If he spent less time in TV studios being contrarian, he would realise just how long black footballers have been doing work in black working-class communities.
Watch the UK carefully, if you can bear it. There is a particular cyncism in continuing to book commentators who contribute so little to the discourse especially while black people, right as we speak, are dying disproportionately from COVID-19 and from police violence.
The thing you need to realise about the UK media is that the subject of racism is a parlour game. Leading editors and producers pretend not to know what racism is. They then wait for a few of us to call it out - theguardian.com/commentisfree/… - and then they quietly retweet it.
We know that several leading media figures in the UK know what racism is because they are absolutely spectacular at recognising it in other countries. It's all a game, really. The key thing is to understand that you can't "educate" them on this issue. They know, all too well.
I am just writing this thread because I want you to save your energy from trying to dream up magical debating points or works of beautiful empathy that will win you over. Those points and those works exist, because they do not care. I cannot emphasise this enough.
If LBC Radio cared about black lives then they would not have invited Nigel Farage to discuss "the truth" of Black Lives Matter the same week that we have watched police murdering us. The "truth" of #BlackLivesMatter is that video of #GeorgeFloyd and everyone at LBC knows it.
Consider the twisted thinking of the producer at LBC who booked Nigel Farage this morning to talk about #BlackLivesMatter, knowing full well that he thinks this about black people: mirror.co.uk/news/politics/… Farage was booked to spray hate for their amusement. Simple as that.
Someone at LBC woke up this morning, looked at the protests over black people being run over by vehicles in California and choked to death in Paris and Minneapolis and shot in Louisville and Tallahassee and thought, let's book Farage. That's like laughing at a funeral procession.
Rage is a useful emotion - I have been using it as fuel for many years - it's just not worth spending it in an attempt to enlighten these people. They know who Farage is:
newsweek.com/trump-russia-j…
news.sky.com/story/farage-s…
They know. That's the fun of it. That is the joke. /end
newsweek.com/trump-russia-j…
news.sky.com/story/farage-s…
They know. That's the fun of it. That is the joke. /end
