Thread by @AyoCaesar

Re: *that* Politics Live panel, the trouble with saying that it wouldn't happen to any other minority is that it does happen to other minorities.

There's a fundamental problem in news and current affairs media when it comes to demonstrating basic racial literacy.

At one level, it's a problem of panel structure and representation. Having a Jewish person come in for 5 minutes to discuss "are Jews ethnic minorities?" with a panel of non-Jewish people is obviously an awful way to address a serious and historically nuanced question.

You see it with discussions around BLM and Islamophobia all the time: a voice of colour gets parachuted in to talk race with an otherwise white panel. Structurally that's just bare iffy, and inadequate for addressing the issue with the thoughtfulness it deserves.

But even when you do have the right representation, that's not a guarantee of having a good discussion. Sometimes questions themselves are so wrongheaded and obtuse as to actively inhibit an illuminating, or indeed a challenging, discussion.

Exhibit A:

https://twitter.com/ZoeJardiniere/status/1366659340522905604

In my experience, bad questions are the ones which start from a hypothetical or speculative premise rather than one which is rooted in observable reality and demonstrates some real knowledge of the issue at hand.

Even if I disagree with how that reality is being defined (e.g. 90% of people in this poll say Muslims are a threat to society), that's infinitely better to argue with than "what if the only way to save this white person's life was for them to say the N word, would that be ok?"

Better representation when talking about race and other forms of identity-based discrimination is one thing, but it's meaningless without better informed framing.

I don't think minorities being fairly represented in stupid discussions counts as a win!