Question then.
So are we saying, if none of the grandparents were black this would be OK and taken in the context of performing chimps ?
Yes...in my view. You have had to be under a rock to not know about Megan's family tree.
weeksy
Subscriber
Question then.So are we saying, if none of the grandparents were black this would be OK and taken in the context of performing chimps ?
probably, but the context of performing chimps is quite an obscure one these days!
So are we saying, if none of the grandparents were black this would be OK and taken in the context of performing chimps ?
For me, yes. If you found it funny or not might depend how hard you like to tug your forelock. The Daily Mail would no doubt find it a treasonable offence and would be sending a researcher off into the archives to find a migrant in Danny Baker's ancestry as reason enough to have him deported.
Danny's getting an easy ride on this yin..
outofbreath
Personally, I think he was spot on with this. Anyone who sees a chimp and thinks “black person” is twisted.
I think you'll find that it was the other way around.
Someone saw a mixed race child and thought "chimp".
See?
No-one had to look at a picture and wait for a connection in their own head. The connection was made in the words he wrote underneath.
Is that clear enough? Or is "obtuse" in the running for word of the week.
Its not the picture thats racist, its the context he wrote for it.
Thanks for playing.
You have had to be under a rock to not know about Megan’s family tree.
I didn't even know how to spell her name, let alone her surname, until this thread.
Let alone again who her parents are and their history.
This thread has totally flabbered my gast. So often I come on here and raise my eybrows at what I see as a hysterical preoccupation with "isms". And yet here there's people defending Bakers actions as a "bit of a mistake", does your hatred of everything Royal trump everything else ? Even if Danny Bakers intentions weren't racist, it's glaringly obvious to anyone other than a complete moron that it could be interpreted as such, almost instantly by the vast majority. It's a huge misjudgment on his behalf and impossible to think he could have kept his job.
Personally I don't think he's a bad person but over this just a stupid fool.
So are we saying, if none of the grandparents were black this would be OK and taken in the context of performing chimps ?
And a yes from me. For example if the picture had been posted when Harry was born there is no racist element to it.
(This is much harder that it should be...)
kerley
Member
And a yes from me. For example if the picture had been posted when Harry was born there is no racist element to it.
But it wasn't...
The mental gymnastics are getting a 10 from me on this thread! 😆
‘disseased mind’
Personally, I think he was spot on with this. Anyone who sees a chimp and thinks “black person” is twisted.
I think you’ll find that it was the other way around.
Someone saw a mixed race child and thought “chimp”.
Oh well that's alright then! Errr, no, it's not, it's equally twisted. He's 100pc right.
I didn’t even know how to spell her name, let alone her surname, until this thread.
Let alone again who her parents are and their history.
Me too and I'm a "Monarchist". (For the obvious reasons - see Trump's visit for D-Day.) However, I'm not remotely interested in the Royal Family. (Except Phil's war service and Sailing, which is interesting.)
Dezb et. al.
If you can't see how that tweet solidly implies a link between a mixed race child and an ape, do you also hold that some football fans chuck bananas at black players because they're worried about their potassium levels?
He might not have meant it that way, but that doesn't make him "beyond racism" it makes him look like a ****ing idiot, and hes clearly not alone.
If I post a racist image, and you think it's racist, you're the racist.
Olympic standard gymnastics right there! 😆
My white friend posted a picture of her son looking very naughty caught in the act of toddler carnage with the caption 'cheeky monkey!'. Her husband is black and the child mixed race. Does that make her racist? She can't exactly not claim to know her son is of mixed race now can she? But she is white so I'd say probably guilty. Her husband 'liked' the post so no doubt he's racist too.
outofbreath,
the "someone" who
saw a mixed race child and thought “chimp”.
was Danny Baker. That might be the bit you're missing
Looks pretty clear from the tweet.
Or maybe the distinguished gentleman on the left was meant to be the "child" in the photo!
If so, how vexing, I missed the joke completely!
Must be the innate heightism deep in my soul!
If you can't see the immediate racist content, then you need to have a word with yourself
Might have been a mistake, and for what it's worth, I don't think Baker is a racist, but his tweet was, and he pretty much gave the BBC no room for manoeuvre.
‘disseased mind’
Personally, I think he was spot on with this. Anyone who sees a chimp and thinks “black person” is twisted.
I think you’ll find that it was the other way around.
Someone saw a mixed race child and thought “chimp”.
Oh well that’s alright then! Errr, no, it’s not, it’s equally twisted. He’s 100pc right.
the “someone” who ... saw a mixed race child and thought “chimp”... was Danny Baker.
Not relevant to my point. Baker's still right.
If you cannot see how this can be viewed as racist then I am afraid you are both naive and out of touch.
I’m not naive but I’m certainly out of touch, at least where the ethnicity of recent additions to the royal family are concerned.
I honestly had no idea of her family heritage. And possibly that’s what Danny B meant when he said...
“royal watching is not my forte”
2 possibilities here
Danny baker saw the racist connotation here and posted it anyway, knowing fine well that it would 99% end up with his sacking
Or
As per his excuse, he didn't put 2 and 2 together, and the racist element hadn't even crossed his mind.
For those of you that think it's the former, why would he consciously do something which would undoubtedly have a major impact on his brand and career, for what appears to be very little personal gain?
I saw it and initially thought it was about the spectacle of the royal birth or them being circus entities until I was read it could be construed as racist.
But MrAdamW has been reading off twitter the past few days and while I couldn't give a rat's bum about the royals the amount of racist vitriol against Meghan Markle/Duchess of Somewhere I Can't Be Bothered to Look Up is extreme. Really nasty stuff.
Which is why I tend to keep off social media. Tis truely an awful cesspit. There are a lot of sick people on those platforms.
tpbiker
Member
2 possibilities here
Danny baker saw the racist connotation here and posted it anyway, knowing fine well that it would 99% end up with his sacking
Or
As per his excuse, he didn’t put 2 and 2 together, and the racist element hadn’t even crossed his mind.
How about a 3rd- he saw the racist connotation but posted it anyway, thinking he'd get away with it.
eh?
He's been doing the monkey gag for two decades and nobody has complained like this. Sure, with hindsight, this was very ill advised so he pulled the tweet, but he's not a racist.
"he’s not a racist"
The question there is, does that actually matter. I don't think he's a racist, but I think it's possible he intentionally posted something he knew people would take as racist, to get a reaction. And that's shitty too. You don't have to be a racist to do racism. (We don't know if Theresa May's an actual racist frinstance, or if she just does it for political reasons, or maybe because she enjoys harming people in general. But we should still kick her arse for Windrush whatever her reasons)
(I don't know what his motivations and thoughts were; I'm just saying, it's not necessary for him to be a racist, for this to be wrong)
To all those who are suggesting that this is just part of a long running gag, think on this Megan's mum is a black woman from the USA. Do you think she thought.
1. That's just Danny Baker being a bit silly
2. pretty openly racist
outofbreath
Hes not "100% right".
Hes the one who set out to make a joke about the royals having a child, and included a picture of an ape (representing the _mixed_race_ child) as the focus of the joke, and then claimed the people who said WTF! were diseased.
A bit like what you did.
I don't dislike him, and I don't think he's the worst person in the world, but his notpology gave the BBC no choice.
You've decided he's 100% right and everyone who disagrees is a racist.
M'ok..
I don’t think he’s a racist, but I think it’s possible he intentionally posted something he knew people would take as racist, to get a reaction. And that’s shitty too.
Do you actually think this or are you just flagging it as a vague possibility? I'd say the possibility of it being true is about the same as me winning the lottery. I'd don't play the lottery. To intentionally put yourself in this entirely predictable situation would be career suicide. You just wouldn't. No one would. And to put it up as a conceivable option is grasping at straws.
Which is why I tend to keep off social media. Tis truely an awful cesspit. There are a lot of sick people on those platforms.
Ohhh the ironing.
You are here, so are we 🤪
You only have to read the story posted pages ago to know that eat_the_pudding is talking shite.
Still, I'm sure he's having fun.
tpbiker is right.
It is a racist post to racists (and to those constantly vigilant for potential offence I suppose), but if your mind doesn't work that way there isn't anything obvious to be upset about. It took me a long time to work out what the offence was.
Meghan Markles race is no issue whatsoever to me, in fact I could barely care less so it really does need someone to point it out before it even registers. I presume the same for Danny Baker.
DB should probably have known better but a swift retraction and apology is what was required and what happened. In short, Markle and other black people probably entitled to be offended, DB right to retract a silly post with implications he hadn't thought about, BBC wrong to overreact.
How about a 3rd- he saw the racist connotation but posted it anyway, thinking he’d get away with it
I don't know much about Danny baker. If he has an ounce of common sense he'd know he would get crucified for this, which he has done. If he honestly thought he could get away with it in this day and age, with the BBC as his employer, then he's a total idiot.
For me at least, that pic would still make sense even if there was no mixed race heritage in the family, as let's face it, the royals are pretty much 'performing chimps' for the masses that bizarly appear to love them.
Oh yeah, and this 'diseased mind' thing as if its an insult against those taking offence - I read it as saying he simply doesn't think that way i.e. he doesn't have the 'disease' of seeing everything through a lens of race - what should be the ultimate aim of any true anti-racist.
This was his sentence "[The racist connotation] Never occurred to me because, well, mind not diseased."
Again, probably not the smartest thing to write but my guess is it was an attempt at being humble, not fighting back.
dezb
Yes, pointing out a similar story about someone comparing a mixed race person to an ape is "talking shite".
I guess you guys don't even see colour, so all of us real racists should just aspire to your level.
Not having fun, just a bit shocked at a lot of people on here.
This might be the "What colour is the dress" moment for racism.
I don't think of this as social media. That's that Faceache, twitter and the like.
That's what I believe anyway. ITS MY OpinION AND i DON'T CarE! /s
I had no idea it was a long running gag on his show (never listened to him) but my initial impression on seeing his tweet was "another performing royal monkey".
I don’t think of this as social media. That’s that Faceache, twitter and the like.
That’s what I believe anyway. ITS MY OpinION AND i DON’T CarE! /s
Ah, you and me both then.
But it is social media.
I don't care much either way, what we do post on here is kept open in record form and in the public domain. It's open for all to read, maybe not comment on but it's readable.
Even I forget that sometimes.
We ought to think about that point when posting IMO...
Moving on, I do wonder what Media Danny Baker will move into next. Like him/Loath him/Ignore him he was pretty good at commanding a crowd and creating content..
Sure one of the independents will snap him up, along with some of his followers no doubt..
eat_the_pudding - you are talking shite.
What does Roseanne Barr have to do with Danny Baker?
Actually, it will probably help if I answer that simple rhetorical question for you lest the point evades you - Nothing, its simply not relevant, at all.
convert
Subscriber
Do you actually think this or are you just flagging it as a vague possibility? I’d say the possibility of it being true is about the same as me winning the lottery. I’d don’t play the lottery. To intentionally put yourself in this entirely predictable situation would be career suicide.
I definitely think it's possible, maybe even likely. It seems just as possible as "even though I've been doing this joke with monkeys for years, nobody has ever said watch out Danny, that could be taken wrongly, and I never thought of that myself either"
And is it inevitably career suicide? I don't think so. People have said worse and become foreign secretary. Put it another way though, I don't think he's stupid enough to not realise it could and would be taken as racist; but I do think he's clever enough to convince himself he could beat the rap
When I first saw the photo I immediately thought of the connection with racism. I don't buy his thinly veiled excuse of ignorance, racism is part of our social conditioning and the monkey association with people who have black skin has been around since Kant, Darwin and his nephew Galton developed the eugenics pseudo science.
If you didn't immediately make the association thence it shows how ignorant and/or privileged you are. Just last week my mixed heritage kids were taunted with monkey calls from a kid at school, I've heard N* shouted across the street at them, teachers has made racist comments about them and my education board has said that "black people are physiologically different to white people"
When you are a white male it's easy to dismiss racism and say MTFU and call out "Snowflake" but what would you do when your 6yr old wants to kill themselves because their peers are telling them that "brown people are dirty/smelly/stupid" or their teachers are telling them they are too sensitive?
I think that the BBC did the responsible thing and took a zero tolerance stance, there's no place for racism
If you didn’t immediately make the association thence it shows how ignorant and/or privileged you are
Really?,
awesshoe - its not ignorance - its simply not even registering it.
Why would you have the mothers race in mind when making a silly joke about royals being trivial and unimportant?
Once it was pointed out to him he took it down and apologised. That should have been the end of the matter. Maybe it does point to speaking from a privileged position but that doesn't mean he should be crucified for a mistake which he has apologised for.
Racist, and basically horrible- I'd sack him twice for it.
Full disclosure:
I'd get rid of the royal family in a heartbeat.
I cant stand his breakfast show.
awesshoe – its not ignorance – its simply not even registering it.
erm, erm.... nah.
He’s just been fired from Radio 5
Damned with faint praise.
"Sorry my gag pic of the little fella in the posh outfit has whipped some up. Never occurred to me because, well, mind not diseased" Danny Baker
That's an attack, not an apology. He says that if people thought it was a racist comment then their minds are diseased!
Unconscious bias is still bias and it still has repercussions which the perpetrator is still responsible for.