Well,
I was writing about Jeremy Clarkson in the last issue – from
Belgium even – and if it doesn’t rain but it pours.
In
the last issue I discussed him calling his dog ‘Didier Dogba’.
He has now had a final warning over racist remarks, having been
caught using the n-word under his breath:
Eeny
meeny miney mo / *atch * n***** *y *he *oe
the
second line mumbled. On the 1st May he contacted the Daily Mirror
‘begging forgiveness’. However two days later he re-opened the
issue and ‘attacked them for making him issue a public apology over
his N-word shame.’
A
lot of people protested that it wasn’t racist in the context,
including some black people. Indeed it appears to many to be a
matter of legitimate disagreement. Now the problem is that the BBC
has to oppose racism and sexism, but nevertheless be impartial in any
debate concerning what constitutes racism and sexism. It is highly
problematic whether this is logically sustainable. Therefore one has
to be pragmatic on the safe side.
I
argued in my last article that it was often intuition that mattered.
And in this case black people have that intuition but others don’t.
Therefore for white people the only acceptable policy is never use
such controversial language, ever, not even in quotes to dis racists,
since usually such an attempt at humour or irony is clumsy. And what
makes you think everyone understand irony?
If
indeed the BBC had spelt that out, then they would have a cast-iron
case for ‘setting JC free’, not least because he retracted the
apology two days later. But the fact remains that he, and indeed his
lieutenants, would not see it this way. As Hugh Muir said in his
Guardian diary on Tuesday (6/5/2014), “the
Clarkson war on so-called political correctness goes back a long
way.”
But
here we have precisely the problem for the BBC that I have just
mentioned: they have to be anti-racist, but must be impartial in any
debate concerning what constitutes racism and sexism. To say that JC
is not being racist to take sides, and indeed giving Jeremy Clarkson
a platform for his ‘war’ on political correctness.
After
all this, it is easy to research this war: it is easy to google or
merely search the Daily Mirror to unearth his war crimes - a string
of unpleasant jibes pertaining to ethnicity and other factors:
In
December 2005 he gave a Nazi salute while presenting a Top Gear piece
on German car-maker BMW, suggesting that its satnav “only goes to
Poland”. (Daily Mirror, )
Clarkson
is well known for courting controversy - last year he was cleared of
breaching the broadcasting code by watchdog Ofcom after comparing a
Japanese car to people with growths on their faces.
He
had previously faced a storm of protest from mental health charities
after he branded people who throw themselves under trains as
"selfish" and was forced to apologise for telling BBC One's
The One Show that striking workers should be shot.
[The
team having built a bridge over the River Kwai in Thailand] As a
south-east Asian man walked over it, Clarkson said: “That is a
proud moment, but there’s a slope on it.” / The Ofcom
investigation, announced today, will look at whether the clip counted
as a breach of content standards.
This
is not a war on correctness, it is a war of harassment against
victims of non-correctness, and the BBC would certainly lose its
impartiality if it controversially condoned such harassment.
One might call it anti-anti-racism, anti-anti-sexism, etc. And I said in the last issue:
There
is something known as mock disrespect which displays actual respect
or actual affection (and respect): you avoid it if there's real
disrespect.
If
there is real disrespect, one might say that here we have not mock
disrespect, but mock-mock-disrespect.
And
we haven’t even started with his anti-anti-pollution attitude re
motor-cars. The BBC has to be anti-pollution: to tolerate his
anti-anti-pollution attitude means they are not so much either
partial or impartial, as partial to two conflicting attitudes... so
much for the profit motive creeping in...
Post-script,
on golly*ogs -
The
said word is a compound word, of which the second element is a racist
word, which I have sanitised in the usual way. That aside, are these
dolls racist? We may note that the first occasion for them to be
banned was in Nazi Germany. It is said that they depict an inane
grinning black person, implying black people are inane.
In
Wiki:
“Florence
Kate Upton was born in 1873 in Flushing, New York, the daughter of
English parents who had emigrated to the United States three years
previously. … she moved back to England … when she was fourteen.
There she spent several years drawing and developing her artistic
skills. In order to afford tuition to art school, she illustrated a
children's book entitled The Adventures of Two Dutch Dolls and a
Golliwogg. The 1895 book included a character named the Golliwogg,
who was first described as "a horrid sight, the blackest gnome",
but who quickly turned out to be a friendly character, and is later
attributed with a "kind face." A product of the blackface
minstrel tradition, the Golliwogg had jet black skin; bright, red
lips; and wild, woolly hair. He wore red trousers, a shirt with a
stiff collar, red bow-tie, and a blue jacket with tails — all
traditional minstrel attire."
“Upton's
book and its many sequels were extremely successful in England,
largely because of the popularity of the Golliwogg. … Upton's
Golliwogg was jovial, friendly and gallant, but some later golliwogs
were sinister or menacing characters.
“The
golliwog contributed enormously to the spread of blackface
iconography in Europe. … ”
It
is useful to have the history of the doll, not least when s/he took
on a variety of characters, where unfavourable stereotyping was not
at all obvious. On the other hand it is connected with the
black-and-white minstrels, who are nowadays labelled as racist.
According
to wiki, the doll may sometimes be female when home-made but is
generally male. This is interesting, in that I associated the big
eyes with lots of white showing, with a black nanny. The expression
does not to my mind associate with stupidity, but with the faces one
makes with children.
Why
not have a golly-poppa or golly-momma, perhaps with a streak of grey
hair? Perhaps produced under Fair Trade.
I
make this suggestion precisely because it is an example of something
where a white person has no intuitions. Maybe Robinsons are totally
compromised and should keep their heads under the parapet, but any
such suggestions have to be subject to the intuitions of the
potential ‘victim’.
And
again, the BBC and other public organisations have to be both
anti-racist and impartial.
According
to wiki, the doll may sometimes be female when home-made but is
generally male. This is interesting, in that I associated the big
eyes with lots of white showing, with a black nanny. The expression
does not to my mind associate with stupidity, but with the faces one
makes with children.
Why
not have a golly-poppa or golly-momma, perhaps with a streak of grey
hair? Perhaps produced under Fair Trade.
I
make this suggestion precisely because it is an example of something
where a white person has no intuitions. Maybe Robinsons are totally
compromised and should keep their heads under the parapet, but any
such suggestions have to be subject to the intuitions of the
potential ‘victim’.
And
again, the BBC and other public organisations have to be both
anti-racist and impartial.
