By Ken Russell in the Telegraph
Why do Jane Goody and the rest of the" terrorists", as I call them, detest Bollywood actress Shilpa Shetty?
Because she is different.
That is why the angry mob ganged up on her, while the others retained what they liked to think was a dignified silence but looked more like gutless acquiescence.
Fans of Celebrity Big Brother are watching in increasing discomfort as the unfamiliarity between Shilpa?s culture and the Goodys? looks increasingly less like a failure to communicate and more like an agenda on the part of the Goody Gang to scapegoat and belittle the Bollywood actress.
I was the second "terrorist" hostage to escape from the Big Brother House, but I have followed every moment since my departure. The racist overtones have become undeniable.
Jade, with enormous vigour and obsessive needling, has instinctively formed a bullying cadre of Jo O?Meara, Danielle Lloyd and her boyfriend Jack Tweed against Shilpa for no discernable reason.
With phrases like ?dog,? ?bitch,? ?who does she think she is,? ?you?re just a cook,? ?c*? and ?what are you, a hairy man?? accumulating from the Goody Girl-Gang-and-Toyboy, a nation squirmed under the impression that there were distinct racial motivations to the bullyers? body language, insults and apparent agenda to exclude and attack Shilpa.
Other than an inherent dislike for the spiritual Shilpa?s being different, pretty, full of integrity and fairly secure in her personhood, Jade had no other provocation other than the thrill of self-righteousness to crucify the poor girl.
Jermaine Jackson, also a person of colour, escaped bullying because he was a Jackson, and perhaps too because he didn?t overtly seek to antagonize Jade?s Viper Pit and thus make himself a target.
Jade?s mother Jackiey called Shilpa 'the Indian girl? and seemed to blame Shilpa for Jackiey?s own inability to pronounce her name, as though Shilpa had intentionally set out to irritate Jackiey by having a name that Jackie would have a difficult time pronouncing. (Compare that with Shilpa?s own gentle self-reproach for mispronouncing Dirk?s name ?Duck,? an error she then practiced diligently to overcome, and did.) For Jackiey, Shilpa would always be ?what?s-her-name.?
Former Miss Great Britain Danielle Lloyd, obviously wanting to be accepted by Jade as having ?street cred,? began accusing Shilpa of ?doin? ?er ?ead in?. One saw in Danielle a pitiful need to ?belong? to the ?tough girls? who weren?t afraid to bully someone whose skin, manners, gracefulness and openness set her apart from the Pillowtalk Gang-of-Three. Having been bullied herself in the past, she no doubt had learned to protect herself by clinging to the most effective abuser like a bodyguard.
Inflamed herself with drink and hostility, she went on to call Shilpa a ?dog? and to say ?we (meaning Jade and Danielle) are friends and you?re just the cook.?
Singer Jo O?Meara, driven by a restless impulse to match her girlfriends? obsession with Shilpa, called the unoffending Indian actress ?a control freak.? She too claimed 'the Indian girl? was ?doin? ?er ?ead in?. The girls repeat insulting phrases like a kind of babytalk to bond with each other.
All the bullying had a disturbing racist subtext. ?She undercooks chicken like that because that?s what the people over there do, and they?re all diseased.?
?I don?t want her touching my food.?
Any miscalculation Shilpa makes, the three girls leap upon. The stew down the toilet gave them another outlet for contempt and expressions of repulsion aimed at Shilpa.
Jermaine Jackson tried to cushion the pain of Shilpa?s scapegoating and exile by explaining patiently that the gangsters showed the mindsets of (he mouthed the phrase) ?white trash.?
He reminded Shilpa of her spiritual values, her dignity, her need not to win their approval but only to ?be herself.?
One could feel a nation shouting mentally at Shilpa not to debate Jade, as every argument was only a set-up for Jade to shame her.
And were we to believe that Jade?s ?dream?, in which Shilpa ?in her sari with her relatives and her fat female cousin in saris? kicked Jade, Jo and Danielle, gave some insight into a secret Shilpa? I don?t think so. It was only another means of attacking Shilpa.
What does all this say about our larger culture in Britain, whose public policies brag about ?multiculturalism? and so on, but whose inability to assimilate large numbers of society is glaringly obvious?
I?m no expounder of political correctness. I like to see people free to make mistakes in public and to cross-pollinate closed societies with the fresh air of rebellion and outspokenness.
But when a mean-spirited, close-minded group of people are seen to be gathering strength in numbers and fan clubs, overcompensating for their own feelings of weakness by singling out someone based on colour or costume, it must be noticed and stopped.