[vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”111701″ img_size=”large” add_caption=”yes”][vc_custom_heading text=”Con ocasión de las nuevas medidas aprobadas por Reino Unido para abordar el blanqueo de capitales en las Islas Vírgenes Británicas, Davion Smith trata otros problemas de secretismo que dificultan los esfuerzos de los reporteros por descubrir la verdad”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]
Al formar los expatriados una parte considerable de la población de las Islas Vírgenes Británicas, apenas hay naturales del país entre los periodistas que trabajan en la prensa generalista local. Procedentes de naciones con una legislación de libertad de información firmemente instaurada, se encuentran con una sociedad en la que el acceso a datos está complicado. Esto se debe a que, a día de hoy, aún no existen leyes de la información en este territorio británico de ultramar, pese a las peticiones de que se implementen.
Pocas personas conocen las dificultades asociadas a la ausencia de dichas leyes tan bien como Zan Lewis, un periodista para la televisión que lleva 18 años informando en la zona.
“Siempre ha sido difícil conseguir información, sobre todo cuando intentas hacerlo a través del Gobierno. Es bien sabido que el Gobierno tiende a cribar los datos”, comenta.
El protocolo cultural para la obtención de datos sobre cuestiones gubernamentales y expedientes públicos normalmente dicta que los periodistas contacten con los departamentos responsables en cada caso. Después, el reportero en cuestión ha de dirigirse a funcionarios que a menudo se muestran cautelosos sobre facilitar información de cualquier tipo.
Esta implacable reticencia está arraigada en el miedo de los funcionarios a represalias del Gobierno, que podrían resultar en perder su empleo; por ello, a veces, para eludir las preguntas de los reporteros, los funcionarios utilizan la expresión: “Nos han ordenado que no hablemos con los medios”.
“Probablemente tengan datos que sean públicos y nadie esté intentando esconder —dice Freeman Rodgers, editor del periódico BVI Beacon—. Pero, al no existir un sistema claramente definido o una ley que diga ‘esto es conocimiento público’ y ‘esto no lo es’, creo que los funcionaros tienen a pecar de precavidos y normalmente prefieren no darte la información que estás buscando”.
Naturalmente, no todo tipo de información es necesariamente inofensiva, y al no existir libertades definidas en ese respecto, es difícil identificar dónde empieza la corrupción.
El país ya ha sido testigo de un escándalo —si bien uno ajeno al control del Gobierno— en el que la dificultad de acceso a información fue fundamental. Estas pequeñas islas del Caribe, con una población de unos 30.000 habitantes, aparecieron directamente involucradas en las revelaciones de 2016 sobre paraísos fiscales, conocidas como Papeles de Panamá. El mes pasado se anunció que los territorios británicos de ultramar, las Islas Vírgenes incluidas, estarían obligados a revelar las identidades de los propietarios de compañías con sede allí desde que Reino Unido aprobara nuevas medidas para abordar el blanqueo de capitales y la corrupción. La medida las obligará a hacer públicos los nombres de los dueños de todas las empresas registradas allí antes del fin de 2020.
También en mi caso he visto ejemplos de cómo contactar con departamentos gubernamentales en busca de expedientes ha resultado en clásicos casos de cargarle el muerto a otra persona. Una vez me dirigieron al ministro al cargo del tema. El ministro quería mandarme donde el secretario permanente del ministerio, que a su vez me indicó que acudiera al responsable de subdirección. Poco después, y sin haber hecho muchos progresos, me volvieron a desviar al ministro del principio.
En estas circunstancias, las operaciones de investigación relacionadas con el Gobierno local han resultado a veces en reportajes muy superficiales. Los periodistas virgenenses, que practican su labor en lo que podría describirse como un entorno mediático antipático, dependen de la información facilitada por chivatos que a menudo insisten mantener el anonimato. Esto ha llamado la atención del primer ministro de las Islas Vírgenes, Daniel Orlando Smith, que ha señalado los casos en aumento de denuncias anónimas y concluido por lo tanto que, en efecto, sí existe “libertad de información” en el territorio.
“Hasta cuando no hago público un documento acaba saliendo a la luz: eso es libertad de información”, aducía en una de sus intervenciones en una conferencia de prensa a principios de año.
Pese a la ausencia de estas leyes fundamentales, y pese a las dificultades que ello conlleva, tanto Freeman como Lewis han dado parte de una mejora en las circunstancias para acceder a información en las islas estos últimos años. Le atribuyen esta mejora al auge del llamamiento por una legislación que garantice la libertad de información.
“Hace 12 años, cuando llegué, no dejábamos de pedirlo. Al principio parecía que no nos escuchaba nadie, pero ahora creo que hay quienes han empezado a hacerlo, y que la gente está empezando a darse cuenta de su importancia. Creo que eso ha ayudado a que la información sea más accesible”, cuenta Freeman, que emigró desde EE.UU. para trabajar en las islas.
A lo largo de los años, los llamamientos a la legislación han provenido del antiguo comisionado de denuncias, el ya fallecido Elton Georges, y del exgobernador John Duncan, entre otros.
Augustus Jaspert, recientemente nombrado Gobernador de las Islas Vírgenes Británicas, ha puesto la instauración de dicha ley sobre la mesa. El pasado marzo, en su “Discurso desde el Trono” —una tradición con la que el Gobierno expone ante el parlamento los próximos puntos por tratar en su programa—, Jaspert prometió introducir un proyecto de ley de libertad de información en la Asamblea Legislativa del territorio antes de concluir el año.
“Esta legislación permitirá una mayor transparencia y más responsabilidad en cuanto a asuntos públicos —dijo—. El proyecto de ley incluye la recomendación de instaurar una Unidad de Libertad de Información que facilite al público los mecanismos administrativos adecuados para realizar y recibir solicitudes”.
Sin embargo, esta no es la primera vez que se promete una propuesta de ley de este tipo. Según la hemeroteca del BVI Beacon, las promesas de instaurar dicha ley se remontan a 2004.
El periódico dio parte de una Comisión de Reforma Legislativa que en 2004 emitió un informe al Gobierno de las Islas Vírgenes Británicas en el que recomendaba legislación concerniente a la libertad de información.
Desde aquello ha habido dos administraciones en el poder, ninguna de las cuales parece haber avanzado en absoluto en la implementación de la ley. Y, mientras las islas siguen demorándose en la tarea, el Gobierno actual ha de hacer frente a numerosas críticas sobre su falta de transparencia y evasión de responsabilidades.
Cabe reconocer el mérito de las críticas, dado que la prensa —y, por extensión, el público— lleva alrededor de una década incapaz de realizar un escrutinio exhaustivo de las operaciones del Gobierno de las islas. En 2017 se marcaron unos 10 años desde que el Gobierno produjera su último informe o auditoría financiera, y se halla actualmente en el proceso de preparar informes de carácter retroactivo.
Las críticas han surgido desde la propia administración de Smith, con la consiguiente división que ha provocado entre miembros del Gobierno. Según un reportaje online de BVI News, de marzo de 2018, ciertos miembros del Gobierno declararon que el primer ministro del país habría iniciado ciertas actividades en departamentos y ministerios «sin el conocimiento o consentimiento de los ministros constitucionalmente responsables de esas cuestiones».
El Gobierno también ha recibido críticas de la oposición parlamentaria. Otras naciones caribeñas, como San Cristóbal y Nieves, Jamaica, Guyana, Trinidad y Tobago o la República Dominicana ya han implementado leyes de libertad de información.
En vista de lo que puede describirse como ejemplos flagrantes de gestión cuestionable en las Islas Vírgenes Británicas, las demandas de una legislación por la libertad de información se están incrementando. Este aumento es bienvenido entre la pequeña fraternidad de periodistas que defienden la capacidad de la libertad de información para promover la asunción de responsabilidades, la transparencia y el buen gobierno.
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Davion Smith es reportero para BVI News. Vive en la isla de Tórtola.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Name of Art Work:Exhibit B Artist/s:Brett Bailey Date: September 2014 Venue: The Vaults, presented byThe Barbican Centre Brief description of the artwork/project: The Barbican’s publicity material described Exhibit B as: “a human installation that charts the colonial histories of various European countries during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries when scientists formulated pseudo-scientific racial theories that continue to warp perceptions with horrific consequences.”[/vc_column_text][vc_single_image image=”94431″ img_size=”full” add_caption=”yes”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”Why was it challenged? ” font_container=”tag:h3|text_align:left” use_theme_fonts=”yes”][vc_column_text]A campaign is formed in response to Exhibit B: Boycott the Human Zoo is a coalition of anti-racism activists, trade unions, artists, arts organisations and community groups. They set up an online petition which is signed by over 22,000 people, calling on the Barbican to decommission the work and withdraw it from their programme. The key objections named in the petition are:
“[It] is deeply offensive to recreate ‘the Maafa – great suffering’ of African People’s ancestors for a social experiment/process.
Offers no tangible positive social outcome to challenge racism and oppression.
Reinforces the negative imagery of African Peoples
Is not a piece for African Peoples, it is about African Peoples, however it was created with no consultation with African Peoples”
[/vc_column_text][vc_custom_heading text=”What action was taken?” font_container=”tag:h3|text_align:left” use_theme_fonts=”yes”][vc_column_text]The Barbican issues a response to the petition, acknowledging that Exhibit B “has raised significant issues” but commenting that this is not a reason to cancel the performance. They accept the campaigners right to peaceful protest but ask that they “fully respect our performers’ right to perform and our audiences’ right to attend.” Campaigners are in communication with senior management at the Barbican, and they contact the police about their plan to picket the venue. Kieron Vanstone, the director of the Vaults also contacts the British Transport Police – as they have jurisdiction over the Vaults – about the possibility of needing additional policing on the night. nitroBEAT, who had cast the show in London and took a leading role in mediating between the two ‘sides’ organises a debate at Theatre Royal Stratford East the night before the opening.[/vc_column_text][vc_custom_heading text=”What happened next?” font_container=”tag:h3|text_align:left” use_theme_fonts=”yes”][vc_column_text]On the opening night of the installation, just one of the two BTP PCs allocated to the picket attends. Protesters breach the barriers and block the doors to the venue. The PC on duty calls for backup officers. ACC Thomas reports “that ‘about’ 12 BTP officers and 50 Metropolitan Police Service Officers respond to these calls.” Vanstone describes a huge police presence, including riot police, dogs and helicopters overhead. When Inspector Nick Brandon, the BTP senior officer in charge asks what the campaign organisers want, they respond that they want the show to be closed down, or they will picket it every evening. Sara Myers of Boycott the Human Zoo reports that Brandon says “‘we need to be out fighting crime. This is much ado about nothing, and we haven’t got the resources to police it.”The Inspector recommends that Vanstone closes the show. In partnership with the Barbican, Vanstone agrees to do so. When the campaigners request written confirmation, the police officer ensures that the venue provides this. The installation is cancelled.[/vc_column_text][vc_custom_heading text=”Reflections” font_container=”tag:h3|text_align:left” use_theme_fonts=”yes”][vc_column_text]Louise Jeffreys – Artistic Director, Barbican
The Barbican’s experience of Exhibit B was a catalyst for a significant amount of change within the organisation. The protests and eventual cancellations of performances led to us thinking deeply about a number of areas of our work, looking at how we could learn from this situation so we could continue to present challenging work and ensuring the experience we had didn’t contribute to an environment where organisations felt they couldn’t programme artists whose work deals with difficult subjects.
Our starting point was the belief that it was important that we remained an organisation willing to take risks and that we didn’t want to shy away from putting on work that invites discussion and debate. To do this we felt we needed to have the planning processes in place to ensure this kind of work could be presented safely, that we were confident about how it fitted into our wider programme, that we contextualise it in the right way and that we have clear, artistic reasons for programming it.
This work has included formalising our risk review process for our artistic programme; it involved us contributing to the development of What Next’s practical guidance for arts organisations on meeting ethical and reputational challenges; and it continued with the development of the Barbican’s first ethics policy, which we now use as a basis for making ethical decisions across areas such as programming, fundraising and partnerships.
Combined, these measures have all contributed to us becoming more confident in the work we present, encouraging a collaborative, organisation-wide approach to making difficult decisions, dealing with risk and investing in artists and works that deal with potentially controversial issues.
The Exhibit B experience also led to us further interrogating our approach to equality and inclusion. This led to positive changes such as the development of a new Equality and Inclusion strategy and the building of relationships with artists and companies who have added to the creative richness and relevance of our programme as we look to try and represent the widest possible range of human experiences on our stages, in our galleries and on our screens.
The cancellation also led us to think about how we work with the police, and the importance of their role in protecting free expression. At the time of the Exhibit B protests we felt we had no choice but to follow their advice when they recommended we cancel all future performances. I feel we’d question this kind of decision-making more now, with the work we’ve done since the closure making us much better informed on the legal framework around freedom of expression.
Sara Myers – Boycott The Human Zoo Campaign lead
At the time the black community was campaigning against so many things – deaths in police custody, acts of racism – and there never seemed to be any victory. I think the legacy of Exhibit B is that it gave a monumental landmark victory which we hadn’t had. In the last 30 years, this was the one thing that we won, the one time that our voices were heard and taken seriously. I know a lot of people were talking about censorship and not having an understanding of art, and I think all of that is irrelevant. It was about not taking that narrative of our history, that slave narrative and keeping us boxed in there; we are more than that, and you will listen to us.
There were two camps, one called me a reincarnation of Stalin and the other thought I was going to be the new speaker for all things black. But what people failed to realise was [while] I was the face of the campaign, I started the petition and led the campaign it was owned by the whole black community – pan-African, Christian, Muslim, LGBT, young, old, celebrities.
A lot more people began to speak out. In fact it went a bit crazy after Exhibt B, there were petitions about everything and everybody was calling everybody out and we got a lot of things taken down. It birthed a lot of new activists and Exhibit B became a movement. The way [we used] social media, institutions don’t want that, they don’t want to be tagged and dragged for days on social media. Brett was challenged in Paris [where] people were tear-gassed and water-cannoned which was terrible. It went to Ireland, very much on the quiet, but there was not a very large black of mixed race community [where it went]. He tried to take it to Brazil and that got shut down. He tried to take it to Toronto, but it was [challenged} and it didn’t go there.]
Another legacy was that academics were talking about the whole campaign, whether positively or negatively. It was a very controversial campaign and it opened up conversation about so many things – about racism, institutional racism, how an emerging black artist might not get a platform, but a potentially racist guy from South Africa might. Who is censoring what? Who is at the helm of censorship? What about all the exhibitions that they haven’t put on? Is it us campaigning, peacefully protesting. Who owns the story? Also how the media reported it as a violent, angry mob, and yet there wasn’t one arrest. How the Barbican didn’t take responsibility for the whole part they played in this.
For me personally – my claim to fame will be Exhibit B and that’s monumental. To know that I’m part of Black British History. Maybe in Black History Month, they’ll have my picture and talk about what I did. And that’s great because I’ve got grandchildren and they’ll be able to see that.
I’m not saying that Brett isn’t a talented artist. It was the imagery was traumatic for a community because it was not part of [our] ancient history. This is something we live every day, down to deportations – in fact that there was one today people who have lived here all their lives deported back to Jamaica. We are still living the ramifications of that, whereas Brett is quite removed from his colonial past. It also brought up a massive discussion about colonialism and the effects of colonialism today.
Stella Odunlami – actor, director, performer in Exhibit B (London, Ireland, South Korea and Estonia)
The piece arrived at a time of change. Those tensions around the idea of race and representation had always been there, but the squeeze of the government cuts to a lot of provision, particularly to black and minority backgrounds, were being felt. The rhetoric around our wonderful multi-cultural society was starting to fall away. It landed on a sore spot, places were pus had been building up under the surface. All these conversations and interactions around the legacy and inherited histories that we are being forced to deal with at the moment – [it] brought all of that to the surface.
It has made me hyper aware of the lack of space and opportunity to have these conversations and how desperately we need them. We don’t speak of what the West did in Africa as a form of genocide. Within the black community, whatever that may mean, people find it really hard to engage with conversations around race in public forums because the conversation always feels dishonest, because the ground zero hasn’t been reached. So when people talk about who makes art, access to art, access to funding and education we are never going back to the beginning to understand why that is.
I still think it’s a beautiful, powerful piece. It opened up conversations; everybody who sees it is automatically implicated in some way or another. You have to begin to confront your own relation to history, and that is something that we don’t do very often. I’m still trying to unpack my ideas around the existing theatre model and what theatres as cultural spaces are aiming to do. Very often the places that present this work are only interested in an economic model and don’t recognise or feel the wider responsibility. It comes down to what are we demanding of our arts and cultural spaces, what we want from them.
Having taken the show to Ireland, to South Korea and Estonia, it surprised me how my concept of the show being linked explicitly to the European history of colonisation, was being refracted through different prisms. At around the time we were in Ireland, the story broke about many women in the early 1900s who had fallen pregnant to black men, had been held, and had their children taken away. Mass burial sites uncovered these children who had been treated appallingly and had passed. This history had been repressed by the state and the church, echoes of that were only starting to be discussed. I was nervous before going to [Tallinn] because I had heard about incidents of violence against black African bodies there. There were a lot of students coming from Africa because there seem to be more scholarships and migration for education seems to be easier. They are having to think about migration, without following the western European model which hasn’t really worked. South Korea’s history with Japan brought those conversations to the fore. They had no idea about what had happened in these parts of the world and people came back with notepads, to take down the names, the places, the dates.
The last performance was in Tallinn, it was very hard, really sad. We all felt such a responsibility for these stories, for them being shared and acknowledged. Whose stories are remembered, whose stories are told. The weight of that responsibility, and the personal investment we all had in that, is huge.[/vc_column_text][three_column_post title=”Case Studies” full_width_heading=”true” category_id=”15471″][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][/vc_column][/vc_row]
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”Contributors include Madeleine Thien, Xinran, Peter Bazalgette, Laura Silvia Battaglia, Mahesh Rao, Chawki Amari and Amie Ferris-Rotman”][vc_column_text]
The retro medium of radio is back, as we explore in the Autumn issue of Index on Censorship magazine 2017, which is excellent news for the delivery of well, news. Laura Silvia Battaglia reports from Mosul on the radio station that is giving a voice to the people there, while Claire Kopsky interviews people behind “radio boats“, boats that are broadcasting information on cholera in the Central African Republic in a bid to educate the population about the disease.
Then there are the examples of radio proving a perfect outlet for people to share their most private inner thoughts and experiences, as Wana Udobang writes about from a Nigerian context and Xinran remembers back in China.
Part of the increased popularity of radio is that it’s managed to evolve and we have an article on how podcasts are being made in some of the least likely – and most censored – places, such as China, and smuggled into North Korea. We also have a handy guide on making your own podcasts, for those with an idea.
But radio’s ability to reach the masses also means that this powerful tool can get into the wrong hands. Ismail Einashe explores this in his article on al-Shabaab in Somalia, who operate a very popular radio station. Then there’s Rwanda, which two decades ago saw the airwaves being monopolised by voices promoting genocide. The country has moved on a lot, but radio is still far from free.
Outside the special report, we take you to Russia where a seemingly innocent film about the last tsar has angered the country’s church. With Banned Books Week coming up, we ask a selection of writers to choose the books that made them think most about free speech. What would be your pick? And we have an extract from a forthcoming novel highlighting the dangers of being a journalist in Mexico, with superb illustrations to accompany.
Finally, don’t miss our cut-out-and-keep male nipple template, a handy tool to ensure female nipples are social media friendly.
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”Special report: Free to air “][vc_column_text]
Why the rebirth of radio is delivering more news
Fear for the airwaves, by Ismail Einashe: In Somalia al-Shabaab control a prominent radio station and a fifth of the country. Meet the radio presenters who brave danger to keep reporting
Project freedom? by Sally Gimson: Radio Free Europe was at the frontline of Cold War reporting. Three decades on, is it still needed?
Sound unbound, by Oleg Shynkarenko: How a new radio station was built from scratch using crowdfunding to break away from oligarchs and government pressure
Don’t touch that dial, by Kieran Etoria-King, Rachael Jolley, Jemimah Steinfeld: Interviews with a pirate rain DJ, comedian Robin Ince, a Hong Kong presenter, the controller of BBC World Service English and the editor of a refugee radio station
Syrians speaking, by Rhodri Davies: Syrians in exile on why they set up a new radio station and what it covers
Power to the podcast, by Mark Frary: Podcasting is bringing a whole new audience to radio and giving investigative journalism a boost. Plus, our handy guide to making your own podcasts
Stripsearch cartoon, by Martin Rowson: There’s a new app out called Smart Ink. Will it become a dictator’s favourite tool?
Tuning into a brave new world, by Jan Fox: Grassroots radio is on the rise in the USA, where a 98-year-old granny is a station superstar, but it’s not without challenges
Under the rad(io)ar, by Kaya Genç: A radio station in Turkey, known for its criticism of the government, is somehow surviving the current crackdown
Taboos and telephones, by Xinran: Radio was one of the first outlets where Chinese women spoke about personal issues such as forced abortions. Is the same honesty possible today?
Stationed in the warzone, by Laura Silvia Battaglia: Radio presenters in Mosul tell Index how the station is giving a voice to the people, but it has not been easy operating under bombardment
Secrets, lies and Lagos lives, by Wana Udobang: Exorcisms and illicit affairs are just some of the topics callers to a popular talk show in Nigeria wanted to share
New waves, by Claire Kopsky: Radio took to riverboats in the Central African Republic to bring information and news about a cholera epidemic
Chat rooms, by Milton Walker: Talk about interactivity, Jamaican radio shows sometimes receive as many as 4,000 text messages
Sound and fury, by Graham Holliday. Two decades ago Rwandan radio was monopolised by voices promoting genocide, but radio is still not free from controversy
Let’s get this show on the road, by Silvia Nortes: Meet the Spanish comedians behind Radio Gaga, a television show about radio which visits overlooked communities
Closing access to the back door, by Iona Craig: Investigative journalists working in hostile environments need encrypted apps to work more safely. This is being forgotten in the current debate on encryption
No one owns language, by Jemimah Steinfeld: The 2016 Man Booker Prize winner Paul Beatty discusses “offensive” language and teaching styles
Risky business, by Charlotte Bailey: Amid confiscations and threats, one chain of bookstores continues to operate in Libya
Tracking down the F word in fiction, by Mahesh Rao, Sean Gallagher, Kieran Etoria-King, Grainne Maguire, Ryan McChrystal: Ahead of Banned Books Week, writers choose the books that make them think about free speech
Costume drama, by Amie Ferris-Rotman: Russia’s religious right claim God is annoyed about a film on the last tsar, just part of a new censorship culture
Bulldozing his way through the media, by Natasha Joseph: Tanzania’ current president has been nicknamed “the bulldozer” and the media is in his sight
Big brother we’re watching you, by Jason Daponte: Members of a new, hip London club claim to have empowered voters in the UK General Election
Making a killing, by Duncan Tucker: A special Index investigation looking at why Mexico is an increasingly deadly place to be a journalist as reporters face threats from corrupt police to deadly drug gangs
New tribal instinct, by Peter Bazalgette: Our pact mentality has become more pronounced as we spend more time online, the author argues
Parallel lives and unparalleled risks, by Tim MacGabhann: The author discusses his time reporting from Mexico, how the death of one journalist particularly affected him and introduces an excerpt from his forthcoming book
The people’s poet, by Wiji Thukul: Nearly 20 years since Indonesia’s famous poet disappeared, Eliza Vitri Handayani introduces the man and some new translations of his poems
The disappeared, by Chawki Amari: The award-winning Algerian writer talks about prison in Algeria and the media landscape in France. Plus a short story
Index around the world, by Kieran Etoria-King: Top comedy acts discuss the importance of humour following our event Stand up for Satire, plus news of other Index summer highlights
Uncovering the nipple cover-up, by Jemimah Steinfeld: The battle to give the female nipple equal rights as one woman heads to the Supreme Court. Plus, a cut-out-and-keep male nipple for social media use
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row content_placement=”top”][vc_column width=”1/3″][vc_custom_heading text=”Free to air” font_container=”tag:p|font_size:24|text_align:left” link=”url:%20https%3A%2F%2Fwww.indexoncensorship.org%2F2017%2F09%2Ffree-to-air%2F|||”][vc_column_text]Through a range of in-depth reporting, interviews and illustrations, the autumn 2017 issue of Index on Censorship magazine explores how radio has been reborn and is innovating ways to deliver news in war zones, developing countries and online
With: Ismail Einashe, Peter Bazalgette, Wana Udobang[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/3″][vc_single_image image=”95458″ img_size=”medium” alignment=”center” onclick=”custom_link” link=”https://www.indexoncensorship.org/magazine”][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/3″ css=”.vc_custom_1481888488328{padding-bottom: 50px !important;}”][vc_custom_heading text=”Subscribe” font_container=”tag:p|font_size:24|text_align:left” link=”url:https%3A%2F%2Fwww.indexoncensorship.org%2Fsubscribe%2F|||”][vc_column_text]In print, online. In your mailbox, on your iPad.
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Some say you can trace the origins of hip hop to a single room in New York City on 11 August 1973. At 1520 Sedgwick Avenue in the Bronx, the Jamaican-American DJ Kool Herc threw a party and, playing percussive funk on his speakers, noticed that the crowd danced most vigorously during the instrumental break. He then used two turntables and copies of the same song to keep the break going, while talking — or MCing — over it to engage the crowd.
By that time in the early 1970s, the historically middle-class Bronx was transforming. For decades it had been home to upwardly mobile black and latino families, and the borough was the most integrated community in the United States. That was until the accelerated post-war flight of white residents for the suburbs, falling house prices and the loss of so many manufacturing jobs, coupled with tens of thousands of mostly poor immigrants moving in.
Coming out of these conditions, hip hop has always been about inspiring the disenfranchised to overcome their obstacles.
Jason Nichols, aka Haysoos, is a hip-hop artist, professor and editor-in-chief of Words, Beats and Life, the first peer-reviewed academic journal of global hip-hop culture. He has been rapping since he was a pre-teen in the early 1990s when he first heard My Philosophy by Boogie Down Productions, a hip-hop group from the South Bronx.
“I remember seeing the video and hearing that acapella part, and deciding I want to try it,” Nichols tells Index on Censorship. “It really showed me that rap music and MCing was a platform to be heard, and everything in my life since has revolved around that, from expressing your opinions about the world and thinking ‘how can we make things better?’”
When people think of hip-hop culture, rapping, DJing, graffiti and breakdancing are all things that come to mind. “However, I always say that hip-hop academics is another element of the movement,” says Nichols, who is a lecturer at the African American Studies Department of the University of Maryland, where his interests include black masculinity, hip hop and dance, and black and latino identities and relations.
Media attention and commercial rap music have given hip hop an image problem. The genre is heavily associated with guns, gangs and prison culture. As many poor neighbourhoods of colour became further devastated in the 1980s or 1990s, hyper-masculinity became, for many, entangled with race or class. As Nichols explains: “It was, and still is, a matter of control and mastery of your environment.”
One of the main reason young black men identify so much with their neighbourhood, their block or the building they come from is because they are saying “this is mine”, Nichols explains. “They know their spatial freedom is contained and confined and that they world isn’t theirs, but this particular space is,” he adds.
In his lectures on masculinity, Nichols looks as people like Moms Mabley, the lesbian comedian who employed masculine forms of black humour and Amiri Baraka, the poet, author, essayist and critic, who wrote about masculinity and heterosexuality as representative of black nationalism in the United States. Nichols brings his analysis up to the modern day by looking at artists like Kehinde Wiley, whose paintings explore black images of masculinity.
“Whether male or female, every person expresses several different masculinities throughout the day, and in my class, we talk a lot about those being expressed through art,” explains Nichols. “And, of course, all these directions led to hip hop.”
However, he believes we need a deeper understanding of hip hop because the idea of “hyper-masculinity” in itself is “problematic”. “It goes back to the old tropes about black men, in general, being supposedly violent or hyper-sexual,” he adds.
As long as certain expectations of race persist, the perception of masculinity will always be more of a problem for black or latino men. “Look at a white rapper like Eminem, who, as Greg Tate wrote, had everything but the burden,” explains Nichol.
“Eminem can be angry, masculine and all that, while also being allowed to be vulnerable in a way black men are not. He has the freedom to talk about his mother and his troubled family life in a way men of colour don’t have room to do.”
Taking the example of Tyler the Creator, the black American rapper who was banned from entering the UK based on his lyrical content, we have to ask, would this have happened to someone like Eminem, who is just as offensive but happens to be white? “We have to recognise the privileges white artists have over black artists,” explains Nichols. “The thing we always hear about when Eminem says something is his right to free speech.”
Looking at Washington DC, where Nichols spends much of his time, hip hop – while deeply entrenched in the mainstream — still makes up one of the last truly underground music movements in the United States. A hardcore punk scene sprang up in the capital in 1979 and continued to grow a following into the 1980s and 1990s. DC’s rap scene came along a little while later, but the difference between both movements is that hip hop is still around.
“This is because black kids still face hardship in a way white kids don’t, and all of those punk guys, while still legendary, could much more easily be co-opted into the system,” says Nichols. “They can put on a suit and go to work, but for hip-hop artists, it’s been a little different.”
The DC metro area has seen a boom in development over the last decade, but that prosperity never made it across the river and one-quarter of the city’s black population is still living in poverty. While these conditions continue to exist, hip hop will be the outlet of choice for so many men of colour who feel they don’t have a voice.
“There’s also been a real concerted effort by the system to shut the city’s underground culture down,” explains Nichols, referring to the shutting how of venues. “But the strength of hip hop is that it is so broad that it’s almost impossible to do that.”
