Saturday, November 7, 2009

Crying racism

Emma Thompson, Academy Award-winning British actress, comedian, and screenwriter. She is also a patron of the Refugee Council (fake charity). She's also an idiot, probably a well meaning idiot, but an idiot nonetheless.

BNP would love it here, Emma Thompson tells Exeter students

The actor Emma Thompson has urged a university to work to stamp out racism after her adopted son endured "unpleasant" experiences while studying there. Thompson says Rwandan-born Tindyebwa Agaba suffered because of the colour of his skin during his first year studying politics at Exeter University.
Speaking at a diversity event at the university, Thompson claimed the leader of the BNP, Nick Griffin, would "love" the area because of its relative lack of racial diversity. She urged staff and students to carry on trying to drive out prejudice.

 Her evidence is that...

We have a zero tolerance policy towards racism on campus. There are very few incidents: out of more than 18,000 staff and students last year there were five reported incidents of this nature on campus."

The university says about 12% of its student population consisted of black and minority ethnic students, compared with 3.2% in the Exeter region.

5 incidents amongst 18,000 and Emma Thompson thinks the BNP would love Exeter, it's certainly a hotbed of racism (not) the evidence certainly points towards a worrying undertone of non-racist activity amongst the students there.

Perhaps Emma thinks the BNP should get involved because of the lack of racism?

Or perhaps she should really think before opening her mouth? You know, get your facts straight before launching into one in a national newspaper. Ok so her adopted son Tindy suffered what may have been racial abuse (twice) in his first year at Exeter, but non thereafter, but it still does not mean that Exeter is a hotbed of possible BNP support. Nor was a slur (and that's exactly what it was) called for upon the City or its university.

Proof if ever it were needed that fame does not equal intelligence.

3 annotations:

John M Ward said...

Actors and other celebs often spout off about "issues" in this kind of way, I have noticed over the years.

They tend to be "Lefty luvvies" with little experience of the real world (after all, they are involved in fiction and pretending to be different people) so frequently come across in this kind of way.

Occasionally something sensible comes out of one of them, but not usually the Lefty types (think Reagan and Schwarzenegger).

James Higham said...

I'm not sure about idiocy of the very highest order - she has stiff competition these days.

Barking Spider said...

She should stick to acting! Actors are mostly pretty damned thick so they should keep their mouths firmly shut when they haven't got a script to quote!