Opinion: Rural racism prevalent on social media
© MoiraM/Adobe Stock Occasionally, as an opinion writer, you find yourself searching for article ideas, but more often than not, something demands to be discussed. This is most definitely one of those occasions.
I have, as most people do, a love/hate relationship with social media. It’s a great way to communicate and touch base with friends, share ideas or promote a product.
However, other than just stealing an hour of my time each day, it has a far darker side. I’m talking about the comments sections, where it seems common decency goes to die.
See also: Opinion – Honest Burger is one I really relished
About the author
One recent post in particular blew me away.
Farmers Weekly posted an article about a Nuffield scholarship titled “Encouraging and Supporting Black and People of Colour in Agriculture”, written by Dr Navaratnam (Theeb) Partheeban OBE, a man with more accolades than I could possibly list.
His report is a really upbeat summary of why diversity is so beneficial to society, and what can be done to encourage more within one of the least racially diverse sectors in the UK – agriculture.
I then made the fatal error of clicking on the comments section.
Sure, there were messages of support and congratulations, but they were buried in a mountain of naivety and racism that was difficult to read (emotionally and often physically).
Clearly, very few people had actually read the Nuffield report, which states, “we all have a responsibility to create a culture of making sure everyone can feel like they belong”.
Instead, they used the comments section to voice opinions they would never vocalise face-to-face.
Theeb was accused of trying to “divide people”, that it’s always the “less educated looking for a leg-up”, and to the individual who stated “it’s OK because there aren’t many white farmers in India”, feel free to head over there and see for yourself what real graft looks like.
These comments were all on Instagram, which is supposedly the friendly option. Twitter was 10-times worse, with another individual stating he was “so sick of hearing how blacks aren’t being catered to enough”.
Theeb isn’t asking for positive discrimination or belittling the struggles that white farmers are facing, but is simply looking to be a role model for other people of colour, hoping the next generation will find it a little easier to live the life they choose.
The comments are proof that Dr Partheeban is correct. We need to look hard at ourselves as an industry.
Clearly, us white farmers who make up 99% of the industry aren’t best placed to draw conclusions on racial discrimination.
It needs the likes of Theeb, or Flavian Obiero (who must have spent half a day replying to a host of the comments, both on Instagram and Twitter) to highlight the struggles they have faced, and then it is our duty as individuals to take them seriously.
I want to apologise to Theeb, Flavian and every other member of our industry who has to deal with this rubbish daily.
You bring so much more to our industry than those keyboard warriors, and I hope this article helps expand at least one person’s mind. If nothing else, the comments on social media could be interesting.