GrimsbyLive’s colourblind racism, and why it’s Reach’s problem
Really, the GT’s Bottom Half feed should be comical, something like Angry People in Local Newspapers. After all, this is the paper that gave us the man finally able to burp after twenty years. But it’s not, it’s a stream of racism, homophobia, poor shaming, misogyny and stupidity.
What has been depressing over the past couple of days, though, has been the prevalence of colourblind racism in the comments.
It was most notable in an article about racist graffiti. The phrase ‘White Pride’ had been painted across a wall by a busy road. The council were removing it, and the article was clear that the graffiti was deemed racist. And there is no doubt it is racist. A simple search reveals that far-right and neo-Nazi groups have adopted the phrase.
But the bottom half has other ideas. After all, what about Pride (and their homophobia has been on display recently)? Or Black Lives Matter? Being proud of being white is just the same, isn’t it?
It clearly isn’t. And that’s the problem of colourblind racism. While it might, at first, seem that racial colourblindness is a good thing, treating everyone equally regardless of race, even the tiniest examination would reveal it’s not. Historic inequalities mean it’s simply not possible to take a phrase like ‘pride’ and apply it to different races without it carrying different connotations.
The problem is that is simply perpetuates the racism, either through ignorance, or giving racists something to hide behind. And it can lead to utterly bizarre conclusions. One commenter, who appears to sincerely believe they are not racist, illustrated the extremes of this. Pride, for them, was a positive, everyone should be proud of who they are.
Someone else attempted to point out to them why the phrase was problematic, highlighting that the historic experiences of white and black were very different. But even here, for the original commenter, equality was important. They raised the role of black people in the slave trade. And, until black people acknowledged that role, they contended, it will remain a problem.
There was some black involvement in slavery. And that should not be a surprise, there are plenty of examples in human history where the drive for survival or profit resulted in heinous behaviour. But to claim equivalency between that, and the trafficking of up to 20 million people to support an economy that benefited only the white nations doing the trafficking is a big reach.
The episode resulted in a pile-on, with the section’s racists joining forces to attack those who dare challenge them (predictably, they are accusing them all of being the same person). The sin committed this time was to question the use of ‘social cleansing’ when referring to pavement cyclists. Again, most reasonable people recognise the phrase carries a lot of negative meaning. However, the Bottom Half believe themselves to be beyond reproach, and the only sinners are those trying who dare to stand up for people of colour or suggest more thoughtful wording for baiting or goading the racists.
And this is why the problem really is Reach’s. The atrocious commenters on there do not represent Grimsby, and while some commenters attempt to police the online community, it’s not really their job, and the tools provided are inadequate for the task.
Reach created a model that is based around serving an obscene number of ads. And while high-quality local journalism would have been preferable, if they want to generate clicks with clickbait controversy and generated conflict, they should also take the responsibility of properly policing their comments.
