Danny Baker sacked

The tweet said "Royal Baby leaving hospital" with the picture of a couple holding a chimp dressed in a jacket and bowler hat.

I've just heard him say on the news that he had no idea it was Megan's baby who was born else he wouldn't have sent it. That does seem to be stretching credulity to me, hell, I don't pay any attention to the Royals and knew whose baby it was, I can't believe someone who's job is in the media was unaware of which royals had just had a a baby...
 
Can we all agree that, racist or not, it was a stupid post from a stupid talking head that no-one will miss?

You lay down with dogs like the media, you catch fleas.

It's not like he's going to join the countless homeless on the streets of London by the end of the week.
 
Freakbro said:
The tweet said "Royal Baby leaving hospital" with the picture of a couple holding a chimp dressed in a jacket and bowler hat.

I've just heard him say on the news that he had no idea it was Megan's baby who was born else he wouldn't have sent it. That does seem to be stretching credulity to me, hell, I don't pay any attention to the Royals and knew whose baby it was, I can't believe someone who's job is in the media was unaware of which royals had just had a a baby...
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Indeed.

He shouldn't make up **** like that to try and worm out of it.

It would be far better if he just said he was sorry and that he fully understands how it could have been misconstrued.
 
No1newts said:
He claims to have meant it another way, what other possible way could he have meant it?
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I haven't read the whole thread but the first thing that comes to my mind - honestly - is Prince Charle's ears. Caricatures of him always had famously large ears.

MAYBE he was being racist - I've never met him - but I'm reminded of the riots when H&M innocently had a child's t-shirt with the slogan "cheeky little monkey" on it and happened to have a black child wearing it in one of the pictures. And other sundry instances. I'm not convinced these knee-jerk reactions don't do more harm than good. Sometimes a monkey is just a monkey. And frankly if it's because Meghan Merkle has some Black ancestry somewhere, her DNA is probably a lot healthier than the inbreds that are our royal family. They could probably use some DNA that originated outside of Buckinghamshire. She's probably the only reason it doesn't have webbed feet.
 
ttaskmaster said:
OK, so how many different histories and races and cultures and genders are there in society these days?
Are you fully informed about all of them and what they may or may not find offensive, or what other people may find offensive on their behalf?
There's only so much you can be aware of and sensitive to and 'woke' about.
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True. However, to even start questioning whether a ~61 year old football pundit and fan was aware of these sorts of racial connotations against black people is stretching reality to the limit :p
 
Jono8 said:
Agreed.

But i don't see how that is pertinent to your argument which was "The real racists here are the ones who saw the monkey and associated it to race."

Thinking the monkey being in that picture might be to do with or is associated to race doesn't make someone racist. It means they are observant and conscious of our history, culture and society.

For the record i don't think he intended it to be racist, but i can absolutely see how it was very racially insensitive, especially without any explanation as to what he intended by it when first posting it.
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Fair point well made. TBH that initial sentence doesn't really get across what I meant.
 
Jono8 said:
True. However, to even start questioning whether a ~61 year old football pundit and fan was aware of these sorts of racial connotations against black people is stretching reality to the limit :p
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What's considered "racist" changes weekly, no one can keep up.

You can't say "coloured people" now, but you can say "people of colour" :rolleyes:
 
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I feel like 10 years ago I would have thought it was a travesty he was fired and ridiculous hyped up nonsense, but now I feel like he was stupid enough and insensitive enough that it's about right that he was.

I think I've been tuned in more and more to sensitivities around this sort of stuff just by the sheer volume of occurrences, and probably the majority of people are too. Question is, is that a good thing?
 
ttaskmaster said:
Today's society's concept of what constitutes racism is a massive joke, though...


Once again, for those of you in the cheap seats.... We CAN see why people think it's racist.
We can also see the contexts in which it is not, never has been and never should be.
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You're looking at this from the point of view of someone who the word hasn't been used against though. The way you feel about something is going to be different than the way someone who had the word used against them feels, wouldn't you agree? So maybe while you can see how it isn't racist don't you think you should also have some empathy with the people that do feel offended? I'm not saying everytime someone feels offended you need to pander to them but this is one time I certainly think he was skating on a thin line.

Funnily enough my white girlfriend doesn't think he was being intentionally racist but she thinks he could've thought about it a bit more. Basically my opinion too.


No, I'm just offering you another alternative perspective from which to see things.
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Then you should do the same for the other view. It's not black and white (zing!) but a whole lot of grey in between.


So what?
In a fairly derogatory fashion, I used to refer to one mate of mine as a gorilla, because he was very solidly built with massive arms, a hairy back and a real gorilla-like face...
Are you saying that's not racism because this guy was white, then? Or am I offending blacks by calling a white guy by a black slur?
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Can you really not see the difference in you calling a friend a derogatory name as an in joke vs the historical connotations of black people and being referred to as apes/monkeys. Do you genuinely not see the difference or do you not care? If a white person had a banana thrown at them and a black person had a banana thrown at them do you think the thrower genuinely has the same intentions regardless of the target?

Almost every nation that conquered another tried to show the conquered as lesser in some way. What makes this so special?
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Nothing makes it special but it's key to the point we are discussing, isn't it? There is historical racial ties between blacks and apes. It's not like this is a new trend.

The negro skull, in addition to having a smaller brain volume and thicker cranial bones than that of the White, is prognathous ; i.e., the lower face projects forward in the manner of an animal's muzzle. The negro jaw is substantially longer, relative to its width, than the White jaw. A feature of the negro lower jaw is its retention of a vestige of the "simian shelf," a bony region immediately behind the incisors. The simian shelf is a distinguishing characteristic of apes, and it is absent in Whites.

They emit a peculiar offensive body odor similar to apes.

Just as their black skin protected them from the intense African sun, they are inherently lazy in order to prevent over exertion in that intense sun.

The arms and legs of the negro are relatively longer than the European. The humerus is shorter and the forearm longer thereby approximating the ape form.

The eye often has a yellowish scierotic coat over it like that of a gorilla.
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Literally comparing the negro to animals. As far as I am aware there has never been something said about whites (please correct me if I am wrong) so that is why it's very different to you calling your pal a gorilla in jest. There is no history in it on a widespread scale.

Pfft..... all part of growing up around other humans, really. Nothing to be sorry about, even if you were one of them.


It doesn't mean we have to end someone's entire career over their dislike of one joke either, though.
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I haven't called for his career to be over. I agree, it is very heavy handed IF he hasn't got a history of this sort of stuff. But he can't be shocked with how he must know everyone makes a storm in a teacup over much lesser things.


So they knew what he meant, but still pulled the racism card? Sounds very much like idiots dictating things, especially if people are giving way to them.
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Idiots will be idiots. Whilst they're still arguing over what he meant by slave owners the rest of the world has moved on. I guess they just found it easy to target an old white man who used the word 'slave owner' whilst having two black guys either side of him. People who don't just react emotionally to everything could see he meant that previously promoters were the boss and got the lions share.

I'd love to know what the 'slavery = black oppression' types make of the whites enslaved by the Vikings and Romans, or the history of slavery in Asia and the Middle East.
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Anyone who thinks slavery was just a black thing doesn't know history and they may well be surprised that there were even white slaves in America though they went by a different name - and had a much higher place in society than the black slaves. But it doesn't change the fact at one point in time every race has been used as slaves. It just happens to be that the African slave trade was probably the most recent one on a large world wide scale.

For what it is worth. I think everything should be able to be laughed at. Ricky Gervais did a very good part on it in his most recent Netflix stand up. But when you have a job on a platform such as BBC or whatever, you need to be careful of what you do choose to say. He is old enough to know better. Freedom of speech does not mean freedom from the reactions.

As I said previously. I've never heard of the man prior to today so I am in no position to judge his character (are any of us able to?) so it wouldn't be fair for me to say he is a racist. But I think it's fair to say the picture he put up can be seen as having a racist meaning. It's easy to say that blacks are perpetually offended or looking for things to be offended over but just taking a second to think about it from someone elses point of view other than your own you should be able to see why some are upset. I am not upset for the record.
 
Nasher said:
No he didn't. He didn't decide to go and post something racist out of the blue to destroy his career.

People are calling it racist because they are terminally offended and like to point stuff out of social media for attention.
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So in his decades of going to football matches he’s never heard monkey chants or bananas being thrown at black players ?
 
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