A post over on Twitter recently provided considerable food for thought about the lack of diversity in ham radio today, let alone back in 1947, when the associated video was made.
The reality about ham radio is that it's a hobby that developed in Anglo-Saxon societies (Britain and its colonies, mostly). It was almost entirely represented by white men - because only men were expected to have any interesting hobbies back then.
The video is of its era, but still quite upsetting. Black men always appear doing the work, with white men, dressed in white, so as to highlight the difference, always look on in domineering, overbearing fashion.
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| Colonial whites (skin and dress), folded arms and black skivvies. The natural order of things, as was then believed (and ruthlessly enforced). |
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| Let's all point at the black man with a funny hat. |
Today, the story is not very much changed, it is sad to say. Black people are still excluded, just as in the magazine cover, where the local man is outside, amongst the trees, whilst the white man, in colonial expeditionary attire ('safari' hat ready for another colonial 'mission', on the amp), is inside, amongst the modern radio equipment.
It's all very sad. More so, because white people of today don't really seem to see what's wrong with all this stuff. And let's not forget, these kinds of scenes, below, were commonplace under apartheid in South Africa until the early 1990s.
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