To think Nihal Arthanayake is being ridiculous

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He lives in a country where the majority of the population is white, but says it has mental health problems from a workplace which is mainly, yes, white. However does he deal with everyday life?
https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/bbc-diveristy-nihal-arthanayake-radio-5-journalism-diversity-fund-b1123658.html

Now do weather presenters, or Radio 2 presenters or political reporters...

Well, I'm a bit strapped for time, and he only mentioned the newsroom. Maybe you could and enlighten us?

He's a thoughtful, insightful person. I couldn't be more sure that there was much more to his comments than this.

Radio 2: "The network’s presenters include Michael Ball, Zoe Ball, Rob Beckett, Tony Blackburn, OJ Borg, Rev. Kate Bottley, Fearne Cotton, Sara Cox, Jamie Cullum, Sophie Ellis-Bextor, Gary Davies, Paul Gambaccini, Angela Griffin, Bob Harris, Vernon Kay, Cerys Matthews, Scott Mills, Jason Mohammad, Trevor Nelson, Dermot O’Leary, Elaine Paige, Mark Radcliffe, Romesh Ranganathan, Rylan, DJ Spoony, Liza Tarbuck, Jeremy Vine, Michelle Visage, Johnnie Walker, Jo Whiley, Claudia Winkleman, Steve Wright and Owain Wyn Evans."

I don't watch or listen to the BBC and this is one of the reasons why.
Has he realised that this is actually a free country and he can leave any time he wishes?
How about North Korea or Iran or even Russia

WTF?!

Your response to someone noting the imbalance between the UK's demographics and the demographics at the UK's public broadcaster is to suggest that he move to North Korea?

My husband works for the BBC and he says he's always amazed by the diversity there, including the amount of disabled people he sees when he goes to the office

@MasterBeth he said there are too many white people in a predominantly white country.
Imagine if a white person said their were too many blacks.
Their feet wouldn't touch the floor on the way out

Completely agree.

I used to love Nihal on the radio but agree with PP that he's turned into a huge bore now (& thought this before his race comments!)

No he didn’t. He implied there weren’t enough POC. That’s not the same thing.

Diversity of personnel leads to diversity of voice, which is important.

As a half Indian person, he is an embarrassment. We live in a white country. And pretty tolerant one at that!

This came up on the (brilliant) mockumentary W1A. They note that to meet their diversity targets they need to fire several BME staff...

“It’s really affecting me that I walk in and all I see is white people.”

What an insecure bore.

I am also getting sick of this idea that we must have perfect representation across all jobs.

First, it's never about the jobs society actually needs – is anyone fretting about the number of women working in refuse collection? Or about how men are vastly over-represented in the most dangerous and unpleasant jobs?

Second, there may well be clear cultural reasons why racial representation can be very different in different sectors. In some cultures, studying medicine or maths is far, far more encouraged than eg studying broadcast journalism. That is not because white people are racist, or because the UK is 'structurally racist". It is a cultural trend, because there are cultural differences between people (despite this bizarre insistence on refusing to acknowledge them, unless they are about superficial things).

That last paragraph could be part of it, yes - for example, in the NHS, 31.3% of clinically-qualified staff are non-white, which is heading for double their representation in the wider population.

I never understand why everyone goes on about skin colour - the fact is we shouldn't be defined by colour. I'm sure Kenya, Istanbul, Bangkok, Warsaw, Sao paulo... dont worry about how many white/ black/ etc people are on TV / workplaces.

Feel like we might as well just divide everyone by identity and then every island needs to be made up of equal amounts of groups - then people can stop getting upset 😂

No, he didn't say "there were too many white people" in a predominantly white country. Obviously.

Did you read the article?
He was addressing a conference about diversity and improving diversity in journalism. Obviously he's not going to rock up and say "you can all pack up, everything is fine"
He also said "Since moving up here, being called the P-word – that didn’t happen in London. You’d get a slap for that in London, not even from me.”

Do you think it's OK people are still abused for their ethnicity in this country?

I live in a large county in England that is nearly 98% white. So using your analogy to be representative pretty much everyone at the BBC should be white but that is certainly not the case here. You could argue ethic minorities are over represented on television in my area.

I think he was trying to say he felt like an outsider and expressed himself poorly.

Personally though, I’m much more concerned with diversity of social class than ethnicity or sex. In the UK, social class and culture are so much more important as barriers to equality.

You could argue that, but you'd have to be an idiot to do so, so I am glad that you are not.

The BBC is the national broadcaster. Its output is for everyone in the UK. It should represent everyone in the UK. Ethic minories are not over-represented on your TV because the television service is not only for your area, but for the whole of the UK..

It would not be unreasonable for local BBC centres - Radio Cornwall or Cumbria - to have fewer black and brown faces compared to the total UK population. It would not be unreasonable for Welsh people to be over-represented compared to the UK population at BBC Wales. It would not be unreasonable for black people to be over represented at BBC London compared to the UK population.

Of course he is racist towards white people.

Can you imagine wandering around a halal supermarket in Bradford bemoaning the lack of diversity and saying all the brown people are affecting your mental health because they don't look like you? That would be racist and entitled, just as this man is.

If he was white, he would have been sacked for these comments and rightly so.

No racism is acceptable, including against white people for all of the obvious reasons but also because there will be pushback as there always is and that is good for no progressive society.

We've already seen a wide ranging swing to the right in recent years, men like Nihal make things worse not better. His expectation of inequality being enforced against white people because of their skin colour will cause animosity. Think about that, he wants people not to be able to get a job because of their skin colour. Doesn't matter what that skin colour happens to be, that is rasicm. Nihal is a racist.

Nihal works in a majority white country, his expectation of seeing large numbers of POC who are Muslims around him at all times are indeed as the OP points out just ridiculous and totally unreasonable.

I've spent my careers working in all male environments. You woman up, fit in and do your job well or you leave and find something more suited to the fragility level of your own personal mental health. I'm obviously tougher than Nihal because I haven't started screeching, it's not fair yet.

He's basically called his co workers racist for having the temerity to be white in a white majority country in the workplace. Sadly he won't get sacked for his anti white bias and the world will be a little bit worse for everyone.

He should be out on his ear.

According to the BBC's own figures only 58% of their staff are white, so if anything they are under-represented.

He finally lost my trust when he said that you have to see the October 7th Hamas attack 'in context'. He clearly doesn't care about the rape and murder of Jewish people.

I suspect there’s been rumours of redundancy/poor ratings/replacement and this is a preventative strategy to ensure he cannot be sacked.

Tired of this constant race baiting.