The UK film and television industry “must put its money and practices where its mouth is” to tackle systemic racism, according to an open letter signed by more than 4,000 producers, writers, directors and actors.
Actors including Chiwetel Ejiofor, Michaela Coel, Noel Clarke, David Oyelowo and Meera Syal, as well as presenter Anita Rani and directors Asif Kapadia, Gurinder Chadha and Rapman put their name to the open letter. They said that while messages of support of Black Lives Matter are “a first step”, the industry must do more “after decades of enabling racism in your ranks”.
The letter calls on broadcasters and film studios to banish “weak excuses” – such as arguing stories that do not centre around white people are “too small” or feel “too risky” – and to empower BAME producers, who are not given the same opportunities as directors.
“Hiring black and brown writers and directors is of course of great importance, but rarely is this opportunity given to black and brown independent producers.”
Unconscious or implicit bias is one part of the explanation for why, despite equalities being enshrined in law, minority groups are still at a disadvantage in many parts of life. The term was popularised after US social psychologists devised a way of measuring the prejudices that we are not necessarily aware of – the Implicit Association Test. They published a paper in 1998 claiming that their tool for measuring "the unconscious roots of prejudice" showed that 90-95% of people were susceptible.
While the reliability of that test is now contested, there is overwhelming wider evidence that unconscious bias seeps into decisions that affect recruitment, access to healthcare and outcomes in criminal justice in ways that can disadvantage black and minority ethnic people. One study found that university professors were far more likely to respond to emails from students with white-sounding names. Another showed that white people perceived black faces as more threatening than white faces with the same expression.
While some of our biases may begin on an unconscious level, experts caution that the concept of unconscious bias should not absolve people of discriminatory behaviour. “If you’re aware of these associations then you can bring to bear all of your critical skills and intelligence to see it’s wrong to think like that,” says Lasana Harris, a neuroscientist who studies prejudice and social learning at University College London. “We all have the ability to control that.”
The intervention comes as broadcasters and media companies are challenged to make good on their pledges to be more diverse in the wake of the Black Lives Matter protests prompted by the death of George Floyd.
On Monday the BBC announced it would spend at least £30m of its annual television commissioning budget on “diverse and inclusive content”. This is defined as programmes that feature diverse on-screen representation, diverse production teams and production companies run by individuals from a diverse background.
The sum is still small compared to the £1.7bn annual cost of running all the corporation’s television channels but the BBC’s director of creative diversity, June Sarpong, said more announcements will be coming soon: “This commitment will help to drive real change that will be felt by all audiences. It will also create a strong framework to help diverse storytellers succeed at all levels of the industry.”
The BBC also announced that from April 2021 it will require 20% of individuals working on new national television commissions to be from diverse backgrounds. In this context diversity is considered to mean BAME staff, people with disabilities, and people from lower socioeconomic backgrounds.
