A Biased BBC obeserver notes the State Broadcaster rushing to defend the honour of single mums ‘stigmatised’ by Tory politicians as having caused the recent riots.
Joint BBC/Guardian effort (as with Toynbee and her class war piece).
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/console/b013y465
Colin Paterson talks to the singer Jamelia.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0140p9n/Jamelia_Shame_about_Single_Mums/
Jamelia presents a show on single mothers.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2011/aug/20/jamelia-single-parents
Jamelia talks to the Guardian.
Jamelia actually supports the notion of the ‘family’ but falls into the BBC ‘think’ of not wanting to judge single mothers…..in this she makes the second mistake by lumping all single mothers together….because the mothers being ‘stigmatised’ were one particular type, those who not only had many children by different fathers but also didn’t bother to control or teach them anything.
The riots were not blamed on single mothers but irresponsible parents as a whole were criticised, but it was mostly irresponsible politicians, liberal social activists and certain media types who were finally challenged on their policies and blamed for the riots.
Jamelia’s final words told us everything about the intentions of the programme…not a gritty honest examination of single motherhood warts and all but a plea not to judge, not to condemn bad behaviour, not to demand better behaviour.
‘What single mothers deserve more than anything else in the world is respect.’
Wasn’t that precisely the attitude that produced the riots? You can do no wrong….you have a hard life and so cannot be condemned for your behaviour….you deserve more regardless as to whether you have worked for it or not.
But look what else Jamelia says essentially blowing her liberal emotional argument out of the water with her own real life observations:
‘Absent fathers, she believes, are the reason many teenage boys go off the rails – there’s no strong male to keep them on track. ” If my brothers had had positive male role models around, people who looked out for them, they wouldn’t have got into trouble. I believe that 100%,”
During the riots, one middle-aged Afro-Caribbean woman told a television crew: “This would never happen in Jamaica.” Jamelia agrees. In Jamaica, there’s a very strict moral code, which is quite Victorian. Grandparents look after the children a lot because Jamaicans are very family-oriented. “I do think parents have been too liberal.”
I heard a ‘single mum’ interview about 2 days ago. Usual comments about ‘I can bring them up properly’, etc….. Questions never asked, does the father see the children, do they pay for their offspring. Another point not investigated, is the density of single mothers. That is years ago, single mothers would be surrounded by normal families and the kids would pick up the morals of the normal family kids with real fathers. When you live on a sink estate and the father is a rarity, then the social situation is completely different.
Jamelia is not the standard single mum caricature at all. When the BBC does single mums, it invariably includes the intelligent ones who generally articulate their situation well.
The BBC confuses the issue of single mums in general with the issue of single mums who have numerous, often highly unsuitable partners. Hence Baby P.
I’m amused to read about the strict moral code and Victorian morals of Jamaica. Would this be the Jamaica of out-of-control gangsterism, murder, gun crime and drug crime which they have so successfully exported to the UK? Along with the custom of irresponsible men siring children right left and centre, as the egregious Darcus Howe has proudly proclaimed? Yes, indeed, he boasted about this, yet still there are those who will blame the single mothers left holding the baby for the inadequacies and irresponsibilities of those men.
“Here’s my radical cure for the epidemic of single mothers… pay men to commit to their families”
(Melanie Phillips)
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1254527/MELANIE-PHILLIPS-Heres-radical-cure-epidemic-single-mothers–pay-men-commit-families.html#ixzz1Wgsrpbgb
The BBC is swamped with ‘single mums’ and their lobbyists, but very little is heard from the other sex, e.g.
‘Families Need Fathers’:
http://www.fnf.org.uk/news-and-events/campaigns-and-public-affairs