Last Updated on June 30, 2020
The BBC’s Countryfile ran a segment on their Sunday program claiming that minorities don’t visit the English countryside because it’s racist.
The Countryside segment was hosted by Dwayne Fields, who claimed that “many black and minority ethnic people who already live in our rural areas, can sometimes feel unwelcome,” due to pervailing racist attitudes.
“When I talk to people from the black and minority ethnic community, it’s clear that they don’t view the UK countryside as somewhere that’s for them. It’s not theirs. They don’t belong there,” Fields argued. “Our countryside will end up being irrelevant to the country that actually exists.”
While @DwayneFields found solace in the landscapes of the UK and beyond, many in Black, Asian and minority ethnic groups see the countryside as being a white environment #countryfile pic.twitter.com/kjma7FuGps
— BBC Countryfile (@BBCCountryfile) June 28, 2020
Beth Collier, a psychotherapist, claimed that “being black in a rural area is an isolating experience,” and that “as a black leader in the environmental field, it’s very difficult to find connection and support as a professional because of racist attitudes towards my presence in this space.”
Collier argued that black people were “fearful” of rural areas, and that black culture has a “strong narrative” of nature being backwards or dirty. “This is a culture that comes from the pain of feeling separate from the natural world.”
The segment included an interview with Mya-Rose Craig, an 18 year old leftist climate change activist who founded the “Black 2 Nature” campaign that would campaign for “systemic” change in the countryside, and another interview with two Black Lives Matter activists.
Fields concluded that society should “make sure that we continue to work breaking down barriers and prejudice and [make] sure these communities are welcome into these spaces.”
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The segment was widely criticised online for pushing “divisive propaganda” on a tax-payer funded platform. Martin Daubney, a former Brexit Party MEP, said that it is “absurd,” and that “to imply that the countryside – a passive, welcoming phenomenon- is somehow racist is ridiculous.”
https://twitter.com/MartinDaubney/status/1277330891166146567
https://twitter.com/NormanBrennan/status/1277278884334108673
https://twitter.com/HardLineDemocat/status/1277279254091358210
https://twitter.com/MistletoeSprite/status/1277279733420642304
Boris has to sort out this constant woke-ism on the BBC. Tuned in for a bit of light entertainment and get this rammed down the throat #countryfile
— Emma Connor (@WarwickBabe) June 28, 2020
