A clumsy social faux pas should never be confused with criminal abuse
BBC Three, the channel targeting 16 to 34-year-olds, flies below the radar for most BBC users. This unfortunately enables its site to be crammed full of junk, from endless stories about body image to an oh-so-quirky series called Things Not to Say to…, the ellipsis filled with a different category each time.
Some of them are interesting. People with Dwarfism, for example. The video features eight people with dwarfism discussing common behaviours they encounter. Having dwarfism too often involves being randomly picked up, asked “where mum is” and photographed. A surprising number have been asked by strangers whether their genitals are “in proportion”. And none are happy about being called “midgets”. Admittedly, it took me a few moments to understand this last one because the BBC bleeped the word out.
This highly censorious approach is, in fact, the principle behind the whole project. The complaints listed in Things Not to Say to Female Bartenders place actual crimes, like groping, in the same category as people calling them “love” and waving money at them when impatient for service. In Things Not to Say to Eastern Europeans, the subjects discuss a few real slurs, but otherwise moan about gripes like being asked if they drink vodka.
When I lived in the US, I was often asked if I knew the Queen, how much a shilling was worth and, in a comedy “English” voice, whether I would like to take some tea. This became a bit annoying, but I wouldn’t put it on a par with assaulting someone with dwarfism or being told to go home and stop stealing natives’ jobs.
The problem with this “zany” trash made for
This censorious approach is the principle behind the BBC programme
“young people” is that it puts a chirpy gloss on a chilling project to dampen free speech. Calling out genuine racism and abuse is one thing, but bracketing that with simple ignorance, boorishness or parochial figures of speech is just a way of making people feel scared to interact, sealing their lips and establishing a hierarchy of sophistication in the name of combating prejudice. It is the opposite of what a national broadcaster should be doing.