A Stabroek News’ (SN) cartoon that depicts a poor black man, holding a gun in his hand as a criminal, has attracted the ire of Mark Benschop, host of the talk show “Straight Up” and owner of Benschop Radio 107.1 FM. The gun, in his hand is emblazoned the word “crime,” on his back “Guyana’s Future” and in his back pocket “poverty.”
Monday night on his show, “Straight Up,” Benschop showed the cartoon and asked viewers for their opinions. Several expressed displeasure and concern about the negativity in which black people were being displayed.
Benschop shared his concern and expressed dissatisfaction. Making known that whilst the cartoonist may have submitted his work, editorial judgment should have informed its non-publication.
He has called on SN to apologise. We are being discriminated against and the Stabroek News needs to apologise to the entire African Guyanese community, the talk show host said. Failing which, Benschop said, he will call for boycott of local businesses that contribute to the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) government discriminatory practices against African Guyanese.
Benschop has also called on people to bypass the newspapers, read the news online, save their money or spend it elsewhere. He told listeners “do not spend your money where folks are racist, do not like you, do not respect you, do not appreciate you.”
Studies have shown stereotyping has been used as a racist measure against black people and people of colour to justify marginalisation.
According to the Oxford Academic Journal of Communication (October 2023), “The media portray many social categories, such as minority groups, in a stereotypical way (which) is problematic, as media depictions often represent the main, if not the only, source of information for citizens.”
Often this is an orchestrated effort to relegate those who are stereotyped in a negative way, thus enabling or facilitating the ease for widespread dehumanisation and subsequent destruction with wider society subscribing with little or no objections.
In multiracial, racial and politically polarising Guyana the media cannot ignore these scientific facts.
Benschop recently called for a boycott of Guyanese businesses in Brooklyn, New York that President Irfaan Ali visited on April 19, 2020.
