The Daily Telegraph
End Column
(Filed: 10/12/2004)
Be Watchful
Am I the only person (asks "ETHNOLEPT") to have been disgusted by the newspaper photographs of crowds demonstrating in the Ukrainian city of Kiev?
Although their numbers ran into thousands, even millions, my own minute examination of these photographs failed to reveal any but white people. This would be unthinkable, and quite rightly, in Britain, where any photograph of a group of people, however small, in any major city, village, or average home, would show a good proportion of black people or Indians.
Friends tell me that there are very few black people or Indians in the Ukraine, so it is not surprising that crowds of demonstrators are entirely white. This is beside the point.
If the inhabitants of the Ukraine are predominantly white, that is their misfortune. But, as in Britain, such photographs should point the way to a better future, in which the Ukraine will be as multiracial as any other country, and most of its present troubles, which are due to persistent racism, will be over.
Wednesday, December 15, 2004
This is supposed to be funny, I assume?
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...Yeah, strikes me as someone's idea of a very bad joke on the Guardian.
ReplyDeleteBut then, the Guardian, while more or less reputable, is well known for its politics to anyone who pays attention to those sorts of things.
This is a fairly typical piece by Michael Wharton, writing as Peter Simple. Although it may seem to be about Ukraine, the targets of his satire lie in the UK. One target is the current UK publication practice of selecting/creating multiracial photographs even in situations where this is grossly misleading (particularly obvious in stock photography). The other target is the tendency of the Guardian left to "explain" uncomfortable social phenomena by reference to racism.
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