Media Must Avoid Blaming Black and Asian People For Their Low Covid-19 Vaccine Uptake

GO AND GET VACCINATED!

BLACK PEOPLE, GO GET YOURSELF VACCINATED!

ASIAN PEOPLE, GO GET YOURSELF VACCINATED!

People of colour in the UK are thought to be more reluctant than their white counterparts to receive the Covid-19 vaccine. This poses a very real public health problem, especially as it is  coupled with the fact that people of colour are disproportionately impacted by the virus.

This has led to a push by media organisations, and heath authorities, to push for wider uptake by people of colour of the vaccine. While these efforts should be applauded we need to make sure the very communities they are trying to help are not demonised and "othered" in the process.

To explain the issues let me go back in time over twenty years...

When I was a young director at the BBC I made a programme for the current affairs series "Black Britain" with the legend who is Clive Myrie. It was about the Windrush generation returning to Jamaica and being targeted by criminals because they were perceived as coming back with money from the UK. At the time Jamaica had one of the highest murder rates for any country during peace time and several of these returnees had been murdered.

It was an important issue that was effecting our community and I felt it was important that we cover it.

I made the film, but I insisted I put in a section on the IMF's Structural Adjustment Policies which had exacerbated inequality in Jamaica and the US's involvement in the country contributing to a gun culture. It was important to put the news in historical context otherwise Jamaica in general, and black Jamaicans specifically, would have appeared to be murderous people confirming some of the worst racist stereotypes.

As a lowly director I had to fight for that section to be included, although I had the support of my black series producer, Maxine Watson, and of course my reporter, Clive Myrie.

Fast forward 20 years and we have similar issues when it comes to how the media report the low uptake of Covid-19 vaccines by certain communities.

I think the work the BBC, and other media organisations, are doing to tackle the issue of low Black, Asian and minority ethnic uptake of the vaccine and misinformation in the community is vitally important.

However, just like the murders of Jamaican returnees context is king. It is important to explain the origins of the misinformation and mistrust which is plaguing our communities. Otherwise we run the risk demonising and ridiculing the very communities whose trust we are trying to gain.

The Executive Director of the Equality Trust, Wanda Wyporska, contextualised the issue when she appeared on Newsnight and was asked about the issue, saying; "There is a distrust and a mistrust of authorities which is hardly surprising when the authorities have tried to send our grandparents back to the Caribbean in terms of Windrush, or our communities are being deported and portrayed as gang members and prostitutes on TV. And when we have a higher rate of stop and search that has been absolutely abused under Covid. So it is not surprising that our relationships with authorities is not one of trust".

Although the clip I just quoted was from a BBC news programme far too often the BBC's coverage has omitted this important context, and the BBC is far from unique in the way it covers the issue.

It is the difference between blaming the victim, versus realising the problem of low vaccine uptake is only a symptom of a far larger issue - systemic racism. A symptom that needs to be addressed nonetheless.

Black and Asian people are no less, or no more, rational than our white counterparts. 

Messages of misinformation are far more likely flourish in communities that have a reason to mistrust official media channels.

If media organisations want to address these important issues they must gain the trust of these communities. Without putting the issue in context they run the risk of people feeling that they are being talked down to, their reality not being recognised, and simply tuning out one of the most important public health messages in a generation.