When I first hear about Emily on Big Brother using the Ni**er word I was obviously shocked but I initially felt that Big Brother had taken a step too far by throwing Emily out of the Big Brother house but after watching the footage I feel they made the right decision. Endemol were in a Catch 22 position , if they left her in they would have been criticised and no matter how innocuous the situation was to let it go would have been wrong. My total belief is that Emily was being racist but was totally unaware of it. Charley said to Nicky that the way Emily said it was so natural that she felt that it was something that Emily normally said and later Emily admitted to Big Brother that it was something that she and her friends usually said. What Emily was doing can only be described as the soft end of racism,if you can call any racism soft which I personally do not believe you can but it does exist.
There are 2 possible situations that Emily and her friends are using the word Ni**er.
Number 1 they are using it as every day speak , copying gangster language, and if there are no black people in her group of friends then they are not causing immediate offense but they are promoting and making the use of racially offensive words acceptable.
Number 2 there are black people in her group of friends who are accepting the language used but may not be happy with it but too afraid to say. I watched an episode of Life On Mars when Sam ran into his boss from the future in 1973 and Sam was shocked at the way his boss was behaving.His boss was making self-depreciating remarks about being black and making fun of himself.The other policemen did not see it as a problem and did not believe they were being racist when they were saying racist things.Sam's boss from the future admitted that he wasn't happy with the situation but admitted that he did it to be accepted and to make life easier.
Endemol were right to evict Emily if only as a statement that talking like this, even in a joking way is totally unacceptable.
If my children had ever talked like this I would have been very unhappy, I have never talked in this way and I find it unacceptable for anyone else to. I remember as a child, local to where I lived the local children sang the children's rhyme Eeny Meany Miney Mo, Catch a Ni**er by his toe. I remember being pre-school age and my father saying that this wasn't very nice and to use the word Monkey instead of the other word. Racism is something that is taught from an early age.
5 comments:
Hmm. It's a tricky one. Emily did need to be punished in some way but I do think C4 have gone for overkill by dismissing her from the house... I can't help but feel that C4 are overreacting to make up for their woeful lack of action with Celeb BB earlier in the season...
I think they felt that if they didn't evict her there would have been a bigger outcry than before.
In light of the previous history - and the warnings given to all of this year's contestants - Emily was certainly incredibly stupid to have said what she said...
Having 6 girls, the older 5 aged between 16 and 25 I can say that common sense isn't always high up on their best attributes list. For instance, last night I had to seperate the 16 year old and 21 year old in Tesco because they were arguing over the rights and wrongs of government policy!They tend to speack before they think.
I agree with Steve it was incredibly stupid to say it and in agreement with 'mother of many' I think they had to kick her out because if they would of left it the public outcry would of just built up and built up. It would of ended up being Jade but bigger.
At the end of the day it is only a gameshow and she broke the rules
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