Why Doreen Lawrence Is My Hero

I love Doreen Lawrence. In a world of few heroes and role models (especially for a hardened cynical journalist such as myself) Doreen is a real inspiration.  Her son Stephen was stabbed and killed in Eltham, south east London, in April 1993 by a gang of racists.  After a long, 18 year struggle for justice, this week two of those racists were finally jailed for that act. But over that same period, I’ve also noticed that despite her heroism, for many working in the world of TV and newspapers Doreen is also a real “problem”.

Over the past 18 years, there have been numerous documentaries and News specials produced and aired, focused on the murder of Stephen Lawrence and Doreen’s fight to bring his killers to justice. I’ve been fortunate to be involved in a couple of these, and for the others I’ve usually known most of the people working on the productions. But in nearly all of these documentaries and news programmes, at some stage, I have heard the director or producer say “Doreen is a problem”, or use other words to that effect.

This “problem” is always the same. But before I explain what the problem is exactly, let me give you some background.

If you really study them, most documentaries and news and current affairs are quite formulaic. Possibly the easiest and most common formula is the “Goodie - Baddie – Victim” formula. For example, the baddie might be racist police, the victim the black person on the receiving end of the racism, and the goodie the outsider that comes to denounce the racism and solve the problem (sometimes the reporter themselves). This formula is played out time and time again, from elderly people falling victim to consumer scams, to victims of war crimes in the Congo or other countries.

However, for this formula to work well, the baddies need to be really bad and the goodies need to be really good. And crucially, the victims need to be sympathetic people clearly in need of rescuing. They might be resilient and able to take on incredible hardship, but at the same time they also need to be “downtrodden”, “beaten up”, and emotionally “destroyed”.  The formula works even better when a victim goes so far as to cry on camera, showing just how helpless they are and feel.

When it comes to reporting racism, black people are invariably portrayed in the role of downtrodden, passive victims. The underlying journalism to uncover the story might be excellent, but to best attract and engage TV viewers, the characterization often ends up being more like pantomime.

And this is why Doreen Lawrence is a “problem” for many TV producers. She single-handedly destroys this neat journalistic formula. Here is a “victim” who is not beaten. Here is a woman who has lost her son but refuses to cry on television. Here is a woman who will not let us see her broken. When the Lawrence’s lost their private prosecution in 1996, Doreen refused to attend the press conference and locked herself away. It was only when the jury finally found Gary Dobson and David Norris guilty a few days ago that she allowed herself to softly cry in the public court room, before composing herself to then face the media outside.

But, most importantly, Doreen is both the goodie and the victim at the same time. She doesn’t need saving by a benign goodie outsider – who has been, in many other past circumstances, often white.  She made clear that she can save herself. She took on the police, the judicial system and wider British society - and this week her labour finally bore fruit.

While Doreen’s fight to achieve justice for her son Stephen has been incredibly remarkable in so many ways, just as amazing is how she has been able to take on the media and beat them at their own game.  She has confounded the simple stereotype of a long-suffering, passive victim and the easy narratives in which journalists and TV producers try and fit stories of racism into. She has constructed a new paradigm in which journalists must view her and other “victims” of racism.  Having worked in the media for almost twenty years, and knowing how difficult it is to change the industry and innovate, I’m not sure which fight was harder.

Whatever the case, as a journalist, this new paradigm that Doreen has created is the key reason she is my hero.  And I hope that in the coming years we will begin to see her new, more difficult but also more subtle and grown-up paradigm better reflected in programmes that aim to deal with racism and its effects.