The first thing that came to mind was his “Chimpanzees Dressed as Famous People with Fairground Music" thing.
Never quite as funny as he thought it was,though I enjoyed it the first few times.
I doubt he's a racist, just a bit too caught up in himself.
I presume its part of his job to be topical and produce 'satire' on current events rather than endless jokes about the 1980s so not knowing about the mixed race isn't really an excuse he can hide behind.
I don’t think he intended to be racist, but it was badly judged and very likely to appear that he was. He put himself in the firing line and got the old tin tack. FWIW I don’t think he should have been fired, but I can also understand why he was.
Whatever the ins and outs of the tweet, deletion, apology and sacking he will be suffering a far worse fate soon.
Namely being a cause celebre for every real Daily Mail reading gammony racist and, no doubt, being ‘backed’ by our very own perma-tanned Pound Shop Mussolini, Farage (although I could also be talking about BoJo).
I’m quite surprised at the number of people saying they had no idea that associating black people with simians is a well established historical insult.
I’d be very keen for you to point out anyone who has said that.
OK, here you go:
Another here who didn’t make a race connection.
I started in the camp of “what he did was misjudged but not racist”
I think that once its pointed out, its obvious it can be seen as racist. But unless you are a racist yourself, or have suffered from racism, its not immediately obvious.
Etc...
As for your alternative interpretation...
What has been said is that there are people whose first thought when they see a picture of a monkey/chimp is not racism orientated and also people who have said the first thing they think of when thinking about Megan Markle is not mixed race person.
In the context what Baker posted, and who he posted it about, I'm pretty damn surprised about that too...
No funkmasterp I don’t live with them, I read and listen to the news, you presumably don’t.
Kind of correct. What I do (and you should try this because it’s awesome) is read the news stories that interest me or seem important. Therefore I can avoid royal news. Bombardment ceased! You’re welcome 😉
You quoted me in your post above.
I didn't say "I had no idea that associating black people with simians is a well established historical insult" - of course I knew that.
What I said was that in this case I didn't make that connection, I saw it as mockery of the Royal Family, not as mockery of a mixed-race child.
Since it has been pointed out that the post could be interpreted as racist I agree that the post should be withdrawn and Baker should apologise even if the racist meaning was unintended.
People make mistakes, that doesn't necessarily make them bad people.
OK, here you go:
All incorrect. What you stated is that people were unaware that associating black people with simians is a well established historical insult. Where do any of the people you quoted state that or where are you getting that inference from? I am fully aware of the monkey/chimp gybes made at black footballers etc - how could you not be. But even aware of the historic implications that was not the first association I made when seeing the image on page one. As I said at the time....
I went……. royal family = performing monkeys, next little insta-celeb performing monkey has been born ready to entertain the great unthinking unwashed…..very funny……oh hang on……’monkey’…….never crosses my mind but those nasty racists use it as an insult………sharp intake of breath.
Why would someone be offended because I implied that what they thought and said was stupid? I'm not offended so no one else should be, what a bunch of drama queens 😝 It's not like I equated your appearance or intelligence to that of an animal. Hmmm. Hypocritical much? Mibbes aye
I'm sorry if I'm coming across as antagonistic but I have previously explained my perspective on this thread and others. I've had similar discussions many, many times as I have children of mixed heritage. I'm white and lived in a little bubble, believing attitudes had progressed. That's was until I had a black partner, I can't believe what I've seen and experienced since meeting him and having children. It's the sort of treatment you see in films. He just brushes it off, he's thankful the police are keeping an eye on him as it makes him feel safer. He ignores the looks and comments on the street, in shops, restaurants...
Our kids don't. They feel disenfranchised when the teacher said they couldn't do something, because they were black. They feel disgusting when a friend says that they are dirty, because they are black. They feel scared when someone shouts at them in the street, because they are black.
But you're not offended, so that's ok.
1. Racism is more than just hate. It's apathy. It's disinterest. It's ignorance. It's power. It's privilege. And so on. It doesn't matter whether you know it or not, it still works in your favour if you are white. Paraphrase of Scott Wood's lists.
2. Unconscious biases are learned and automatic stereotypes which are so deeply ingrained in our psyche that we aren't even aware of them, yet they influence our behaviour. You are responsible if your actions or words are harmful to someone else, directly or indirectly and intentional or not. Studies have demonstrated that teachers will mark a student lower if they have a foreign sounding name, judges will pass a harsher sentence if the defendant is black and black people are less likely to be promoted. But no one is racist, right? It's just an opinion.
3. If you were to see Megan in the street wearing joggy bottoms and a hoodie you'd call her black, money makes her whiter and more acceptable. To say you don't see colour means that you are blind to the difficulties black people face every day.
If you were to see Megan in the street wearing joggy bottoms and a hoodie you’d call her black
I’d call her Megan if I knew her.
To say you don’t see colour means that you are blind to the difficulties black people face every day.
I find this quite objectionable and pretty ignorant. It is perfectly possible to not see colour consciously (though I admit I may well see it subconsciously - I suspect we all do) and have personal dealings that are equal and fair with those around us and still have empathy with those who for reasons of the racism in others do not have it as easy as I do. I have a blind friend. His blindness is not something that I consciously think about in my dealings with him and the esteem I hold him in. That does not mean I do not have a heightened awareness of the difficulties others put in his path. The two are not mutually exclusive.
Kind of correct. What I do (and you should try this because it’s awesome) is read the news stories that interest me or seem important. Therefore I can avoid royal news. Bombardment ceased! You’re welcome
I'm impressed, your ears can obviously filter out certain news items when they are mentioned on the radio or TV.
However I doubt that Danny Baker possess such evolutionary advanced ears.
So, if you can see how it can be detrimental to equate someone or group with an animal why are you supporting it? I could accept his ignorance if he had sincerely been so, but he hasn't.
Your argument gives the association a legitimacy that sets us back 200 years, when really we should be planning a revolution
I'm not sure if your post was a reply to mine, it seems to be but I don't see how much of what you say has to do with what I said.
We're obviously having difficulty communicating this way, so i'm going to call it a day. For the record I agree with much ... most even ... of what you say.
A genuine apology from me if I've annoyed you in any way. It wasn't my intention to rile you up - I think of discussions like this as a way of learning and improving, I've certainly read things here I wouldn't have thought of myself.
I'm also sorry about what your kids have had to experience, and you should get that teacher sacked - someone like that has no place educating anyone.
Who is supporting it? There is not a person on this thread who has not said that once they had made the association with racism that the image should have been brought down and profuse apology made.
I mentioned many pages back a friend, who by the sounds of it is in exactly the same personal circumstances as you - white with a black partner and mixed race child, who posted a photo of her boy being naughty with the comment 'cheeky monkey!'. Would you do that? It was meant in the most innocent of ways in the way the phrase has been used about white kids for generations. Is there not some positive in normalising the term for its real meaning and ignoring the negative connotations.
@easily my post wasn't specifically addressed to you but to the thread in general. <span style="font-size: 0.8rem;">There are people on the thread who are defending what DB said and that they don't see how or why people could be offended and those who are are [insert insult here] and no, I don't mean you either @convert, go back to page 4 or was it page 3</span>
I've met white people who have black partners and are also racist, as I've said before that the intention is irrelevant. We are all conditioned by the same system, even black people can hold racial prejudice towards other black people. I called my ex a cheeky monkey once, I never thought anything of it but I may as well have called him a c*** judging by the look on his face. Would I call my kids it now? No. Never. Not when monkey noises are made at them in the school corridor and not while the majority of society associates them with animals. I wouldn't call a white kid it either.
Have you ever done the Harvard implicit bias test? It covers a range of biases from ableism to sexism I was surprised to discover that I'm racist owards white people! I'm paler than pale 😂
https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/education.html
Raybanwomble is a stupid moron calling “my sincerest apologies” a non-apology
Just after he accused the people who took offence of having diseased minds.
Looks like you seem offended by being called an idiot.
How utterly hilarious.
I definitely didn't intend for that to be taken as an insult, I was using it as it was used in the 19th century - as a purely scientific descriptive term. Then again, I shouldn't expect anything better from someone of unsound mind.
....well my work here is done.
There are people on the thread who are defending what DB said
Nobody has defended what he said.
I didn't see it as a racist tweet as I don't carry Megan's mixed race heritage in my conciousness, so I didn't make the link between "chimp" and "black" until I read it on here. If it had been, say, Tyra Banks and I HAD made the link, would that make me racist?
Aye, they are. They're calling people who thought it was racist snowflakes and easily offended. I'm not offended in any way, someone else's opinion has no reflection upon me and the more they defend it the sillier they look. I do however get mighty peeved off that these people are my kids future employers and inlaws and can influence my kids outcomes because of their own ignorance. People who hold these ideas are also parents and educators and so these ideas get passed on, our grandkids are going to be having the same discussions.
@pondo ?? No, it would not mean that you are racist if you saw the link between black people being associated with monkeys. To me it would suggest that someone can see beyond the end of their own nose
Have you ever done the Harvard implicit bias test
I just tried the race preference one - I got "No automatic preference for African American or European American". That's kind of what I would have expected, but I was also relieved - I really didn't want to score badly on that.
I've spent a lot of time living in countries where white people are not the majority, so I got quite used having having a) mostly friends of colour
b) As a minority I noticed a few things I'd never noticed before..
Thanks for taking the time to answer my posts. And really, get that teacher sacked.
All incorrect
OK then, I have to say I'm even more surprised that so many people are aware that the monkey insult is a well known racist insult and didn't make the connection in this case!
Cheers @easily, it was a real eye opener for me. It's not people's ignorance that surprises me, it's the lengths they will go to to defend it.
I could use the teacher who casually said "Black people can't swim" to a small group of 10yr old girls discussing their swimming lessons, one of them was black, as an example.
I informally enquired as to how the statement was qualified, the HT said that the teacher had a black brother-in-law and they were discussing which countries were good at sport? I asked where the Black Country was, as far as I was aware it was somewhere near Somerset.
The LA said that the information was "factual" and that black people are physiologically different to white people. It had also become a class discussion about athletics and it was a "factual" response. We even got offered extra free swimming lessons, my kids swim. In fact a black woman had just won a gold medal in swimming was beyond them as were socioeconomics.
No right of reply, I did anyway and was redirected to the SPSO. However, due to legislation the SPSO can't investigate anything to do with conduct, curriculum or discipline in schools.
John Swinney redirected me to the Govan Law Centre, but racism isn't in their remit.
Notice a pattern?
Legal aid doesn't cover human rights or public law.
That's not even the worst of it.
My kids had to move school and I was threatened with the losing them, it would be so much better if I stopped pursuing my complaint. They didn't quite agree with telling the racists to stop, apparently it's more offensive. It's not the teacher who I'd like to see sacked, he made a stupid comment when the others considered theirs. (It's also a bit weird that the kid who was considering suicide at 6yrs old records went missing in the transfer??)
I'm now considering my actions and have had a consultation with Aamer Anwar, but it will cost £60K to step in to court. I've done my homework though and have the support of not only academics but the whole bloomin institution.
I'm not going to name the council, they have approached other sites to redact it and I'd hate for STW to get into trouble but they can sue me if they wish as it would be a lot easier for me and I'm happy to pm anyone who asks
So...... Danny Baker posts a clearly racist image/caption, possibly without realising it was such. He offers a non-apology (worse, actually) and is fired from his job on a national broadcaster?
Not sure what else the BBC could do. If he'd have offered the most heartfelt and well crafted apology, he might have managed to keep his job, but he didn't, so he didn't.
The guy is either a racist or an idiot
OK then, I have to say I’m even more surprised that so many people are aware that the monkey insult is a well known racist insult and didn’t make the connection in this case!
The reason is that they didn't know who Meghan Markle was and if they did they didn't know she was mixed race as they clearly have never seen her or read/heard any of the 100's of stories about it over the last 2 years.
That could be true I suppose, but not likely to be true to Baker.
I’m impressed, your ears can obviously filter out certain news items when they are mentioned on the radio or TV.
Err....I don’t watch the news or listen to the radio (Netflix and Spotify are great). Reading doesn’t involve the ears so I’m all good when it comes to not hearing certain news items. I’m happy that you find me impressive though 😉
The BBC sack Danny Baker, yet for years turned a blind eye to Savile's 'activities'
What Savile did was far, far worse but kept his job...
lol @ funkmasterp, yeah Danny Baker probably never listens to the radio.
I cringed when I saw the tweet. Imo it was a sacking offence. Really dumb as well as depriving me of one of my favourite radio shows of the week.
And +100 for "Also very impressed with aweeshoes post(s)".
Err….I don’t watch the news or listen to the radio (Netflix and Spotify are great). Reading doesn’t involve the ears so I’m all good when it comes to not hearing certain news items. I’m happy that you find me impressive though 😉
Then perhaps avoid discussions where you're not armed with info that's common knowledge to most? That's pretty much what I do with footy.
The excuse doesn't stand for not making the connection between monkeys being associated with people of colour, he's a Millwall fan (allegedly the only intelligent one). I believe their supporters 'have form' for racist abuse of players on the pitch.
Agreed it's a sacking offence. I want to live in a UK where this stuff couldn't happen, zero tolerance.
I want to live in a UK where this stuff couldn’t happen
Good luck with that. This country is going backwards rather than forwards.
The excuse doesn’t stand...
Yes, but Megan Markle's identity and African American heritage are closely guarded secrets, rarely disclosed to the general public and only known to those of us who are avid readers of Hello magazine, so it's really easy to miss the racist connotations.
Impressed with Awesshoes post's? GTF.
All he's done is put up a load of explicitly and unquestionably racist abuse and equate it to posting a silly picture on twitter.
Yes, it's shit that your family and anyone else for that matter suffers abuse and discrimination but that is not the subject here.
What you seem to be unable to grasp is that not everyone sees a picture of a chimp and immediately makes an association with black people.
Not everyone thinks of other people in terms of race first i.e. Meghan Markle is a royal first, actress second and black somewhere down the list in order of characteristics of note.
When making a silly joke about the pointlessness of Royals, why would race even come intot he equation - the only reasons are 1. you are trying to make a racist joke or two you are black yourself and have been subject to abuse of that nature.
The image itself is not racist. The wider context makes it so and it should clearly be removed. Very, very few people on here have suggested that it was OK to be left in place. Those defending Danny Baker are simply saying he did not even consider race at the tie of posting, which is entirely plausible especially given the posts swift removal and proper apology once it was pointed out to him.
And frankly, if the likes of eat_the_pudding dont have the capacity to understand that, they have my pity...
Still going round and round I see.
Thing you don't get cumberlanddan, is that people on here are [i]soooo clever[/i] that they can actually read the mind of a celebrity, someone they don't know, someone they they have never met. They KNOW their thoughts. And there's no way us dopes can discuss something with people [i]that[/i] clever. And if you disagree with them well, clearly you're an idiot or a troll.
The image itself is not racist
But when viewed from a perspective that the baby's mother and one of it's grandparents is black, clearly it is. It's also almost certain (to a percentage of impossibility) that Danny Baker knows that. That he still posted it, and then made a half arsed apology which basically implied that anyone who sees this as racist has a diseased mind, and then trying to make himself a victim by suggesting that it was his "time in the barrel" pretty much made up the minds of people who can think.
Look, I don't think Danny is racist, I enjoyed his show, I think he's pretty funny and smart. But this is beyond what is acceptable in public. That's pretty much the start middle and end of the discussion.
Of course he knew about her race. He presents a radio show, he is embedded in the media and surrounded by current affairs
He would have had to attend lengthy BBC training courses on racial awareness, it was his responsibility to remain on the right side of acceptable
He made a silly mistake then made it far worse with his attacking non-apology
He was in breach of contract
He absolutely deserved to be sacked, whether or not his post was intentionally racist is largely irrelevant.
Megan Markle has been getting loads of online abuse, much of it rascist, and Danny Baker, being a journalist, will have known that and so to not be aware of the implication of what he was posting was severly niave and even incompetant - therefore he deserves the sack.
https://news.sky.com/story/trolling-of-meghan-how-duchess-is-abused-over-race-and-pregnancy-11696606
I think it's massively relevant, context is hugely important. I can't argue with the sacking but I think there's a vast gulf between a Danny Baker continuing his "monkeys in clothes" trope and a Danny Baker posting chimp pics because the mother of a famous baby is mixed race.
Of course he knows her race. When he posted the picture the joke wasn't "ha ha black baby looks like a chimp" the joke was "ha ha royal baby - another performing monkey". Race doesn't feature in the equation for the latter.
If you are predisposed to make that link you might see it straightaway (i.e. racists (diseased mind) or people who have been subject to that abuse). Clearly the post is inappropriate and should have been removed, which it was, with an apology (twice) but that's not good enough for the permanently enraged.
My objection is to the witch hunt and the refusal to see that it could be posted in error which is basically as, if not more, bigoted than the racism of which he is accused.
that people on here are soooo clever that they can actually read the mind of a celebrity, someone they don’t know, someone they they have never met. They KNOW their thoughts. And there’s no way us dopes can discuss something with people that clever.
There's people on here who when they hear someone was slapped in the face say "what's it matter? I didn't feel a thing..."
If you are predisposed to make that link you might see it straightaway (i.e. racists (diseased mind) or people who have been subject to that abuse)
or you might be someone who is aware of social issues, historical context of apes in racism and has a basic idea of what is deemed okay.
Bit late to the party, but he offended the royals, doesn't matter to the BBC whether it was racist or not. THey're not exactly known for their fair handling of anything
the joke was “ha ha royal baby – another performing monkey”.
Yep, I think every one who knows Danny's long running joke, understands this. Two things though,
1. Do you think that 2 black American women would've known this, and understood the nuance, above and beyond the very obvious historical connotation of monkey/apes and black people?
2. Do you think that a moments thought about the heritage of the baby would give you a pause to consider the wider implications of the image above and beyond the immediate joke, that TBF to Danny's ratings, a few thousand people may have understood? And do you think that Danny should've recognised that?
Race doesn’t feature in the equation for the latter.
When the child is of mixed heritage, it clearly does.
I get that Danny was making another contribution to his performing monkey trope, and that in his rush to make the joke he clearly didn't consider the wider implications. That he made a hash of the media scrum after the event is absolutely a cock up of his own devising. That folk are still trying to defend it, is frankly astounding...
And why would you automatically be thinking about race when making that joke?
Thats the whole point - if someone says I've had a baby I don't immediately ask "whats it's race"?
And why would you automatically be thinking about race when making that joke?
Because in this case the baby is mixed heritage and it's grandmother is black, and there is a long and sordid history on both sides of the Atlantic of comparing apes and monkeys to black people that anyone with an ounce of understanding, compassion and empathy has knowledge of.
If you don't (have that knowledge) than frankly, stop arguing on the internet, and go educate yourself so you don't end up in the same situation as Danny Baker.