‘All Computers Look Alike’
Channel 4 ‘News’ Faux Pas
- Author: Katy Sian, March 2017
In an episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm, a white man in a coffee shop asks Larry David to look after his laptop. The man takes a while to come back and Larry has to be somewhere, so he gives the laptop to a black man to watch over. A few days later the white man bumps into Larry on the street and starts shouting at him, complaining that he didn’t get his laptop back. Larry explains to him that he didn’t have time to wait around in the coffee shop so he left it with a black man. The man screams, ‘you left it with a black man!’ Immediately clear that the man is racist, Larry says he did leave it with a black man, and goes onto take satisfaction in probing him as to why this would be an issue. In a bid to look non-racist, the white man overcompensates and says, ‘of course why wouldn’t you leave it with a black man, in fact I was looking for a black man myself that day to watch the laptop.’
Later on Larry goes into an ice cream shop and sees a black man with a laptop, the exchange is as follows:
Larry: Oh My God! So I ask you to watch this laptop for two minutes and give it to the guy when he gets back and what you….. uh uh… You’re not the guy… Alright, I made a mistake, I thought you were somebody else, sorry
Man: Who did you think I was?
Larry: I thought you were this guy who I’d told to watch the computer and he stole it
Man: So was this guy black or white?
Larry: Happened to be black
Man: So you think that all black people look alike?
In a clever save Larry replies: No I think all computers look alike…
This sketch is telling of the way in which the claim, ‘well they all look alike’ plays out, even among those like Larry, who in the earlier exchange with the white bigot, has a ‘moment of holier-than-thou PC superiority’, but in the ice cream shop is unable to shake off his underlying prejudice. This is a humorous example which is illustrative of a much more serious incident which took place in the aftermath of London’s terror attack on 22nd March 2017.
Journalists and commentators were in a mad frenzy to break the identity of the alleged attacker who was apparently shot by the police. As social media joined the whirlwind, photos of the alleged attacker circulated. In these photos only the upper half of the body was exposed to reveal a small side view of a black man with a beard. Channel 4 News were quick to announce the perpetrator as Trevor Brooks aka Abu Izzadeen. The aim here is not to develop a profile on this man, nor to attack or defend his political beliefs, because that would be to miss the point entirely. Abu Izzadeen however, happens to be a black Muslim man who has gained notoriety for engagement within Islamic extremist activity… and a small fact which Channel 4 News forgot to mention, is that Izzadeen is currently serving a jail sentence for breaching his counter-terrorism restrictions.
So what could the man in the photo and Izzadeen possibly have in common that led Channel 4 News to make such an epic mistake? Of course it should be obvious, they are both black, and both have beards (and so it follows they both apparently look exactly the same). Channel 4 News went onto issue an apology, stating that Izzadeen’s solicitor had confirmed that he is still in jail and wasn’t the attacker after all.
This faux pas is indicative of the racism lurking beneath the ‘liberal’ media, who like Larry – when probing the bigot – often take the moral high ground with claims of ‘objectivity’ and ‘value freedom,’ however when confronted with an immediate situation, they can only revert back to their ingrained biases symptomatic of a wider institutional racism. Not only does this case demonstrate irresponsible, negligent, and sloppy reporting – in a time when fear and speculation are already high – but most importantly it is reflective of the inherent racism guiding (apparently liberal) media outlets, which appear to run on stereotypes rather than on ‘facts.’ It is disappointing to see this from Channel 4 who on the whole have held a very credible record on these issues. In the future Channel 4 News might want to learn to curb its enthusiasm before hastily chasing headlines and ratings.
Watch: Curb you enthusiasm- missing laptop
References
Curb Your Enthusiasm (TV episode 2011) ‘The Safe House’ Season 8, Episode 2, HBO
Herman, E. (1999) The Myth of the Liberal Media, Peter Lang Publishing Inc: New York
Owen, P. (2011) ‘Curb your Enthusiasm – season eight, episode two,’ The Guardian online: https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/tvandradioblog/2011/sep/26/curb-your-season-eight
The Culture Craft 