Thread’s over. Everyone go home: anything after this is just “yes but”.
*scrolls down, sees another eight hours of “yes but” posts*
Ah, shit.
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Relevant…
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Poor tony slattery who knew, thou i do feel like this use the actions of one man to bash a whole nation, the grass is not all ways green on the other side of the pond…
Like you, it just didn’t occur to me. When I read about this yesterday I was half way through reading an article about it and getting increasingly confused when it was finally mentioned that MM is mixed race. Until then I was labouring under the misapprehension that he’d been fired for being rude about the royal family.
We call him Alf Garnett here, and Archie Bunker was pleasant compared to him.
Warren Mitchell used to get angry at people who thought Alf was a hero.
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I’d say the bigotry continued into the 90’s and possibly beyond.
I watched an episode of Baddiel and Skinner’s Fantasy Football recently, and I don’t know how they thought it was a good idea for David Baddiel to do blackface for the Jason Lee can’t get a shot on target sketches. Maybe they thought it was OK because Baddiel is Jewish. The jokes about his hair were also racist.
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There is a surprising amount of criticism of Meghan Markle in the right-wing British press. It’s all based around things she does which aren’t traditionally royal, such as having baby showers (a non-British tradition.)
Whether this is inspired by hidden racism is a matter for speculation.
Let me guess… you’re taking back “Porch Monkey”. 
OK let’s step back. Maybe…MAYBE… MAAAAYYYYBEEEE you could make a case for comparing young kids to monkeys, running around, playing, climbing things. But this is an INFANT who can’t even raise his head.
So, where is the supposed humor in posting the image of two people leaving the hospital with a chimp. Thinking, thinking… Comparing an infant to a chimp… mmmm. Nope, that isn’t funny. Is there a lot of pop cultural references that this could relate to and make it funny? Can’t think of one, really.
What about comparing black people to monkeys and chimps? Well, THAT is definitely a thing. There is a long, rich history of white people comparing black people to primates, often times as “jokes”.
So I don’t see how one could possibly confuse the intention of this image. There really is only ONE way this could be thought of as “humorous” and worth posting - and that is if one is a racist douche who thinks comparing black people to chimps is funny. And Danny Baker, as I pointed out in one of my first posts, is old enough for when making such jokes were common and would get a guffaw instead of the condemnation of today.
Prove me wrong.
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The term never made it America has clear implications of failure. “Never had a career in America” or “not known in America” would have been neutral ways to put it.
He said many things, always best to chose the things that support your argument though.
I’ve head an amazing amount of bollocks bandied about DB in the last 48 hours, I’ve been especially been impressed by the individuals who know what Baker thinks based on the area of London he grew up in (they are all racists there except for the ones who aren’t foreigners), the football team he supports and the company he may or may not have kept. I really like the assumption that anyone who’s 50+ and white is a racist, well, y’know, just because they are.
I know, right?
This is how I often feel whenever these regurgitative conversations about defending/penalizing racism inevitably end up deteriorating into a bunch of privilege-blind justifications and lame-ass excuses for shitty, inhumane behavior:
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Funny, I know nothing about Baker; where he grew up, what soccer team he supports, boxers or briefs; yet I know he’s a racist by what he has said and done.
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Oh, don’t be silly, dear; it’s only ‘really racism’ if someone is actively lynching POC and burning crosses on their lawn. Anything short of that is just fine and hunkydory.
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I’m sure you are correct - I haven’t lived in the UK for more than a couple of weeks at a time since 1985, so I didn’t want to generalize on things since then.
Lots of unpleasant things are said in the UK in the guise of “jokes” or “banter” and if I point that out I’m the humo(u)rless American/Canadian/Kiwi who can’t take a “joke”. I think living away from it you see how toxic it can become - not to say that this doesn’t go on elsewhere but it seems worse in the UK and Australia.
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Rule #1 of any monarchy, including constitutional ones:
Don’t ever fuck with the royal baby.
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The BBC will turn on you faster than a rattlesnake for not wearing a poppy correctly.
I’m sure there’s millions of little old ladies mobilising out there right now that didn’t even bother waiting for the end of the story.
Granted, if they had waited, quite a few would be conflicted…
ETA: I don’t even want to know what the Daily Heil is making of this.
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Your entire list of characteristics were true of Danny Baker the day before, and people didn’t think anything about racism.
Him being racist, that really only seemed to pick up as an idea after he posted a disgusting racist joke.
Maybe it was the “joke”?
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I’d extend that to “don’t insult babies in general.” It’s bad taste in the best of circumstances.
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No disrespect to other royal babies, but this is the one for me…
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