Light of mind

#representationmatters

Part 1

I read somewhere that ‘’If she can’t see it she can’t be it’ and I could not agree more. Representation is so important, the wrong type of representation or lack there of can be detrimental to how people perceive themselves or how society perceives that group. In order to find out how people felt about the UK's representation of ethnic groups my friend, Sara, and I went to Oxford Street, London, and asked a few people. It was also interesting to see whether people were actually aware of the issue.

Here are a few of the responses we received:

@sara_najim I feel like there is not much representation in UK media as it is, but where people of colour are represented, it's usually a negative representation. I find it impossible to even think of anyone, public figure or fictional character, shown on TV that i can really 'relate' to fully, as a middle eastern muslim. Usually, the muslims shown are either asian or white converts, and their appearances serve an ulterior purpose of merging their own culture with islam, for example in documentaries such as "Welcome to the Mosque". Also, when they do show a muslim on a TV show, it's often to highlight differences in their way of life to the other, 'normal' white characters. Such as a character being forced into an arranged marriage, or having to hide their relationships and social life from their parents. This perpetuates the narrative of muslims as an "other" in society, a group who cannot integrate with the rest of the population. I don't think I have ever seen a middle eastern or an arab in the media before, so I can't really comment on that. I definitely think the media should change the current representation of people of colour, in order to educate the general public, break down stereotypes and provide us with realistic depiction of different groups in society.

@mrjasonchin : Personally i don't think so. I think representation of ethnic minority is not a clear depiction of us as a people. There is representation but the representation is marginalised. Black people are usually shown as a light woman or mixed woman with a dark skinned man or white man. You don't see the  holistic black family. so we’re not being represented as a whole. there are no black woman with black man. It puts inferior concepts of black imagery in the minds of people. For truthful imagery  there needs to be wholesome families not just black guys in hoodies that rap. They need to show there are black people with degrees and masters and PhDs. We come in all cloths and fabrics. I don't think the imagery is a true, full representation. Positive imagery in terms of how we represent various people. Not just black people but Arabs especially of what going on in the world. honest depictions of Muslims. Just because there are a few people that a radicalised that doesn’t represent all of the Islamic communities. So when it comes to the ethnic minority groups I think it just need to be a true honest depiction of us as a whole. White people are seen as the norm. When you read tabloids it never reads ‘this white man committed a crime’  it will just say a man called bob or harry committed a crime so it makes them seem like they are not subhuman they are the norm. So when it's an Arab man or black man if they belong to a religion they have to throw that in there when they do this they characterise them as subhuman.

@vita_mind: No I actually think the way the media does portray the people of my ethnicity is not positive. I think that the way brown bodies are portrayed they are either demonised or over sexualised and there is no in between. Marlene Dumas did a really great exhibition at Tate looking at the way black bodies are sexualised inherently even models. I think there should be more spaces for women of colour and i think it's inherent in the structure of society that people from the global south are portrayed badly.  so unless we take charge of the way we are portrayed things are never going to change.

@zandilelungah: I think there is this lazy stereotyping where the black girls will be over the top, so when someone's not like that it's because they're acting white and not acting black. Sometimes there is the other side where they try to avoid that but that will get criticism for not being a true representation. With black women they are either not ghetto enough or they're too ghetto and too loud or not loud enough.