British society is dripping in racism, but no one is prepared to admit it

The foul-mouthed abuse on Big Brother shows how little we understand about prejudice, and the world judges us for it

Martin Jacques

Saturday January 20, 2007

The Guardian

So, thank God, Jade has been evicted. Imagine if she hadn't, that Shilpa had walked the plank? It would have represented a popular endorsement of flagrant racism. The extraordinary fact, of course, is that no one, or virtually no one, ever owns up to racism.

Ron Atkinson described Marcel Desailly as a "fucking lazy, thick nigger" on air and then had the temerity to claim that he was not a racist. Jade Goody called Shilpa Shetty "Shilpa Fuckawallah" and "Shilpa Poppadom", and then similarly claimed that she is not a racist. Andy Duncan, Channel 4's chief executive, in a performance which should see him sacked forthwith, claimed on Thursday that "we cannot with certainty say that the comments directed at Shilpa have been racially motivated". Ron Atkinson, Jade Goody and Andy Duncan are in denial - like, it must be said, millions of other whites.

No one likes to admit they are racist or bear prejudices. Nor do they even like to be open and honest when they witness racist behaviour. Look at the Big Brother housemates: apart from Shilpa, not one has been prepared to call it by its name (though Jermaine Jackson, black of course, patently knows and understands). The fact that hardly anyone is ever prepared to admit to racist behaviour is perhaps a sort of strength: it speaks to the fact that racism is socially inadmissible. But it is also testimony to profound weakness, a measure of how little distance we have travelled as a society when it comes to understanding racism. For if the truth be told, we are a society that is dripping in racism.