It Ain't Half Racist, Mum

In September 2020, Tim Davie was appointed as the Director General of the BBC, and immediately cited the need for the corporation to show impartiality at all times, with the intention of returning to its original charter of providing a balanced view of global events. In what is a blistering half hour of television, Stuart Hall and Maggie Steed’s 1979 essay It Ain’t Half Racist, Mum shows that whilst the BBC would state how impartial they were, they were anything but. Instead, they provided a platform for outwardly racist figures like Enoch Powell and David Duke, whilst simultaneously silencing the voices of Black people. Shown as part of the Open Door series - in which the BBC would relinquish editorial control to those who made the programmes - It Ain’t Half Racist, Mum expertly manages to show how racism would be portrayed in the media for years to come.