Is Boris Johnson really racist?

[ArnoldBee]

Something on my fb has popped up and to me it leads to an interesting debate.
Boris can be a pain, has had a privileged life and appears to look very pale white. However given his ancestry and that of his wife that he has had 4 children can he really be labelled as racist?

Yes , he is racist.

A bit like “I can’t be racist because I’ve got black friends”, which proves precisely nothing.

Really?

This post is the equivalent of someone saying ‘I’m not racist I have a friend who’s black but...’

Whether or not Boris Johnson is actually racist, he plays to the gallery and makes racist speeches, like the melon smile and the Muslim letterbox women, so as to endear himself to the real racists. That is disgusting and is almost worse than being racist

It is well known that he supports the EU but chose to make that speech in early 2016 in favour of Brexit to get the support of Brexiteers and to help him with his political ambitions. I remember his face the morning after the ill fated Referendum. He looked truly shocked and realised that his dreadful power play had damaged this country for ever.

@ArnoldBee

But this is where the debate comes in - can he be racist against himself? Is there a demarcation? Where does your DNA stop and your outward appearance take over?

He may have a Turkish Muslim great grandfather and is 1/8th Turkish but he doesn't identify with that. The family name was changed and effectively scrubbed away.

He strictly sees him as any other white British so trotting the fact he's got Muslim forebears doesn't mean much when he is objectively racist to those coming from Muslim backgrounds.

Racist, ageist, classist...

Heritage doesn’t mean anything. The singer Doja Cat has been caught making racist comments against black people and she’s 1/2 African.

Boris being a bit Turkish (and aren’t Turks white anyway?) doesn’t mean he can say anything offensive about black people or Muslims.

Yes, he's not exactly subtle about it.

Yes he is.

Of course he is a fucking Racist. It's not hard to find evidence, he published most of his bigoted comments in national newspapers. Google it

Boris can be a pain.
That's something you'd say about your 3 year old son/nephew/grandson in a jokey and loveable way. Not a bloody 50 odd year old bloke "running the UK". It's concerning that amount of people who think seem to think he's a lovable old bafoon.

If we still need to ask...

I tend to think he doesn't have any real respect for anyone.

He may have a Turkish Muslim great grandfather and is 1/8th Turkish but he doesn't identify with that.The family name was changed and effectively scrubbed away.

He is listed here as one of the founder members of the Conservative Friends of Turkey;

www.cfot.org.uk/founder-members/

He's an elitist. He's happy to sneer at people outside his social group to win the approval of his peers/audience/voters.

It's not solely about race, but if he can boost his popularity by joking about a minority (gay, black, disabled, Muslim etc) then he will. He punches down.

It's not exactly racist as in KKK membership - he's surely happy to rub shoulders with rich minorities who donate to the Tories. It's contempt for people outside his social group. He also feels it towards working class people, which is why Brexit is such a colossally stupid thing.

He's used racist language. Not when he was a kid (we are the same age so I'm not sure that is an excuse) but in the last few years. In articles he has been paid for. Actual racist language- not nuanced dog whistle stuff. Actual words.
He's a twat for many reasons and this is one of them.

@Awwlookatmybabyspider

Boris can be a pain. That's something you'd say about your 3 year old son/nephew/grandson in a jokey and loveable way. Not a bloody 50 odd year old bloke "running the UK". It's concerning that amount of people who think seem to think he's a lovable old bafoon.

I don't think he's a loveable bafoon - it was my sloppiness in writing the original post.

If we believe the theory that humans originate in Africa then actually we're all black?

The burka comment is not racist. Islam is a religion not a race.

No, it’s racist. So are you for defending it.

He's happy to sneer at people outside his social group to win the approval of his peers/audience/voters.

He's a satirist - in one of the Spectator articles he is regularly criticised for he also wrote this in the same article [1995 for context];

"I blame male Tory MPs" ... "They have banged on about one parent families, while getting their research assistants pregnant; or they have been uncovered in French hotels sharing beds with other men; or that they have had their toes sucked"...

If he's a Tory, then he's every insult people can throw at him.

Tiresome.