BBC's Controversial Interview With Dr. David Starkey

[California Girl]

What the heck is a Jamaican Yardy, some type of English terrier?

Yardie terror grips London | UK news | The Observer

Originally from Jamaica, the 'Yardies' are basically a gang who have since moved into the UK.

Now, for them to speak with a Jamaican accent, no problem. But these kids, British kids - black and white - are adopting their accent. It is ridiculous. It's not a race thing, Rav, no need to get all outraged... it's a stupid kid thing - one that, unfortunately, they don't seem to grow out of. And it is, frankly, making them unemployable. If you can't speak clearly, how can someone employ you in a customer focused role?

He was equating the riots with Enoch Powels 'Rviers of blood', though he does not come out with any reason to justify this, the fact that he equates it to what was recognised as possibly the most racist speech ever made in this country and the speech which caused the most racism ever in this country, ought to say something.

He is talking about white people taking on black culture and my impression when I watched is was what Ravi said. Where does he say anything about these 'Yardies'.

West Indian Britons have always had their own way of speaking - way back in '81 this was true.

Why would there not be cultural mix when there is so much mixed raced relationships.

an extremely high rate of mixed-race relationships, and could in effect become the first UK ethnic group to 'disappear'.[6] Half of all British African-Caribbean men in a relationship have partners of a different ethnic background,[6] as do one-third of all British African-Caribbean women.[7] 2007 estimates for England alone roughly put the full African-Caribbean to partial African-Caribbean heritage ratio at

British African-Caribbean community - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Generally considered to be racism in the UK and the BBC have received at least 700 complaints.

David Starkey's Newsnight race remarks: hundreds complain to BBC | Media | The Guardian

You would do well to remember the old saying 'the road to hell is paved with good intentions'.

 

[Truthmatters]

The man is obviously a racist.

He claims the culture that all the youth of the UK is black culture.

Doesnt he get it that if the culture has people of all color involved then its NOT black culture.

 

[Ravi]

What the heck is a Jamaican Yardy, some type of English terrier?

Yardie terror grips London | UK news | The Observer

Originally from Jamaica, the 'Yardies' are basically a gang who have since moved into the UK.

Now, for them to speak with a Jamaican accent, no problem. But these kids, British kids - black and white - are adopting their accent. It is ridiculous. It's not a race thing, Rav, no need to get all outraged... it's a stupid kid thing - one that, unfortunately, they don't seem to grow out of. And it is, frankly, making them unemployable. If you can't speak clearly, how can someone employ you in a customer focused role?

He was equating the riots with Enoch Powels 'Rviers of blood', though he does not come out with any reason to justify this, the fact that he equates it to what was recognised as possibly the most racist speech ever made in this country and the speech which caused the most racism ever in this country, ought to say something.

He is talking about white people taking on black culture and my impression when I watched is was what Ravi said. Where does he say anything about these 'Yardies'.

West Indian Britons have always had their own way of speaking - way back in '81 this was true.

Why would there not be cultural mix when there is so much mixed raced relationships.

an extremely high rate of mixed-race relationships, and could in effect become the first UK ethnic group to 'disappear'.[6] Half of all British African-Caribbean men in a relationship have partners of a different ethnic background,[6] as do one-third of all British African-Caribbean women.[7] 2007 estimates for England alone roughly put the full African-Caribbean to partial African-Caribbean heritage ratio at

British African-Caribbean community - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Generally considered to be racism in the UK and the BBC have received at least 700 complaints.

David Starkey's Newsnight race remarks: hundreds complain to BBC | Media | The Guardian

He didn't say anything about Yardies.

He said:

"This language, which is wholly false, which is this Jamaican patois that has intruded in England"

Which, IMO, is extremely ironic since Jamaica was once a slave colony under Britain's rule.

 

[California Girl]

I find it funny when Americans think they understand Britain's culture. Seriously.

Can any of you find it on a map? Without using google?

Any of you know the difference between 'England', and 'Britain'? Without using google?

How about knowing what the United Kingdom is? Again, without googling it?

 

[Ravi]

Apparently you don't know the difference between Jamaican patois and gang talk.

 

[Swagger]

I find it funny when Americans think they understand Britain's culture. Seriously.

Can any of you find it on a map? Without using google?

Any of you know the difference between 'England', and 'Britain'? Without using google?

How about knowing what the United Kingdom is? Again, without googling it?

Let's be generous and give Ravi at least 10 minutes to return from Wikipedia with an answer.

 

[California Girl]

Apparently you don't know the difference between Jamaican patois and gang talk.

Actually I do. It's a pity that you're more interested in spin than reality. I don't need media reports to form my opinions about what's going on in the UK.

 

[Ravi]

"If you turn the screen off, so you were listening to him on radio, you would think he was white."

 

[Truthmatters]

yeap that one struck me big time too.


Its how he sees people of color.

Reminds me of ORiely and the comment about black people in a black resturant were not screaming fuck and bring me some more damned tea.

 

[California Girl]

Shallow small minded people prefer to see racism than the truth. Sad.

 

[Foxfyre]

One thing that struck me in the BBC interview is you had people with widely different opinions and strong disagreement having a perfectly civil debate even though they unfortunately muted much of it by talking over each other by the middle. That same interchange here in the states would have seen the parties involved screaming and accusing each other of awful things and Starkey's comments would have prompted organized call ins and boycotts to get him fired or taken off the air or whatever.

Kudos to the U.K. who seems to be better at this free speech thing than we have been in the last few decades.

The other thing was the accuracy that spoke of a culture of disrespect and targeted violence that is not unique to Britain but we see it all the time. That this culture disrespect and targeted violence these days generally involves many black people is, as Starkey pointed out, not due to skin color. It just happens to be a culture that has developed among certain people and it happened to have derived out of a culture adopted by people of color.

Repeat: The culture is not because the people are black. The culture arose out of people who happened to be black in this case and then was also adopted by white people. That is an important distinction.

 

[Ravi]

What he said is that a black man that sounds like a white man is a good thing. The guy sounds like a racist loon.

I bet there were lots up people in the riots that didn't embrace black culture. So he's wrong to blame this on white people acting black.

btw, I've never heard a Jamaican say "innit" in my life. Sounds more like something a Brit would say.

 

[Ravi]

Contraction: innit i-nit
Usage: UK

(slang) isn't it
"fertiliser is useless, innit?"

innit- WordWeb dictionary definition

For those of you that don't know, UK stands for United Kingdom.

 

[alexa]

What he said is that a black man that sounds like a white man is a good thing. The guy sounds like a racist loon.

I bet there were lots up people in the riots that didn't embrace black culture. So he's wrong to blame this on white people acting black.

btw, I've never heard a Jamaican say "innit" in my life. Sounds more like something a Brit would say.

I'd go along with that, it means isn't it.

Back to this man's speech and saying that Enoch Powell's Rivers of Blood speech was coming true.


Powell said

"As I look ahead, I am filled with foreboding; like the Roman, I seem to see "the River Tiber foaming with much blood'.

That then to most of the population was seen as foreseeing of immense civil violence caused between races and is also used by the far right in their continuing attempts to say his speech was right.

The irony always has been that where he took this from was about people instead managing to live well together in multicultural society

Powell is quoting a prophecy from Virgil's Aeneid, a Roman epic telling the mythological tale of the founding of Rome.

On arriving in Italy after many trials and tribulations, the Trojan warrior Aeneas consults a priestess, the Sibyl, to find out how his plans to create the new empire will turn out.

Her reply includes the line quoted by Powell: she tells Aeneas that in the process of creating Rome, she saw wars and the River Tiber foaming with blood.

"She was saying that you're going to found a multicultural, cosmopolitan state - and in the eyes of the Romans, Rome was the greatest civilisation - but it will be a painful process," said Mary Beard, professor of classics at the University of Cambridge.

Could this suggest a slightly more measured view of immigration - which may bring necessary problems in order to achieve a greater end - than the rest of Powell's speech?

There are other examples of rivers being used in Roman literature as a metaphor for mixed nationalities, giving the idea of a flood of new people coming in - although Powell's quote comes specifically from the Aeneid.


"If it was any old person, you might think they'd just picked a line they liked the sound of and used it, but Powell was one of the best classicists of the twentieth century," said Beard. "He'd have been well aware of the meaning of the line."

FactCheck: Enoch Powell's 1968 speech - Channel 4 News

To try to use the analogy of Powell while criticising white people for taking on black culture is a massive stereotyping and a stereotyping which uses the most reviled speech on race we have and also the coming into fashion speech of the far right who also say that Powell was right in this speech.

While Starkey himself probably knew the real meaning of Powell's speech it remains that others do not and it is well known that the far right use it to try and spread their fear and hatred of Muslims. His extreme personal opinion is at best a gross stereotyping of sections of society, at worse a try to get the far right going.

 

[Ravi]

Sounds like he's trying to foment a race war.

 

[Tank]

In America blacks have created their own language, Ebonics.

Ebonics is a more simplistic and primitive form of English.

 

[Swagger]

In America blacks have created their own language, Ebonics.

Ebonics is a more simplistic and primitive form of English.

Primitive being the operative word.

 

[Tank]

"If you turn the screen off, so you were listening to him on radio, you would think he was white."

Thats what Harry Reid said about Obama too.

 

[Ravi]

In America blacks have created their own language, Ebonics.

Ebonics is a more simplistic and primitive form of English.

It's more like a dialect, just like Southern. Southern sounds pretty stupid sometimes but I never hear anyone freaking out over it like I hear them freaking out over Ebonics.

 

[Tank]

The only time anybody "freaked out" was when blacks wanted to teach Ebonics as another lanuage in public schools.