Recently I’ve come to notice how Christmas movies (now that we’re approaching the season) have become – and possibly have always been – a true representation of a really White Christmas; in other words the main characters mostly being caucasian. Even parliaments are less representative of the composition of our society in terms of diversity in all its forms not just ethnically. The natural outcome of this disparity is that people begin to get the impression – consciously or unconsciously – that this is the norm. But the fact is that our societies have become much more diverse than ever and we should be trying to emphasise this reality rather than inadvertently creating a different reality – one that breads racism & xenophobia at one extreme to merely not appreciating how our society has changed at another but both see adapting to such a change as a threat or just unnecessary. As for the politics side of the coin, well the exiting template simply translates to us being unable to benefit from the multidimensional approach in policy formulation which can be far more effective/reflective of our society particularly when dealing with complex challenges both at home/abroad. We don’t want legitimacy markers as I mentioned in my previous post as people who are appointed just to make a point and are merely “yes” men/women; rather what we want is a genuine effort to have a balanced composition of our elected representatives in order to have it genuinely reflects our society and our values so that we the public don’t make our own false assumptions about who we really are. Now you could reasonably ask; now would that fix the political mess we have in our political system? to which I would promptly/adamantly respond; absolutely NOT dear – this is the topic of political reform I posted regularly about. What this will do however is make it more of a colourful mess for our amusement. I suspect there is a message in there somewhere for the EU parliament, just can’t point my finger at it, mmmm………….
The story of the Sainsbury Christmas ad – link below – makes the point above clear. Here’s my final point; we as a society believe who we are based on what we see NOT what politicians preach or what we’re taught – in other words its is not entirely about racism but common sense/human nature, Right Harry? Just STOP being Scary!
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