Woman's Hour: What happened this morning?

[NonCisWoman]

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9117995/Actress-refuses-appear-Womans-Hour-accusing-host-Emma-Barnett-degrading-comments.html

An actress refused to appear on Woman's Hour this morning after accusing host Emma Barnett of making 'degrading and vile' comments about her.

Kelechi Okafor was set to talk on the BBC Radio 4 show to discuss the #MeToo movement with new presenter Emma Barnett.

But as the programme was live on air, the Nigerian-British actress revealed she had come off the show, writing: 'Because what I've just had to witness is absolutely degrading and vile.'

Posting a video to Instagram, she said: 'I won't be going on Woman's Hour now. The host didn't realise her mic was on as she was talking s* about me to the producers.'

At no point in any of this does there seem to be even a sentence reported about what was supposedly said. I find this interesting - if it was so "very violent" can't it be repeated so we can all judge? Until that happens as someone wisely said above all this amounts to is Identity politics Top Trumps without all the relevant facts. I'm certainly not judging a woman on a series of outraged hyperbolic tweets which tell me nothing at all of substance no matter who they come from. Even those saying they were there too are being vague and avoiding the facts of the matter. I think this incident is a classic example of why identity politics only creates issues and solves nothing.

I dont think anyone on this thread has claimed that KO has not been anti semitic.

The issue is that WH did NOT do its research. Neither did EB.

So a last minute "revelation" by someone that she has been accused of this led to a discussion between EB and staff AND they left the mic own.

If that is the level of prepartion by both the presenter and the producer it is total unacceptable.

It would have been quite possible (if they had prepard thoroughly) to have asked KO questions about MeToo and then at the end raise the issue of anti semitism. (And it would seem from other comments LS)

This isn't about some sort of competition about one form of racism against another.

This is about a car crash programme because the "professionals" paid out of our licence fee were totally incompetent. And the implication is that EB having been caught out at the last minute did says something along the lines of, I wasn't aware of that. I should raise it once we have dealt with the issue she was invited onto the programme.

And again, if what KO said was really bad and she had never apologised, or reflected or whatever, the BBC / WH should NEVER have invited her.

So the thread isn't about who is or isn't racist.

It is about the total imcompetence of the BBC and the shiny new face of WH.

It is about the total imcompetence of the BBC and the shiny new face of WH.

Maybe to you, but having read the thread all I have seen is arguing about who said what about whom and when and if that justifies another person saying something.

Agree with you the BBC showed incompetence ( that does seem to be their way these days) but my view of this issue and how it is being spoken/written about (from twitter and following links on this thread) it does seem to be very much rooted in Identity politics. It may have been about BBC incompetence to begin with and that may be what you see the root of the issue being but the discussion has evolved to be one of identity politics from my perspective, here and elsewhere.

Is that you replying to me, justhadathought? Because that's not one of my posts. I'm just a bit confused, but maybe there's a mixing up of usernames

Yes, sorry, it was Learned Response who made the 'glib' comments. Apologies.

though I wasn't "lecturing"...I was giving my own view point. Not quite the same thing. Perhaps I confused you with another because of your equally confrontational tone?

@Signalbox

I'm still intrigued as to what LS has said about BLM that would have needed challenging? Can someone be explicit as to what LS said? It's all rather vague.

I've heard LS speak against BLM politics before which isn't surprising since some of their stated goals are to dismantle capitalism and state structures. Surely that is something we can all have an opinion on.

Yes I'd like to know too. I think you can criticise the way BLM goes about certain things without being racist. Does anyone have her exact words?

And once again,does anyone know exactly what EB said in those emails? Cause if they can't, I think it's irrelevant to the discussion.

I've been taken in too many times by outrage on twitter (the Covington school debacle being the most recent memorable occasion) to condemn people without absolute proof now.

I've been taken in too many times by outrage on twitter (the Covington school debacle being the most recent memorable occasion) to condemn people without absolute proof now.

This is how I feel. Weary and a little jaded by it all.

Can you tell us what she actually said, Llama?

I must have missed it. I was in the car and I heard her say that while she was horrified by Harvey Weinstein and supported the MeToo movement she thought that as things had progressed it had gone too far and she cited Michael Fallon's resignation for touching a journalist's knee. She added quickly that she thought the same thing had happened with BLM: horrified by the killing go George Floyd but then it went too far and ended up damaging race relations or black rights. That was the only time I heard her mention BLM, but I was driving and if she said anything more controversial when I was reverse parking I wouldn't have heard it, too busy concentrating.

@Lllama

And I am curious why there was no apparent drive to question Lionel Shriver's motives given her history :

Plenty of other examples, not least going for the "they'll be giving books to thick one armed black lesibians instead of people with literary merit" (I paraphrase but it was as bad as that) when Penguin Random House announced a diversity drive. She's the worst kind of racist antagonist, and Emma Barnett is the worst kind of gatekeeper.

She did not say that. She criticised the inevitable decline in standards which will occur if literary merit is not the prime criterion to publish. This is a quote from the Independent.

"Drunk on virtue, Penguin Random House no longer regards the company’s raison d’être as the acquisition and dissemination of good books,” she wrote.

Penguin Random House have added a new measure where employees are no longer required to have a university degree, something Shriver also called “alarming”.

“If an agent submits a manuscript written by a gay transgender Caribbean who dropped out of school at seven and powers around town on a mobility scooter, it will be published, whether or not said manuscript is an incoherent, tedious, meandering and insensible pile of mixed-paper recycling,” the author wrote.

To be clear, I mean perhaps your feeling that I was being confrontational was akin to my feeling that you were othering me and being exclusionary to those who are seeing it through the lens of black oppression.
To clarify it for me, do you think we should be viewing KOs antisemitism differently because of her skin colour? Because it sounds as though you're making that kind of special case to me.

People often feel that those pointing out racism are being confrontational

Trying to enforce a world view, and suggesting that everyone need or must automatically share that view - or else they are 'the thing' you suggest, or are in some kind of denial is more what I'm alluding to. Accompanied by unnecessarily hostile tone,.

Racism is discriminating in a negative ( or maybe even sometimes in a positive way) about a person purely on the basis of the colour of their skin, or ethnic background. Making sweeping generalisations, often of a negative kind, about a person purely on their belonging to a certain categorisation of person.

It does not mean, or imply, failing to agree with every pronouncement that a person of the 'victim group' makes or suggests, or holding a different world view, or having developed a different take on life.

(assuming it's a she...)

Best best to make too many assumptions on the basis of internet forums. They tend to result in lots of shadow boxing imaginary enemies, and a total loss of nuance.

I do find it exhausting that we’re asked to assume the worst possible motivations for people at all times. The suggestion that EB likes to “put down uppity black women” and is somehow accountable for her fathers unsavoury occupation is really below the belt. Completely unsubstantiated. The production team fucked up, and she was caught off guard, on a subject that I’d imagine is rather close to her heart. A quick application of Occam’s razor doesn’t require her to be a hopeless, irredeemable racist, so why are we jumping straight there?

It’s kind of lending weight to the idea that we’re not improving the way we talk about race right now, isn’t it?

Your words speak for themselves

Lionel is a bitter pill isn't she? On the other hand surely it is legitimate to ask someone about antisemitism even if they are not Jeremy Corbyn.

I'm really not very veiled.

I'm sorry that I made you feel unwelcome and it was a very ill-judged post on my part. At the time, I was hoping you were going to say something like, "yes, I think I've posted too many identifying details under my previous name".