BBC Race Gaffe Hysteria: A Cracker of an Article

Shit is going down at the BBC. It’s been a few weeks since I wrote about the BBC’s intention to push the BBC1 watershed back to 10 o’clock and the nervousness surrounding potentially offensive content being broadcast. Since then the BBC’s jitters have shown no sign of relenting. We’ve have been privy to three ‘race rows’ (NB – I hate this term a great deal; it just serves to hype up what are, in most cases, pretty boring quibbles) in past month concerning BBC programs and it seems the BBC is pretty much going to pieces. Let’s have a look at the three offending gaffes that have got Auntie in a tailspin.

1. Anton Du Beke, a dance instructor on BBC1’s ‘Strictly Come Dancing,’ exclaims during the show rehearsals that his dance partner, Laila Rouass, looks like a ‘Paki’ after undergoing a fake tan session.

2. BBC2 Snooker commentator John Virgo claims that there is a ‘chink’ in the armour of chinese snooker player Ding Junhui who was struggling in the final of the Snooker Grand Prix.

3. The repeat of ‘This Week’ gets pulled after host Andrew Neil referred to black co-host Diane Abbott as ‘the chocolate hobnob of late-night telly,’ following a segment about biscuits.

Certain members of the public, and more worryingly certain members of the BBC, seem to think that the best way to deal with race gaffes is to band each individual instance together and set some single precedent that deals with all of them; their favourite seems to be to shut their eyes, put their fingers in their ears and scream until racism goes away. Whatever happened to taking each case on its own merit or lack thereof? It’s amazing what you can do if you just calm down and think things through.

Let’s take the first instance, the ‘Paki’ incident. Firstly, the gaffe occurred off-camera during a rehearsal, so censorship and broadcasting laws can eff-off straight away. That is not to defend Mr. Du Beke; in fact I think he’s a slimy, probably bigoted nob. You can’t really defend the use of the word ‘Paki,’ there’s no double-meaning to it and it’s steeped in decades of racial hatred and violence. Du Beke released a statement claiming that he ‘was not racist and did not use racist language’ which is funny because he was widely reported as having used racist language, which he admitted. Maybe he forgot, or maybe he meant he is a racist and does use racist language, I guess we’ll never know. Essentially, we are left with a situation that the BBC’s internal policy governing the behaviour of employees have to deal with; the same way any company would deal with an employee overheard using racist language. There was certainly too much hysteria surrounding an incident that no one ever actually saw. Brucie [Forsyth] felt the same; he said everyone should ‘lighten up’ and then babbled on about ‘the good old days’ when people would guffaw at casual racism and there were no such thing as legally recognised marital rape.

The Virgo ‘chink’ case is a tricky one. I did not see it myself, nor could I find any video footage of it. The term he used, ‘chink in the armour,’ is a well-worn phrase, especially within the realm of sports commentary. I really feel, contrary to a select few moral pioneers, that I can’t judge this incident without seeing the context in which it was said. If it was remarked in a sneery, ‘nudge-nudge wink-wink’ manner, then that is inappropriate as it is a blatant attempt to undermine someone on the basis of their race. However, Ding, at the time, was losing his composure; on the brink of defeat. The phrase does seem appropriate to use at such a time in a snooker match, if we disregard race for one second. Until I see the footage I do not have enough information to either condemn or defend Virgo’s behaviour. In this case, the decision should be made by people who have actually seen the footage and should be based on contextual evidence rather than the mere use of the word ‘chink.’

The third case I find the most troubling; mainly because there is actually a clip of the offending ‘gaffe.’ Observe:

I’m sorry you had to witness that foul torrent of racial hatred that got this repeat of ‘This Week’ pulled. That was sarcastic, for the record. Firstly, the link came after a segment on biscuits hence the slightly grandpapa-ish transition to the co-hosts; that gives us a bit of context. Secondly, you’d have to have the mindset of a racist in the first place to instantly infer race from someone using the term chocolate. Thirdly, why is no one up in arms about Michael Portillo being compared to a custard cream? That’s right; cream. The white confectionary filling. With custard, no less. Yellow custard; a definite swipe at Portillo’s hispanic heritage. How did no one spot this three-pronged racist assault? Perhaps because it didn’t exist. Despite this, you can be sure there are few morons out there that believe the appearance of the BNP on Question Time and the comparison of a black woman to a chocolate hobnob within the same week is more than mere coincidence.

I hate the term ‘PC gone mad’ as much as I hate the term ‘race row.’ Political Correctness is a set of attitudes and judgements; incapable of succumbing to insanity. It’s people that have gone mad; and I think they truly have. As I said in my last BBC article; the problem is not that there are fanatical censorship nuts (there have and always will be), the problem is that the BBC are yielding to these lunatics. I have a horrific vision of a future where televised sport is cancelled after a commentator describes a football match between two predominantly white teams as ‘ a cracker of a game.’ But this isn’t ‘A Christmas Carol’; the BBC are giving me no sign that this dystopian imagewill be erased.

I am not condoning the broadcasting inappropriate, racist language; far from it. However, if we impose a ban on certain ‘double-meaning’ phrases in certain circumstances then we are limiting ourselves. Perhaps the best way that we could describe the winter weather conditions in Kyoto is ‘nippy.’ Perhaps the most accurate description of a group of loud, white geese is ‘honky.’ If these descriptions are clearly not racially charged; why should our expression be limited. With each individual incident we should take a deep breath and judge it within its own context. If the BBC sets precedents that govern over every single incident then it strides with even more force towards the seemingly inevitable censorship on television’s horizon.