Race Review: All the news you may have missed this week

Illustration by Michelle W

Time is a construct but that doesn’t mean we aren’t all grappling with that overwhelming need to recap the year and set our future goals.

Unfortunately, our goal still seems to be a political implosion. I’m sick of the words Brexit, the concept of Brexit and all names attached to the clusterfuck that is Brexit. The EU kindly offered us an opportunity to put our ego away, say sorry, and forget all of this ever happened. Given that Brexit will hit ethnic minorities the hardest, there are roughly 8 million people who could do with wiping the slate clean.

As is customary for this time of year, everyone is devouring television at an alarming rate. While most Christmas films and TV shows promote unity and a warm festive feeling, Jordan Peele decided to bulldoze that feeling of security and released a chilling teaser for his next horror film, Us. It took roughly five minutes to spark GCSE English-level analyses of the short and mysterious preview. Although, one thing everyone can agree on is that when you see Offred on the beach that means shit is about to go down.

Here’s what else you might have missed this week.

Jamaican takeaways step up to feed the homeless this Christmas

Photography by Tayke2 Photography

Christmas can be difficult for those who don’t have anything, and this week several Jamaican takeaways decided that they would open their doors on Christmas Day and serve free meals to anyone in need.

Ossie’s Jerk Chicken in Walworth, Cummin Up in Lewisham, and Maidstone Kent’s Jerk Shack were among the restaurants offering Christmas dinners to locals. Richard Simpson who owns Cummin Up celebrated 10 years of this tradition.

Previously, he told New Shopper that he gives out his Jamaican twist on the traditional English Christmas dinner because he’s not sold on “the commercialisation of Christmas”. “We need to share the love, we just want to slow life down. We even set up tables on the pavement so that people who live with their dogs can have a Christmas meal with them,” he said.

Customers were treated to turkey with brussel sprouts and stuffing alongside jerk chicken and rice.

Sterling and Jamelia shouldn’t have to school the British media on racism

As the Sun scrambled to rid themselves of any responsibility for racist coverage of Raheem Sterling, the biased coverage in the media has boiled over. The footballer, as do many black professionals, is carrying a dual burden of doing his job, and of representing all people of colour.

After a year of skewed reporting, over 100 black journalists have written to UK editors to call out “a long litany of inadequacies in newsroom coverage of race and how stories about non-white people are covered,” due to woeful newsroom diversity. The group which is going by the name Black Journalists Collective UK (BJCUK) is making a plea to create a journalism that “better serves all communities”.

The letter reads: “It is clear there is much more progress to be made, therefore the BJCUK is calling on all newsrooms to urgently show their commitment to improving their reporting of racial issues and subjects and to increase the diversity of their staff by signing up to the points outlined in the manifesto below.”

The Manchester City and England player was recently forced to school Britain’s mainstream media on prejudice by aptly pointing out how the same story was reported in two very different ways when the player was black and white. Similarly, Jamelia took to Instagram to challenge the reporting of recent crimes linked to the son of one of her mother’s ex-boyfriends.

View this post on Instagram

Dear Media, The next time you want to write a story like this, may I suggest Paul Edmunds as a replacement for my name. He’s the supplier of countless illegal guns in and around Birmingham and its surrounding areas. The guns he provided have been positively linked to over 100 incidents of Gun Crime. He also stated that he was “not responsible for the actions of somebody that buys some things” and “it’s your problem, not mine.” I’d say he’d make a better candidate as a contributor to these crimes, and is also undoubtedly essential to these stories. Rather than the law-abiding, hardworking mother of 3 who has absolutely nothing to do with any part of these awful crimes. I do not deserve this and it’s unfair. Please read the article I’ve written (link in bio) in response to this, and please share. I should not be named and shamed where I’m not to blame. ❤️

A post shared by Jamelia (@officialjamelia) on Dec 16, 2018 at 12:38pm PST

ICYMI

- Prada has been forced to pull a line of toy-style accessories dubbed “Pradamalia”, which featured black monkeys with red lips that resembled golliwog or blackface dolls. Prada is now now setting up a diversity council.
- Lesbians and Gays Support the Migrants hacked tube ads for International Migrants Day with instructions for commuters about how to stop deportations taking place on flights they happen to be on. The “See it, Say it, Stop it” campaign riffs on the TFL anti-terrorist campaign.
- Rapper 2Milly is suing the game Fortnite for stealing his dance, the ‘Milly Rock’. This comes as a broader issue of games stealing dance moves from the hip-hop scene and passing them off as their own in the hope copyright law won’t cater for the racial and cultural concerns to do with dance.
- About 55,000 Muslims rallied in Kuala Lumpur to defend their privileges at a time of growing racial tensions in multi-ethnic Malaysia.
- People from the EU living in the UK denounce this hellish stock photo filled Home Office video with a manically happy tone:

EU citizens and their families will need to apply to the EU Settlement Scheme to continue living in the UK after 31 December 2020.

Find out more: https://t.co/S5UB9n8iFU #Brexit pic.twitter.com/HdqySqRk8M

— Home Office (@ukhomeoffice) December 27, 2018

Netflix has commissioned its first African original series, Queen Sono, that will pave the way to more series from the continent in 2019.
Only 77 out of 3,000 Essex police officers are BAME, causing the force to launch a diversity campaign to encourage those from minority backgrounds to join.
Black residents in Toronto are 20 times more likely to be shot dead by police than white residents, a landmark report from the city’s human rights watchdog has revealed.

Moment Of The Week

Thanks for ruining my Christmas cheer, Jordan Peele. If you’re a budding writer Monkeypaw Productions is accepting film and TV script submissions now, find out how to send yours here.