Thread by @PandaScottish

[thread]

I am going to defend Boris Johnson

I didn't donate to his wallpaper crowdfund

Or his begging for a nanny crowdfund, holiday home donation or his home takeaway food parcels donation

Instead

I am going to defend him from charges of racism

https://twitter.com/BorisJohnson/status/1414465103374729220

I am taking a leaf from Boris Johnson's "book"

No not "72 Virgins"

No not "Life in the fast lane"

But from his two letters

One to argue the case for Leave

One to argue the case for Remain

So I am going to write that other thread today

To coin an example of a debating society

I am going to undertake the exercise of arguing the "other" side

See Boris Johnson below at Oxford and him speaking "eloquently" of one of our EU neighbours

https://twitter.com/brokenbottleboy/status/1400102202136580099

I have written many threads on Boris Johnson

On his moral compass

On his being an inspiration

And on how he has led a nation through coronavirus

I will put them at the end of this thread so you can choose whether to read them

Life is about choices after all

But for today I want to frame my thread entirely

On arguing

That Boris Johnson is not racist

So first of all

Let's define racism

Or here

Or here

You can also look at how it is defined for children

"Racism is where someone treats another person differently because their skin colour is not the same as theirs, they speak a different language or have different religious beliefs, for example."

bbc.co.uk/newsround/5296…

bbc.co.uk/bitesize/clips…

"According to research by the YMCA, a staggering 95% of young Black people have heard racist language at school, and a survey by The Diana Award found that many have been the direct target of racist behaviour by the age of 13."

theschoolrun.com/teaching-kids-…

You can look at citizens advice

citizensadvice.org.uk/law-and-courts…

You can look at the Police

met.police.uk/advice/advice-…

Now Boris Johnson

The challenge is where to start

Because it is a swamp

A vast swamp going back years nay decades of written and verbal output, "spaffing" so to say

So I am going to pick one incidence of his words

And focus on arguing the case that they are not racist

I will come to the rest of the swamp at the end

With a plea and a task

For you to choose to attempt

So the words I am going to choose

Are of course from the article that includes

"piccaninnies" and "watermelon smiles"

The article of course

From the Daily Telegraph 10th January 2002

telegraph.co.uk/politics/0/bla…

The article is paywalled

So you can view the source of the page here

view-source:telegraph.co.uk/politics/0/bla…

Here I have put it in picture here

Now I could go over the whole article

But there is just not enough time

I want to focus instead on the areas of specific wording

"It is said that the Queen has come to love the Commonwealth, partly because it supplies her with regular cheering crowds of flag-waving piccaninnies;"

I have quoted the full sentence fragment

I have not cropped it

So first of all

"It is said"

Who said it?

Was it just one person?

Did you double source the comment?

"has come to love"

When did she not love it?

Which precise point did she change her mind to "love it"?

"partly because"

Were there other parts?

What were they?

Why did you not write them?

"it supplies her with regular cheering crowds of flag-waving piccaninnies;"

So was the "cheering crowds of flag-waving piccanninies" your choice of words?

The source's choice of words?

Or the Queen's?

Because if I was going to accuse the Queen of saying "piccaninnies" that is quite a strong word to accuse Her Majesty of saying without at *least* double sourcing it.

Or without giving Her Majesty or the Palace the right of response in the article.

If it was a source who intoned an observation on "piccaninnies" then also I would expect you to be clear on that also.

If "picanninies" was a wording choice of your invention then I would expect the sentence construction to be clear on that also.

So anyway let's move past the "piccanninies" word

So the Queen's love of the Commonwealth is only *partly* dependant upon her being "supplied" with "regular cheering crowds"?

What else is it dependant upon?

How much is it dependant on each of those other factors?

So my defence of Boris Johnson is really quite simple.

The ONLY way I can defend him from not being racist - is that the words he used on the Queen were a quote from within the Royal Family and were verbatim

That really is astonishing if you think about it

A Conservative MP, Mayor, Foreign Secretary and now Prime Minister thinks that Her Majesty the Queen's love of the Commonwealth is dependant upon her rapturous welcomes and that she is also a racist.

Imagine normalising that.

"No doubt the AK47s will fall silent, and the pangas will stop their hacking of human flesh, and the tribal warriors will all break out in watermelon smiles to see the big white chief touch down in his big white British taxpayer-funded bird."

Fuck it

I can't

Sorry I failed

I can't

it is just indefensible

Go on give it a try yourself

See if you can defend his writing

Go on

Anway here's Boris

"I do feel very sad that people have been so offended by these words and I'm sorry that I've caused this offence. But if you look at the article as written they really do not bear the construction that you're putting on them"

standard.co.uk/hp/front/i-did…

"they really do not bear the construction you're putting on them"

What fucking construction do you think should be put on them?

Perhaps you could have written them without being a fucking racist fucking fool?

"I feel very strongly that this is something which is simply not in my heart. I'm absolutely 100 per cent antiracist, I despise and loathe racism."

What the utter fuck?

"There's a real risk if we keep going on about this kind of thing that people will think we're trivialising the debate about the future of their city and people want to hear about housing and transport and crime."

You don't think debating racism is important. Wow.

We can debate more than one thing at the same time you know

e.g. on policing

We can still debate other things at the same e.g. the legacy of a decade of policing cuts

https://twitter.com/PandaScottish/status/1321871265553096704

e.g. on austerity

https://twitter.com/PandaScottish/status/1408060653047148549

Here is Maya Angelou on the importance of words

Boris Johnson

Is NOT funny

Is NOT a clown

He is an amoral cheating lying racist corrupt incompetent corrupt self serving charlatan

Don't you fucking dare trivialise him or insult ANY profession by association with him

So now

I have covered just *one* incidence of his words

And I tried to defend it and failed

I am sorry

I did try

The question is

Can you defend it?

Or do you not care - you don't care what he writes?

Ask yourself

If you were a "piccannine with a watermelon smile"

How would you feel at getting that said to you
1) in a school playground
2) in a workplace
3) in a public place

How would you feel if it were aimed at *you*?

How would you "move on" from getting that?

So the victims of racist abuse following a man who used the terms "letterboxes" and "bank robbers"

What would your reaction be if that were you?

If not you - at what point would you are about the % *INCREASE* in racist incidents?

independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-n…

Boris Johnson is racist

His words are racist

His actions are racist

And he does so - because he benefits from it

Because it is *useful*

It is *transactional*

Brexit was sold with racism, xenophobia and islamophobia

(It was also sold with cheating, lies, nativism and simplist fantasy cakeism)

I am sorry that it was

People chose the manner of their "win"

Whatever the cost

https://twitter.com/PandaScottish/status/1342019458366382081

Sadly

Having won in this fashion

The winners can never admit to or own the consequences of their tactics

They have contempt

For the victims who fell for and bought their con

And for those who suffer from their con

https://twitter.com/PandaScottish/status/1407646599061413890

So I said I was going to set a task

You can choose not to take it up

I want you to take one of the examples below and defend what it says

Now I am going to be kind to Boris Johnson

I am going to pick on not just him

So I am going to give you a choice of examples to pick from

1. Defend the "but" used here

https://twitter.com/magnitsky/status/1273680896042962946

2. Defend this "joke"

Amidst Yemen ravaged by British munitions used against civilian targets

https://twitter.com/jrmaidment/status/910075835108995072

3. Defend this doctoring of a video

Imagine if you can - a NATO ally had doctored a video of the "mother of parliaments" to incite anti-british sentiments

independent.co.uk/news/uk/politi…

4. Defend this observation on what represents a threat to "brexit Britain"

Why does a catholic present a threat?

Is it all catholics?

What other faiths does this apply to?

Why would caring for the common good present a threat?

5. From @AnneMarieMorris

"Now we get to the real n****r in the woodpile which is in two years what happens if there is no deal?”

And second - (from June 2020) exploiting a pandemic to hide brexit in

Fuck - try defending the first or the second go on

So now I'm going to wrap up

If you are looking for more reference material specifically on Boris Johnson

Then this is an outstanding thread from @snigskitchen

https://twitter.com/snigskitchen/status/1274729578628603904

So I quoted from Dave Chapelle and Maya Angelou earlier

I am now going to quote from another comedian

With two little clips from a 20 minute video

"What does home mean?"

A lesson on comedy and taking risks

So I started this thread with a quote from Boris Johnson in the aftermath of an England game

Here is a sportsman

https://twitter.com/Haggis_UK/status/1414507940627812360

Here is another sportsman

https://twitter.com/TobyonTV/status/1402159150742843393

Now I could quote Conservatives and right wingers who are upset at taking the knee

They seek to enrage and foster a culture war

They *WANT* a culture war

They *WANT* anger

e.g. if you are "levelling up" by god don't ask from whom and from what

https://twitter.com/PandaScottish/status/1405538763694952459

This video

Watch it

Watch it all

I have transcribed one bit

From 13 minutes in

"I thought about the killers. I truly felt compassion towards them.
Imagine the person who killed 100 people
Who took away fathers & mothers from their kids
What are they going to become when they wake up one day & realise what they're doing? Someone who begged them for life."

I would say there are 4 words that stand out

Compassion
Forgiveness
Imagine
And gratitude

The final few minutes in that video

Are her visiting a prison to meet a person who inflicted those horrendous crimes upon people

Her neighbour
Someone she knew
And how she reacted

I know I know

Its 20 minutes long

I am sorry

I couldn't clip it to a snappy soundbite

A tit bit to be consumed in seconds

So I am going to wrap up with 3 threads on Boris Johnson

The first an old one

With a simple question - when asked a simple question on whether Boris Johnson possesses a moral compass - Jacob Rees Mogg could not answer yes

https://twitter.com/PandaScottish/status/1201096472235847681

The second - where I wrote a thread on inspiration as Boris Johnson talked to school children

https://twitter.com/PandaScottish/status/1374286271732928513

The third and last

Amidst the culture wars Boris Johnson seeks on coronavirus

As he wants us to FORGET

Pitting the UK against the EU for vaccine lies on brexit

Pitting conspiracies and anti-lockdown, anti-mask against an informed public health debate

https://twitter.com/PandaScottish/status/1412792958949203974

@threadreaderapp unroll please