Yaaya Asked ...

Yaaya asks:

How much significance do you attribute to the role the media plays in the way black girls and women are perceived
(positively or negatively) in Europe?

Loretta (Facebook):

Media plays a crucial role in our day to day lives. It shapes people's perceptions (consciously or subconsciously) about countries, people, music, and virtually anything else that is part of our social fabric. The media is also a reflection of the views that a powerful majority have of particular groups in society also, hence certain story lines and images are peddled out to the nation that reinforce positive and negative stereotypes. It is therefore not a coincidence that when black women in Europe receive media attention they are either, asylum seekers, refugees, economic migrants, prostitutes, and FGM victims on the one hand, or single mothers, boisterous, rude and aggressive individuals on the other. We often don't see, particularly on TV, black women being represented as a 'normal', inclusive members of European nations, who are either educated professionals, self employed or a stay at home mothers, who are valuable member of British, French, Portuguese, Dutch or Italian Society. Far too often, these roles are reserved for Europeans as there is a sense of normalcy about such roles when played by white actors/actresses. However with black women and other minorities, there is often always some sort of 'story' with certain roles on TV and on the big screen, which reinforces a sense of 'otherness.'

Obiocha (Facebook):

In two words: 'a lot'. The singular, incomplete, and unbalanced media portrayal of black women serves largely to reinforce negative social stereotypes. Despite popular belief, not every black woman is 'loud, aggressive, vain or erotic'. For some black women (myself included), this is not our reality. It is not our story.

Caroline (Facebook):

This is an interesting question. The media encompasses television, radio, print, radio, and internet and in our current times we now have social media technologies. So we have more platforms that can shape a way a person is perceived (positively and negatively) and more ways that can make people feel more invisible if they are not represented at all.

In past times, it used to be that black women were not seen in European media at all (in some European countries it is still the case). And if black women were “being represented”, it was done in such a way that one instance or story concerning an individual or a small group of people created a perception about all black women. Nowadays, especially in Britain, I feel we have an improving “representation” of black culture and people with television stations like BEN TV, radio stations like Choice FM, newspapers like The Voice, and magazines like Black Beauty & Hair – which I would hope translates into a more diverse representation and perception of black women.

With platforms like YouTube, Facebook and Twitter – there isn’t really a barrier to entry so it is a level playing field for people to challenge perceptions about black women, but unfortunately, also for people to reinforce stereotypes.

The way we engage with the media should be an active thing, we consume information but we should be more thoughtful about what information we choose to filter and what we choose to absorb, and I feel it is important we do our best to teach the young(est/er) generation this too – so the media plays a role, but so do we (and by ‘we’, I mean everyone irrespective of gender and ‘race’).

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The responses above serve to highlight that the media is not the gospel truth, and how there are dangerous ramifications if media consumers fail to recognise the “singular, incomplete, and unbalanced media” representations of black women.

The media is a progressive force and, through the various social technologies, has become even more influential in the way the different parts of our "social fabric" are perceived. With the different media platforms for virally distributing information, “there isn’t really a barrier to entry so it is a level playing field for people to challenge perceptions about black women”. In the U.K. we have seen a resurgence in more print, radio and television mediums seizing the responsibility to report “a more diverse representation” of black women and culture with regards to beauty, education, professions, and familial roles.

To clarify, we are not saying one must starting ignoring the individual truths of black women who were or are “asylum seekers, refugees, economic migrants, prostitutes, and FGM victims” and therefore counter-productively discourage awareness of such social issues. However, “for some black women, this is not [their] reality”. We and the media have a role to ensure attention can be and is equally given to the diverse spectrum of realities concerning black women. This is why Yaaya was founded to promote fairer and positive images of black girls and women.