This post isn't so much about media representations as the ongoing consequences of negative representations of race. Many today will argue that we no longer live in a racist society; Britain has moved on. There may be some truth in that, but clearly the UK hasn't become an utterly idyllic society, as
the following example sharply demonstrates - one taken from a West Yorkshire town...
'If you are allergic to black people, don't come in' – at first I balked …
Cafe owner Martha-Renee Kolleh's defiant response to insidious racism is preferable to constantly doubting your own experience
 |
| Martha-Renee Kolleh,
who owns a cafe in the town of Ossett, Yorkshire, has put up a sign
telling customers she is black because she is fed up with people walking
out when they see the colour of her skin. Photograph: Gabriel
Szabo/Guzelian |
Increasingly in today's Britain, the word racism conjures up two
very differing images for white and black people (I use black here in
the political sense). When I explain to white friends that certain
things that I have had said or done to me are racist, it is more often
that not met with incredulity. How can that be racist?
