Is it me or is this racist?
Big shouts to - he put me up on this via his myspace blog. Everyone's favourite TV car presenter (or at least he was mine until I read this) Jeremy Clarkson has a column in the Sunday Times and regularly rants about whatever he fancies each week. Every now and then, these columns are collated into a book that usually becomes a best seller - well, I wonder if last week's column will make it into his next book.
Blatantly peeved that the Arts Council has pulled their funding for his local theatre, Jeremy's rant, rather than actually pointing out why his local theatre deserves cash; takes quite a Jade Goody-esque racial turn.
Choice quotes include:
it seems that to get funding these days what you’ve got to be is black or mad or preferably both.
The council spends nearly half a billion pounds a year and, so far as I can tell, in 2007 most of that was given to Benjamin Zephaniah and others in exchange for some ditties about how awful the slave trade was and how everyone in Britain ought to commit suicide
It seems there was some money left over to send a bunch of kids from Calderdale to the Yorkshire Sculpture Park, which is a field full of what look like big bronze sheep droppings. It’s not my cup of tea but no matter – the droppings were sculpted by Henry Moore, so that sounds fine. Sadly no. Because afterwards the kids were taught about rap music and how to graffiti a wall. That has absolutely nothing to do with the arts at all. It’d be like teaching kung fu at a flower-arranging class.
Have a read of the full article
Guess Jezza won't be watching 'Trexx and Flipside' then...
Of course it's ignorant (that's what Clarkson is famous for) but is this Imus standard ignorance?
Should Clarkson be apologising?
Should Ronnie Herel force him in to 1Xtra towers for a special 'Basement' to make amends?
Comments
Post your commentas a white male, yes i do feel that some of Jeremy Clarksons comments were foolish. i must also add that as a white male and all in favour of racial equality i feel that 1 extra doesn't represent the work of artists of all creeds and colours and is biased toward black music in a way that is unhealthy and smacks of segregation....
I'd say the fact that the Times readers in the comments section of the original piece are protesting is a clear sign that this isn't just Clarkson winding up inveterate lefties and race campaigners.
His "ignorance" and flippancy are in themselves a clear statement that he doesn't think the issues in question are worth engaging with, which is pretty racist I'd say. Yes you can question the value of Zephaniah's work or the alleged obsession of central government with diversity - there's two sides to every story. But the tone is one of a privileged, shortsighted individual speaking with the petulant anger that comes from having no real empathy for anyone outside his own narrow social background.
Incidentally, I think Nicholas' point about segregation is an interesting one - I guess my first thought is that, yes, 1xtra as a separate digital-only thing isn't perfect but I'd rather have the content available in this form than not at all.
At the end of the day, plenty of white MCs, etc, get played and I (as a white Hip-Hop fan) listen in when I get a chance so it's not really that segregated. "Black Music" is in some ways just a convenient shorthand nowadays for anything that isn't tedious retro indie tosh.
Analogue - you took the words right out of my mouth.
Black music as a term is non-exclusive. It's simply shorthand for the music that 1Xtra plays.
When it comes to debates like this in britain today I think there are alot of double standards. e.g it is demmed as P.C to be pro black where being pro white is deemed as racist, You hear stories all the time about community funding being refused or pulled because of 'lack of ethnic diversity' , the english translation being - 'too many white faces' which , in itself is racist.
I can appreciate why this would annoy him.
I dont think clarkson was being racist, I think he was raising a point that many british people agree with whole heartedly.