Sometimes, it’s hard to read a problematic statement as anything but intentional. For onlookers, the context of a rogue statement or tweet seems so obvious that it has to be the work of someone stoking some hateful fires.
However, those who end up in the middle of these controversies often claim to feel blindsided by the backlash. Although they say they understand the problem in retrospect, it wasn’t obvious to them at the time.
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Unfortunately, it’s impossible to know whether they’re telling the truth because we’re not mind-readers, but the consequences can be very real when people send the wrong thing out into the world.
Duchess Meghan and Prince Harry welcomed their newborn son on May 6, and the world was so excited and happy for the royal couple.
We know that Meghan and Harry broke royal tradition by waiting to reveal both the baby and his name to the press.
On May 8, they addressed reporters and could not contain their elation.
“It’s magic. It’s pretty amazing,” Meghan said . “It’s just been the dream.”
The public has generally been very positive about the excitement surrounding the royal couple’s son Archie Harrison Mountbatten-Windsor.
There will always be critics, but one radio reporter in particular is under fire for his remarks.
Until early this morning, 61-year-old Danny Baker was a host of the BBC radio show “5 Live.”
As the BBC reported , his broadcasts won him the Sony Gold award for Speech Radio Personality of the Year in 2011, 2012 and 2014 and a Gold Award for entertainment show of the year in 2013.
But people were less than entertained when he made this tweet following the announcement of the royal baby’s birth and name.
Did he really think that people were not going to call him out for this tweet?
When Baker became aware of the backlash, his initial response was, “Sorry my gag pic of the little fella in the posh outfit has whipped some up.”
“Never occurred to me because, well, mind not diseased.”
Apparently, Baker had meant the tweet as a comment about constant international attention surrounding the royals.
Thus, he claimed his tweet was referring to the royal family in general as circus monkeys in posh clothes. Hence the photo of a well-dressed chimp.
However, the imagery of the royal baby as a chimp carries a much more distasteful connotation when specifically applied to Archie Harrison Mountbatten-Windsor.
As he has African-American heritage through his mother, the chimp comparison appeared to invoke the historically racist trope of dehumanizing black people by comparing them to apes.
Baker deleted the tweet soon after acknowledging this connotation, but it had already spread throughout social media by then.
And so, by the next day, Baker announced that the BBC had fired him from “5 Live.”
A representative from the corporation said , “Danny’s a brilliant broadcaster but will no longer be presenting a weekly show with us.”
Their statement also referred to his tweet as a “serious error in judgement.”
They went on to add that it, “goes against the values we as a station aim to embody.”
This part of their statement seemed to particularly incense Baker.
Baker tweeted that the announcement of his firing was, “a masterclass of pompous faux-gravity.”
As he said, “Took a tone that said I actually meant that ridiculous tweet and the BBC must uphold blah blah blah. Literally threw me under the bus. Could hear the suits’ knees knocking.”
People agreed with BBC for making the decision to let go of Baker.
Others were not impressed with the way Danny Baker handled the news and felt it was insincere and dismissive.
The former radio host still did not own up to his actions and try to understand why many are upset.
Nonetheless, he referred to his tweet as a “stupid unthinking gag” and seemed to imply he was unaware of the baby’s racial makeup.
h/t: BBC
