And if this comment, on Alice Cook’s economics blog UK Bubble, is correct, diversity is compulsory at CBeebies. The comment is by UK blogger Electro-Kevin.
I can’t bear to watch any soaps, police/hospital dramas … There is an overt left-wing bent in all of them. Even Life on Mars was supposed to be a snipe at bigotry but backfired as the audience (sick of crime) loved Gene Hunt.
I feel compelled to check BBC news sources with other channels for balance.
I’ve felt the need to write to David Dimbleby about his biased treatment of ‘right wing’ panelists.
My boy’s school was the site for a Cbeebies programme. A school comprising 95% white, they asked for ALL ethnic minority children to be used in filming. This resulted in Highwood Primary School looking 50% ethnic (not that I care) with a lot of kids disappointed. It wasn’t the ‘names out of a hat’ selection that would have given kids an even chance of being on their favourite programme.
Try explaining that to a 7-year-old who hasn’t even noticed colour yet !
Auntie’s definitely not right.
I have been wondering for a while whether the BBC intentionally tries to show as many as possible non-white school children. I guess now we know.
‘Telegraph’
“The BBC can’t kick its addiction to bias”
(Damian Thompson)
[Extract]:
“When it comes to accusations of Left-liberal bias, the BBC is a bit like an alcoholic. People have been sniggering about his drinking for years; he pretends not to notice. There have been complaints; he brushes them aside. Throwing up at that wedding reception? Someone spiked the punch.
“Propositioning the boss’s wife? That was a joke. But, deep down, the drunk knows he has a problem. More to the point, he knows that everyone else knows. So, nervously, he’s prepared to admit that he might be a little too fond of the sauce.”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/3640733/The-BBC-can't-kick-its-addiction-to-bias.html
Far from helping the cause of equality, which the BBC loudly declares to be its aim, this move could worsen race relations by treating black people as nothing more than a group of helpless victims who need the constant protection of hyper-sensitive, politically correct censors.
As a black writer and broadcaster, I find the BBC’s stance patronising and divisive.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1137185/LINDSAY-JOHNS-How-dare-BBC-liberals-patronise-us.html
I had the misfortune of catching a few minutes of BBC news the other day – a piece on Nick Clegg’s new school ideas which prompted a few thoughts
1)Clegg is rediculous
2)Would the BBC have given such coverage to a Tory policy? – I couldnt bear to watch all of it but it seemed long and sympathetic.
3)White (in my mind British) children were destinctly in the minority in the school shown. Is this supposed to make us feel warm and fluffy inside?
4)I didnt make me feel warm and fluffy – does this make me “racist”? I should point out that the children seemed rather well behaved and unobjectionabe in themselves and that had the school been in Africa/ India it would have made me feel warm and fluffy.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/personal-view/3640733/The-BBC-cant-kick-its-addiction-to-bias.html
The link didnt work for me – hopefully this will.
Cbeebies is very good. The only children’s tv you can
leave your kid in front of with confidence. No pernicious adverts either.
mikewineliberal: Rubbish. Cbeebies is left wing crap pumped out by leftist losers.
Mind you MWL I guess kiddie shows would be right up your street.
Gentlemen ! Best of order, please. No need for the “ad hominem” attack, Martin.
That’s alright Laban. Cbeebies does I fear make up a lot of my viewing. It is by a country mile the best dedicated TV station for children.
This article relates to the political ‘left’ and its mindset, in America, but also it can be added, of course, in the UK, and especially in the BBC:
“Suicidal Appeasement”
(Bruce Thornton)
[Extract]:
“Universities were particularly eager to further this trend [towards self-censorship], passing and enforcing unconstitutional ‘speech codes’ that subjected students to star-chamber trials and other penalties for engaging in the ‘free play of the mind on all subjects’ that Matthew Arnold saw as the great good of liberal education.
“Of course, there is no consistency in this tender regard for hurt feelings. White males, Christians, observant Jews, Israelis, poor Southern whites, and Republicans are still fair game for vicious verbal assaults. Pornography, vulgar music videos, television shows, and juvenile bad art likewise are not restricted just because they might offend somebody. Indeed, just complaining about the vulgarity of popular culture or so-called ‘art’ earns one denunciation as a puritanical philistine whose protests create the ever-dreaded ‘chilling effect’ that in fact is downright tropical compared to the effects of speech codes and internal censorship caused by political correctness.
“This inconsistent curtailment of free speech serves an ideological function: to control and limit the speech of those who do not share the progressive dogma that sees America’s sins and crimes as historically unique evils responsible for all the world’s ills. This anti-American ideology explains why those who will denigrate and vilify with gusto their own civilization will censor the truth to protect those, like the jihadists, whose own values scorn all the goods — freedom, tolerance, equality — that these two-bit Western Hamlets proclaim to respect.”
http://www.victorhanson.com/articles/thornton020609.html
For specific example, indicating how AL GORE operates on the minds of young people,the following video clip is instructive of the methods used by the political ‘left’:
See GLENN BECK (of Fox News); go to – ‘Inconvenient Speech?’ video clip link on the following page
http://www.foxnews.com/glennbeck/index.html
If the anonymous comment in that thread is accurate, Thatcher’s remark was definitely racially insensitive, in my view. But hardly a serious offense worth being thrown out the door. The only question left is, what kind of apology did she refuse to make? Is it Orwellian/Maoist (as I’ve been suggesting), in that she was required to admit racism, whether she felt it or not? Or merely to acknowledge that her comment was bad manners? Jay Hunt made it sound like the former. That makes a difference.
If this comment is true, then she’s clearly from the same mold as Boris Johnson, and deserves to be told that she should watch her mouth. It shows how dense she is if she said such a thing in front of those people. It’s also evidence of some pathetic colleagues if they went to mommy crying about how they refuse to work with such a person any more rather than straightening the woman out themselves. They probably felt it was their duty to report her, something they learned in first-week orientation (it replaced the part in the BBC manual about lying to and stealing money from children), rather than correct her and possibly do something useful for a change. Scary behavior, and scary management practices.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comme…on-to- bias.html
George R | 07.02.09 – 3:15 pm | #
———————————
George R: Isn’t that article quite old, although the date at the top is given as Jan 2009?
I’d swear I’ve read it before, some time well before this year.
mikewineliberal:
Cbeebies is very good. The only children’s tv you can
leave your kid in front of with confidence. No pernicious adverts either.
mikewineliberal | 07.02.09 – 4:01 pm |
————————
No child should be subjected to such public broadcast propagandist rubbish and political agenda as the BBC indulges in. It is more shocking to me than that adults are fed propaganda by the BBC.
Millie Tant 6:22pm
Yes it sounds very familiar; but this ‘Telegraph’ report does mention Obama.
‘Jihadwatch’ has posted it:
‘CIA: “The British Pakistani community is recognised as probably al-Qaeda’s best mechanism for launching an attack against North America”‘
http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/024757.php
BBC hasn’t posted it.
Balamory, anyone?
CBBC is top viewing when Sarah-Jane is on Tikkabilla – especially when wearing her fairy costume. I must get out more.
George R | 07.02.09 – 7:20 pm |
Did you expect them to? Just a rhetorical question.
Carol Thatcher has been fired and Jo Brand is ugly,but soon Thatcher will get a job.
CBBC shows what beebers do when they think they will get away with it.
It makes me cringe to watch it – luckily my children are growing past that age now.
Every single programme is so right-on: from the line up of Blue Peter (1 white, 1 black, 1 asian); the non-stop nagging about healthy food, saving the environment, global yawning, endangered species, africa, AIDS, the obsession about bullying.
One recent programme combined most of these BBC fetishes into one show:
An over-ethnic group of children from London went off to Chile to “save” some endangered species. Several were obese, not one could speak a proper sentence. There was a chance to do domething vaguely dangerous like climbing a mountain (I was only half watching). They all bottled it and we were treated to blubbing-to-camera like the morons on Big Brother.
There’s some kind of unwritten rule: if a single child appears then said child has a 60% chance of being ethnic. If more than one child appears then 60% or more must be ethnic.
I have been wondering for a while whether the BBC intentionally tries to show as many as possible non-white school children. I guess now we know.
Francis | 07.02.09 – 3:06 pm
i was wondering about that myself. a few years ago the bbc did a news report from my neck of the woods – which is about 95 per cent white.
the news report vox pop interviewed 4 people – 1 of whom was white.
they must have waited for AGES to get their ethnic diversity quota..
Jack Hughes
Almost agree with you about the Blue Peter line up.
one white
one black
one asian
one gay
would be my assesment of them.
Just looked at it and nearly every recommended comment for the first two pages glorifies oh-so-utopiac communism. Gotta love that unbiased BBC, haven’t you?
On the BBC and Ethnicity in Schools
I too have noticed this bizarre ethnic mix and wondered, occationally aloud, whether it was deliberate. Somebody once gave me an explanation as to why, so often, the class is 95% ethnic. Apparently BBC journalists are often rushed for time when producing news reports about education and only have time to go to a nearby school to do a film. The schools local to Broadcasting house are, roughly, 95% ethnic hence the mix. No conspiracy.
However if you look deeper into the subject this, whilst holding true most of the time, does not explain why the racial mix changes when the topic changes. If, for example, the topic is how things need to improve and will do thanks to NuLab then they pop next door. If they are talking about fantastic A level results due to the diligence of Our Glorious Leader they find a mostly white independant girls school. If they want to say something is really bad, like school meals or bullying they go Oop North and find some fat white boys.
To your average lefty this seems like a racist rant from somebody who can’t cope with seeing black faces on the screen. But once you point it out to them they start to see it too and it’s not long before they realise that there is an implied racism in all this and it’s not all anti-white.
Why are the only successful schools full of white girls?
Why are the non-functioning schools full of ethnic kids?
Why are the bad schools, ones that you wouldn’t send a borstal kid to, full of white boys?
Answer because it fits the BBCs racial mentality. Ethnics are held back and need improvement thrust upon them, white girls are just spiffing and white boys are pig ignorant fat Northern bullies…
Simple really.
Golliwogs?
Carol Thatcher was an accident waiting to happen. You could see from a mile off as the two tankers slip down the ungritted snowy by-pass towards each other. On one side you have a woman who doesn’t know when to shut up, has a crass upper class attitude to life and is as opinionated as only someone with an innate public school confidence can be. On the otherside you have the daughter of the most hated Tory leader ever (mainly IMO because she was a woman cf the treatment of Sarah Palin) who the BBC would just love to humiliate.
Sure the BBC gave her air time and why not? Carol ticks all the boxes for the image of Tories that the BBC wants in public. They knew she’d screw up eventually and boy, did she oblige. Calling a black tennis player a gollywog? FFS even Hitler wouldn’t have been so crass.
But, well to her generation and mine come to that, ‘Gollys’ weren’t hate figures they were much loved icons of childhood. I remember avidly collecting Robertson’s Jam figures and badges with delight. They were wonderful toys and didn’t make me think of black people in a negative way. Far from it.
However, and this is something people like Carol Thatcher will never really understand, there is an element from the white majority in this country who like nothing better than to drive past someone different to them and shout insults at them. These brain dead muppets use ‘gollywog’ as an insult so it is not suprising that some people find them distasteful. Until it happens to you it is hard to understand how confusing, frightening, angrifying( 🙂 ) or whatever this makes you feel. Imagine how you would feel if it happend to you. A complete stranger leans out of a van a shrieks at you! Gingers know the score, bald people know what it’s like to have White Van Man shout ‘oi slaphead’ as they drive past. It’s astonishing that people do it but I’ve even been in a car with someone, a relatively quiet and benign chap, who rolled down his window and shouted ‘fat bitch’ at a woman, who was admittedly overweight. He really didn’t understand why I was so cross with him either, she was fat and female after all!
In the past I’ve tried to laugh this off as a form of Tourettes but it isn’t. It’s plain old fashioned bigotry. Pure and simple.
So, whilst I sympathise with poor old Carol, I doubt she meant any harm, I can’t say I disagree too much with her being censured for this. ‘Gollywog’ whilst once being acceptable is no longer – a big thank you to White Van Man for that.
And inanticpation of all those defenders of free speach flaming me – consider how you would feel if it was a word screamed at you that she had used, even in fun. She really should have known better – and to do it in the BBC too? Silly Woman.
Cattle Prod
I don’t think anyone here is defending Carol T’s bad taste, insensitiveness, rudeness etc.
What we are on about is the extreme over-reaction of the BBC. And its hypocrisy, the double standards of the way Carol T has been treated compared with the treatment of Ross. Or, as someone pointed out in the press today – the utter cowardice of the BBC panjandrums.
John A: “I don’t think anyone here is defending Carol T’s bad taste, insensitiveness, rudeness etc.”
Quite right. Most of us are defending Carol against accusations such as yours, saying she is guilty of none of the things of which you accuse her.
LBS
That’s odd – Carol T herself has apologised for exactly those lesser faults.
While making it clear that she meant no racism or insult.
JohnA | 08.02.09 – 3:37 pm |
That’s why she was fired. She was apparently required to admit that it was a racist comment, regardless of whether she herself is a racist or not. I think, as The CPoD has said above, that she’s unfortunately obtuse. But if being obtuse was a terminal offense at the BBC….
Carol Thatcher refused to admit that she meant it as a racist comment, which is what made Tessa Finch and her Stasi agents decide that the woman was no longer fit to serve. It wasn’t that she didn’t understand that people might think it was offensive (after the fact, I mean), but that she didn’t agree that she meant it to be. They could have handled this like rational adults, now look at them.
Cbeebies is very good. The only children’s tv you can
leave your kid in front of with confidence.
mikewineliberal | 07.02.09 – 4:01 pm |
What nonsense.
Especially their kiddies news when they came out with “Osama Bin laden is angry with America”.
Balamory’s imagined Western Isles ‘ethnic mix’ is a joke and the two retards running the cafe are beyond parody.
Cbeebies is just an indulgence in crude social engineering.
Thankfully here in Canada we get ‘Treehouse’ superior to Cbeebies in just about every respect.
TPO
Asa single example – your cooments re. Balamory will be ignored by MWL. He has no answer.
JohnA | 09.02.09 – 2:38 am
It’s a real struggle, but perhaps my answer is that Balamory isn’t meant to be an accurate representation of life in
Tobermory, but rather a programme for under fives. Does the fact it has two black people and someone in a wheelchair really bother you? in what way would anybody, other than the paranoid think this pernicious?
If you looked at the covers of the government produced teachers’ magazines sent free to all schools called ‘Primary’ and ‘Secondary’ you would be forgiven for thinking they were made in Africa.
In films, the villain can be English or white American without any problems.
A villain can also be black, provided there are other positive portrayals of blacks in the same film in the ratio of at least 2:1
But a muslim can never be the main villain.
I don’t want to give the plot away to anyone who has not realised it yet, but in police thriller films the villain is always the ….okay I won’t spoil it by telling you who the villain will be. I will give you a clue; he is quite high up in his organisation…
JohnA | 08.02.09 – 11:40 am |
I don’t think anyone here is defending Carol T’s bad taste, insensitiveness, rudeness etc.
Really?
It’s very easy to get precious about this subject but I think people really need to experience such acts of bigotry before they can pontificate on them. I don’t mean receiving ‘funny look’ from a Pakistani shop keeper, I mean the viceral, BNPish type of racism that White Van Man loves to inflict on those who dare to be different to him.
Once you have experienced that then words like ‘gollywog’ take on a significance beyond their origins.
But, and it is a Jo Brand size but, context is every thing. Casual, unintended offensive language is a long way from what the fascists like to indulge in.
As I said, Carol should have known better and it speaks volumes that she wasn’t on guard in the green room.
The BBC is, of course, just playing it’s usual patronising hand, plus taking a pop at the hated Thatcher.
Just wait until Mrs T dies. Then we’ll see the real colours of the BBC in full hate-fest mode. I for one an tempted to mount a guard on Mrs T’s grave with an pair of secaturs (sp?) at the ready for anyone wishing to relieve themselves on it! Anyone care to join me? MikeWhineLiberal, how about you?
I wonder why no-one at Electro-Kevin’s school took a stand about this ?
Were there no independent free-thinkers willing to commit career-suicide by stepping forward and saying this is wrong ?
MWL
Of course Balamory is pernicious. It is so clearly based on picturesque Tobermory – and presents a totally false view of what the population of T is. Pure PC nonsense.
I was amazed when I first saw it – I know Tobermory.
I don’t recall Goodness Gracious Me having half the cast non-Indian.