.. to be disappointed that a racist received a standing ovation!

[NannaNoodleman]

Danny Baker: Standing ovation at first show since Twitter storm www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-nottinghamshire-48249637

What is wrong with people. He showed his true inherent racism but people still believe he's a top bloke!

"Racist or not he's still a cock.
I've never liked him"

Up until his sacking. I'd never even heard of him.

If you don’t know his work I can see why you’d be inclined to assume the worst because he’s an older white man who once advertised Daz and must absolutely be a dreadful racist. I know you’re lumping him in with Jim Davidson or whatever.

If you know his work he’s literally the opposite of what you think. He’s one of the warmest, brightest and most intelligent people in broadcasting. His show has a theme of chimps dressed as famous people and in Victorian clothing. He’ll have seen that picture and thought he was making a gentle joke about parading the baby in front of the cameras. Like someone upthread said - you cannot talk and write as much as he does and hide a dark heart. You can’t.

Not that the media will bother themselves with presenting you with anything less than the most sensational interpretation of that tweet. They want clicks. That’s it.

And knowing that Meghan Markle is mixed race isn’t a marker of being well read or of intelligence. Its only the Daily Mail that keeps making a point of it. No one else could care less.

I had the same opinion as you WEIRD but then read that he loves football. Anyone who loves football knows how racist that picture was. At the very least he know he was sailing very close to the wind. And it backfired.

He wanted to humiliate M and the RF with that picture. He knew what he was doing and he knew that that wouldn't go well at all.

I’m mixed race and it made me feel awful

I don't blame you, actionhasmagic

I have mixed race grandchildren and if somene posted that photo and captioned it "The Tricky Family go on holiday" I would be very angry.

'It’s absolutely shameful that that little baby was two days old and already subject to racial slurs and people are even defending it.'

Absolutely. Children, even Royal children, should not be fair game for this shit.

'Well surely racist or not it was a totally unacceptable, innopropriate and horrid picture'

This too. Even without the racist connotations it was a nasty thing to post about a tiny baby. All these comments about how it was gentle humour from somebody who grew up with the PG tips monkey

It is possible to be fully aware of the ape/monkey association and still not think about it every time you see a picture of one.

Yeah but it’s not just that he saw the picture, is it? He specifically compared a mixed race baby to a monkey. Do you really think he went though the mental process of thinking ‘I am going to compare that mixed race baby to a monkey’ and yet didn’t quite manage to recall the racist association, despite him having previously been aware of it in the course of his broadcasting career?

Do you not see how mental it is to twist yourself into these justifications?!

Harried I reckon he was just a bit pissed when he was tweeting and missed the connection. I think he was trying to make a (slightly pompous) joke about the nature of royalty and the media and messed up. You’d have to be mad to just bang out a tweet that offensive if that was your intention.

Itscallednicking what do you mean by ‘grew up with the PG tips monkey’? They still use a monkey in the ads but not real chimps because of concerns about the performing animals. As I recall there were no issues of racism associated with the ads (why would there be) so what are you on about? I think you might be getting confused with another brand?

I can't believe people are defending & making excuses for this man. He knew exactly what he was doing

I find it hard to believe there are people who think that Danny Baker is a racist who "knew what he was doing". I'm with those who think it would be remarkably out of character.

Do you really think he went though the mental process of thinking ‘I am going to compare that mixed race baby to a monkey’ and yet didn’t quite manage to recall the racist association, despite him having previously been aware of it in the course of his broadcasting career?

Most people wouldn't even think of the new baby as a mixed race baby. Honestly, my DH is mixed race and I "knew" it, but it didn't even cross my mind he was mixed race until about two years into our relationship.

Most people wouldn't even think of the new baby as a mixed race baby.

Bollocks - Meghan’s race has been incredibly widely discussed in the media. A journalist like DB would absolutely know.

This thread should be renamed ‘mental gymnastics for racism apologists’.

Bollocks - Meghan’s race has been incredibly widely discussed in the media. A journalist like DB would absolutely know.

I don't think it's bollocks at all. I think if you asked someone directly, they'd be aware that Meghan Markle was mixed race, but the other way round, I don't think most people would actively think of their new baby as Mixed Race.

Put it another way, before most people thought of MM, if they knew her at all as the actress from Suits. Now most people think of her as the wife of Prince Harry. I don't think most people thought of her as the mixed-race actress from Suits, and I don't think most people think of her now as the mixed-race wife of Prince Harry

The photo is definitely racist. I mean, a photo of a chimp?? What else could it mean? Danny Baker was rightly sacked.

I can’t believe anyone genuinely doesn’t realise that black people have been compared to monkeys/chimpanzees by racists ever since the slave trade. That was a disgraceful racial slur. (And whoever on hers didn’t previously know that MM was mixed race, Danny Baker obviously did.

I confess that I didn’t realise that MM was mixed race until watching her and Harry’s wedding. I didn’t take much notice of her before then. But it would have been impossible to even watch the news around that time without realising that MM was mixed race, with her mother having come to the wedding.

The "I don't see or notice colour or that someone is mixed-race, black, Asian" is just downright ridiculous and insulting. How can you not see something so fundamental to a person and their identity?

Not seeing someone's race is deliberately trying to ignore who they are, their experiences and their future experiences. How can we ever move forward when there are people who want to literally ignore others' identity?

There is nothing wrong in seeing the colour of a person's skin or acknowledging their race. The problem is using the colour of their skin or race to denigrate them or say they are less than. It's not their race or skin colour that's the problem so why try to make them the problem by pretending they are invisible?

When will all this nonsense stop?

There is a lot written about this "I don't see colour/race". Thankfully ethnic minorities are fighting back at this age old attempt to make them, their history, experiences and likely experiences invisible. Enough already! The blindness of white privilege is truly astounding.

I don't know how anyone is coming to any conclusions about this from what little we know. He may be a closet racist who chose to share something on social media that would ruin his career. Danny Baker is a clever man so I think that unlikely but maybe he wasn't thinking and showed his "true colours". Or he made a mistake and shared it without realising its connotations. Also unlikely given the picture. Not sure how we can tell what is the truth from this one event.

What we can tell though MiniMum is that he likened a mixed-race baby to a chimp. We know he knows the racist connotations. He admits to that. We know he has never used monkey images for any other royal baby.

We have a racist tweet. The tweet did not create itself. Danny Baker did. Whether he is an overt or covert racist. Whether he is a nice man or a bad man. Whatever, we have a racist tweet. I'd say, that racist tweet was done by a man who bought into the racist joke. He lives in his white privilege bubble and thought the strutures that be would protect. You know what, he is right. He received a standing ovation, many are defending him, and if you had never heard of him before, you have now. He is probably more famous and better off now because of his racism. He will be given gigs, and other helping hands by those who feel sorry for the poor misunderstood man. He knew exactly what he was doing. The White establishment will look after him ans make it alright. He was banking on that and he is right.

He'll soon be on a celebrity show and trying to make the most out of his new found fame.

If you don’t know his work I can see why you’d be inclined to assume the worst because he’s an older white man who once advertised Daz and must absolutely be a dreadful racist. I know you’re lumping him in with Jim Davidson or whatever.

If you know his work he’s literally the opposite of what you think.

There is huge class prejudice evident in the reaction to this story. It’s fucking depressing.

It’s hard to know what his intentions were. It has been an interesting debate. The baby of course will only be a quarter black and will mainly be white and will look white probably but will be always be considered a black or mixed race baby. Would William have been able to marry a black woman? Would the UK accept a black royal family?

The baby is mainly white, Meghan doesn't really look black, she could pass... on and on the ignorance and insults.

Why is there this desire to diminish the black element of these people? The need to hide it, ignore it, make it invisible as if it doesn't matter, that it doesn't really count.

If the baby is dark (and it could be) then would you still say he is mostly white?

If the baby is dark (and it could be) then would you still say he is mostly white?

What you’ve illustrated there is how unuseful the terms ‘black’ and ‘white’ are in a diverse population.

Why is there this desire to diminish the black element of these people?

What is ‘the black element’, in your view? Is it genetic or cultural?