She might not be racist but she’s still vile
There’s one thing I don’t get about the Carol Thatcher ‘controversy’ over her using the word Golliwog casually. Let’s assume she didn’t mean it maliciously. Assume she really is stupid enough not to know the racist connotations that surround the word – there seem to be an awful lot of people who these days who still seem to live in the 1950s.
But why doesn’t she apologise for accepting her use of the word might have caused offence? Wouldn’t that be basic courtesy? Now the idiot Boris Johnson has waded in to say she shouldn’t have been fired. Yes, it’s really OK that people can make casual racist references isn’t it? Especially if they show no remorse for their stupid actions.
Update, oh scratch the non-racist bit. This woman truly is vile.
Carol Thatcher made multiple references describing a French mixed-race tennis player as a “golliwog”, “half-golliwog” and “golliwog Frog”, sources say.
…
“‘Golliwog’ wasn’t the half of it, it is much worse than what has come out,” a programme source told MediaGuardian.co.uk. Thatcher, the daughter of former prime minister Lady Thatcher, was dropped as a roving reporter from The One Show on Tuesday night after refusing to make a full apology about her remark. Her spokeswoman said it had been an off-the-cuff remark “made in jest”.
Jest?? What would Chris Rock say? Answer in the comments…
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Filed in: Race politics
Ken offended people on several occasions and has never apologised for anything. He told a Jewish reporter he was like a concentration camp guard. He never showed remorse. And that was face to face. Ken was not fired.
Though, I suspect if somebody had referred to somebody as golliwog in Boris’ administration they would be fired without much hesitation!
Golliwog is offensive, and she should have apologised. Stupid woman. Only really got her self to blame. This was the BBC after all.
Apologise to whom? She said it in private – whom did she offend to apologise?
Apologise to her fuckin’ mum.
He never showed remorse. And that was face to face. Ken was not fired.
He should have apologised – I agree.
lol @ Sid.
There seems to be a whole lot of confusion over what it means to be a racist, what it a racist remark and who should be getting offended
There is also a strange amount of bewilderment that as it was said ‘off air’ it is somehow ok? More than anything else this is about employment law and related policies. About the people she was working with who heard the comment and found it offensive.
What surprises me is that for a country that recognizes s it has ‘institutionalized racism’ and when there is obvious discrimination in work, education, and just about every other area of peoples lives, we never seem willing to admit when someone is quite plainly being racist.
Institutions can be racist (‘The Metropolitan Police’), whole groups of people can be (the ‘white working classes’) but whenever an individual is accused of being a racist there is a whole heap of people willing to say “I don’t think Carol Thatcher/Boris Johnson/Prince Charles/Prince Harry/Jade Goody/Cheryl Tweedy/&etc is racist, but …..blah…”
coruja, are you actually really saying the white working classes are all racist? Really? Is that tongue in cheek or do you have no sense of irony?
@ kardinal birkutski – tongue in cheek, most certainly. always amuses me when this group is the one deemed to be uniformly racist & BNP supporting.
It’s not a case of she just randomly blurted out the word golliwog, she said some black tennis player looked like one. That is blatent racism.
What pisses me off is the ‘justification’ that it was only meant as a joke. I’m sorry, but I for one remember absolute cunts spouting racist crap then following it with a lame ‘calm down, we’re only ‘avin a laugh’. Since when did racism in the name of comedy become acceptable again? Bernard Manning is dead in more ways than one for a reason
Tongue-in-cheek, perhaps, but the whole point of institutional racism is that it means that there are circumstances in which an organisation or group acts in a racist way regardless of thr conscious intentions of its members. There is still a difference between behaving in a racist way and the way someone speaks- it wasn’t until I was well into my twentis that I realised that golliwogs were caricatures of black people, for example; I’d always associated the term with pollywog, the local word for tadpoles.
There is a difference between what someone says in private and what they say in public: with people you know there is much less need for formal courtesy than when you are addressing a lot of people who don’t know you. A lot of private humour depends on deliberstely going over the edge of what is publicly acceptable. The whole point about the “edginess” so valued by the B.B.C. now is that people are going to be offended by what is said, Whether it is acceptable or not seems to depend on who is offended. In this case, the people who were offended should just have told Carol Thatcher they thought her remarks stupid and offensive and left her to think about them. Making a public display of them has mae everyone look stupid or arrogant.
Heh amusing.
I think the biggest controversy here is why the HELL she was hired in the first place…
Ken should not have apologised. Carol Thatcher should not have apologised. Jeremy Clarkson should not have apologised. (Unless they really wanted to). It’s supposed to be a free country.
Bishop,
Aaah there is no limit to the wit and wisdom of racist shitbags like you. I guess as a pretend Bishop you also want the right to carry on fidling with imaginary boys in your choir.
ken should not have apologised. he was used the term ‘concentration camp guard’ pejoratively – as in, he saw the nazis as a very bad thing. if he were applauding concentration camp guards, then naturally he should have sacked on the spot. but he wasn’t.
carol thatcher is a vile woman. anyone that uses terms like that nowadays, when generations of people who are the subjects of that term have asked you not to, is vile. and racist. anyone who recognises and respects the humanity of a person or group of people, would stop using terms which offend them.
Hermes
You are clearly very upset. I wasn’t aware that I said anything racist. I just think freedom of speech is kind of important. Us liberals are like that.
I just think freedom of speech is kind of important
And the right of employers to sack employees who betray the guidelines they were hired under?
sure – she can rant and rave on Hyde Park Corner and I wouldn’t give a crap. But why should by license fee support a racist?
some ppl need to read up on diversity in the workplace…and whether a comment made in ‘private’ but still at work or on work premises is deemed wrong.
and i wonder if she’d say it to a black person to their face…oh look President Obama, you look like a gollywog in your last photo..*guffaw* *ha hahahahaha*
Did she break guidelines? If so then that’s a point I wasn’t aware of and it changes the complexion of the situation – if you breach your contract, you’ve got nobody to blame except yourself.
If she didn’t though, I am convinced she shouldn’t go.
If the BBC were a private employer I would have no problem with them firing her. In fact, if she worked for me I think I might fire her myself (although I doubt very much if I would have employed her in the first place). The situation for the BBC is different. It is funded by coercion and is meant to represent all views, including unpleasant ones – it’s taken money from all. That’s why it quite properly gives airtime to the BNP, at least at election time.
Coming back to the possibility that she breached her contract, I would still be appalled that the BBC was putting speech codes into its contracts. That doesn’t seem responsible for a body that is meant to be at the forefront of free speech in this country.
The situation for the BBC is different. It is funded by coercion and is meant to represent all views, including unpleasant ones
Representing a view through journalism is rather different than employing someone who holds those views.
She would be breaching her contract because I believe its a responsibility of public sector employers to stamp out hate speech from employees.
I don’t think that’s right. The BBC can’t surely argue that it can coerce money from the BNP while arguing that its members are not fit to work for them can it? That doesn’t seem right.
As for your other point, I don’t think what she said was “hate speech”, which is usually defined a speech inciting hatred of someone. You seem to be conflating offensive speech with hate speech. And regardless of that, I don’t think the BBC should be imposing speech codes on its staff. The risk is that hate speech gets conflated with offensive speech and then with politically incorrect speech and…well, you get the drift. The only sensible place to draw the line is at incitement. Anything else is too subjective.
It seems rather strange that this private matter was leaked to the press, which to me shows that someone here is operating in bad-faith. Carol Thatcher also says she apologised by email. She also says that nobody objected to the term. There is absolutely no recording of this, how does one judge what went on?
Still, she did use the term gollywog inside BBC premises among her co-workers, and therefore, it doesn’t seem unreasonable that she was sacked. But couldn’t she get a warning to watch her language?
Incidentally, Carol Thatcher is 25% middle-eastern. You can watch her face when she was told her ancestors came from very far away.
The BBC can’t surely argue that it can coerce money from the BNP while arguing that its members are not fit to work for them can it?
BNP members can work for them I’m sure, as long as they stick within BBC policy of not being racist.
As for speech codes – you have at work everywhere. You’re telling me a company cannot say to its staff that they shouldn’t say anything that jeopardises its reputation? That’s absurd. The BBC already has to restrict staff in talking to the press or expressing their opinions openly because of its remit. You’re living in fantasy land…
No, you didn’t read what I said – I am quite clear that a private company should be able to do what it likes here. It’s only the BBC, because of the unique way it is funded, that has a special duty to incorporate all views.
Whether speech codes are common in workplaces or not is irrelevant to whether they are right or not. I can sort of understand the BBC having to restrict what its employees say in public, although I’m slightly surprised that you stand up for employers rather than the employee on these issues. However, I’m not sure that this is actually relevant to the case at hand which relates to off-air comments.
I think Ravi probably has it right. The BBC should have asked her to desist and then if she refused she could have been thrown out for insubordination. But she shouldn’t have been forced to apologise, the BBC having its special duty towards the widest possible interpretation of free speech.
I don’t know who coruja is, it’s the first time I have seen the post but the person is either a self hating white or a white hating member of an ethnic minority spouting the usual rhetoric that I thought had gone out of fashion with the demise of Lee Jasper and the liquidation of the openly racist New Nation newspaper.
Let’s look at MacPherson. If ever there was a kangeroo court it was that one. Nearly all of the evidence came from interest groups who were already saying what the enquiry found. All that happened was a judicial version of the CRE reports, hundreds of them over the years, which always found racism. To be investigated by the race industry was to be found guilty. Now I know nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition but at least they actually did find some people not guilty of heresy!
I have been involved in activities against the far right all my life and do not accept the MacPherson report if only for the fact that I was not consulted. Neither do I accept the myth of “Institutional racism”. I also know that when coruja brands the white working class a racist it means that person doesn’t actually know us.
A look at the leaked BNP membership list shows that it has support across the stratum which makes it much more dangerous that the National Front. It is hacking into support from both Labour and the Tories and its candidate in a coming by election in Croydon is a former member of the Animal Liberation Front, a bunny hugger if you please!
I would like to think that coruja is being ironic but I am afraid these views, while discredited, still have some currency among the professional white haters of the race relations industry and the guilt tripped whites who finance them.
It has always struck me, and I commented on this a couple of days ago whilst out BNP watching on one of the strikes down the Thames estuary, that the anti fascist movement is “hideously white”.
Now quite clearly this is a breach of some race relations act and this blatant discrimination where the anti BNP movement is dominated by “institutionaly racist” members of the white working class.
What is needed is a Royal Commission which will take evidence from organisations like Operation Black Vote and the newly founded Istitute of Practitioners in Equality and Diversity, no I didn’t make it up, they will be paid very large consultancy fees for the forgone conclusion that the anti fascist movement is racist and quotas will be enforced on all anti BNP activities.
Naturally this will have to be monitored so there will have to be a new supervisory body possibly the Anti Fascist Action Regulatory Trust (AFART)which will have the power to ban any anti BNP activity which does not fulfil the required racial quotas.
People like myself who insist on going on these blatantly racist anti fascist activities would be fined and persistent offenders imprisoned.
Far fetched? Don’t you believe it, the race industry with its inbuilt hatred of white people and insatiable greed is capable of anything.
I’m interested to know why, if you use a metaphor whereby A is the source of ignition and B the material to be ignited, discussion is centred so much on A, rather than B. For instance, discussion has centred on whether A is a spark or an oxyacetylene torch. Why not ask how is it that some B’s, like a damp log, can be ignited only with difficulty, even with an oxyacetylene torch, while other B’s burst into flame with a whoosh, at even the hint of a spark, sometimes even if the spark is some distance away, and why do some B’s require external assistance to ignite effectively, by using bellows to force oxygen into them?
And allow me to cite a couple of responses in a Times online poll, kindly supplied by Sunny Hundal elsewhere:
http://extras.timesonline.co.uk/pollresults.htm
Question: Last week a video from a home camera was released in which Prince Harry described an army colleague as a “Paki”.
Majority response: It was used in a good-natured way and wasn’t racist 68%.
Question: It also emerged that Prince Charles has for some years used the name ‘Sooty’ to address an Asian businessman with whom he played polo.
Majority response: The businessman does not mind so nobody else should either 78%.
I wonder how the denizens of this blog and similar ones account for the general discrepancy between these responses and their own.
Trofim: The basic difference is that both Charles & Harry were talking to a friend and the insult could be condsidered to be part of an ongoing relationship.
Thatcher , on the other hand, said something that is considered offfensive by many at work and the comment was clearly considered offensive by those who heard it (unlike in the Charles/Harry cases).
I do think however that Thatcher has been stitched up here. She said something offensive but this was never broadcast. Therefore this should have been dealt with as a private disciplinary matter instead of the whole country knowing about it.
Surely whoever leaked the story to the press is also guilty of breaching employee codes of contract.
Trofim @ 29: “I wonder how the denizens of this blog and similar ones account for the general discrepancy between these responses and their own”
Surely thats a case for looking at the demographics of those who responded. Hint: The majority who are saying no offense was caused relative to whether or not they belong to the affected group(s) who are most likely to be pissed off at racist bullshit i.e. like the ‘denizens’ of this blog.
I heard Boris Johnson being interview on LBC yesterday morning – and I agree with him.
When asked about it, at first he said he didn’t want to say anything about it, but then said he thought she shouldn’t have been sacked.
To me this is really where the issue lies. Not so much about what she said, but the way transgressions like Thatcher’s are delt with. If Thatcher was making repeated use of this word then it’s more serious, but if she foolishly said something about his hair style being like a G……’s, then maybe she should have just been rebuked and told that her remark was really dumb and crass, and left like that.
What I don’t care for these days is the way that a media storm whips up around things like this – and where The Voice (black) newspaper made much of Boris’ ”racism” before the mayoral elections, and I heard one woman on the radio objecting to having Boris as mayor, as according to her, he had called black people ”Pekingese”. (She thought he had called black people a certain breed of dog).
When, in fact, he had made his unfortunate ”joke” about a (historical) derogatory word for black children. My point is – I think we always have to be measured in our responses to these things.
I found this to be an interesting article on what Prince Harry said a few weeks ago.
http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php?/site/article/6098/
Excellent response by Random Guy in #31. I agree completely.
********************************
Ask, and ye shall receive…..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OesOn1yz4ew&feature=related
The majority who are saying no offense was caused relative to whether or not they belong to the affected group(s) who are most likely to be pissed off at racist bullshit i.e. like the ‘denizens’ of this blog.
I can’t agree with Random Guy @31 because I can’t understand what he has said. The last sentence following “hint†is syntactically ill-formed and therefore semantically anomalous. Is there any chance he could rephrase it using fewer embedded clauses, that is, in plain English?
Trofim, I am basically saying that the respondents to the polls you linked to will not all represent the groups who are angered by racist speech.
So my question is: What is the demographic makeup of the people who responded to those polls? I would stake my life on it that the majority of those respondents do not represent the ‘denizens’ of this blog.
I cannot be any clearer than that…
Random Guy:
As far as I understand it, this was a random poll, so it would represent segments of society proportionally. Why would it be otherwise? And the poll to which I linked was cited originally by Sunny Hundal on Liberal Conspiracy for other reasons, so he must have some confidence in it. Now I’m just off to keep an eye on my 90-year-old mum for a day or two, out in wildest Worcestershire. She doesn’t have internet access, so I’m sorry, I can’t respond further! Thank you for your response.
From what I understand of the MacPherson report, I agree that some of it’s findings as to what would be treated by the police as a racist incident, somewhat worrying.
Basicly, a complaint by anybody (directly invilved in the incident or not) would lead the police to treat it as a racist incident.
Rember the controversies over the word “niggardly”?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controversies_about_the_word_%22niggardly%22
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/local/longterm/williams/williams020499.htm
There is anorther dimension to this issue, and it is quite complex. The fact is I know of many students who would refer to TBT ‘That Bitch Thatcher’ in their notes when studying, however the issue now arises which bitch are they referring to? Being a student is hard enough as it is, without this problem.