Bigotry fuels Hatred
One of the most compelling encounters in They takes place when Manzoor meets Gary Jones, editor of the Daily Express, who, when appointed to the role, made the decision to stop running the Islamophobic headlines for which the newspaper had become notorious. (“Muslim Plot to Kill Pope” and “Muslims Tell British: Go to hell!”, to name just two). “I went into my first news conference,” Jones tells Manzoor, “and said, ‘Look, I know none of you in the room are going to say you’re racist, but we’re not going to publish this stuff again because it’s fundamentally wrong.’” Manzoor notes that “something that was so toxic could be changed overnight by one person’s decision-making and the circulation didn’t change at all.”
An excellent essay by Sarfraz Manzoor on how prejudice works both ways and what we can do about it?
_Ike