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Fifty Shades of Bigotry
I’m pasty, pale and blotchy yet I am regarded as a white woman. All of this talk about colour frustrates me and always has. It’s pointless and only has currency as innuendo. It’s not that I resent being called white, or that some people are called black, but that we are all colour-coded according to some hierarchy, which serves no-one and sounds plain childish.
Take a moment, if you haven’t already done so, to look at the English language. Think of the way ‘dark’ or ‘black’ is used in common parlance. Black sheep, black mood, blackguard, black comedy, black dog, blackmail, black mark, and so on. All negative connotations. When children learn to read, does this impression seep into their minds along with the letters?
Language and how we think are closely intertwined. When we use certain words and not others, we are forming concepts unconsciously. And sharing them.
The media’s reporting conventions condone and cement these connotations. Who cares about the colour of person, who has committed a crime or married a celebrity? Unless, of course, you are white. By revealing the colour of the individual under scrutiny as being anything but white, lets the rest of us know who we are. The majority.
The Black is Beautiful movement is fine by me but it doesn’t save lives and it shouldn’t be necessary in a just society.
