Bristol Post apologises for 'Faces of Evil' front page 21 years ago

[strung out]

Interesting development today with the Bristol Post apologising to Bristol's African and Afro-Caribbean community for a front page they published 21 years ago. I admit I wasn't aware of this - I was only 12 at the time - but it's a surprise to see the Bristol Post doing this so many years later.



Why the Bristol Post is apologising for a front page produced 21 years ago

"To the people who produced it nearly quarter of a century ago, it was just another Bristol Evening Post front page.

But the effect of that page was so powerful that it offended and ostracised a large section of the city’s community. So much so, that it continues to do so.

Even now, if you go to St Pauls or Easton and ask about the Bristol Post, it won’t be long before someone mentions the Faces of Evil front page of Wednesday, April 17, 1996.

Many of them can still see its simple design in their mind’s eye. Alongside that now-notorious headline stared back 16 police pictures of black men jailed for dealing in crack cocaine.

I don’t blame the journalists who conceived it. I wasn’t the editor then but - if I had been - I’m sure I would have published the page, too.

But it was a huge mistake. That one image essentially destroyed what little credibility and trust the Post had within Bristol’s African and Afro-Caribbean community.

So, today, I want to apologise for that page. I want to say sorry for the hurt it caused - and continues to cause - to an entire community of my city.

Moreover, I want to try to make amends for it."

 

[DaveCinzano]

...The Evening Post - as it was called then - was already disconnected from the city’s black communities. It was another Bristol institution that the people in those communities didn’t feel was for them. They were already wary of telling the Post about their news or their successes. They already had a suspicion that the paper wrote about black people only when they committed crime.

The Faces of Evil front page, with its black faces ranged in rows like slaves held in cages, cemented that view...

 

[DaveCinzano]

BTL is, of course, as fruity as ever.

 

[Mation]

I don't think the bit you quoted does justice to the apology, strung out . I was cross at that, given that it starts with being ambiguous about whether it's concerned with people feeling offended (implication: their fault) or with having been offensive (taking some responsibility), but on reading the article... seems as good or at least genuine as it can be, from a/my position of not knowing what comes next, i.e. whether this is just marketing or means they will actually do something.

 

[Thimble Queen]

"The Faces of Evil front page, with its black faces ranged in rows like slaves held in cages."

I find it very difficult to accept that this is part of a sincere apology.

 

[Treacle Toes]

"The Faces of Evil front page, with its black faces ranged in rows like slaves held in cages."

I find it very difficult to accept that this is part of a sincere apology.

It's sick really isn't it? I cant believe this editor has thought through their own negative associations with this comparison. Fucking hell! Then goes on to attempt an apology and give reasoning yet...why should I forget that they still associate Black faces with slavery...why should anyone trust that despite their call to move on and celebrate progression when they themselves clearly haven't?

 

[cupid_stunt]

Further coverage & comments on the industry website:

Bristol Post says sorry for 'Faces of Evil' front page - Journalism News from HoldtheFrontPage

The current editor doesn't seem very serious with his comment on that page:

For the record, this was before my time as editor, I would never have sanctioned a Cooper Black Italic wob strapline.

* wob = white out of black.

 

[Chemical needs]

Plus they republished the whole front page with all of the names. I don't think that was a very sensitive thing to do.

 

[likesfish]

Sorry things to be angry about a load of drug dealers get their photo on the front page 21 years ago is not a historic injustice

 

[Mation]

"The Faces of Evil front page, with its black faces ranged in rows like slaves held in cages."

I find it very difficult to accept that this is part of a sincere apology.

Eep! I missed that. That is a deeply weird thing to have written.

 

[Thimble Queen]

Eep! I missed that. That is a deeply weird thing to have written.

Yes esp given Bristol was one of the main slave ports. I would gave thought black people in Bristol would be acutely aware of that history and I don't see how this editor guy would be unaware.

Even using that word in the context of this discussion makes my skin crawl.

Btw I hadn't seen your post when I made mines.

 

[Mation]

Yes esp given Bristol was one of the main slave ports. I would gave thought black people in Bristol would be acutely aware of that history and I don't see how this editor guy would be unaware.

Even using that word in the context of this discussion makes my skin crawl.

Btw I hadn't seen your post when I made mines.

Yep - completely agree!

 

[butchersapron]

Mike Norton is quite a confused person i feel. He celebrates the removal of the mass murderer Colston's name from various places and institutions whilst arguing that a way forward would be to have more black Merchant Venturers. The merchant venturers are a highly secretive evil cabal of thieves and liars quietly fleecing the city's citizens and extending hidden a network of silent influence across our schools and various other public institutions. There ain't a pie in bristol they haven't got their malignant fingers in. They have deep deep roots in the historic slave trade and are indelibly linked to the person and name of the aforementioned slaver Edward Colston - the one whose name and influence Norton is simultaneously decrying.

This appears to to the year of change btw. I can't see anything about these mooted conversations anywhere.

 

[kalidarkone]

When I first arrived in Bristol in 1986 from London, I was shocked by the segregation . Black people mostly only lived in St Pauls, St Werburghs and Easton. I felt that Bristol was way behind London in terms of other cultures being integrated. This was reflected by the reception I got from the Jamaican community there - I was a 'sell out' and not ' properly black' and was vilified for having a white partner and a child that initially looked very white. All this after growing up in North London where it was completely normal to me to be surrounded by diversity not just in colour and ethnicity but politicaly and culturally.

 

[skyscraper101]

When I first arrived in Bristol in 1986 from London, I was shocked by the segregation . Black people mostly only lived in St Pauls, St Werburghs and Easton. I felt that Bristol was way behind London in terms of other cultures being integrated. This was reflected by the reception I got from the Jamaican community there - I was a 'sell out' and not ' properly black' and was vilified for having a white partner and a child that initially looked very white. All this after growing up in North London where it was completely normal to me to be surrounded by diversity not just in colour and ethnicity but politicaly and culturally.

That sounds awful. I wonder why were there such differences between the two cities. Do you feel the racism from the black community was borne out of specific hostility in Bristol from the white community, or do you think it was deeper, more cultural from the Jamaican side?

The notion that having a partner of a different race made you not 'proper' and true to your roots is fucking laughable to me. But having grown up in the westcountry it also comes as no surprise.

 

[SpookyFrank]

"The Faces of Evil front page, with its black faces ranged in rows like slaves held in cages."

I find it very difficult to accept that this is part of a sincere apology.

That's just a bizarre thing to say. Bizarre and utterly tactless.

 

[dylanredefined]

That's just a bizarre thing to say. Bizarre and utterly tactless.

Sounds like someone did some diversity training and means well but hasn't got a clue.

 

[SpookyFrank]

Sounds like someone did some diversity training and means well but hasn't got a clue.

You can't train basic sense into people IME.

 

[Brainaddict]

I don’t blame the journalists who conceived it. I wasn’t the editor then but - if I had been - I’m sure I would have published the page, too.

It's really quite a strange apology.

 

[Brainaddict]

Mike Norton is quite a confused person i feel. He celebrates the removal of the mass murderer Colston's name from various places and institutions whilst arguing that a way forward would be to have more black Merchant Venturers. The merchant venturers are a highly secretive evil cabal of thieves and liars quietly fleecing the city's citizens and extending hidden a network of silent influence across our schools and various other public institutions. There ain't a pie in bristol they haven't got their malignant fingers in. They have deep deep roots in the historic slave trade and are indelibly linked to the person and name of the aforementioned slaver Edward Colston - the one whose name and influence Norton is simultaneously decrying.

This appears to to the year of change btw. I can't see anything about these mooted conversations anywhere.

This is interesting. My great grandfather from Bristol was killed in WWI and as a result his son, my grandfather, got some sort of support from the Merchant Venturers, though I've never been totally clear what form it took. In those days you were called an 'orphan' even if only your father was dead (I discovered this was the case until quite recently) so I guess he got whatever support was offered to orphans at the time.

 

[kalidarkone]

That sounds awful. I wonder why were there such differences between the two cities. Do you feel the racism from the black community was borne out of specific hostility in Bristol from the white community, or do you think it was deeper, more cultural from the Jamaican side?

The notion that having a partner of a different race made you not 'proper' and true to your roots is fucking laughable to me. But having grown up in the westcountry it also comes as no surprise.

Black people aren't in a position to be racist for a start- due to the power imbalance - it was nothing more than ignorance and from their point of view all they knew was growing up in Bristol which was very racially segregated. The riots in St Pauls had been a few years earlier after the inequality and racism towards the black community in St Pauls increasing the segregation, distrust etc and I was a black punk , one of very few in Bristol....
Jamaica is massively racially diverse btw, lots of Chinese and Indians as well as whites. My great grandmother was Scottish and my grandmother mixed race as pretty much all black Jamaicans are- so that is not the issue. Bristol is just really backward thinking relatively to London and probably Birmingham too. Where there was a black middle class in London ( indeed my background) this was not so apparent in Bristol.

 

[Thimble Queen]

That's just a bizarre thing to say. Bizarre and utterly tactless.

I think you're being quite generous.

 

[likesfish]

No you can be an offensive bigoted twat regardless of power imbalance or not racism is belief that your race is better than any other that’s it.

See refugees in the jungle hating one another nobody has any power in that situation.

 

[Saul Goodman]

No you can be an offensive bigoted twat regardless of power imbalance or not racism is belief that your race is better than any other that’s it.

See refugees in the jungle hating one another nobody has any power in that situation.

No it isn't.

 

[Treacle Toes]

No you can be an offensive bigoted twat regardless of power imbalance or not racism is belief that your race is better than any other that’s it.

Good grief. You really don't know what you are talking about do you?

 

[Idaho]

Google definition:

racism
ˈreɪsɪz(ə)m/
noun

1. prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism directed against someone of a different race based on the belief that one's own race is superior.

Not sure why you are being so aggressive when it's a common enough definition of the word.

 

[Puddy_Tat]

That sounds awful. I wonder why were there such differences between the two cities. Do you feel the racism from the black community was borne out of specific hostility in Bristol from the white community, or do you think it was deeper, more cultural from the Jamaican side?

obviously only one bit of the story, but may be worth reading up on the bristol bus boycott (1963) over refusal to employ black / asian people as bus crews - and note that the local TGWU at that time were far from what would now be seen as progressive on this issue.

London Transport, in contrast, were running recruitment drives in the 'west indies' from 1956 onwards (not that black bus workers in London didn't encounter some degree of shitty attitudes from some of their colleagues and passengers)

 

[Mation]

No you can be an offensive bigoted twat regardless of power imbalance or not racism is belief that your race is better than any other that’s it.

See refugees in the jungle hating one another nobody has any power in that situation.

 

[Mation]

Google definition:

racism
ˈreɪsɪz(ə)m/
noun

1. prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism directed against someone of a different race based on the belief that one's own race is superior.

Not sure why you are being so aggressive when it's a common enough definition of the word.

There is nothing aggressive about pointing out that he doesn't know what he is talking about. You choosing to say it is is very revealing though.

 

[likesfish]

prefer wikkipedia version than some random bint off the net

Racism is the belief in the superiority of one race over another, which often results in discrimination and prejudice towards people based on their race or ethnicity. Today, the use of the term "racism" does not easily fall under a single definition.[1]

The ideology underlying racist practices often includes the idea that humans can be subdivided into distinct groups that are different due to their social behavior and their innate capacities as well as the idea that they can be ranked as inferior or superior.[2] The Holocaust which led to the genocide of many millions of people based on an ideology of racial hierarchy is a well-known historical example of institutionalized racism, and so is the apartheid regime in South Africa, as well as slavery and segregation in the United States. Racism was also an aspect of the social organization of many colonial states and empires.

While the concepts of race and ethnicity are considered to be separate in contemporary social science, the two terms have a long history of equivalence in both popular usage and older social science literature. "Ethnicity" is often used in a sense close to one traditionally attributed to "race": the division of human groups based on qualities assumed to be essential or innate to the group (e.g. shared ancestry or shared behavior). Therefore, racism and racial discrimination are often used to describe discrimination on an ethnic or cultural basis, independent of whether these differences are described as racial. According to a United Nations convention on racial discrimination, there is no distinction between the terms "racial" and "ethnic" discrimination. The UN convention further concludes that superiority based on racial differentiation is scientifically false, morally condemnable, socially unjust and dangerous, and there is no justification for racial discrimination, anywhere, in theory or in practice.[3]

Racist ideology can become manifest in many aspects of social life. Racism can be present in social actions, practices, or political systems (e.g., apartheid) that support the expression of prejudice or aversion in discriminatory practices. Associated social actions may include nativism, xenophobia, otherness, segregation, hierarchical ranking, supremacism, and related social phenomena.