Letter of Complaint to the BBC
Saturday 15th October 2016
Dear the BBC,
I am writing to complain about my recent treatment by BBC Radio Sheffield and their disgraceful broadcasting of xenophobic and racist views.
On the morning of Friday 14th October, I was contacted by a member of staff at BBC Radio Sheffield, inviting me to contribute to their live phone-in about Refugee children on their breakfast show. I am a student at the University of Sheffield and I have recently written a children’s picture book about refugees called ‘Go Back To Where You Came From’. It was featured on the Breakfast Show several weeks ago, when I launched a successful Crowdfunder campaign to self-publish the book. I was asked to talk about my book and to provide a pro-Refugee stance as the other contributors had overwhelmingly come from an anti-refugee position. I was told I would be called back within a few minutes by one of the producers, at around 9:30am, to speak live on the show. However, I was not contacted and I waited for 40 mins whilst listening to the show, before I was forced to leave without making a contribution because I was late for a tutorial.
During the 40 minutes that I listened to the programme, it featured a series of callers expressing extreme xenophobia and unacceptably racist views. This included a delivery driver who accused refugees of being criminals who damaged delivery vehicles and denied the presence of unaccompanied refugee children in Calais, “There is no children in the Jungle”. Additionally, an 84-year woman from West Yorkshire who claimed that “Muslims and Polish people” were taking over “every town in the country” and in 10 years’ time Britain would be a “Polish or a Muslim country”. It was pointed out that these were migrants, not refugees, and she then blamed the Syrian refugees for “starting the fight with Assad”. Furthermore, the Breakfast show presenter quoted “shoot them in the waters” and also repeated a comment from an earlier caller, “blow them up”. I listened in horror and disdain for 40 minutes to these outrageous comments and I can’t actually believe that the BBC would give credence to these individuals by allowing their totally unacceptable, violent and intolerant opinions to be broadcast on local radio. Although, I appreciate the BBC feels obliged to give a voice to both sides of a political debate, the overwhelming majority of air time was allocated to these horrific, shameful and destructive individuals. This can be evidenced in the Breakfast Show Podcast on BBC i-player. The road to fascism is a slippery slope, and by providing backwards-looking, xenophobic individuals with the opportunity to promote their potentially toxic views, you are effectively supporting racial intolerance. The recent and disturbing rise in race hate crimes is concrete evidence that we must not overlook casual racist slurs and we must hold individuals to account for intolerant behaviour and xenophobic attitudes. Think of Rosa Parks sitting down on her seat on the bus, I warn you that the trend can work in reverse, and this is not the future we should be striving for.
From a personal perspective, I was not only made late for my university classes, but I was also extremely upset listening to these views being expressed on local radio without having the opportunity to contest them or offer an alternative perspective. I wrote my children’s picture book ‘Go Back To Where You Came From’ in order to raise awareness of the plight of the refugee and to try and teach tolerance and compassion to the next generation. I am hugely disappointed by the BBC’s lack of moral responsibility for protecting those who are most vulnerable in our society under the supposed guise of “political impartiality”. We have a duty of care to all children, regardless of whether they are refugees, regardless of their country of origin, and we should be doing our utmost to protect their rights as individuals and human beings. This includes their right to a future. All refugees, regardless of age, have the potential to make a positive contribution to our society and we should be providing support networks to allow them to do so. We must stop giving credence to racist and xenophobic attitudes and we must work to create a more inclusive, tolerant, supportive, global community. As the British Broadcasting Corporation, you should be at the very heart of working to achieve this aim.
Yours sincerely,
Madeleina Kay
@albawhitewolf
From the editor:
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