When it comes to imagery surrounding black youngsters, I'm used to the relentlessly negative – knife crime, underachievement, family breakdown, we've all seen it.
I've just had an evening, though, which was the exact opposite – unremittingly positive. The occasion was the London Schools and the Black Child awards ceremony, organised by the MP Diane Abbott and held at the House of Commons.
It highlighted the academic achievements of black youngsters at GCSE, A-Level and degree level. This wasn't an evening celebrating mediocrity – the plague of the burgeoning awards industry – but a roll call of excellence and dedication. And it wasn't about just one or two exceptional cases (more often than not being subliminally interpreted as "the exception which proves the rule" by those who continue to see black people in entirely negative terms).
The power of the occasion was that we heard one story after another of young people defying the stereotypes, overcoming the odds – and, in many cases, giving back to their community too. Altogether, 24 tales of great achievement. And, even more significant, there were just as many boys represented as girls
Youngsters such as Keli Dusu, who gained 5 As at A-level but has still found time to work as a volunteer for the Salvation Army Youth Club, and also to coach a group of autistic children. Or Rochelle Balach, who, without parental support, had to work to fund herself through sixth-form college, yet still emerged with three A-grades. Or Hannah Kendall, who has just qualified with a first-class degree from the Royal College of Music, had her compositions performed by the Philharmonia Orchestra at the Royal Festival Hall, and who volunteers at schools in Lambeth. And the story of Lawrence Price, diagnosed with learning difficulties and ADHD as a child, who rejected the extra help he was offered, and who has just graduated with a first in history from Oxford.
We also heard a touching and personal talk from Hollywood actor Naomie Harris about her own mother's drive to get a degree and eventually become a successful TV scriptwriter despite having Naomie when still a teenager.
The significance of all these stories was that, by hearing so many, it made the exceptional appear ordinary, and achievable. As I looked out over the Thames, though, I thought: how do we get these uplifting messages out there, beyond this House of Commons room – where they can challenge the relentless gangsta-rap videos, or negative news coverage? Where teenagers are given the message that blackness is about violence and aggression, and that to show any sign of academic interest is to be some kind of race sellout.
"You're in the media: will you be writing about this?" asked one person of me after the ceremony. And I thought: if a fight had broken out, or if one person had drawn a knife, the event would be front-page news. Such are the news values of my honourable profession.
Ultimately, this is a battle: between the multibillion music and media industries, and people like Abbott, who get on with schemes like this because it's the right thing to do. Waiting for these industries to change will take a very long time. In the meantime, though, it should surely be possible, for example, to circulate a DVD of this event in urban classrooms around the country, where it could have an immediate and positive impact. Can a sponsor can be found to fund such a thing?
For the record: I was outraged when Abbott sent her child to private school; but I have to say that organising an event like this far outweighs her ideologically off-message moment. One day, I hope, Abbott's message will get through; but in the meantime as least she has the pleasure of working with some bright, keen and enthusiastic young hopefuls and giving them huge inspiration.
ASA raps 'racist' poster for kids' charity
The Advertising Standards Authority also found that another billboard ad for the Kids Company charity that stated "You are right – kids who can kill really are wrong in the head" beneath a picture of four black teenagers was likely to cause offence.
In addition, this ad made misleading claims about a supposed link between emotional development, brain size and violent behaviour, the ASA said.
Both ads were judged to be in breach of the ASA's code on decency, with the one featuring the claims about brain size also falling foul of clauses on truthfulness and substantiation.
The ASA conceded that Kids Company meant to raise awareness about the children it sought to help, but nevertheless ordered the charity not to re-use the ads, two out of five used in a poster campaign.
In its defence, the charity said the campaign as a whole had used a cross-section of local children from different backgrounds in and around Kilburn, north London.
According to Kids Company, the racial mix was representative of the children from the youth clubs in that area, with 80% of the children that came to it for help from Afro-Caribbean backgrounds, a proportion that was again reflected by the ads.
The Outdoor Advertising Association said it had cleared the ads as they contained both black and white children and were spread as evenly as possible across nine different stations.
Kids Company's ads were designed to "confront superficial judgments and prejudices" and challenged the viewer to reject stereotypes, the charity added.
The charity said the ad showing the black teenagers harassing the white man opposed the viewer's presumption – spelled out in the headline "How do you get inside the head of a 16-year-old knife-wielding thug?" – with the charity's point of view, written in italics: "First get inside the head of a 16-year-old bed-wetting boy."
However, the ASA found that this ad "focused on a negative image of black teenagers that was likely to reinforce negative stereotypes and was therefore racist".
The watchdog also said the ad linking violent teenagers to emotional underdevelopment "was likely to cause serious offence because it featured only black teenagers".
Kids Company said two images of the brain it used in this ad – one, larger brain was labelled "normal", while a smaller one was marked "extreme neglect" – had been taken from a US study on child trauma and brain development that demonstrated the effect of sensory deprivation on brain size.
However, the ASA said its interpretation of the study suggested it was referring to factors such as nutrition and children being raised in cages in dark rooms, not just to emotional development.
Moreover, the regulator rejected the idea that there was evidence that brain size had an impact on violent behaviour, as it found the ad had implied.
Article #3
The silenced majority
Since January, the term knife crime has been used more than 1,500 times by the national press - and it is a fair bet that most media images associated with these figures will be of young black men. Unsurprisingly, this is leading to a growing sense of frustration among black community leaders, academics and, not least, black youngsters themselves, over what they see as blatant misrepresentation.
Black youths who fit this media stereotype represent a tiny fraction of the young black population as a whole, they argue, and while negative stories about black teenagers are almost guaranteed headlines, the positive achievements of black youth go largely ignored.
This trend has consequences beyond creating an unbalanced picture. Numerous studies have shown a clear link between media furore and draconian policy-making, says Kjartan Sveinsson, the author of a Runnymede Trust report on the ways in which popular understandings of race and crime influence media reporting, and vice versa. "The tragedy is this can increase racial tension on the street and do little to stem the violence," he says.
Which in turn, of course, leads to further reports of violence, and the circle continues. In April 2007, for instance, after a number of high-profile shootings in south London, Tony Blair made a speech to the Cardiff Chamber of Commerce. Was he perhaps responding to media pressure when he asked: "When are we going to start saying this [gang crime] is a problem amongst a section of the black community and not, for reasons of political correctness, pretend it has nothing to do with it?"
There was no ambiguity when David Cameron spoke after the death of 11-year-old Rhys Jones in Liverpool, singling out the media by saying: "Deaths by fists, knives and guns are becoming a regular feature of British news ... these murders must draw a line in the sand."
In Manchester, one group of black teenagers, who believe they should have made headlines for the right reasons, are angry at their treatment by the media. So much so they have published an open letter on the subject
The Reclaim project began as a pilot in the autumn of 2007 at Urbis, an exhibition centre in Manchester, to work with 12-14-year-old boys from Moss Side and other perceived trouble spots in the city. The idea was spawned as a reaction to rising youth violence and the negative portrayal of young people, especially from the African-Caribbean community.
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