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.”