Do you really look at Harry and Meghan and think “black people” instead of “royal people”? Their most significant characteristic to most people is their place in the royal family.
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Either you have remarkably placid children or you do not have children. Perfectly normal babies and toddlers are noisy, rambunctious and naughty. Like chimps and monkeys. To which they were often compared around the middle of the last century.
I’m not a Danny Baker fan - there are lots of legitimate reasons to criticize him. But I believe him about this.
They’re a family with some black people.
There’s nothing wrong with thinking of them that way, whatever your opinion on the concept of royalty.
There’s a lot wrong with pretending obvious racism isn’t racism.
You’re being either racist or ignorant. If it’s the former, fuck you very much. If it’s the latter, I hope you have a pleasant day.
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Wait, Danny Baker is 100 years old!? He doesn’t look a day over 70!
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If someone who had never even seen my children likened them to unruly apes I’d want to know why.
Can you point to any examples of Danny Baker likening famous white children to chimpanzees?
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And the right-wing British press won’t let anyone forget the fact that Markle has a black mother. Baker had to be aware of this, just as he had to be aware of the old racist trope comparing black folks to apes. If he was unaware of both he had no business working for the BBC as an on-air presenter.
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Comparing Black people to any variety of simian is a racist trope; full fucking stop.
It doesn’t matter what country it is, this is the 21st fucking century, the world is ‘smaller’ and more connected than ever, and the internet is a thing.
Feigning ignorance that such a comparison is highly offensive to Black people in general is some lame, bullshit justification for casual racism.
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Newborns?
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Dayum…the double-jointed apologists are contorting overtime in this thread.
You sound, dare I say…disappointed.
I’m just disappointed Danny Baker didn’t get Rob’s teratoma-eyes treatment. I used to think I disliked those, but now in their absence I find there’s a void only that comforting horror can fill.
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The idea that we should be censoring our use of language for no other reason than that some people lack education, and others maturity, is abhorrent. Oh wait, I said ‘abhorrent’. With that ‘ab’ in front it might be misconstrued as offensive by people with sub-Spartan physiques. And other people might use it to make fun of them. Best ditch it.
The sort of lack of education which leads some individuals to be unable to comprehend that that’s not what Rob argued?
Of course that’s extending the benefit of the doubt that their straw men are unintentional.
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There are only two reasons people still use the word “niggardly” in 2019.
- Because they’re writing old-timey sounding dialogue (which is why the word sometimes pops up in GRRM’s Song of Ice and Fire series)
- Because they’re trying to be intentionally provocative by using a word that sounds like the N-word, then mock the people who take umbrage for “lacking education.”
It’s not “censorship” to call people out on the latter.
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Right? There should be three voids.
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Except that she’s rich and famous and likening any person of non-royal blood to an ape isn’t really a thing, whereas likening people of sub-saharan African descent to apes has a long and ugly history in the UK and elsewhere.
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You don’t choose your words to convey your meaning with the least likelihood of being misunderstood?
If you do, why would you choose the exact language that makes even the most educated people have to immediately parse out whether you might be another bonehead racist? If you aren’t doing some meta-commentary on racism, why use a word now synonymous with meta-commentary on racism?
Is that what you think is the more mature and thoughtful way to use language? I don’t think that’s censorship, per se. There’s many words we don’t use, because they are no longer received in the same way as they once were. Humans continue to muddle through.
(Double entendres, vague language, made-up words, can all be great wonders of complex and fulfilling human communication, but when the only thing you’re being vague about is specifically whether you’re a racist?..blech.)
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I lived in a small, conservative town in the US for several years and became thoroughly tired of people saying “niggardly” in ways clearly intended to evoke the n-word under the belief that its innocent etymology immunized them against any claims of racism.
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The educated ones do indeed use it that way. They also trolley non-racists who are aware of the word’s actual meaning. Some of the uneducated ones also picked up on that, although those dolts seem to think it’s an racist adjective they can get away with using because it’s archaic.
I stopped using the word more than a decade ago, even with people I know are educated and anti-racist. It is a good and useful term, conveying a specific type of miserliness in visceral terms, but the racists have ruined it like they ruin pretty much everything.
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It’s like the swastika: originally non-offensive, but now, it’s not accidental when someone uses it.
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