Hand in Hand

Promises to reform the criminal justice system in the UK mean nothing whilst institutional racism within the media remains pervasive.

Unfulfilled promises 

So It’s been seven months since our government unveiled its plans to overhaul the criminal justice system as we know it. But when you look closely in-between pledges made, you’ll scarcely find anything that promises to cut deeper into years of institutional racism, where other systems of oppression as they exist within this country as of course ignored, even as they are shown to substantiate problems within the CJS. The relevance of these promises is further called into question when considering the pervasive social structure of racism that permeates the nation.

There are many issues with todays society is everything is connected and a huge issue is that the media and criminal justice system are intrinsically linked, from the media being used as a tool of scrutiny for the criminal justice system, or a tool of action being used to protest, find information and help the oppressed.  This divide is based on a huge number of factors from class to race, with media platforms being used to fill the roles our police force are failing to do like spreading awareness and information about missing people in particular people of colour. This is as people of colour are less prioritised by the police when missing and their tragedies go unreported unless to save a white man’s dignity and giving a “fair” viewpoint. However there is nothing fair about the safety of your friends and family being based on your race and the lack of support given by the criminal justice system and the media.
We can see the difference in the media between crimes against black people and crimes against white people.

Seen in the Sarah Everard case who was missing and later found dead and the cases of Samaria Ayanle who was found dead before she was reported missing or the body identified.
The immediate news coverage given to the death of Sarah Everard compared to the vast media campaigning and ads that had to be posted for Samaria’s death to be investigated after being reported missing three weeks prior.She was reported missing on the 22nd of February and her body found on the 23rd and yet she was not identified until the 13th of march a grossly negligible amount of time the police spent failing to bring justice to her and her family.The comparable overlooking of black narratives of crimes towards them and their victimhood is even more evident when during the time Samaria was missing the day before her body was identified BBC news ran a segment on Jack O’Sullivan who had been missing for 10 days, that’s almost two weeks less than Samaria and yet no public outcry for her, so why is Jacks safety more important to the BBC than hers? 

Further seen in previous years with the death of Stephen Lawrence the negligence of the police and racism that plagued the system was further reproduced in which it was largely ignored by papers and even scrutinised by some papers as black protesters were said to “capitalise on grief to fuel confrontation”
Yet in the rare instance the death of Stephen Lawrence lead to a transformational look at the criminal justice system in relation to race.Yet was it enough if now there have been 7 black bodies pulled from various bodies of water dead in the past year, Yet few have broke the surface of media coverage such as the news.Is this justifying the police’s lacklustre approach to the deaths of black people.Every death is a tragedy but deaths on this scale with so little justice and closure deserve more attention , more resources, more respect and more recognition. 

In the tragic case of Daniel Ajorin the 14 year old boy murdered in Hainault his death was an awful act. Although widely acknowledged in the media the death of Daniel Ajorin is sidelined by newspapers and downplayed this outrageous miscarriage of justice with media outlets dehumanising him with the Sun calling him ‘Sword lad’ and him being pushed to the side whilst front pages are covered in media such as ‘Trent and Jude law’s girl’.

In an even more horrific case the Metro news paper calls the 34 man responsible for the death of Daniel Ajorin ‘Mystic samurai suspect’ showing heroic poses of him across the front page whilst a picture of Daniel is shrunken down.This shows us that although they may be acknowledging black deaths in the UK more the media isn’t humanising them, fighting for them but merely reporting on them a gross misconduct of journalism.This behaviour reinforces everything we see in the media with white supremacy so deeply rooted and embedded in our society that the Metro went out of their way to humanise the killer to make Daniel’s death his narrative, a white narrative dismissive of justice and yet promoting the very thing that causes so much division and forced the black community to have to speak out and stand up as it is the system vs them. It shows them their lives are not valued until their deaths can make headlines, if they make headlines. Often black deaths are used by media as examples of society failing and the streets being unsafe but in reality it’s an example of the media and society failing them not a rise in street crime, not a dangerous culture and not the youths delinquency but the police failing to protect the black people of Britain. The media failing to make us aware of these injustices as injustices unreported are just stories that pass by. These cases are only a few that reached the wider media due to how horrendous they were and even more so how shockingly they were handled by the police and media in the UK.

The new social order

What we’re detecting is the sneaking feeling that we’re being gaslighted, particularly as we question the justice we receive and its implications for our lives and worth. In times like these young people can’t help but wonder…

‘Does the system, whether it be the government or others, truly view us as equals?’

I remember learning about the McPherson report. Having learned of it’s aims in school, I was at the time naïve enough to believe that it’s existence would work towards eradicating institutional racism within this country, and more specifically the criminal justice system. Still, decades later, the report hasn’t been seen to it guarantee equitable protection for all, but has instead served as a security blanket over accusations of our nation’s most famously known implicit forms of racism, where the report’s only purpose was to say ‘Look at us change, look at us reflect’. At the same time though, national media remained infested with censorship and alienation towards racially marginalised communities, particularly those black and brown. 

In January, we saw black British rapper Ghetts silenced on an ITV interview for daring to mention his wishes for a "Free Congo”, in light of a desperate need to draw attention to a decades old genocide that had been for the most part overlooked thus far. His silencing constituted a clear dismissal of the struggles faced by Black people, once again normalising their oppression, and reducing them to an "other." 

Here we saw once again how the acknowledgement of this countries history with systemic racism was made obsolete, because few would admit that this kind of censorship took place in bad faith. As was the Great British way, the  pretence of political neutrality was prioritised, undermining both core journalistic values and presenting a one-sided narrative that overlooks the plight of those in need of media attention. 

As long as stories like these remain an often occurrence within the UK, those groups resistant to systemic oppression will of course find their own ways of restoring their voices. In response, a culture of independence has emerged within the young leftist community, fostering discourse and a new kind of social order, one which isn’t determined by seemingly immutable circumstances like wealth, class, race and the like, but one that instead is determined by ones character, specifically when it comes to their politic. Platforms like TikTok and Twitter, free (for the moment) from government regulation, have become outlets for young Black individuals to share news about issues affecting their communities, which the mainstream media and criminal justice system often overlook. This is evident in the response to death’s like Samaria's a few months ago, and the subsequent GoFundMe campaign following her death, highlighting the community's resilience and support, which government systems fail to acknowledge.

We’re also observing first-hand how the emergence of new systems and forms of media has revolutionized the way information is shared, making it more accessible and fluid. This has not only increased our interconnectedness but also amplified our ability to support one another, especially during challenging times. These qualities are precisely what the national media landscape is lacking today. I’m sure most of you on here are aware by now that Substack as a platform is supposedly on the rise, and whilst it’s true that we’ve seen many platforms rise and fall, I believe that it is the creative resistance present here amongst writers that will prolong it’s usage by many, particularly where we’re seeing big media fail at the very simple task of truth-telling. What we require is a media that transcends self-interest and the priorities of its creators, genuinely informing the public. 

So when we’re examining the CJS as Lorenzo mentioned, it’s not as easy as simply noting the changes that ought to occur in order to advocate for a more ‘equitable’ society. The truth is that pervading culture inflicts change, and pervasive narratives control culture. For us and for now, the question remains the same as it’s always been for marginalised communities: how many little loops must history make, helplessly repeating itself? 

As the Criminal Justice System and large media corporations go hand in hand, it almost feels as though ethnic minorities, particularly those black and brown are caught in between interlocked fingers, those which would sooner trap and subdue the voices of our communities, than have us free to criticise that unjustifiable alliance,

Asisa & Lorenzo