Is unfortunately not the end point.
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I’ve never known Baker to be Racist in all the years I’ve listened to him (I notice you’ve rowed back from the original post title of ‘Racist DJ’). I also find the general context rather ironic. The family in question are supposed to have a bloodline which is intrinsically better than mere plebs like mine or yours gives them a constitutional and legal right to sit at the apex of a profoundly dysfunctional and abusive class system which is shown to have profound effects on those at the bottom end. They consider themselves to be axiomatically a race apart. The UK’s collective Stockholm sydrome regarding this is well known and the idea that ‘pure’ royal bloodlines should remain unsullied is a subtext rumbling on in the right wing press week after week. Baker has never been involved with that, and unless there’s previous form, this was a bad mistake.
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And now you have. Now you are faced with the decision of what to do with that knowledge.
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Yes, let’s spend time verifying his racism. Because the tweet wasn’t enough?
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Failing to stand up and condemn this heinous, appalling, uncivilised and despicable act is an apex representation of participation, subconscious or otherwise, in all those factors.
Break free dude. See this for what it is.
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A few have been employed and the current one is rowed rather forward.
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Many progressives and liberals manage to make fun of the silliness of the monarchy without evoking obviously racist tropes. If you or Baker or anyone else tries to fall back on lefty cred to explain this away, we’re not buying it.
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I’ve heard people say this about tRumph, also. But we all know BS when we hear it.
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No, we “all” clearly don’t.
Denial ain’t just ‘a river in Africa,’ and it seems apologists/enablers are always going to bend over backwards in their attempts to justify antisocial behavior.
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Somewhat contra to this I feel that the British monarchy is among the least explicitly racist of implicitly racist institutions. This is why the Markles were so easy to integrate into Casa Del Windsor without ado even as doing so ignited a wave of racism in UK media. The royals and everyone else knows the House of Windsor are normal people rather than literally divine creatures of racially pure dieu et mon droit, and likewise that the whole institution is a slightly absurd constitutional shim whose importance many Britons cling to for deep emotional and symbolic reasons and fears.
If anything, I feel these contradictions are why Baker thought he could do this. He didn’t consider that an implicitly racist thing will now immediately have its explicit meanings exposed. The ironic distance he posed between himself and his tweet disappeared in a flash of light. cf. Context collapse.
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Fair enough. To be honest I was a little confused at how to interpret your post.
Nope, still not buying it.
It’s a problem that BBC misguidedly allows virulent racists to make spectacles of themselves on their platform as call-in or panel show guests in the name of balance, but that doesn’t mean it has to keep a host who cluelessly engages in casual racism on its own payroll and representing its brand.
Here’s what happened: he’s a politically left-leaning* old man who slipped up and forgot that a joke that was acceptable on the air in 1979 would get him sacked if he posted it on a public forum in 2019. Other politically left-leaning old men who are fans and identify with him are now worried and twisting themselves in pretzels to defend him.
[* taking his defenders at their word]
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When I lived in a United State as a bobling, I was mortified by most British non-export cultural products. Which is normal, and I’m sure many American expats feel about Hee-Haw like I did about Benny Hill. But some things are embarassing not just because they’re crappy, but because they’re disturbing. The outside world doesn’t see it because no one’s trying to sell Jim’ll Fix It or Red Nose Day overseas, and British people don’t notice it because it operates on this creepy subliminal under-the-duvet wavelength, but once you notice it it can’t be unseen. And Saturday Night “light entertainment” is riddled with it. Audiences clapping in time to all live music. Hyperintense sentimentality about children, old people and pets. “Silly” “traditions” to which you can’t say no. Esther Rantzen. The horror… the horror.
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Yeah, he’s far less famous than Robinson and far less employed than Morgan.
The cheeky chappie routine wore very thin, very quickly.
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The tweet was racist. It supports an abusive culture. End of.
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Steve Coogan has made a fortune lampooning the UK “Light Entertainment” industry as Alan Partridge for decades. It’s almost ironic in its mediocrity.
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I agree, I don’t think they see themselves as a race apart, they know they are German/Greek from French decent, and on the throne because Parliament needed to find a pliable protestant after Anne died.
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Steve Coogan, Chris Morris, Armando Iannucci – heroes and gods.
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Do you actually know the man personally, to make such a declarative statement in his defense?
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