“Danny Baker’s excuses don’t cut it – the impact of racism is inseparable from the intent”, writes Kuba Shand-Baptiste in the Independent. Or rather her headline writer does, since the headline claims that intentions matter deeply and the article claims they matter not at all. No, I’m wrong; on closer reading, the headline-writer took the headline from the penultimate line of Ms Shand-Baptiste’s article. But that line contradicts everything that went before. Oh, I give up. You can read it yourselves.
For context, Ms Shand-Baptiste’s article is about the sacking of the DJ Danny Baker for tweeting an old black and white picture that showed a very posh couple with a dressed-up chimpanzee, to which Baker added the caption “Royal baby leaves hospital”. Given that baby Archie is mixed race (a touching photo of him surrounded by beaming relatives from both sides of his multi-racial family went round the world in an instant), and there is a long history of racist depictions of black people as being apes or monkeys, Baker was a fool not to see how his tweet could be misread. But he says it was misread. He says he was jokingly making a left-wing point to the effect that all the royals are in a sense performing animals, dressed up for the cameras. I see no reason to disbelieve him. Neither does Kuba Shand-Baptiste in the Independent, she just thinks innocent intent does not matter:
When it comes to racism in Britain, naivety has long been key to pushing the harmful messages we accept as inadvertent or good natured. But there’s no excuse. Whether or not these acts are accidental, the impact is almost always inseparable from the intent. You don’t have to have a “diseased mind” to be part of the problem, but blind belief in your own sense of decency in the face of facts that suggest otherwise, definitely helps.
Wait a minute, “blind belief”? Kuba Shand-Baptiste just used the word “blind” as a metaphor for a moral failing!
When it comes to ableism in Britain, naivety has long been key to pushing the harmful messages we accept as inadvertent or good natured. But there’s no excuse.
Never mind the context, never mind her intention, the Independent must fire her now.
Added 10.20pm, 10/05/19: Good grief: Danny Baker being investigated by police over ‘stupid’ royal baby tweet that saw him sacked by BBC.
To be fair to the police this looks like a case of “someone has made a complaint so it must be investigated”. Welcome to the world you made, lefties.
You don’t have to have a “diseased mind” to be part of the problem, but blind belief in your own sense of decency in the face of facts that suggest otherwise, definitely helps.
That’s the entire SJW program screwed then.
What a load of cockrot.
Good for Baker. Fuck ’em if they can’t take a joke. From BBC leftist scum who want the Royals gone yet.
Presumably some people must have liked Mr. Baker.
That’s them pissed off then.
You win, social justice.
I don’t know about Old Blighty, but here in the colonies such appeals to evenhandedness are disposed of with a tidy two-word riposte – protected class.
And the coup de grâce – racist!
Good for Baker.
Not really, Baker tried to excuse himself because he claimed he did not have a “diseased mind”, in other words, as far as he was concerned it was fine for him to make a casually racist comment but not for others.
Blue-on-blue casualty in the SJW world, the more the better.
Oh my, “Unrealized white privilege racism offense” has finally reached England’s shores from American
mismatched useful idiot feminist culture diversity racist intersectionals in the cloistered American college “Safe spaces”?
*sigh* Just tinkle on their shoes. (Much easier if you’re a toxic male)
“Man does something utterly idiotic, suffers consequences of idiocy.”
Why does this never work in the other direction? Boers in South Africa in the 1920s and Democrats in the south in the 1930s imposed minimum wages, and as everyone woke knows, not imposing minimum wages is racist and and imposing them is the way to fight racism. It is true that the intent of those white South Africans and Democrat minimum wage imposers was not to benefit their black fellow citizens – they are on record about that – but if intent does not matter, surely the woke should be glad of these fellow toilers in the field of minimum wage justice, not avoid mentioning them as they do (or even knowing of them, as I suspect 🙂 ).
Except for that, as someone above remarks, it is blue-on-blue as our US readers say, red-on-red as we Brits would say, or PC-on-PC as maybe we’d better all start saying to be understood. 🙂 Jolly old heart bleeds and all that. And I suspect his intent was to be mean, and to preen himself on being above the enthusiasms of us common people, and all the usual PC attitudes – and those intentions do indeed matter to me.
Did Danny Baker know that the baby was supposed to be “mixed race” when he sent the tweet? I realize that people in the UK actually care about those people, so maybe he did, but when I (an American with no idea what any of them look like) heard about this I found a photo of the baby with his parents and my first thought was, “They’re all white. I don’t get it.”
It reminded me of the time that comedian got her sitcom cancelled by comparing a photo of a white actress made up like an ape from one of the “Planet of the Apes” movies to an ugly white woman. If people hadn’t been insisting that it was racist because the ugly white woman was black, I would never have known I was supposed to think she was black.
Wait . . . Prince Harry is black?
@bobby b – No. It’s worse. He’s ginger. Being Gingerist or Gingerphobic is still OK (for now).
Had anyone noticed that ginger is an anagram of a really racist word?
It has been noted.
Exactly. He must have known that the monkey reference, given the mixed race of the child, was going to get him into trouble.
There are certain outraged worth fighting, such as the disgusting treatment of Sir Roger Scruton, who was traduced, but I can’t get upset about a twat like Baker.
Certainly should have done. The only reason I’m inclined to believe that his initial post was innocent is that surely no-one in their right mind would be so utterly stupid as to knowingly post something that disgusting?
His follow-up smacked of “I’m the real victim here!” though, so yes. I agree. I’m struggling to get upset over it.
Stonyground
“Had anyone noticed that ginger is an anagram of a really racist word?”
What…bell curve? Inmate? Intersectional? Gangsta’? Chairman? Professor? Voting bloc?
I don’t get it..or did you mean bigoted?
Mr Baker worked for the BBC, cause enough for him to have been sacked, regardless of whether or not he tweeted any picture.
So in order to be non-racist you have to be aware of peoples’ races. Because it’s OK to use the “800 lb gorilla” metaphor if it’s a white guy, but not if it’s a black guy. Because it’s patriotic dissent to satirize George HW Bush as “Chimpy McHitler,” but Nazi-grade evil WrongThink to caricature Barack Obama as a chimp.
“Race-Blindness Is Racist”
How Orwellian.
I know it’s not what you meant, but it made me laugh – reminds me of the insufferable gap year hippie twats I used to know who “were so un-racist that they didn’t even seeeee skin colour anymore”. Thought they were down, because they had a Fresh Prince album, but got scared shitless by NWA’s Fuck Tha Police (which is a libertarian classic)
(Yes, I’ve just given my age away, too)
Mr Baker made a stupid and offensive joke – but he should not have been sacked for it.
As for a “police investigation” for his joke – only a Culturally Fascist or Culturally Marxist country (the sort of place that has a “Press Regulator”, and an “Ofcom” to control television) would have a “police investigation” of a joke. The British people must reject the “Thought Police” – the sort of system of censorship and thought control that is pushed by Theresa May and the rest of the P.C. establishment elite.
As for baby Archie and his parents and the rest of the Royal family – I wish them every happiness.