One of Britain's two black newspapers, the Voice, has kicked up a relative fuss over comments made by the founder of Kid's Company, Camila Batmanghelidjh (pictured, with little rascals in tow), to a House of Commons Select Committee. She said (and I'm paraphrasing), that black women were to blame for the decline of the black family unit. My understanding is that black men pregnant (to use a Nigerian verb) their black women, often more than one, and then abandon them to a solitary life of pram-pushing and nappy-tying. But according to Batmanghelidjh, black women are partly responsible because they reject black men - first as mothers, and then as lovers. There starts the dysfunctionality. Kenya London News covered the original Commons appearance.For those of you who don't know Camila Batmanghelidjh, she's hugged more hoodies than you've had hot dinners, and was crowned one of the UK's Women of the Year. She's also just released a book called Shattered Lives, which was the basis for a very good Woman's Hour interview in May. I also listened to her Desert Island Discs a couple of weeks ago, which had some interesting choices.
10 comments:
And what do you think of her statements, Nkem?
Fred, are you asking me to get off the fence?
Camilla came on Choice FM this morning (on the Angie Le Mar show) to deny what she has been quoted as saying. She said that she never mentioned the word 'Black' but said that rather than continuously blaming men (eg absent fathers etc etc) for the decline in the family unit, women (some?) were also to blame.
She did Anonymous--plus, I was surprised to find that some people actually believed it without verifying the truth of her so-called statement. Transcripts of government meetings can be obtained and the Voice should have (if they didn't beforehand) done this before printing her alleged comments.
Glad that's cleared up. Is it?
Does that mean beyond black sheep, blackmail, blacklist, blackball we now have black Voice?
Where you find a criticism and then make it your own and colour it black enough to make an outcry and outrage of the criticism?
If that was to sell papers, I am not only disappointed, I am appalled, now the real message has been lost in the rotten cacophony that ensued.
It's a shame that one of the most popular Newspaper in the black community did not bother to check their facts right before publishing such an article. Were they trying to spin to story to have a more grabbing headline? I doubt if they will ever retract the misleading aricle or at least apologise for giving a wriong impression.
It's unlike Nkem to sit on the fence...is the Beeb getting to you?
gosh, what does she know
i.e. the lady
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