York: Oxford University Press.
Casciani, D (4/5/2008) BNP gains from Labour dissatisfaction, BBC News Available at <http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7382831.stm> [10/4/2009].
Guillaumin, C. (1999) Politics & the Alien, in Bulmer M. Solomos, J (eds.) [I]Racism, News York: Oxford University Press.
Hanley, L. (6/3/2008) Hideously middle-class, New Statesman, Available at <http://www.newstatesman.com/television/2008/03/working-class-white-season> [12/4/2009].
Harker, J. (6/3/2008) [I]White wash, Guardian, Available at <http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/mar/06/whitewash> [12/4/2009].
Jordon, G. and Weedon, C. (1997) [I]Cultural Politics: Class, Gender, Race and the Postmodern World, Massachusetss: Blackwell Publishers Inc.
Kundnani, A. (4/5/2006) How the BNP entered the political mainstream, Available at <http://www.irr.org.uk/2006/may/ak000011.html> [7/4/2009].
Mason, D (1999) [I]Race and Ethnicity in Modern Britain, New York: Oxford University Press.
Merkl, P.H. And Weinberg, L (eds.) (2003) Right-Wing Extremism in the Twenty-First Century, London and Portland, OR: Frank Cass Publishers.
Miles, R. (1999) Racism as a Concept, in Bulmer M. Solomos, J (eds.) Racism, News York: Oxford University Press.
Poole, E. and Richardson, J.E. (eds.) (2006) Muslims and the News Media, London: I.B. Tauris & Co. Ltd.
Quraishy, B (2007) Islamophobia and the Western Media, Available at <http://cms.horus.be/files/99935/MediaArchive/pdf/speech_unesco_01_07.pdf> [13/4/2009].
Sherwood, M (2003) [I]White myths, black omissions: the historical origins of racism in Britain, International Journal of Historical Learning, Teaching and Research, Volume 3, Number 1 – January 2003 Available at[I] <http://centres.exeter.ac.uk/historyresource/journal5/Sherwood.rtf> [10/4/2009].
The notion of 'race', which originally came from the ideological separation of 'white people' and 'black people', is one of recent invention as “Before the trans-Atlantic slave trade, 'Black people' did not exist.” (Jordon and Weedon, 1997: 307). This is because the separation of 'races' was a way to justify the exploitation of 'black people' of Africa during the slave trade. Before this there “were only people from specific ethnic and linguistic groups... people from specific locales and people of different religious communities.” (ibid) but no fixed differentiation between them. The term 'race' suggests “that human groups were differential by nature, and that there was a natural line of separation between them.” (Guillaumin, 1999: 359). However, it has been argued that “classification by race is not natural but arbitrary.” (Jordon and Weedon, 1997: 309).
As can be seen from the origins of the term 'race' and people being divided up into separate 'races'; it is a term that has given reasoning to “a social and cultural system that magnifies differences of skin-colour and phenotype, and links these differences to notions of superiority and inferiority.” (Jordon and Weedon, 1997: 252) i.e. 'racism'. Racism “is based on a conception of differences among people as having fundamentally to do with the traits they inherit, or supposedly inherit, by virtue of being part of the same gene pool.” (ibid: 256). This is “the racist ideology of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries” (ibid: 292).
The word 'racism' did not appear in the English Language until the 1930s and only came about due to “the growing body of scientific evidence which undetermined the idea of 'races' as natural, discrete and fixed subdivisions of the human species” (Miles, 1999: 344). Before this, the term 'race' was widely believed as scientific truth, and with this a racist attitude was also accepted based on the evidence of differences between 'races'.
Even though the concept of 'race' is now not accepted “in biology, it has been common to argue that race remains a legitimate concept... because social actors treat it as real” (Mason, 1999: 8). This means that there are “social processes through which relationships become racialized; that is, represented ideologically as race.” (ibid). This has lead to a 'new racism' which favours the “exclusion of migrants, or segregation of members of differential population groups... [due] to cultural incompatibility” (ibid: 10) between these different social groups. This means that this new racism is ideologically linked to the nation state and suggests that the culture of the state is threatened by 'outsiders' or 'foreigners'. In other words it stems from xenophobia.
Biological racism still exists in society (although not to the same extent as it once did) alongside this new racism, which is now the more dominant form of racism and accepted by large numbers of people. This shows that there is no longer one type of racism, but different types of 'racisms'. Racism still exists because it “is deeply ingrained within the dominant social structures and signification systems of contemporary western societies.” (Jordon and Weedon, 1997: 253).
However, to get the point where racism was ingrained in society it had to gain a basis to do so from an earlier point in history. Sherwood's (2003) research on the historical origins of racism in Britain showed that:
“from the 1840s, racist ideology was deliberately promulgated in Britain. It was spread by all possible means, including popular culture, the media, the churches and missionaries, the education system and spokespeople from all walks of life, as well as by the burgeoning ‘scientific’ and imperialist associations”
(Sherwood: 2003)
This was done to construct a notion of 'Britishness' on to the working class people by the ruling 'elite'. The intention was to lead them to believe, as a nation, they were superior “in relation to ‘the other’ in order to have the right to expropriate lands from the ‘inferior’ and ‘uncivilised’ and to press imperialist expansion under the umbrella of the ‘civilising mission'.” (ibid).
By the early twentieth century “a vast propaganda effort had developed to reinforce a certain view of Britishness” (ibid). An example of this given by Sherwood “was the series of Empire Exhibitions which demonstrated the use of the colonies as producers of raw materials and as consumers of manufactured products.” (ibid). To promote this a leaflet was produced by The Royal Anthropological Society “which warned that ‘many primitive beliefs and customs appear repulsive to the civilised man’. Among the displays were ‘natives’ imported from the colonies and displayed to demonstrate their cultural, linguistic, intellectual and technological inferiority.” (ibid).
Within contemporary society one such social structure, which still promotes the notion of Britishness and the inferiority of the other, is the mass media. Mason (1999) states that:
“Research indicates that the mass media play a critical role in producing and reproducing negative stereotypes of minority ethnic groups, in caricaturing their beliefs and cultures, and in stimulating moral panics around issues such as crime... immigration... [and] urban disorders.”
(Mason, 1999: 112)
One of the most dominant mass media organisations in Britain is the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), which claims to be “the largest broadcasting corporations in the world” (BBC, 2009a). It is also a British “public service broadcaster... funded by the licence fee that is paid by UK households.” (ibid). This shows that the BBC potentially has a large impact on British society and an analysis of it should show that the BBC represents the ideas prevalent within the society. Due to its very nature of being a British organisation to “inform, educate and entertain” (ibid) the British public, there is, to a small extent at least, an attempt to construct a notion of Britishness. The extent of this will be discussed through the rest of this essay to see whether it could be accused of incorporating racism within its programming.
In contrast to the BBC, the British National Party, a legitimate political party, is generally viewed as being on the fringes of society as “Its elected councillors represent less than 1% of all those in the UK. ” (Casciani, 2008) and. However, for “the past 10 years there have been predictions that the... BNP... could achieve a major electoral breakthrough” (ibid), which has come in the form of winning its first two MEPs in 2009. The BNP has been accused of being, among other things, a racist party, which can be seen due to organisations set up to oppose the BNP, such as Antifa, Unite Against Fascism and Love Music, Hate Racism. However, the party claims that it “is not a 'racist' or 'racial' or 'racialist' or 'race-conscious' or 'white' or 'white people's' party” (British National Party, 2005: 1). Yet it claims to be “an 'ethno-nationalist' party” (ibid) and espouses “the interest of the particular ethnic group we belong to” (ibid). The BNP will therefore be discussed, alongside the BBC, to see how it attempts to incorporate a racist message within its propaganda. This will be done without going into detail about specific members that have been involved in racist incidents, of which there have been many.
Racism is based on false stereotypes which need to be challenged by media organisations like the BBC. However, this is not the case and therefore the BBC could be accused of 'Institutional racism'; this is supported by Alibhai-Brown, who states:
“It is not uncommon... these days to find black and Asian viewers who feel that... BBC ethnic programming has failed effectively to challenge the assumptions of British white society; that editors have played it safe in reproducing stereotypes and have only commissioned programmes that display the most negative aspects of black and Asian life.”
(Alibhai-Brown, 1998: 121).
Up until the late 1980s, where the participation of ethnic minorities in media production was still low, there was a “broad agreement that the media did influence and reinforce public opinion and... that on race, the media had the potential to affect attitudes and behaviour.” (Alibhai-Brown, 1998: 111). This therefore “promoted a 'white' perspective” (ibid: 112) in the media. However, even now with higher levels of employment within the media sector for ethnic minority groups, these features still “remain stubbornly in place.” (ibid: 116). Alibhai-Brown implies that one reason for this is that many ethnic minorities working within the media have “absorbed the underlying values of the white media to prove their worth” (ibid: 120) instead of using their position to fight against existing stereotypes. She even suggests that there are “examples now of black and Asian journalists and commissioning editors making racist programmes or writing inflammatory articles of the sort that white people tend these days to avoid.” (ibid). An example she specifically cites is a sensationalist Panorama programme aired by the BBC in 1994 called Underclass in Purdah, produced by an “all-Asian team” (ibid). The programme “claimed that many Muslims in the city were involved in illegal activities like drug trafficking and pimping.” (ibid).
The Western media's condemnation of the Muslim community has only got worse since the terrorist attacks on September 11th 2001 in the USA. Since then, in the media, “very few of the stories 'about Muslims'... have been about anything other that 'the War on Terror'” (Pool and Richardson, 2006: 1). Within these stories “Muslims are most likely to be represented as terrorists... or cited as terrorists, whilst ordinary Muslims are marginalised” (ibid: 5). Apart from being associated with terrorism, Muslims have also been associated with “illegitimacy, criminality, violence, extremity, fanaticism, sexual aggression and disloyalty” (ibid). BBC News reporting has constantly used phrases such as “Islamic terrorist, Islamic militancy... and Jihadi” (Quraishy, 2007: 3). When such words and themes are constantly used when reporting on Islam and Muslims, it creates a false word association between the Islamic faith and socially unacceptable practices. Due to Islam being a religion associated with ethnic minorities, then it gives rise to racism.
One notable and recent example, which led to the BBC being accused that it “has moved from accepting racism and bigotry, to actively promoting it” (Harker, 2008), is a season of programmes aired in 2008 on BBC2 called White. This season aimed to represent the views of the 'white' working class of Britain and presents the “innumerable challenges of being working-class in a liberalised economy” (Hanley, 2008) as being reduced only “to race and immigration alone, with those (and only those) who are white cast as passive victims of policies they didn't choose.” (ibid). With this, the “BBC has made a grave error in locating the problems of Britain's poorest and most pressurised people in race rather than class” (ibid), blaming problems on working class people who happen to be 'white' on “the presence of other working-class people who happen not to be white, or British-born” (ibid).
The constant reproduction of stereotypes of ethnic minorities and sensationalist stories about immigration are likely to help groups such as the BNP, who “subscribe to the basics of White Resistance” (Merkl and Weinberg, 2003: 82). By reading the BNP's 2007 local government manifesto, it is clear that their claims not to be racist are false. If elected they promise “to do all they can to oppose... multi-cultural schemes and target resources at the indigenous ['white British'] community.” (British National Party, 2007: 2). They would also refuse to give “official sanction to foreign cultural and religious expressions” (ibid: 12), they blame the housing shortage in Britain on “the massive influx of bogus asylum seekers and economic migrants” (ibid: 14), “oppose the recruitment of foreign staff by the health service” (ibid: 16) and want to ensure “that all local authorities only employ British citizens” (ibid: 27). There has also recently been an incident with widespread media coverage on the BNP's view “that black Britons and Asian Britons 'do not exist'.” (BBC, 2009b). Instead, the BNP believe they should be called “racial foreigners” (ibid). These are only a few of many views held by the party points to problems that exist in Britain and tries to blame them on 'foreigners' and 'outsiders'.
Despite the fact the BNP implicitly state that they are not racist, their 2005 general election manifesto goes into detail on their beliefs about biological differences between different 'human populations'. It states, “human populations have undergone micro-evolutionary changes while being separated for many thousands of years have developed differences in many fields of endeavour, susceptibility to health problems, behavioural tendencies and such like.” (British National Party, July 2005: 17). Despite that they claim that they do not think “that any particular ethnic group or race is 'superior' or 'inferior'” (ibid), it resembles the biological racism of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Also, using the word 'difference' instead of 'superiority' or 'inferiority', “attracts those who persist in thinking in racist terms, but no longer dare use the word 'race'” (Guillaumin, 1999: 360).
Also within the 2005 manifesto, they say that they would stop immigration from the following parts of the world; “Africa, Asia, China, Eastern and South Eastern Europe, the Middle East and South America” (British National Party, July 2005: 15), which are areas largely populated by 'non-white people'. It does not mention the immigration from areas such as North America, Oceania, Western and Northern Europe, who are (coincidentally?) populated largely by 'white people'.
There are elements of racism within both the BBC and BNP, undoubtedly to different extents, but still there. Within the media, the BBC is not the worst offender as “many newspapers continue to peddle the worst xenophobic and racist messages in ways that you would not get on radio and television” (Alibhai-Brown, 1998: 118) but often portrays stories in ways that make them “more subtle and acceptable” (ibid). It must also be stated that the BNP uses language that makes their racist ideology more subtle and acceptable in comparison to openly racist political parties of the past. The racist messages are still there in both mainstream and marginalised parts of society, but just in a more complex and subtle way that one-hundred years ago. Even though the concept of 'race' is now widely disputed by academics, it is a term that is still in general use in society, and as Bulmer and Solomos state:
“where members of society make distinctions between different racial groups, at least some members of that society are likely to behave in ways which give rise to racism as a behavioural and ideational consequence of making racial distinctions in the first place.”
(Bulmer and Solomos, 1999: 5).
Bibliography
Alibhai-Brown, Y (1998) The Media and Race Relations, in Blackstone, T. et al (eds.) Race Relations in Britain: a Developing Agenda, London and New York: Routledge.
BBC (2009a) What is the BBC? Available at <http://www.bbc.co.uk/info/purpose/what.shtml> [10/4/2009].
BBC (2009b) [I]BNP leader defends policy on race, Available at <http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8011878.stm> [27/4/2009].
British National Party (2005) [I]Rebuilding British Democracy: British National Party General Election 2005 Manifesto, Available at <http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/bsp/hi/pdfs/BNP_uk_manifesto.pdf> [7/4/2009].
British National Party (July 2005) [I]BNP Language & Concepts Discipline Manual, Available at <http://www.bnp.org.uk/organisers/store/general_guides/language_discipline.pdf> [7/4/2009].
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