Dear BBC
I have been a license payer for more moons than care to remember, so I feel upset that I need to ‘put pen to paper’. In the space of 24hrs I have heard not one, but two, uses of language on BBC airways that I find highly problematic. To hear M* and N* used on prime time shows were chilling moments, because in the safety of my own car and at my own breakfast table, I felt mocked, shamed and insulted. Many will no doubt argue that words don’t break bones, I think they legitimise greater abuse. I wonder how many were teased in the workplace or shamed in playground as a result of sloppy, mean and careless wording. Let’s face it, if the woman or man on the radio can say ... the words used are to be spoken without hesitation. I wonder how many of us sat by our radios stunned and hurt, waiting for an apology ... it never came.
My beef though isn’t with the individuals involved, I’m hoping they are sufficiently mortified. Yes, I’ve been there! I am not on some kind of political correctness vendetta either. My issue is with the Corporation, and with what I consider a failure to give their employees the adequate information to keep their audiences safe from the power they hold as speakers. The words are not to blame, they are neither bad or wrong, it’s the meaning behind them that needs care, their association to pain therefore requires airing. Calling people names is petty at best. But labelling has helped paid professionals lock people up. Ridiculing people with all types of impairments has made dehumanising and shaming ideas so common place they are not noticed. For many the M word is synonymous with people being denied freedom, as stated in law under the Mental Deficiency Act, a piece of legislation that led to people’s detention in often atrocious, inhuman and painful ways. As for N*, most people to have left it in the playground... where it does not belong either!! If individuals wish to use it behind closed doors, well shame on them, it’s not a crime - but it'll teach others to be unkind. In public, however, specific terms can make people with all types of impairments feel victimised, pushed out and ashamed. Childishness doesn’t soften the blow, I feel it makes it worse. Radio is an intimate medium, hearing the rejection of one’s humanity over breakfast did not put me in a good frame of mind for a day in the board room. [Apologies owed!] As disabled person I felt treated as an object of derision, rubbished if you like. clearly, my contribution to society is not worthy of consideration. Sadly, it took me right back to being kicked in the corridors and having my head flushed in the toilets at school.
Surely it is the Corporation’s responsibility to ensure that every single individual in its audience is treated with respect. That means knowing what harms those in specific groups, under the law, see the Equalities Act for characteristics of 9 groups. People who identify as members of marginalised groups have equal right to feel safe to switch on - radio, tv, and internet. Disabled people have been recognised as a group entitled to specific attention since 1999 by The Disability Discrimination Act. Ignorance is no longer defence here, and I would argue that the introduction to Disability Equality has been a route to helping many understand an entitlement to parity for the disabled population. I think at the very least the education in the workplace helps prevent attacks - though obviously not over the breakfast table or in the car. It says volumes about the culture of the BBC that bullying and degrading language goes unnoticed. Broadcasters seem to feel it is ok walk into other people’s lives, and carry their ignorance unashamedly and use words with casual disregard. Maybe we, the denigrated and mocked, need to withdraw our support in more interesting ways…
I don’t think I’m being a disgruntled-of-Tonbridge here. I am proper disgusted that there are far bigger crimes in the world. Wars, epidemics and poverty driven by global inequality. I am scandalised that people who are locked up, have their heads kicked in, and die without institutional accountability or national outrage. In a country that can’t afford to support its most disadvantaged citizens, successive governments prioritise spending on growth and kind regard for what greater wealth can buy. While it appears we live in a world that cannot afford to extend an entitlement to social justice or well-being to all beings equitably. These things offend and disgust me in the extreme. HOWEVER, I think, there is a disrespect that is often left unchallenged as a thinner end of a far more lethal cultural wedge. One that helps to justify the freedom of people in privileged positions, paid generously to speak publicly across the globe, to express their disregard for those possibly facing far more pain and hardship than they’ll ever have to know?
* I have removed the actual words in this text, as a this now blog it stands in the public domain. I think the actual words can easily be inserting by the reader, or even replaced by others, ruder or more explicit. The words will be used in private communication, whilst unfortunate, those getting this as a letter will need to identify those involved and expressions used. My intention is not to pick on individual, messaging them or pointing them out directly, but to raise issues of institutional and organisational accountability more generally from a position of professional wisdom and vague academic insight.
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