Archive for April 17th, 2007
I loved reading this post on Racialicious, so I’m posting it here.
Celebrity Big Brother teaches us how to deflect accusations of racism in 3 easy steps
by Carmen Van Kerckhove
The UK’s Celebrity Big Brother reality show has made international headlines because of the racism endured by Bollywood actress Shilpa Shetty at the hands of her housemates, particularly a woman named Jade Goody, who has since been evicted. (Thanks to Rochelle, Vandia, Rob and Rachel for the tips!)
From Wikipedia:
As of 16 January 2007 this series has attracted the largest ever number of public complaints to the UK broadcasting watchdog Ofcom about a Big Brother series. The complaints received detailed concerns that housemate Shilpa Shetty had been subjected to bullying, allegedly with undertones of racism. As an example, one English woman even called a fellow Indian participant “a dog” and that she should “fuck off home”. This sparked widespread anger and demonstrations in India, where the alleged racism was reported on the news, and led Big Brother’s main sponsor Carphone Warehouse to sever ties with the show.
It’s been interesting to see some of the similarities between US racism scandals and this one in the UK. It appears that there’s a set of rules that people follow when accused of racism. Now obviously these are not the only three techniques for deflecting accusations of racism or suppressing conversations about race. Be sure to check out How to Suppress Discussions of Racism and Jeff Yang’s terrific breakdown of the typical non-apology, or what he calls the Rosie Carolla defense. But these are three tactics that seem to come up most frequently.
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