Last year Lenny Henry tweeted that there was a poor representation of ethnic minorities on British television. In response to this tweet a UKIP Enfield candidate William Henwood, on his twitter account tweeted: "He should emigrate to a black country. He does not have to live with whites."
This racist response from William Henwood suggesting that Lenny Henry who is a British institution, should emigrate to a black country where he will not have to live with whites, I find astonishing in relation to its level of ignorance. It suggests that some how all ethnic minority peoples are the same and identify themselves within the racial category of black and furthermore that all white British people are the same and subscribe to a white supremacist agenda of exclusion and that this fictional white group of people are morally destitute with an inability to evolve in their way of thinking. It also suggests that this fictional white group of people live in a vacuum without the real life affect of cultural exchange, which gives birth to hybrid cultures that contribute to the constant redefinition of what British culture is and what it means to be British.
We can therefore identify that the issue, which Lenny Henry has raised in relation to the lack of ethnic minority representation on British television has got nothing at all to do with white British people as a heterogenous group of individuals with conflicting ideological beliefs, but with those white or not who sustain institutional racism within television, which serves an agenda of white supremacy and privilege.
Also worth mentioning here is a debate, which took place on BBC One's Sunday Morning Live programme, which took place last year, entitled: "Is the UK too hostile to immigration?" On the programme Springwatch presenter Bill Oddie expressed that he felt ashamed to be British because of the way in which the British socio-political agenda has historically constructed immigration as villainous. I believe that this topic, which Bill Oddie engaged with, has its roots embedded in the beginning of British chauvinism, which began as a response to the Norman invasion by William the conqueror in 1066. British mythology claimed that before the Norman invasion, perfect Saxon liberties were enjoyed throughout the land, in a sort of pure blood Saxon utopia. From this moment the seed of British racial chauvinism was sewn, especially in relation to immigration. In 20th century post-war Britain West Indian immigration was seen as a source of sorrow for the British people as they continued to come to terms with the dissolution of empire and their immediate economic circumstances. In short there is an irrational racist British ideology that is intrinsically linked to immigration, which blames immigration for the shortcomings of the British people. This is not to say that there are not genuine problems linked to immigration but that there is an irrational historically racist dimension to the British immigration debate.
In response to Bill Oddie's statement, he was challenged by the presenter Sian Williams to leave Britain if he did not like it. Now this suggestion by Sian Williams seems awfully similar to the suggestion by former UKIP candidate William Henwood that Lenny Henry should emigrate if he does not like the status quo in Britain. These suggestions unequivocally support a racist agenda of non change, they are ignorant and lazy statements that remove responsibility from the debate. If you love your country, which I am sure Lenny Henry and Bill Oddie do, then surely you want it to be the best that it can be, you want to help to fix the problems that it has so that you can truly be proud of it, I imagine in the same way one would want to be proud of any loved one. So it seems quite bizarre that because somebody wants to address the faults of their country, they are presumed to be better off leaving the country that they love. It also suggests that Britain is this homogenous edifice of racists with no desire to change for the better. Finally I would like the reader to reflect on what sort of country Britain would be today if everyone who fought for positive change was expunged?
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