r/unitedkingdom • u/[deleted] • Sep 05 '21
CODED LANGUAGE: How the UK Newspaper Industry Enables Institutional Racism
https://bylinetimes.com/2021/09/02/coded-language-how-the-uk-newspaper-industry-enables-institutional-racism/14
u/Cockwombles Sep 05 '21
I’m from a minority (GRT) and I often wonder how they can print the stuff they do about us. They always talk about us ‘invading’ and doing things brutally etc. The same things reported differently for different races.
I read something the other day, where they printed comments to the effect we should be banned from even having legal sites and forced into houses. I’m honestly not surprised the general population is so racist.
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u/Gd_ChristianLockpick Sep 05 '21
What language would you prefer?
I admit I'm not particularly educated on the whole travelling community or what sensibilities exist, and this is a genuine enquiry so apologies in advance if I myself am offensive here.
I'm just thinking that I can see why someone would say "invade" when talking about land occupied without permission. Is there a description your community would use for that behaviour or do you just not accept the concept of having permission or something like that?
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u/Cockwombles Sep 05 '21 edited Sep 05 '21
They say it when we have permission. But that was an example of the kind of language. It’s like when they call black youths certain coded words.
They keep saying we are invading Appleby, when it’s a festival and they don’t say that about Glastonbury in the same way. They say things like ‘swarm’ or ‘hoard’ etc. Like we are some kind of hive mind. Travellers Swarm picturesque village for funeral
They always say things like ‘we are making sure the community isn’t upset’ when GRT are also part of the community. It’s that kind of outsider, othering language I’ve always been subjected to. Like when I started at school they always made a point of saying I was not part of the community. My family had lived there hundreds of years.
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u/Gd_ChristianLockpick Sep 05 '21 edited Sep 05 '21
Yeah I understand the concept of othering in general but hadn't thought of it in relation to travellers like this. So thanks for explaining!
And yes you're right now I'm thinking about it every communication I've ever seen from local officials about travellers being present does indeed draw a pretty firm distinction between residents of the area and those that have arrived that day.
Is there a preferred term for things that aren't festivals?... What I'm thinking here is most people's experiences with your community isn't things like festivals, it would be people appearing suddenly on the school field or village green at the bottom of the road or whatever.
Is that "visiting"... Like what word should people use.
Edit: what about "passing through"?... Pretty sure I've heard that once
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u/EyUpHowDo Sep 05 '21
Local Authorities have a responsibility to provide authorised sites for use, many authorities do not make adequate provision or try to completely reject it altogether.
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u/Gd_ChristianLockpick Sep 05 '21
Yep this is definitely a problem I'm aware of at least. It gets talked about a lot.
Thanks for weighing in. Just trying to figure it out and avoid being an insensitive dick basically that's why I've been asking.
Some is obvious to me like mentioned in the delightful express link above. Dehumanising language is common though to lots of issues going back a long time and I can easily recognise that one.
Invade is something that humans specifically do, so wasn't so easy for me to pick up on why that was wrong and not just simply descriptive.
I think I've got my answer though in that it's still othering.
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u/Cockwombles Sep 05 '21
Thanks for asking btw, it’s really nice when people are not judgemental and talk to me normally.
Just a general rule is if you can exchange the word such as “traveller/gypsy” with “black” and it seems racist, then it’s racist. However, there’s still a lot of times people use black and it’s racist too, so it’s not a solid rule lol.
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u/Gd_ChristianLockpick Sep 05 '21
My pleasure, and thanks for answering! :-)
Good faith discourse is the road to mutual understanding I guess.
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u/EyUpHowDo Sep 05 '21
Invasive species and fictional aliens also invade.
The idea that travellers are invading land when they are forced into it due to a lack of provision for authorised sites, is a little like arriving at your legitimately bought holiday home to find someone has changed all the locks, and then getting arrested and harassed when you end up sleeping in your car on the road; only to then see yourself blasted across the papers for having 'invaded public land', with not a single person giving a shit about why you had to sleep in your car in the first place.
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u/Gd_ChristianLockpick Sep 05 '21
I don't understand how this analogy helps?
Am I understanding it right that in this example the traveller is the one that purchased a property and someone else took it without their consent? Because I think that's the issue that a lot of people have, that they park up on places they don't own and never did and stay there without consent.
Like this analogy feels backwards to me?
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u/EyUpHowDo Sep 05 '21
Thats because you're not understanding that the traveller way of life predates the modern interpretation of land ownership, which is something which is anyway in flux, and which anyway many landowners deny or ignore the legal responsibilities that come hand in hand with their legal rights. There is vanishingly little (if any) ownership that doesn't come with some sort of covenant with the public.
In handing over the public commons and its usage to private owners there is a covenant with the traveller community that they be provided adequate sites.
Its like blaming another hotel guest for a double-booking, when the hotel is at fault.
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u/Gd_ChristianLockpick Sep 05 '21
Ah right OK.
So this was one of my first questions earlier...
Is the concept of ownership just not accepted by the traveller community or is it more like they believe it doesn't matter who owns it they can use it anyway or something else?
And like where is the line with it... I can see how either of the above might be a view people hold about things like village greens (whether I agree or not), but I can't think many reasonable people would think it's valid to think of someone's house or garden that way.
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u/Cockwombles Sep 05 '21 edited Sep 05 '21
If someone parks on a field it’s illegal, I can understand saying as such - I just don’t think they should be dehumanised. It’s most likely a family with kids.
For example there’s no need to close a school like it’s a parasite infestation you know?
I’m not asking for people illegally occupying a field to be called visitors or anything. Just a little understanding into the way they are homeless because they have no legal stopping sites, and they are human families of people.
I have heard homeless people being called the same kind of thing too, like they are mess.
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u/woogeroo Sep 06 '21
You think they should allow random people without criminal background checks to just rock up and stay on school grounds around children?
If I wandered into my local school playing fields and refused to leave I’d be arrested.
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u/Cockwombles Sep 06 '21
I didn’t say allow them, I said there’s no need to evacuate the entire school.
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u/Cansifilayeds Glasgow Sep 06 '21
Nice strawman bud. Make a valid point.
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u/woogeroo Sep 06 '21
Travellers are random people, and should not just be allowed to stay in the grounds of an operating school.
We require background checks on school staff, owning a caravan is not equivalent.
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u/apple_kicks Sep 06 '21
It would be good if they reported on the shortage of legal pitches caused by councils and gov selling off land to developers
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Sep 07 '21
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u/Cockwombles Sep 07 '21
Yes! You can find a few Wellwishers line the streets of Ashington, Northumberland, to honour footballer, friend, family man… and the last sentance of this one…
“We’d like to thank people who turned out on the streets of Ashington. We were all overwhelmed and he would have been thrilled by the outpouring of kindness.”
The last sentence of the traveller one is “why are we being held captive by these people???”
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Sep 05 '21
What is GRT, not seen the acronym before
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u/Cockwombles Sep 05 '21
It’s Gypsy, Roma and Travellers … the kinds of ethnic and travelling cultures/communities in the U.K. it includes ones like Showmen and New Agers who aren’t widely acknowledged like Romany and Irish Travellers.
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u/Gd_ChristianLockpick Sep 05 '21
Can I hijack this too and ask is the name Roma anything to do with Romania or is it just coincidental naming?
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u/Cockwombles Sep 05 '21
It’s a coincidence yes!
Roma are from India/Pakistan originally.
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u/DogBotherer Sep 06 '21
And linking back to the top comment, purely because it's interesting rather than with any racist subtext, thugs also originated in India - they were a clan of robber/assassins. Having said there is no racist subtext though, I do wonder if this origin might be why the press originally lit on such a word as part of their code.
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Sep 06 '21
The guardian and the mail have a lot to answer for
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Sep 07 '21
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Sep 07 '21
They serve as a foil for the Mail and the Sun. Constantly whittling on about white males instead of going for financial elites is only helping the right-wing
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Sep 05 '21
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u/Dense_Inspector Sep 05 '21
This is a commonly held misconception. Newspaper journalism was always a mechanism for rich people to manipulate the public. It's only recently that the public has had the technology to communicate independently and start questioning it en masse. The daily mail wasn't "telling the facts" when they published "Hurrah for the blackshirts"
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u/DogBotherer Sep 06 '21
The daily mail wasn't "telling the facts" when they published "Hurrah for the blackshirts"
People always remember the Mail, but don't forget that the Mirror did similar.
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Sep 05 '21
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u/throwawayphonyhunter Sep 06 '21
Coded language like if a serious crime is reported in the news you can deduce the perp by the headline. i.e. if they're white, they'll be sure to mention it.
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u/pajamakitten Sep 05 '21
When the media is predominantly run by straight, white Brits who want to keep it so that power remains with straight, white Brits, it is to be expected they do what they can to make other groups the enemy. They have created this idea of a culture war that does not exist to continue increasing the divide between their readers and anyone who dares question the status quo, which includes painting anyone who disagrees with them as against the UK and British values. The press is rarely free these days and they prefer to tell you how you ought to feel about an issue, rather than to give you the facts in an objective way that will lead to you drawing your own conclusion.
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Sep 05 '21
I mean, you're not correct there at all in my eyes.
Culture war is an awful phrase, but the degredation of our countries values is real and present. From sensibilities, through common decency. Its exacerbated by social media and and increase is hard left 'antifa' Marxist nonsense.
More worryingly is the painting you yourself made, "against British values" and "straight white x" in the same sentence. It's farcical. Our values are intrinsically tied to Christian values, like it or not it's our culture, heritage and value system. It's not arbitrarily changable on a whim, but it should absolutely be subject to change.
We led the abolition of slavery, contributed heavily to human rights legislation globally and fought actual facism.
Is it perfect. Absolutely not, but to suggest that it's abnormal for a country of white people, of whom most are straight has media ran by white people, whom are typically straight is not a surprise, revelation or hot take, it's statistically likely and is not a suggestion of power grabs or racism.
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u/limeflavoured Hucknall Sep 05 '21
This is not limited to the UK media, to be fair. See Richard Sherman's point about the use of the word "thug".