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.

Why would you have the mother’s mother’s heritage in mind when making a silly joke about royals being trivial and unimportant?

ftfy

Awesshoe – I don’t read it that way at all. Isn’t it amazing how things look different from different perspectives?

I don’t see how this falls into ‘unconscious bias’ either. Its not discriminatory. Its posting a silly picture on a message board without a second thought to race, gender or any other particular characteristic. Other people may have good reasons for offence, which when pointed out, led to him taking it down and apologising for the inadvertent offence. I don’t see how that warrants a witch hunt.

Doesn’t matter if DB is racist or not

Doesn’t matter if you look at the picture and think it is racist or not

The point is that there are people who do think it is racist, therefor it is.

It is DB’s duty, as a public figure, to have thought more carefully before posting. I’m sorry for him and would give him the benefit of the doubt, but he missed it. It does not change the fact that it is offensive.

IMO the BBC are correct in their action and I would expect that this is covered in their policy on the use of social media.

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

Probably the latter.

But it makes the massive assumption that Danny Baker actually knows who Megan’s mum is.

I’m not a royal watcher but I am aware of the world around me.
If you don’t watch the news or read any current affairs-based websites then I’d still be amazed that you hadn’t picked up on the news that a member of the royal family was dating/engaged to/ married to (with a fair amount of pomp and coverage across the world)/expecting a baby with an American woman (who was reasonably famous in her own right) with a mixed race family history.
How can you honestly not have seen any of the talk about it?
You’re on the internet right now! 🤷‍♂️

Lister and nealglover –

Even knowing all that, you then still have to consciously make the link between silly picture featuring chimp to make point about how silly all the royal ‘news’ is and the mother.

Its not a natural leap to make.

It must be wonderful to view the world from the dadsnet perspective, it’s<span style=”font-size: 0.8rem;”> a classic example of ignorance which is defined as a lack of knowledge or information.</span>

If he was consciously unaware of how liking a monkey to a person of mixed heritage after growing up in the UK is racist, then his bias is certainly unconscious as the association has been made everywhere.

 without a second thought to race, gender or any other particular characteristic.

The mother and grandmother of the child are both black. I wont entertain the idea that Danny Baker in his media role, didn’t know that. Anyone who thinks that commemorating the birth of a child to a black woman by using an image of a chimp is OK needs to think about it a bit more carefully

I call bullshit on he didn’t know Meghan’s mum was black. With all the hoo-ha before the royal wedding and all the pictures and news articles of Doria Loyce Ragland before, join and after the royal wedding, he didn’t know is complete and utter bollocks.

I’m not a royal watcher but I am aware of the world around me.
If you don’t watch the news or read any current affairs-based websites then I’d still be amazed that you hadn’t picked up on the news that a member of the royal family was dating/engaged to/ married to (with a fair amount of pomp and coverage across the world)/expecting a baby with an American woman (who was reasonably famous in her own right) with a mixed race family history.
How can you honestly not have seen any of the talk about it?
You’re on the internet right now! 🤷‍♂️

The point is I don’t care she is of mixed race heritage. I know who she is and know what she looks like but it just does not register as a thing I should acknowledge as a relevant thing. My wife watched whatever that series was she was in incessantly before she started dating Harry. When she and Hewitt’s son got engaged there was some discussion in the press about this being momentous and I had to pinch myself to ask why. I am sure it was front and centre and a bit of a scandal in the consciousness of the royal watching, curtain twitching racist-lite Daily Mail reading types but to me all that had registered that the great goon had punched above his weight and blagged a very pretty wife and the other one’s wife would probably be a bit put out as she was no longer going to be the hottest princess in town.

It is perfectly possible to know but not see(in a metaphorical sense) and I’d hope we will one day get to the point where everyone is wired that way. Maybe then jokes about monkeys can be funny again.

Lister and nealglover –

Even knowing all that, you then still have to consciously make the link between silly picture featuring chimp to make point about how silly all the royal ‘news’ is and the mother.

Its not a natural leap to make.Lister and nealglover –

Even knowing all that, you then still have to consciously make the link between silly picture featuring chimp to make point about how silly all the royal ‘news’ is and the mother.

Its not a natural leap to make.

My first post, back when this thread was very young, was to the effect that it took me several seconds to make this association. But I’m not a fast thinking media person with life-long east London football connections (though I am middle-aged and white like 92% of those reading – audited figure – yes all three of you). So it shouldn’t’ve been any leap at all for DB.

Whatever, to the various high-court judges who don’t listen to the radio, have never heard of Megan Markle, are only dimly aware there’s a bunch of parasitic royals in Buckingham Palace, don’t know about bananas being chucked at our footballers, whatever your/my levels of ignorance/naivety/innocence are irrelevant frankly as we’ve not been on the receiving end of ape-related racism. Our levels of offence or lack of are not the issue.

I call bullshit on he didn’t know Meghan’s mum was black.

The chimp didn’t represent her mum, it represented the baby.. which is ginger (probably)

don’t know about bananas being chucked at our footballers

That is truly **** up. I know next to nothing about football, but the fact that some dickheads are doing that is just…..I don’t even have words.

Regarding Megan(?) I also had no idea she was mixed race and now I know I still don’t care.

Has anybody contacted the chimp from the photo to get its opinion?

The problem is; He may have known that the Meghan is mixed race, but the point is that he may not have considered the issue when he made the post. Of course likening a mixed race child to a monkey is racist, but if he’d not had the fact in his mind then he is guilty of forgetting the context of his post. It’s a bit like chatting at a party to someone about death and then remembering afterwards they have just been recently widowed. Crass? yes Insensitive also, but it isn’t deliberate. He may be seeing ‘the Duchess of Sussex’ rather than a person of mixed race.
This is clearly an issue that people will interpret as they wish. I absolutely can’t stand Danny Baker, but I just can’t imagine why he would attempt to make a blatantly racist point about the Royal Baby. He’s made a cock up, but I cannot see why he would risk so much when there is no chance he would get away with it.

Well he did declare it’s red sauce every time, not that brown colour sauce.

Makes you think eh?

He made a racist post in ignorance but then doubled down on that ignorance by issuing a non apology. If you’re in a hole stop digging! In that context BBC reaction was entirely sensible.

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.

Absolutely.

Its how the picture is interpreted by the individual. To Baker (apparently – and I have no reason to doubt him) it was about the royals being one big circus show … but to those with obviously racists views they see an instant connection between monkeys and colour of a persons skin.

Markle and other black people probably entitled to be offended

Markle is as much white as black.

“… but to those with obviously racists views they see an instant connection between monkeys and colour of a persons skin.”

So the black people and those who are aware of the discrimination that they face are racist? Got to love whitesplaning, racism is still racism whether it affects you negatively or not.

Racism isn’t just hate either, it’s indifference, apathy, ignorance… It all contributes to discrimination and lower life outcomes for anyone who is non-white, it’s all very well saying that you don’t see peoples skin colour as an issue but then you also don’t see the difficulties they face.

I’ve just seen Danny Baker on BBC news claiming that he had no idea who had had a baby. Does he genuinely expect people to believe that?

I have zero interest in the royal family but even I knew that the wife of Princess Diana’s son had had a baby.

I wish I wasn’t bombarded with constant news about the royal family but I find it impossible to avoid it. How the **** does Danny Baker manage it? Presumably he has access to a radio?

I also knew the mother was mixed race quite simply because I had heard the rantings of racists. Is Danny Baker really that unaware?

When I saw the picture I made the connection instantly. It’s nice to think that some people are so insulated from racism that they didn’t – lucky you.

Aweeshoe – your first post hit every nail on the head. Well said.