Evelina Silveira, President, Diversity at Work – Publisher Inclusion Quarterly, and Diversity and Inclusion on a Budget.
The other day I recounted to a colleague that I blog about what makes me angry and passionate. I get really angry about the spread of hatred to any group and worst of all I get really angry when I know that valuable charitable dollars and government funds unknowingly and innocently are used to passively promote sexism, racism, and more.
Last night I couldn’t take it anymore.
A family member translated a joke that he had read in a local ethnic newspaper. The punch line was not funny to any of us. But obviously the editor must have got a chuckle. It was yet another joke that portrayed black people as savage beasts. This isn’t the first time this paper has done this. It also has a history of printing anti-Semitic jokes about money hungry, hooked- nosed Jews. Those weren’t funny either. We all have friends who are black and Jewish and we had an emotional response. My family member who is part of this ethnic group was outraged. If this newspaper was supposed to represent his cultural values, they did not do a good job of portraying his, he said.
I wish I could say that this is the only ethnic newspaper that does this but it is not. Former ESL students of mine often commented with disbelief about ethnic newspapers delivered to their schools with horrible offensive cartoons. Sometimes you don’t even have to know how to read the language to get a feel for what is coming through the cartoon images.
I remember the disgust I felt when I saw a cartoon of Condoleezza Rice some years ago portrayed with exaggerated lips, and butt – the stereotypical caricature of a black woman. Regardless, of your politics, you cannot overlook the incredible achievement this woman has made in her career in a male- dominated white government. Why reduce her to such a subordinate level? Not only was this cartoon racist it was misogynistic.
What about all of the anti-West propaganda found in these papers and more? Does it help these readers to feel more a part of Canadian society? How is this conducive? Creating a polarity of “them” and “us”? It doesn’t seem overly logical to me.
Freedom of speech is a wonderful thing and I wouldn’t want to that to change. For some of these fledgling newspapers they rely heavily on the advertising dollars from various levels of government and non-profits to keep them running. Non-profits believe that they are doing the right thing, getting their message out to a wider audience by using ethnic newspapers to do so and I am not discounting the value. The government does it to inform their constituents and to gain voters. Again, I doubt that any of these politicians would knowingly spend taxpayers’ dollars funding racist and sexist newspapers. They are in a bind because this is one of the most cost effective and fastest ways to get things out to ethnic constituents. Ethnic marketing is cheap in comparison to conventional forms.
However, I challenge governments and others who continue to put out dollars to these bigoted papers.
1. Consider your brand integrity when you choose an ethnic outlet. There are some exceptional ethnic newspapers with great journalist quality that do not engage in these bullying, bigoted and hate propaganda spreading tactics. Find out who they are and align yourself with those people. Remember, where you advertise is a reflection of you. Do you want to be associated with funding the spread of hatred against Jews, blacks, women, gays and others? You have a choice – don’t do it!
Take a look at a years worth of papers and see if you like what you see and what you read. Have someone who speaks the language go over the paper. Resist the urge to get cheap advertising by compromising your principles. I have been offered free space in some of these hate generating papers and ones that regularly contribute to the degradation of women and I have said no to them. At the end of the day, I have to keep with my principles and support the people close to me.
2. Leverage your power as a customer. You have a great program that your organization is running which has health benefits to the specific ethnic community that you are targeting. But you see that the ethnic paper that you are advertising in is bigoted toward some groups. So what do you do? Don’t lock yourself into a long term advertising contract. Tell them you will monitor their paper and demand change. You can ask the editor to write a note of apology in his/her paper and encourage him/her to write articles that are helpful toward Canadian integration.
3. Remember your responsibility. Are you using charitable dollars or taxpayer’s money to support these papers? Don’t channel hard earned dollars into media that is counter-productive to Canadian values of inclusion. Do your homework and ask around. Like I said, there are wonderful ethnic outlets with journalistic integrity that do a great service to their communities, helping them become more integrated into Canadian culture and embracing unity. These hard working professionals need more support and think of them next time you want to target a particular ethnic community or increase your reach.
We all have a role in shaping our country, making it inclusive and safe. We all benefit. What is special about Canada is that we somehow have managed to remain peaceful with all of our diversity. Let’s keep it that way. By challenging negative stereotypes and holding people accountable for spreading hate – we will be way ahead of the rest.