Boris Johnson: lovable clown
Boris Johnson, eh? You've got to laugh haven't you?
First one of his advisers says that black Britons who don't welcome the new London mayor's election victory should "go if they don't like it here".
Then Tory activists everywhere (that's David Cameron's Cuddly New Tories) are incandescent ..... because the adviser gets sacked. Clearly political correctness has gone so completely mad that you can't even tell black people to go back where they came from without being called a racist. Its a bit like Stalinism, probably.
Then Johnson makes it very clear that the adviser's done nothing wrong in his eyes, and has only been sacked for political expediency. The poor lamb was clearly the victim of entrapment, and was actually forced by a mischievous journalist to tell black people to "go if they don't like it here". Furthermore, any suggestion that he's a racist - based on mere evidence and not the fact that he says he isn't - is a vicious, irresponsible slur. Doubtless some of his best friends are machete-weilding piccaninnies who should f**k off back to Africa.
ah, Boris. With his funny hair and his "cripes" and his "crumbs" and his "oh golly, have I let it slip yet again that I see black people as worth a little bit less than other human beings?". You've got to laugh, haven't you?
Labels: Racism
posted by David Wearing at 9:57 AM
2 Comments:
I'm sure I'm not the only one who's a little confused by this. If someone claims they'd leave the country if a certain person is elected, then they are of course free to go. That's essentially McGrath's response, if phrased a little indelicately. He didn't say "Blacks should go back to Africa". You seem to be suggesting that he's a racist, and that this is based on evidence. I don't see any.
Thanks for your comment etc, but its really a bit sad that this needs explaining to anyone.
The reason it was suggested that some black people might want to return to their country of origin if Johnson was elected was because if someone with Johnson's track record can be elected mayor of London, of all places, it might well make some black londoners feel unwelcome in this country. Especially given Britain's more general history of racism, which is non-trivial from the black perspective.
The civilised response to that suggestion is clear enough. Black Britons are as British as anyone else and should feel as welcome here as anyone else. Instead it was "let them go then". No suggestion of racism? You're quite sure about this?
Does it really have to be explained that there's a difference between, say, a high-earner saying they'd leave the country if Labour got elected, and the suggestion that immigrants would be better off returning to their country of origin if a politician with a shoddy record on issues of race got elected?
At least Johnson's victory is exposing the fact that a lot of people in Britain clearly don't understand what racism is. That's healthy in the long run, if depressing and possibly dangerous in the short term.
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