Thursday 5 January 2012

The Stephen Lawrence Story - media and political manipulation and myth.

Firstly... this isn't about Stephen Lawrence as a person or his murder or his murderers, rather it is about the story that politicians and the media created based on those events, and used to manipulate public opinion. This blog entry isn't even about whether that was a good or bad thing generally, its just pointing out that it happened.

I could preface this with mealy mouthed waffle on about tragedy, awfulness, pity, struggle etc - but you can pluck a para or two of that from any number of news websites, so take it as read ok?

The story that has been presented to me over the past 15 years based on this event - and many other 'equality' stories - has been this is some one just like you except in one vital detail, that one detail being the thing that the public are told they are prejudice about, that one detail being something that the equalities industry are making money out of, and politicians are making political capital out of.

In this story the victim is a Londoner, a youth, out one evening with a friend - just like any other London youth might have been at that time - someone you could relate to, empathise with 100% - but he is murdered for one reason, the one thing that makes him at all different to you, that one reason is the colour of his skin. He is you, you are him, except for this one simple difference.

But, after 15 years of this story being repeated over and over and over exactly as first told, suddenly new information comes out, information that changes the 'just like you' part of the story, no reason is given for this information not having been given before to make the story more honest. Rather it seems the story has served its purpose, and now there are more newspapers to sell so that story doesn't matter any more.

It turns out that the victim was not 'just like' any other London youth, not someone solidly bound to the city or even the country - he had seriously considered moving out of the UK (back?) to Jamaica where his parents came, a place he had been taken to as a baby, moving there to work, and it turns out that his grave is actually in Jamaica too. Was he British? Was he Jamaican? A murder is a murder, but misrepresentation is still misrepresentation.

As I said at the start, this isn't about Stephen Lawrence as a person or his murder or his murderers - it is about the misleading story the public have been fed about who the people involved in this incident are/were.

Why did the 'story' leave out so many facts to paint the particular picture it did? Presumably to get additional public sympathy, dishonestly exploiting the empathy of the British people. I think you can forgive a family doing everything in their power to get justice, but the police? the politicians who have been grandstanding and band-wagon jumping and used this to manipulate the public? and the media (papers and television) delivering the politicians message (or their own hidden agenda), instead of the honest facts and news?

None of this changes the facts of the case, but 'the story', its creators, publishers and distributors have been deceiving the public for 15 years...

p.s. I am blogging this because I feel deceived - why should you care? Well if you don't care that's fine, bye, its no skin off my nose.

p.p.s. Any comments not based on the content of this post will simply be deleted - there are plenty of other places on the internet to publish unrelated stuff.

2 comments:

  1. There was no deception, his family did NOT move to Jamaica whilst he was alive or after his death, therefore your article is pointless. Mr Lawrence was born in Greenwich District Hospital in London, making him a valid British citizen. It is absurd to suggest that an 18 year old could seriously consider moving to a foreign land, and yes it would be foreign as he was not born there! His grave site is in Jamaica because his family felt let down by Britain, as after all this is the land that not only was he murdered but also failed to provide justice.

    These details have not been hidden by the media/family; they are irrelevant to the murder case which was the only reason why any articles about Stephen Lawrence were published in the first place!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You appear to be wrong on most counts - so much so that I wonder why you bothered commenting...

      But as you choose to be anonymous, so unwilling to to put your name to what you claim as your view, I guess it doesn't much matter...

      Delete