‘Racist Drivel’: Conservative MP Cancels His BBC Licence over Racism Against White Women

LONDON, ENGLAND - OCTOBER 24: Employees arrive early for work at BBC Broadcasting House on
Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images
Kurt Zindulka

Conservative MP Ben Bradley said that he has cancelled his BBC licence in reaction to a recent podcast on “white privilege” and “Karens”, which he described as racist towards white women.

In a promotional clip for BBC Sound’s No Country for Young Women podcast, the presenter, British Pakistani comedian Sadia Azmat, asked her two guests — both white women — ‘Chicken Shop Date’ Youtuber Amelia Dimoldenberg and feminist historian Dr Charlotte Riley from Southampton University: “How can white women not be Karens?”

Dimoldenberg replied: “Don’t be so loud. Stop shouting and stop attacking black voices. Instead, you should be uplifting them,”

Dr Riley added: “Get out of the way, basically.”

In response to the clip, the Member of Parliament for Mansfield Ben Bradley said: “BBC spending £100m on diversity and this junk (which honestly is racist! Would not be acceptable the other way around!) whilst at the same time ditching regional news in order to save £25m.”

“Absolute joke. Cancelling my TV license [sic]. I don’t need to pay for this,” he declared.

The BBC deleted the clip from social media, and said that it was not featured in the podcast itself, with a spokesman saying: “The episode itself is an in-depth and broad discussion on racism, class, feminism and stereotypes.”

In the podcast, Dr Charlotte Riley admitted that she is a radical feminist, saying: “I want my feminism to be like violent and radical.”

“If I’m gonna be a feminist I want it to be revolutionary and I want it to be inclusive of trans people then I want it to be inclusive of people of colour and I wanted to think about class and you know, I know I don’t want, like, a tote bag with feminists on it, although I do have, like, always have loads of tote bags with ‘feminist’ on it, obviously,” Dr Riley went on.

The conversation on so-called ‘Karens’ — the meme of middle-aged white women who demand to “speak to the manager” — went into how white women use their “privilege” to power over minorities, giving the example of the white woman who called the cops on a black man in Central Park in May.

“I think it reflects a reality in society, which is that white women are taken seriously when they talk about feeling vulnerable or threatened in those particular instances, and I think it’s something that is really problematic,” said Dimoldenberg.

The Conservative MP for Harborough Neil O’Brien said: “The BBC just slashed regional news so it can fund this kind of racist drivel to try [to] get down with the kids.”

In December, a poll from Norstat found that 64 per cent of British respondents believed that the BBC was biased. A separate poll found that a plurality, 48 per cent, of Brits do not trust BBC journalists to tell the truth, compared to 44 per cent who did.

Follow Kurt on Twitter at @KurtZindulka

COMMENTS

Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.