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[image description: Paul Raffaele said a Suruwaha girl refused to shake his hand because she wanted to kill him. In fact, he was wearing so much sun cream the Suruwaha thought he had a skin disease.]
© Survival International
Australia’s Channel 7 network has been found guilty by the press regulator of serious violations of the broadcasting code, after screening a report so extreme it was branded ‘Freakshow TV’ by Survival International.
The report labelled Brazil’s Suruwaha tribe as child murderers; ‘Stone Age’ relics; and ‘one of the worst human rights violators in the world’.
Survival complained to Australia’s regulator ACMA after Channel 7 refused Survival’s request to issue a correction to its report, broadcast on its Sunday Night programme.
In a landmark judgment, ACMA has now ruled that the Channel was guilty of breaking its racism clause – ‘provoking intense dislike, serious contempt or severe ridicule against a person or group’ – believed to be the first time it has found a broadcaster guilty of this serious offence under the 2010 TV Code. It has also ruled that the Channel was guilty of broadcasting inaccurate material.
Survival’s Director Stephen Corry said today, ‘This was one of the worst reports about contemporary tribal people we’d ever seen. The Indians were made out to be cruel and inhuman monsters, in the spirit of 19th century colonialist scorn for ‘primitive savages’.
‘What makes it even worse is that the Suruwaha have been under attack by fundamentalist missionaries for years, who are waging a campaign slandering them as child-murderers. The missionaries are behind a draft law to allow them to remove Indian children from their communities, something with horrifying echoes of the Stolen Generations scandal.
‘The Channel 7 crew told the Suruwaha they wanted to allow them to put their side of the story – but actually produced one of the most grotesquely distorted pictures of a tribal people we can remember. The programme even openly fundraised for the missionaries on its website. We hope this ruling will mean we’re less likely to see such dangerous rubbish on TV in the future.’
Channel 7 is seeking a judicial review of the ruling in Australia’s Federal Court.
Note to Editors:
Survival has written a set of ethical guidelines to help filmmakers work responsibly with tribal peoples. It is also using its Stamp it Out campaign to challenge racist depictions, however unwitting, in the media.
Previously, Survival has highlighted how British TV company Cicada Films was accused of irresponsibly endangering the lives of Peruvian Indians by allegedly provoking a flu epidemic amongst them; and how a TV series about an Amazonian tribe was labelled ‘staged, false, fabricated and distorted’ by experts.
Download a Survival briefing sheet on the proposed ‘Muwaji’s law’, the result of a campaign in Brazil by the fundamentalist missionary organization JOCUM (pdf, 70 KB). JOCUM are the Brazilian branch of the US organization Youth with a Mission.
Download a briefing sheet on what experts and Indians say about JOCUM’s infanticide allegations (pdf, 49 KB).
Download statements from Suruwaha Indians about the Channel 7 report (pdf, 33 KB).](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_matto6trDK1qa9j9oo1_500.jpg)
I’m reminded of how often WW have created a negative, competitive atmosphere with me, meaning they are the ones that initiated it and I wasn’t even thinking that way. I’m usually just trying to get through my day and suddenly here’s this shifty-acting White chick all salty over me because of some racist misogynistic, anti-BW bullshit she’s got going on in HER head. It’s the heffa who smugly mentions her address when she finds out I and my husband have a house in one of the most desirable neighborhoods in town. It’s the chick who’s suddenly cold to me when she finds out I’m married AND my husband is White. It’s the ganch who wants to treat me like I’m at home barefoot in the kitchen and makes all sorts of passive-aggressive remarks when she finds out I am a housewife who doesn’t have to work outside the home when I never in any way presented myself as such. And I’m left scratching and then shaking my head because I never came at her the way she’s coming at me.
It’s the White bitch who schemes, and all too often succeeds, in getting rid of the Black woman at the job who the guys think is attractive/smart/competent. The fellas in the mailroom think you’re dope? It doesn’t matter if this chick is an account executive, you’re about to be gone. Dress too good for a Black woman? Obviously, you’re making WAY too much money. Better talk to the higher ups about cutting your salary or eliminating your job. Get a compliment about how you do your job from a higher up? She’ll make sure to meticulously document and broadcast any and every mistake you ever make even if she’s not in your department, even if she’s not your boss, even if she’s the same level as you!
And the thing is, we never realize till the end, or near it, that we were in a competition. A Miss America on meth. We thought we were just working a job or talking with peers. We didn’t know that by not living a low-down, perpetually suffering, dingy, dirty properly shitty Black woman life in front of White women we had enrolled ourselves in a best-woman contest.
And that’s the thing. We don’t even have to be living absolutely fabulous, lifestyles-of-the-rich-and-famous lives. Just not appearing to be ground down into pulp is enough to raise WW’s ire at us. I worked with a chick who had the nerve to be unpleasantly shocked that I live in a HOUSE. I didn’t last in that job. I’ve had WW turn on me when they found out I spoke foreign languages and had traveled and studied overseas. I’ve seen the green eyed monster from WW when a WM guessed my chrono age to be 15 years younger (and then he really killed ol’ girl with “I thought you were 27 AT THE MOST”) than my actual one. Hell, I’ve gotten hate from being a housewife and not out there totin’ someone’s barge and liftin’ someone’s bail.
WW have always competed with BW since we arrived on American shores. Sumptuary laws were passed in America so that BW’s looks and beauty would not rival WW’s. There were some places where BW were not allowed to wear the elaborate hats and hairstyles WW were affecting. We could only wear scarves as head coverings. Those laws were a bust as BW learned how to rock the looks they were allowed to perfection. We wrapped our heads with such eclat that we all too often caught the eyes of WW’s husbands, fathers and brothers despite the laws desperately trying to give WW a head start in feminine pulchritude.
The fact that bs article was a WW trying to pit herself against a Black mother was just another instance of WW trying to force BW into competition with them and then trying to twist the rules, change them midway, stack the deck and straight up cheat their way into first place. Mostly, they just don’t tell you they’re competing even as they do every dirty trick in the book. It’s like someone deciding to race you by just taking off running and not telling you when to start, where the finish line is or even that you’re racing in the first place all the while strewing tacks and nails all in your way while they’re running.
It’s funny to me, because WW’s insecurity regarding BW is always just under the surface in our relations with each other. It’s a huge component as to why BW can’t trust WW. It’s why so many BW are not interested in joining WW’s movements and organizations. It’s not that we don’t understand feminism or disagree with its fundamental ideology. It’s that we know you all’s virulent insecurity vis a vis your feelings of White superiority vs. Black women’s capabilities will erupt all over us and we’ll be the victim. The fact that you all react so outsize to it, messing with and endangering BW’s livelihoods, health, wealth, families make dealing with it and you all so not worth the effort or chance.
I gotta get ready for this in life.
