Panorama: Let's Talk About Race, review: unsurprisingly, one hour isn't long enough to tackle this complex topic
Panorama is a haphazard affair. For every newsworthy exclusive – such as last month’s smuggled footage of Dubai’s Princess Latifa Al Maktoum – there is a programme that misses the mark.
Let’s Talk About Race (BBC One) fell into the latter category. Investigative programmes require a sharp focus. Here, there was none. Naga Munchetty travelled around the UK “to understand what race and racism mean in the UK today”, a subject simply too big for the confines of a one-hour programme.
The subject is a personal one for Munchetty: the BBC Breakfast host was reprimanded by the corporation’s editorial complaints unit in 2019 for suggesting that Donald Trump had made a racist statement. The decision was promptly reversed by an embarrassed BBC management.
If Munchetty had made an entirely personal programme, it could have been a good one. We got glimpses of it, when she recalled childhood racism and revealed some of the vile emails she is sent by strangers. But it felt as if she was holding back from saying more. Instead, we got a meandering hour in which Munchetty spoke to people about their experiences of racism.
The stories were worth listening to. A grandmother who came over from Jamaica in 1961 to work as a nurse was asked if she was welcomed by the English. “You’re joking! We’re still not welcome.” Her grandson had experienced prejudice at school and beyond, and said there were many places in which he felt uncomfortable as a young black man. Black fathers expressed fears for their sons.
The programme began with scenes of the Black Lives Matter protests, but also took in racism towards people of east and south-east Asian heritage over the Covid outbreak, higher Covid death rates in the BAME community, and British Asian teenagers worrying about college and job prospects.
For balance, Munchetty interviewed a white scaffolder called Nigel who was pictured defending the Bristol cenotaph during the BLM protests. He lost work afterwards because people perceived him as a racist. “Nigel says he’s not racist but passions were aroused on all sides that day,” said Munchetty, which didn’t sound like a ringing endorsement.
She also went to Blyth in Northumberland, an area of high deprivation, where a father and son had somehow been selected to represent the white race when it came to talking about white privilege. The son understood the concept, the father was offended by it. A series set somewhere like Blyth, exploring these feelings in depth, might make useful viewing.
