Muammar Al Khadafi

"There's a lack of imagination. You don't have to always portray the African community as drug-dealing, gun-toting criminals... This isn't the time to be going backwards and focusing on these stereotypes. We don't need to perpetuate more reasons for civil unrest. There are many great stories that don't need to focus on the boy in the hood" - Toyin Agbetu of human rights organisation Ligali commenting on forthcoming Channel 4 series Top Boy, which focuses on crime and drug dealing on a London estate, and features a mainly black cast.

It's also worthwhile noting that permission to film on a Hackney housing estate was refused because the council didn't wish to be complicit in negative stereotyping.

A quick look at Ligali before proceeding, who tell us that they were formed in 2000, and "believe it is important for African people to be able to self determine and therefore independently repair the injustices within our own socio-political reality instead of demanding more rights from those outside it". Also, their motivation "was based on the fact that members of our community, spanning ages, occupations, gender and specific cultural backgrounds, regularly expressed profound and frustrated opinions about the detrimental and offensive way in which African people were represented in the media".

That statement, coupled with Toyin Abetu's comments, appear dangerously close to saying that black people should never be portrayed in a bad light as that would be 'perpetuating stereotypes' and 'going backwards'. The civil unrest remark is also interesting, black rioters were motivated by their portrayal in the media?

Perhaps Top Boy should have featured all white and English gang members, vying for control of the drugs trade on a London inner city housing estate, and the efforts of heroic minority police officers, social workers and black members of the community to tackle the problem.

That would be really representative of reality on most London estates wouldn't it?

Does the existence of Operation Trident perpetuate stereotypes since the Met Police information page tells us that "Trident Operational Command Unit (OCU) is the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) response to gun related activity occurring within London’s communities, but at this time only gun related murders within the black community. The levels of violence associated with this type of criminality are extreme, with the use of firearms becoming more prevalent".

We're sure that the police are misguided, that focusing efforts on gun crime within the black community is not based on reality, and rather based on some form of institutionalised racism coupled with an official - and no doubt intentional - reluctance to accept that most gun crime in London is committed by whites, and that blacks are the most likely victims. Of course that must be it, it's only explanation that doesn't go backwards and perpetuate stereotypes.

Now back to reality.

We shouldn't mention or portray Africans as "drug-dealing, gun-toting criminals" - not because such things don't exist, and indeed not because it is untrue that such scenes have become commonplace in many areas of Britain, but because doing so "focuses on stereotypes" and shows a "lack of imagination". In other words, because we don't like the truth we'll not mention it, we should make something else up instead, or ignore it altogether and portray Africans in a positive light at every opportunity?

Censorship and minority cultural promotion via the media. The logical outcome if carried to its conclusion is either a media which shows nothing negative at all, a neutered and scented bed of roses, or - much more likely - one in which only the white British are to be shown in a negative light, all minorities are to be positive and promoted at every opportunity. The politically correct drama and televisual dream with absolutely zero grounding in reality.

And on television tonight, the new episode of Lewis, where Lewis is dismissed for racial prejudice, and replaced by newly promoted Inspector Abdikarim Lewis, black and in a civil marriage with his gay partner. Inspector Abdikarim Lewis cracks a tough case in which a depraved Oxford professor, motivated by raging racial hatred and jealousy at his black students intellectual superiority to himself, slaughters minority students who are achieving excellent grades.

Next up is docudrama Top Boys, where a gang of pacifist, peace loving black youth enter housing estates blighted by white gang violence, and preach a message of love and peace to the often racist white gang members who have left predominantly black communities living in terror of violence and drugs. In a poignant and stirring conclusion, 98 year old white grandmother Sheila Miggins, the only white person left on her block, tells us of the loving peace and harmony which diversity has brought, and how much better life is for her now.

And....you get the point. Keep checking those television guides. Maybe it's not quite as overt - yet - as these fictional musings, but there's similar tucked away on television, and in existing programs, all the time. After all, we mustn't reinforce stereotypes, or perpetuate negative images of minorities, even if it means sacrificing truth and accuracy. Wherever possible minority must be promoted. All in the name of equality and harmony of course.

We can at least watch that wonderful multicultural dream on television - the only place where it can ever be made to even look like it works - and pretend that reality is the same, at least until it's time to hit the off button and head out into the real world.

*Top Boy episode one airs on Channel 4 on October 31. Don't expect much, the excuses for characters actions are already written in C4's preview, which tells us what to expect with "Thirteen-year-old Ra'Nell finds he has to "step up and be a man" when his mother Lisa has a breakdown and is hospitalised. At the same time his mum's friend Heather, enlists his help in a dangerous plan she has concocted to give her unborn baby the chances she never had"