Plenty of BBC bias flooding the airwaves…The EU, La\bour’s anti-Semitism and the rise of the Far Right…..and much more….list what you see here…
Weekend Open Thread
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- Zephir Dec 24, 18:26
Start the Christmas Week 23rd December 2024
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n2MtEsrcTTs - Zephir Dec 24, 18:25
Start the Christmas Week 23rd December 2024
Nothing regarding the bbc or maybe something, spending some time in a time machine with some tinctures, when the world… - brexiteerkent Dec 24, 18:11
Start the Christmas Week 23rd December 2024
Noooo .. Still watching .. Now they have found an African, a ” Swiss Nigerian cheese maker” .. That’s all… - Doublethinker Dec 24, 18:03
Start the Christmas Week 23rd December 2024
On Spectator TV there is a long interview of Jordan Peterson by the new editor Michael Gove. The first two… - Emmanuel Goldstein Dec 24, 17:54
Start the Christmas Week 23rd December 2024
Instead of going to the middle of the Channel to collect and bring here as many as possible of the… - brexiteerkent Dec 24, 17:54
Start the Christmas Week 23rd December 2024
Not the BBC but Channel 4. very rare that I watch mainstream TV but just watching “Alpine train at Christmas”… - Deborah Dec 24, 17:51
Start the Christmas Week 23rd December 2024
Happy Christmas everyone. This is my little area of sanity in this dark world. Thank you to you all. - Emmanuel Goldstein Dec 24, 17:43
Start the Christmas Week 23rd December 2024
Thanks for the replies. It appears to have stopped but I don’t know how. I think your way moggie will… - digg Dec 24, 16:55
Start the Christmas Week 23rd December 2024
IAnyone who seriously believes that Electric vehicles will become the norm and internal combustion vehicles will fade out or be… - moggiemoo Dec 24, 16:55
Start the Christmas Week 23rd December 2024
I have had this a few times including a couple of weeks ago. I clicked on one of the emails…
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agw anti-American anti-conservative anti-Israel anti Israel. pro Palestinian Antisemitism BBC - sickeningly biased at all times. BBC agenda BBC bias bbc bias and balance. bbc bias by omission BBC censorship BBC Question Time BBC selectivity bias Biased BBC climate change dhimmis general thread immigration Islam israel Mark Mardell obama obama bias Obamalove open thread pro-labour pro-palestinian pro EU pro Hamas pro Islam pro Labour bias pro Obama PRO OBAMA AT ALL COSTS. pro Obama BBC agenda question time question time live Richard Black save gordon. USA politics US economy US News US politics US presidential elections
Labour & BBC party policy to deal with the Antisemitism appears to amount to don’t ask don’t tell now. It would be an immensely difficult problem if not impossible for Corbyn to eradicate these feelings and beliefs.
Far easier just to tell people to shut up about them and for the BBC not to go asking difficult questions !
Good article by Douglas Murray on Gatestone on the worrying implications of recent opinion polls:
“One often hears about the “moderate Muslim majority.” ‘After any terrorist attack, politicians tell us that, “The moderate majority of Muslims utterly condemn this.” After any outrage, commentators and pundits spring up to say, “Of course the vast majority of Muslims are moderate.” But is it true? Are the vast majority of Muslims really “moderate”?”
“So for instance, the recent ICM poll found that 52% of British Muslims think that homosexuality should be made illegal. That’s a striking figure. Not 52% of British Muslims saying homosexuality is “not their cup of tea” or that they are “not entirely on board with gay marriage,” but 52% of British Muslims thinking that homosexuality should be made a crime under the law.”
http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/7930/britain-muslim-moderates
Douglas Murray, one of the few brave enough to articulate the thoughts of the many.
Knowing the Muslim penchant for “Taqiyya”, I’d say the 52% is a gross underestimate.
Mr.Golightly
Interesting ? Now, I just wonder where Al Beeb is on this ?
Just imagine if a poll of UKIP supporters showed that only 18% of UKIP supporters thought homosexuality should be legal, and over 50% thought it should be illegal!!
The BBC would be all over this with this being the headline news for weeks – with concerned ‘experts’ opining about what can be done to eliminate the ‘far-right’
Certainly, Unite All Fascists (the UAF) would be up in arms violently attacking every UKIP meeting up and down the country, with the approval of the police and BBC.
The hypocrisy of the left disgusts me, and is a major reason why the words ‘moral’ and ‘left’ will never go together.
To quote Turkey’s PM Erdogan: The term “moderate Islam” is ugly and offensive — Islam is Islam
I’m not sure where I found the following figures but they seem to mirror observable reality.
Much of the debate over Labour’s antisemitism, and support for the terrorists who want to destroy Israel, frequently misses the cultural preservation that Israel has conducted.
Not being much of a religious chap myself I often miss out on these values.
Here is a young woman singing in a church in Jerusalem, built in the 12th century with acoustics the likes of which have never been surpassed. The church is built on a site of great significance to Christians.
http://www.atlastours.net/holyland/st_anne_church_and_bethesda_pool.html
I fear that the savages that would like to see Israel destroyed, and their leftish fellow travellers, would not lift a finger to preserve these treasures.
Adding to the above, the significance of this Christian Church and its history might be lost on the BBC Head of Religious Broadcasting whose contribution to the Christian faith was the segregated service at the Calais shit hole
Islam mandates the occupation of all the land in the state of Israel and Islam sanctions the use of whatever brutality or savagery required to achieve it. Those who fight for islam are instantly accepted into paradise, the ultimate reward that no earthly gift could ever match.
The only treasures of this world for a Muslim are those listed by Muhammad. What treasure can possibly compete with those on offer in paradise! Let’s be absolutely clear about this, Israel will be wiped from existence, along with that church, that women, all Jews, all Buddhists, all Hindus, Christians, atheists……the occupation can not stop at Israel. The subversion and domination of all life on earth can never stop because Islam compels all Muslims to do Allah’s instruction to the world.
This has to be continually emphasised. The land of Israel is on land claimed now for ever by Islam. This is the reality of it and to avoid this fact is to be in denial .For Islam there can never be a land called Israel. It must be returned to Islam. This is non negotiable so all this talk of some sort of compromise peace and two state and the rest of it is never going to happen.
There will only ever be peace when the Muslim lands finally and honestly accept the right of Israel to exist. Lay down their arms and declare that they wish to live in peace and friendship with Israel.
For reasons that make no sense in a rational world our left and liberal elites deny the obvious and look for some compromise which ignores this fact.
Stating this fact to our so called educated classes particularly those in academia always makes them scream in rage-Zionist and the rest.
So to be a Zionist is to be a realist and in the end to be dedicated to the survival of Israel. Which makes a lot of us Zionists and so what. Livingstone and the rest can go to hell.
To choose life is to be free and that is what we should choose.
Islam also claims Spain as they occupied it for a couple of hundred years long ago.
No other country is treated with such hatred and contempt as Israel. Its manic hatred. The lands contained in the state of Israel have a long history of violence, occupation, displacement and change of sovereignty and all religions are to blame for that, not just Jews.
The lands now called Israel belonged to the Jews as far back as biblical times. They were forced from their homes (basically genocide) by the Roman empire who then lost control to Arabs and stayed that way for 1300 years (give or take a few crusader years). Jews always wanted/prayed to return to their home one day, the place taken from them.
So it is clear that Arabs and Jews (and Christians who were forced to leave by Muslims…Oh the irony) have a justified claim to the lands of Israel. However if you go through the history of nearly every sovereignty in the world today there will be changes in control in their history’s and therefore what could be counter claims of ownership. Why are so many manics on the left solely focused on Israels ‘occupation’ and not (as been said so many times) Pakistan, Bangladesh, Persia/Iran lands which have all been occupied (by horrific acts of death and violence)? It is antisemitism. It is judophobic. It is racist….all the things the lying, traitorous, hypocritical left say they fight for.
Unfortunately for Israel ( and despite the Holocaust). She does not fit in very well with the official approved BBC/lefty version of World History. Therefore to be successful in the Labour party it helps to have an anti Israel stance.
I can fully understand why the BBC takes the “arab” side in any dispute for a number of very sound reasons
1. Israelis on the whole may not be quite so brown as their attackers.
2 It is difficult to patronise them quite so well as they dont appear to victimize themselves. They pretty much just get on with defending themselves as they always have, despite any criticism.
3. They seem to possess little in the way of “Urban Chic and do not appear to wear the Keffiyeh very well if at all , preferring the less right on Kippah (which unfortunately rhymes with kipper) says it all!
Imagine it – having coffee and a debate at Russels Trew Era Cafe then driving your Prius back home to Stoke Newington. As you walk in the door on the coat rack, hangs your Keffiyeh what a way to impress your friends, shows that you are ready for our own “interfada” at any time – oh yeah!
Any way fun, over best pop back upstairs to write more editorial notes for next weeks newsnight!
I am no friend of Israel (not that she cares anyway). But I can fully understand why she acts the way she acts.
I am sure that the BBC view of the world is certainly not influenced by a large number of people in management or senior journalist positions who possess solid right on lefty credentials (which of course influences all other recruitment). If the BBC was truly serious about balance it would have recruited to reflect this, not a bunch of toadies and virtue signalers who reflect the organisations own views to get on, and make themselves feel better about themselves by not asking the difficult questions about migration, anti semitism etc.
Racist or not it is quite amusing to see the party of “anti waycists ” tearing themselves apart because they were so blinkered in their own views to care about who they were letting into their ranks.
I am afraid Labours chickens are starting to come home to roost and I for one am enjoying every minute of it!
The other thing that needs to be emphasised is the relationship between “dar ul salaam” the house of peace and “dar ul harb” the house of war as defined by Islamic teaching.
In essence lands not in submission to Islam are viewed as the house of war and should be converted…when they become the house of peace.
Islam seeks world domination….it is therefore in direct competitition with any belief system or political system that does not recognise and submit to Islam and its legal system, sharia.
Individual Muslims are called to contribute to this competition through Jihad.
I would like to hear this aired in BBC interviews with Muslim politicians and public figures.
Thanks for posting G.W.F. Just…..thanks.
I see the Islamic terrorist cock suckers at the bBC are offended by how the US is reminding the world how they got Terrorist leader , ‘Osma Bin Laden’
Bin Laden death: CIA panned for live-tweeting ‘news’
Talk about terrorist sympathises:
The leader of al-Qaeda, who was thought to have ordered the 9/11 attacks, was shot dead at a compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan in May 2011 after evading capture by the US and its allies for nearly a decade.
I bet its a black arm band day at the Buggering British children work place today.
I notice that Al Beeb are not running a ‘HYS’ on that one.
Pounce,
” Cock suckers” sums it up perfectly !
Never really sure about that story, even more so after reading about the incredible Charles Strange and the ominous words spoken by his son Michael, who was to die tragically shortly after.
“Michael was sitting right there,” he says, pointing to a spot on a black couch. “We’re talking. And he grabs me by the arm and he talks about a will. I’m like, what? He’s like, ‘Dad, I’m not messing around.’” According to Charlie, Michael also told him, “You wouldn’t believe what goes on in this country,” meaning America.”
Should you have the time and inclination the full lengthy article is here,
http://www.phillymag.com/articles/michael-strange-really-die-afghanistan/
kill ads panel lower left though.
Mmmm interesting use of the word “thought” (any other candidates?) makes you wonder who the BBC thought ordered the attacks. Probably it was those Jews the Labour Party hates so much.
Nothing on Al Beeb on this as yet . Are their researchers waiting to see if it appears here before publishing it ?
Perhaps ‘Jerrs’ or Kikuchiyo can tell us ?
http://news.sky.com/story/1688144/focus-on-historical-child-abuse-is-backwards
Have Beeboids ever seen a terrorist that they do not love ? What is the psychological explanation for their love of terrorists ? Maybe Jerrod boy can tell us !!
“Islington Syndrome”….It’s the British version of “Stockholm syndrome” but from a deeply Socialist perspective..
Dazed,
LOL !!!
A major part of the infantile-leftist psych is to yearn for the deconstruction of our society and it’s rebuilding from basics ‘the right way’ from the ground up.
Of course, this is shorthand for ‘killing anyone who doesn’t agree with them and forcing everyone else to do what they want’. But luckily I’m too polite to mention it.
I think, therefore, they see all forms of terrorism as a regrettably brutal, but useful, process towards destroying our current society. It has it’s purpose in their warped minds, and they can never bring themselves to really condemn it.
This is quite right – and underpins the old Marxist ‘eggs and omelettes’ cliche often trotted out. Many on the far (and not so far) Left consider the torture, death and destruction caused by their desire to destroy what they stupidly call ‘bourgeois’ society perfectly acceptable collateral damage.
The perfect example is a largely forgotten man today, Pol Pot – a name you will rarely hear on the BBC. With the backing and support of the Soviet Union and French communists (among others) he caused the death of 25 per cent of the entire Cambodian population in just four years – estimates vary between one and three million people slaughtered in total.
Why? Because he was trying to destroy ‘bourgeois’ society and reshape it according to his own insane ideas.
So when Jeremy Hardy, Mark Steel and other far Left ‘comedians’ are given free reign to spread their poison by the BBC, just remember Pol Pot. Because he was the pin-up girl of revolutionary socialism – the natural outcome of an evil, self-destructive cult.
Notice the theme on the Breakfast sofa this morning – Androgynous springs to mind . Which one is the bloke and which one is the bird. Dan Snow’s journey to womanhood appears to be continuing apace – nice touch with the eyeliner Dan
Saint Lenny,
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-36082559
A campaigner for racial diversity among many other things, heres a little racial diversity from another time.
Now if you have lived a little chances are you probably have some regrets, so it’s a little unfair to bring this up, but he didn’t mind sacrificing his principles (and dignity) on the way up to the high horse he now sits on and should remember that. Can you imagine the howls of anguish if anyone tried that on now.
Oldspeaker – it was from the days when you were allowed a sense of humour and could laugh at people who would also probably laugh at you back with little offense taken by either – something Aunty hates unless it passes the Sandi Toksvig test. The irony is is that now you can poke as much humour as you like at Christianity yet Rastafarianism or Islam seem to have become holy cows.
Now everyone (if they are not white ) are tacitly encouraged to take offense at any minor racial slight (real or imaginary). Which seems a shame as I believe this has created a lot more tension between different groups than it solves. Especially as certain sections of society have seem to have adopted a default position of complaining first and therefore killing any debate as everyone is shit scared of being seen as “waycist” We were always seen as a relaxed nation – it appears to me these days are long gone.
In the main the battles in this country about casual shit, racism have been won, Yet still the BBC carries on encouraging guilt in the indigenous population and a constant sense of grievance in minorities. It is interesting that it was the Daily Mail that highlighted the Stephen Lawrence case – yet it seems to be the Guardian types that have claimed all the moral high ground when dealing with any establishment corruption and racism.
No one in their right mind wants to see the segregation of races or sexes or a return of” wog or paki bashing, race riots or large numbers of racially inspired murders yet violence seems to be the main gift of the multyculty experiment.
Multiculturalism only works if people want to integrate if people dont wish to integrate then then violence always follows in the end. But I suppose that is what will happen increasingly in the future as long as Allah or Aunty wills it. (peace be upon them – but no one else)
Yes, he definitely sold out his principles when he appeared on the The Black and White Minstrels Show for FIVE years.
Think of a word that shuts down any criticism of Islam. ‘Isms are two a’penny – no impact. Islamophobia? Perfect, the irrational fear angle worked wonders for gays. The social justice warriors jump on board straight away. The BBC love the idea and the Labour party sees a real opportunity. Think of all those Muslim voters. But just to make life difficult, rather a lot of Muslims appear to be rabidly anti-Semitic. That hasn’t always gone down too well in past. But wait a minute, most of the left and Corbyn’s Labour party have been pedalling this agitprop thing called anti-Zionism for ages now and what’s a bit of old fashioned anti-Semitism between friends. Could be a marriage made in heaven. Trouble is it’s all coming out now and it doesn’t look too good. Labour is beginning to look like a bunch of Nazis. “What can we do?” The Labour party scratch their heads. “We can’t afford to lose that Muslim vote.” It’s a tricky one for the BBC too. “But of course it’s staring us in the face. We’ll say the whole thing is Islamophobia”. Blame the Jews.
Grayson Perry on Start the Week with his insanity and confusion about gender & especially Masculinity which he obviously hates with a passion.
“Cross-dressing and masculinity with Grayson Perry
On Start the Week Grayson Perry discusses the concept of masculinity in modern Britain with Mary Ann Sieghart. The new artistic director at the Globe Theatre, Emma Rice, explains how she is playing with gender in Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night’s Dream, and the celebrated mezzo-soprano Alice Coote talks of her career in ‘breeches’, singing the male role. The former artists’ model, Kelley Swain reveals what it’s like being the object of a work of art.”
Radio 4 is just a vehicle for the trendy Fascist Left to air & discuss ideas which in a common sense environment would be laughed at.
The fact the BBC has given Grayson Perry yet another series (yawn) in which to explore his weird ideas is for me proof that the BBC is intrinsically biased to the left.
The fact that Perry cannot see reality from his cossetted leftie existence is just proof of how insulated and detached the Fascists really are.
> Grayson Perry on Start the Week with his insanity and confusion about gender & especially Masculinity which he obviously hates with a passion.
Not if you actually listen to the programme, of course. Which Thoughtful doesn’t bother doing. I suppose that if you’re just going to present a fictional version of events just so you can drone on yet again about the “Fascist Left”, actually engaging with facts will just get in the way.
Poor “Thoughtful”. How horrible it must be to be so desperate to be right, that one has to fabricate an entire fictional world in order to do so. S/he deserves our pity, the poor benighted creature.
No Jerrod, I had the misfortune to listen to the program, and the inane rambling of someone confused angry and full of hate for himself, and by extension those around him.
As usual you lose the argument because being of a similar bent yourself, you cannot help the hate showing through. Once you start to name call, it’s a sign you lost the argument.
> As usual you lose the argument because being of a similar bent yourself, you cannot help the hate showing through.
And once again, you suggest that someone is filled with hate with no foundation other than your own theories. You’re wrong here. Just as you were wrong about the programme. Just as you were wrong about Sue Ion’s Desert Island Discs interview. And just as you’ve been wrong about so many other programmes.
In fact, you do seem to be a spectacularly bad judge of character. Which leads me to wonder how much real life human interaction you’re familiar with? Maybe if you spent a little less time telling people what they think, and making up reasons for you to be right, you’d have more time to find out that they’re not as hate-filled as you assume them to be?
Hi Jerrod, your recent absence has been noticed. Everybody was waiting for your words of wisdom regarding the hideously racist Labour Party. Please let us know your thoughts, or at least the ones you have been issued with.
> Everybody was waiting for your words of wisdom regarding the hideously racist Labour Party
Sorry, I was off having fun. You should try it some time.
> Please let us know your thoughts, or at least the ones you have been issued with.
How about you stick to the topic at hand, instead of trying to distract from Thoughtful’s mendacity? Or is there some other reason you feel the need to jump to the protection of a bigoted liar?
Hi Jerrod, Come on, give us your take on Racist Ken Livingstone, and the Labour Party, and how the haters here are misunderstanding poor Ken.
> Come on, give us your take on Racist Ken Livingstone, and the Labour Party, and how the haters here are misunderstanding poor Ken.
Who do you think you are to be able to give orders? Why should anyone jump to your command? And the way you behave, why on earth would you believe that people would actually want to engage in conversation with you?
If you want a decent discussion, grow the fuck up and start acting like a reasonable adult. If, by then, you want me, I’ll be ice skating on the surface of hell.
‘Who do you think you are to be able to give orders? Why should anyone jump to your command? And the way you behave, why on earth would you believe that people would actually want to engage in conversation with you?
If you want a decent discussion, grow the fuck up and start acting like a reasonable adult’
Having fun at least playing with irony here still, I see.
Those you spent time with over the weekend must have had a blast. Unless there was no one else there, of course.
Kikuchiyo was of course here providing cover, so all good.
Over to the good Dr.Freud for an understanding of Jerrod’s behaviour:
“Psychological projection is a theory in psychology in which humans defend themselves against their own unpleasant impulses by denying their existence while attributing them to others.[1] For example, a person who is habitually rude may constantly accuse other people of being rude. It incorporates blame shifting.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_projection
> Over to the good Dr.Freud for an understanding of Jerrod’s behaviour:
There’s a shorter term for people who hide behind cod psychology to avoid facing their own reality: denial.
A longer term: hypocritical liars.
> Having fun at least playing with irony here still, I see.
As with everybody else in your life, Guest Who, I don’t give a rat’s arse what that fetid tumour in place of your brain thinks about me or anything else.
Which, I guess, is why you’re always so brazenly desperate to come across as superior – anything to drown out that crushing sense of reality, eh? Can’t have Biased BBC see the real Guest Who – one of the world’s losers who has nothing of virtue to contribute to the world.
And it got a like!
You seem to know a lot about me and those in my life; been having a snoop? If so careful, Scott would be outraged. Or simply projecting a tad? If so careful, your doppleganger on another thread will want linkies and stuff in support. Like none of you ever expect of the BBC’s paid editors.
Can’t see two paras of bile being down to fat fingers or spellcheck, so I guess this one will just have to be put down to the ‘civilised debate and discourse’ taking a day off in chez J.
> You seem to know a lot about me and those in my life; been having a snoop?
Just guesswork, and happy to admit as such. I’m guessing I’m close to the truth, though. I mean, it’s not as if your dysfunction isn’t crystal clear for all to see.
I’m clearly not going to be able to stop you from deluding your fully functional mean self and certain others – just as long as you guess, and guess again, that everyone knows you’re not really here to discuss BBC bias.
> everyone knows you’re not really here to discuss BBC bias.
Well, my first comment in this particular branch of this thread was on the matter of Start the Week (and thoughtful’s mendacious description of the same).
Yours was to have a go at me.
So take your sanctimonious hypocrisy and shove it up that capacious arse you’re always so eager to talk out of.
Hey Jerrod, How’s it feel to be on the same side as the racists? If your lot carry on like this, with racists in your party being exposed every ten minutes, you will qualify for being no platformed.
Go on Jerrod, say horrid things about me. We had another like you who used to comment here. Bunny la Roche, who was said to enjoy race play sex – sex with racial insults – grrr – with the pals in the SWP.
http://nopenothope.blogspot.co.uk/2014/12/laroche-supported-race-play-sex-leader.html
> Hey Jerrod, How’s it feel to be on the same side as the racists?
You tell me. Seems there are far more racists on Biased BBC than any other places in my life, and they’re all right wing nutters.
But of course, for you to acknowledge that would require self-awareness and honesty, so I quite understand why you’re unable.
Jerrod, You are missing it. The racists are left wing loonies – always have been
Jerrod’s anger issues are caused by the fact he thought he’d stayed off this site long enough to avoid commenting on the Labour Party anti-semitism issues. Unfortunately for him it’s still continuing so he has been asked to comment and has thrown a big wobbly and changed the issue to his fantasy racists who he wishes were on this site. Very few as far as I can see, in fact the most obvious racists here are him and his BBC colleagues.
> Jerrod’s anger issues are caused by the fact [something which is not a fact snipped]
Well apart from the facts that I don’t have anger issues, what you’ve stated as fact is nothing but, that I’m not told to comment by anybody, I can’t have “BBC colleagues” because I do not work for the BBC and never have – well, let’s be generous and suggest you may have got the occasional preposition correct, but not much else.
Have a great bank holiday, you pathetic, lying little fantasist. Hope you spend it trying to learn how to tell the truth – you might find the change does you good.
Lying again Jerrod? Oh dear, oh dear. Still that’s what we expect from left-wing anti-semites.
> Lying again Jerrod? Oh dear, oh dear.
Oh, DO elucidate how you, someone who fabricated my motives, workplace, and thought processes, come to think I’m the liar.
And to think, one of your fellow inadequates accused me of projection. He’d be better off turning his cod psychology to you, wouldn’t he? A lying hypocrite who’s too much of a coward to admit he’s making stuff up. Classic Biased BBC.
I am afraid I missed the show. I have spent the weekend wrestling with a strange need to turn into a large rodent. Probably a beaver .as I am collecting wood compulsively. I have not decided whether a male or female one yet. Perry could be useful in this regard.
The liberal left needs to take on board that speciesphobia is a new phobia now and we don’t want nasty comments about us. Maybe R4 can do a show on it.
Seriously why oin earth do you take this seriously.? It is on the outer edge of the reality denying metropolitan nothings vapourings who have nothing to say anymore that we need to hear.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-36082559
Sir Lenny Henry: Comedian, campaigner… blues singer?
Or should that really read
Sir Lenny Henry: campaigner, Comedian?, blues singer?
What a self-promoting article. Apart from the Henry’s barefaced cheek to suggest that the drama series Undercover is ‘too black’ after all his bleating, the writer tells us that (Lenny Henry) ‘With blues singing and beyond, he will invariably continue to break down boundaries for some time to come’. Is that really a fair assessment? My recollection of the Marr show was of getting one’s ears punished, not just by Marr but Henry as well. The Mirror seem to agree.
“Lenny Henry makes viewers squirm with ‘car crash TV’ as he sings the blues on Andrew Marr show”
One man’s boundaries are another man’s car crash.
Isn’t Henry’s ‘blues singing’ simple cultural appropriation (to use the current war cry?). He isn’t a Black American and has never picked cotton, as far as I am aware.
It really is time this self-obsessed bore was off the air for a bit.
> Henry’s barefaced cheek to suggest that the drama series Undercover is ‘too black’ after all his bleating,
Which he doesn’t do. In fact, he says that complaining like that would be churlish. What he does suggest is that a better next step would be if the black leads were in a story which didn’t make their race a focal point.
And that’s a very different response to the one you fabricated.
“if the black leads were in a story which didn’t make their race a focal point.”
I didn’t read his comment but I would agree with him on that issue if that’s what he said.
What is it with the luvvies and Shakespeares Othello? Why do they ALWAYS cast Othello – the Moor of Venice as a black African when Moors (Moroccans) look nothing like that and never have.
Yasmin Alibhai-Brown explores five Shakespeare plays which cross the racial divide. No one has ever captured the joy and lunacy and power of love better than William Shakespeare. And his transgressive depictions of love in particular remain unsurpassed.
Here’s what a modern Moroccan actually does look like:
Or this:
Even if you don’t believe the old definition of Moorish is exclusive to Morocco, but covers the wider Southern Med, the people there look very similar to the photos. If this were the non looney Left doing this then the cries of waycism would be echoing to heaven! Moors are not Black Africans! St George could not possibly have been Black African, and neither could Jesus.
It all just goes to prove that the senseless ‘progressives’ have no understanding whatsoever about race and where those races originate from.
Perhaps the issue is not what modern Moroccans actually look like but what Shakespeare thought they looked like in 1604? The play works better with an added racial element.
The reins of their (Moors) horses were as fire, their faces black as pitch, their eyes shone like burning candles, their horses were swift as leopards and the riders fiercer than a wolf in a sheepfold at night . . . The noble Goths [the German rulers of Spain to whom Roderick belonged] were broken in an hour, quicker than tongue can tell. Oh luckless Spain!
Quoted in Edward Scobie, The Moors and Portugal’s Global Expansion, in Golden Age of the Moor, ed Ivan Van Sertima, US, Transaction Publishers, 1992, p.336
Othello is traditionally portrayed as a white man in blackface. The actor Richard Burbage was the first Othello and he was English. Not until probably the 19th century was a genuine negro cast in the role. He was first played by a black man on the London stage in 1833, by Ira Aldridge. Paul Robeson may have been the first but if not he was definitely the most famous.
It is quite possible that some Moors had Tuareg Berber background and were quite dark.
It is also possible that blackness, traditionally the colour of ‘bad’ was the psychological colour of the Muslim Moor especially when compared to the white of the ‘good’ Christians.
In today’s PC world it is much less controversial to cast someone with very dark skin. than boldly in blackface with its Black and White Minstrels connotations. Who knows Mallia Bouattia might be inline for the Desdemona role when she is tired playing student politics.
Whilst I see your point, the evidence of the time points in the opposite direction. Shakespeare would have known exactly what a Moor looked like for the following:
“In August of 1600, the ambassador of the King of Barbary—roughly, modern-day Morocco—came to London as the guest of Queen Elizabeth for a six-month residency at court. He was a celebrity, Katie Sisneros, a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Minnesota focusing on representations of Turks in English popular literature, told me in an interview. “He would’ve had some sort of public parade. People who had never seen a Muslim, never seen a Moor, they probably saw their first Moor during that visit.” Something of the ambassador’s charisma and dashing good looks remain in this portrait of him painted in England at the time. ”
We know from records that Shakespeare’s company performed at court while the ambassador—his full name was Abd el-Ouahed ben Messaoud ben Mohammed Anoun—was there, which means that Shakespeare may very well have acted in a play in front of him. (Of course it’s just as likely that one or both men had a cold and missed the show; that’s how nebulous Shakespeare scholarship can get.) Shakespeare likely began writing Othello the next year, and performed it for the first time in 1604.
If we remember that Shakespeare was a human being and a good businessman, we get the most obvious answer to our question. The Bard had just met and performed for a Moor who was a superstar. England’s relationship to the Ottoman Empire and to Moors was a pressing issue. Moors were so hot right now back then. From there, we can imagine our inspired playwright casting about for a story about a Moor.
To much of Shakespeare’s audience, “all Moors were Turks, even though not all Turks were Moors.” Furthermore, while calling someone a Moor meant that they had dark skin, in the early 17th century, the term carried a religious meaning as well. “There was no word for Muslim at the time. They used Turk, Mosselman, Mohammedan, these are all synonyms.”
When Shakespeare used the word “black” he was not exactly describing a race the way we would. He meant instead someone with darker skin than an Englishman at a time when Englishmen were very, very pale. Although Othello is a Moor, and although we often assume he is from Africa, he never names his birthplace in the play. In Shakespeare’s time, Moors could be from Africa, but they could also be from the Middle East, or even Spain.
When Shakespeare wanted to refer to Black Africans he used the word “Ethiopes”.
That piece that Thoughtful copies and pastes from appeared last year in Slate, a magazine and website whose political leanings lean towards what Thoughtful would (yet again inaccurately) describe as the “Fascist Left”. Apparently, the Left are fine if their words can be lifted in order to bolster the prejudices of an obsessive compulsive liar…
One quote that the author of the piece made Thoughtful chose not to pass of as its own is:
> Othello may have started in conversation with Shakespeare’s definition of blackness, but today, he speaks with ours.
But that would hive away the whole tone of the piece, which looks at what the difference in race that Shakespeare gives Othello suggests about the character and the themes of the play. I guess that wouldn’t fit with Thoughtful’s “wah wah wah look at me aren’t my opinions worth something please tell me they are so my life has some little crumb of meaning” style of portraying itself as some sort of intelligent moral arbiter. So it left them out.
Anyway, anybody genuinely interested in Shakespeare rather than the pathetic mewlings of a neurotic, insecure liar like Thoughtful can read the original:
http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/theater/2015/11/why_is_othello_black_understanding_why_shakespeare_made_his_hero_a_moor.html
“People who had never seen a Muslim, never seen a Moor, they probably saw their first Moor during that visit.”
No Thoughtful it can’t be true. The extreme lefties keep telling us that England was always a multi-racial country, and didn’t one even claim that it was Muslims who made England great and were the driving force for all progress in this country.
Looks like the migrant problems in calais and elsewhere is over folks havent heard much from the bbbc about it for at least two weeks. So all sorted then thank goodness was getting worried.
Yesterday, Jeremy Corbyn attended a May Day rally. Mercifully, Britain’s red guard couldn’t quite run to missiles and tanks, but they did manage to rustle-up placards with Stalin’s picture on them. Yes, that Stalin. The one who murdered a (conservatively estimated) 50 million people.
And the BBC’s reaction…? Silence.
Picture, if you will, an alternative universe in which Nigel Farage had attended a rally in which Stalin’s chum Hitler had adorned the posters? Any bets on how Corporation might have reacted?
Blimey GCooper you just beat me to it, great minds think alike!
Here are the pictures
http://www.breitbart.com/london/2016/05/01/may-day-photos-jeremy-corbyn-tells-thousands-of-communists-far-right-are-the-problem/
Can you imagine the furore had Conservatives marched with banners adorning Adolf Hitler’s face. Let’s get this straight both Lenin and Stalin were mass murdererers. Stalin especially had contempt for Britain post war, and was responsible for about 10 million deaths. Many of whom ere his own people. How can anyone think this was a good man? A man to to idolise and carry a banner with his face on. I am disgusted.
Why weren’t the people who carried the banner glorifying Stalin arrested.
These are very sick people.
I’ll ask the question again, why hasn’t the holders of these banners heralding Stalin been arrested for inciting a hate crime??
My plea to the left: treat Jews the same way you’d treat any other minority by Jonathan Freedland
Brilliant dissection of Left hypocrisy when it comes to libelling the Jews, even if published in the Guardian.
I treasure these concluding paragraphs: