UK’s Channel 4 “producers painted a white woman brown to experience life as a Muslim”
Channel 4 has come under fire for “pandering to racial stereotypes” after producers painted a white woman brown to experience life as a Muslim.
This “blacking up” and exaggeration of facial features by Channel 4 is nothing more than the common attempt to racialize the religion of Islam, but it backfired on Channel 4, angering the very people it was meant to appease, including the discredited “Islamophobia” watchdog Tell Mama:
The concept has sparked a furious race row, with hate crime charity Tell Mama saying it “crosses a line” and is “offensive” to Muslims.“The most offensive bit is the gross exaggeration of features of the face, and that blurs the line, pandering to stereotypes of race and religion actually,” Fiyaz Mughal, founder of Tell Mama, told The Independent.
Racism against blacks in Islam is a big problem, and that is likely the real core of this “furious race row.” But critical to this story is the ongoing drive to cast Islam as a race in the public arena in order to create an us-versus-them victimology narrative.
Islam is a religious doctrine. Until “Islamophobia” propagandists began claiming that to criticize Islam was “racist,” every religion was always exposed to open discussion and scrutiny without fear of branding and reprisals.
Recall also that so-called feminist leader Linda Sarsour stated: “When I wasn’t wearing hijab I was just some ordinary white girl from New York City.” But once she donned the hijab, Sarsour began taking on her self-proclaimed role of “inspiring young people of color like me, to show them their potential.”
“Channel 4 sparks furious race row after ‘blacking up’ white woman so she can ‘live as a Muslim’ for a week in new show”, by Lucy Pasha-Robinson, UK Independent, October 18, 2017:
Channel 4 has come under fire for “pandering to racial stereotypes” after producers painted a white woman brown to experience life as a Muslim.Katie Freeman went “undercover” as a British Pakistani Muslim for the programme My Week as a Muslim, wearing a hijab and prosthetics to make her nose bigger.She is heard admitting in the trailer that she normally “wouldn’t want to sit next to” a Muslim “in case they blow something up”.The concept has sparked a furious race row, with hate crime charity Tell Mama saying it “crosses a line” and is “offensive” to Muslims.“The most offensive bit is the gross exaggeration of features of the face, and that blurs the line, pandering to stereotypes of race and religion actually,” Fiyaz Mughal, founder of Tell Mama, told The Independent.“They did not have to do the ‘blacking up’. You could have taken somebody who is willing to talk to Muslims but in that journey experienced what Muslims experience by shadowing, using a secret camera, listening to what happens around women’s role in Islam, this could have been done without pandering to some quite silly 1920s stereotypes.”Mr Mughal accepted the premise was “coming from a positive place”, but added the manner in which it was executed was “offensive”.“You can still make it really interesting for the public you don’t have to end up doing something quite covert and unsettling and racial that has crossed the line,” he said…….
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