Danny Baker should be sacked immediately

Working class my foot. What has class to do with racism ?

I guess what would have qualified him as a racist would be if he said 'I am not apologising. I meant it. I am a racist'.

Instead of sticking to the old adage "When in a hole, keep digging"!

How's his one-man tour going? Has anyone asked for a refund?

Class is irrelevant. As is his political persuasion. Racism is racism.

I agree breeze

Then it cannot be said that anyone who makes a racist comment is racist unless they say ‘I am racist’ ?

I was agreeing with breeze's post of breeze Fri 10-May-19 13:27:39 not the earlier one.

I think that a lack of self-awareness is not an excuse especially with someone as media savvy as this person.

Whilst the original tweet was distasteful I think he should have just apologised instead of trying to make unbelievable excuses - didn't know it was Meghan who had given birth etc.

He states he is not racist but I can't help thinking by posting that tweet in the first place reveals something unpleasant about his character.

Oh he's a racist trish - only racist people think it's amusing to post photos like that. He knew what he was doing - he doesn't live under a rock.

Why did he choose a monkey ?

No one who was ignorant of racism would make such a pointed tweet using a photo that a child of 8 would know was extremely offensive and the mealy mouthed apology makes it even worse It’s like someone stealing something and saying it wasn’t me my hand did it all on its own I have no control over it He’s a weasel and anyone defending him is a racist

Well I would have thought that racism requires at least some history of remarks and attitudes that indicates a belief that people of one ethnicity are somehow better than someone from another.
But what do I know. I also thought singing "gas 'em all" and producing posters showing migrants was racist but apparently it isn't nor are the people behind them.

The fact that he thinks it's funny and/or appropriate to use the image he did in relation to the child of a black woman suggests that he is inherently racist in his thinking. I don't know about you trish but there is absolutely nothing which would make me think of doing something like that, knowing full well what that image means. Nothing.

Oldwoman70 I don't think Danny Baker is "pleasant". He is sometimes offensive, can be very funny and entertaining and often controversial.
He has been sacked before and has quit before so he'll probably take it in his stride.

None of those things incidently make him racist.

No - your actions make you racist.

I think Gone made a very good point way back up the thread SirChenjin

Defending a person for being racist would make the defender racist too. But defending a person accused of racism when the defender believes he was not being racist is not racist.

JE I’ve heard that point debated over the last two days. I think there’s a general point here first of all. In equality legislation, it is the victims perception that something is racist that matters. If someone at work kept putting a banana on your desk and you were black, the perpetrator would be guilty of racial harassment if you perceived that act as racist. He would be judged by what you felt, not what he meant or his intent ie a joke. When you think about it, if it becomes about intent, then every deliberate racist called out would plead he didn’t mean to be racist - it would be a perpetual get out of jail free defence. So moving onto the DB case, certainly what he tweeted was racist. His initial apologies demonstrated he didn’t ‘get it’. Really that’s enough for action to be taken against him because he’s a nationwide broadcaster and should have known. Whether he really did know or not at one level is irrelevant.

Exactly SirChenjin your actionS Not one silly mistake.Q.E.D. I Think

And there's the rub - it all depends on whether you believe that DB, with everything he knows given his position, was racist to think what he did was funny or appropriate, or whether he just being a bit of a clown and you're willing to accept his defence.

breeze the problem is as I posted earlier, would you defend me for using the n word if I said I didn’t know it was racist? Wouldn’t that depend on the circumstances of the case? Should I reasonably have known? If the answer to that is yes, then I think you woukd be racist in defending me. Sometimes it’s quite simple, if it walks like a duck and talks like a duck .........The debate going on within UKIP about ‘jokes’ about rape is a good example away from racism. I don’t care at all if a UKIP member thinks it’s a joke, it’s not and he’s a misogynist and the UKIP members defending him are all misogynists as well.

No trish - not one silly mistake. One extremely racist action that demonstrates your inherent racism.

trisher he’s a 61 year old man not a 3 year old saying pooh at the dinner table.

It was very silly, as I said ask yourself would you for one minute look at that and put it out as a funny comment on the Royal baby. Never in a million years.

I will get shot down but here goes....... I think it was an accident waiting to happen. The hype surrounding the birth of the baby has been off the scale. It was a matter of when not if something happened.

I guess all we can do if inform ourselves and attempt to live our lives in a way that causes least offence. There is no point getting caught up in obsessing about the N word, the P word and so on.

You know, in your heart if you meant to cause harm and you know if you got it badly wrong and you should apologise with sincerity.