President Obama Asked to Block BBC Show

[Kyriakos]

LONDON — President Obama has been asked to consider blocking broadcast in the U.S. of BBC motoring show “Top Gear” after its star, Jeremy Clarkson, was accused of allegedly using racist language.

A firm of lawyers, Equal Justice, is to write to Obama and the ambassadors of more than 200 countries in which “Top Gear” airs to ask them to consider the evidence, and then decide if the series should continue to be broadcast in their countries, the Guardian has reported.

The firm was referring to footage from the show in which the nursery rhyme “eeny, meeny, miny, mo” was recited, and in which it has been alleged the n-word was used. The footage was not broadcast, but the Daily Mirror has put the footage on its website. Clarkson claims he mumbled something that sounds like the offending word, but not the word itself.

Lawrence Davies, director of Equal Justice, said: “Clarkson claimed he ‘did everything in my power to make sure that that version did not appear in the program that was transmitted’ … The obvious thing that any non-racist would have done is to not use the rhyme at all or failing that to simply substitute another word such as ‘tiger’ in the take. There was never any need to mumble the N-word repeatedly.”

Davies added that the BBC should have sacked Clarkson and his team for alleged “gross misconduct,” but won’t because “they are making money out of the show.”

It is not the first time the show has been accused of using racist language.

https://tv.yahoo.com/news/barack-obama-asked-block-bbc-show-top-gear-112959964.html

Well... Nice of that lawyer group to ask president 'O to ban the racist hive that is the BBC and its periphery in the show of that madman Jeremy Clarkson. I had to suffer through his lame shows on tv even when i was still living in London. The man has no manners and is clearly a racist baboon

Or rather this new crusade against 'racism' is even more ludicrous than the last one. I mean Clarkson? He is just a famous UK comedian and sports-car enthusiast, with a characteristially funny 'upper-class' accent.

Extra points awarded for the image of him they used in the article, though

Spoiler :

Nice teeth Wait, isn't that a racist stereotype?

A bit like writing an article to speak against the lack of virtue or whatever by Beyonce, and just happen to pic the main part of this image to go along with the frame:

Spoiler :

Goro rules.

-So, is this whole 'racist' business in comedy getting a tad out of control, and choosing more and more unlikely targets?

 

[History_Buff]

Well it would hardly be appropriate for Obama to block this somehow, but to the wider question, yes, Jeremy Clarkson is a big old scumbag. Shouldn't be on TV.

 

[Quackers]

Not really a big Top Gear fan anymore. Got bored of the format years ago. Still, Jeremy Clarkson rubs up certain people the wrong way. Its strangely satisfying.

 

[Antilogic]

Yeah, I'm pretty sure the White House is going to ignore this. Not really a story unless action is taken.

 

[Lillefix]

So this is how I have understood it: There is an old english rhyme that includes the big bad n-word. Years ago Clarkson recited this text on camera and might have said that word but you have to listen carefully to hear it. Because someone managed to dig up this unaired footage BBC forces him to go to Canossa and they threaten to fire him. To me this sounds like an overreaction.

 

[Kyriakos]

Are we talking about the same BBC which had this guy for 15 years?

And more recently that famous pedophile too :/

BBC had lost its high moral ground already in the 90s. Particularly its atrocious Blair-mouthpiece cover of the bombing of Serbia was a very telling and infamous end to that decade in british tv.

 

[luiz]

Top Gear was lots of fun some years ago, I got kind of tired of it now.

 

[JollyRoger]

Many a Tea Partier dreams about President Obama giving them a BBC show.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

I remember that rhyme. My grandmother used to say it, and after I was old enough to understand that it was racist, I asked her to stop saying it. She didn't have a clue that the "n-word" is considered offensive, but to her credit, she did stop.

 

[Antilogic]

Many a Tea Partier dreams about President Obama giving them a BBC show.

He shoots and he scores!

 

[SS-18 ICBM]

Shouldn't you be happy a major world leader is stroking your hate-on for the BBC?

 

[Kyriakos]

Uh, nursery rhymes are immature, but not a porn-themed pun, ok...

 

[Tee Kay]

So this is how I have understood it: There is an old english rhyme that includes the big bad n-word. Years ago Clarkson recited this text on camera and might have said that word but you have to listen carefully to hear it. Because someone managed to dig up this unaired footage BBC forces him to go to Canossa and they threaten to fire him. To me this sounds like an overreaction.

Anything involving American reactions to the N-word is an overreaction. It's like an autoimmune disease.

 

[Verbose]

It's a traditonal counting-rhyme. It's in extremely poor taste certainly. Otoh it wasn't aired. Clarkson has apologised.

The rhyme certainly is indicative as a remnant of old, bad history as well as lingering attitudes and structural discrimination in general. Specifially, it doesn't seem to have been used by Clarkson as anything other than a counting rhyme? Possibly thrown out there for a bit of shock-value? Given Clarkson's on-screen persona, it seems kind of an accident waiting to happen.

But then that begs the question if Clarkson personally should be considered entirely responsible for the lapse in judgment? Why not demand the producer, Andy Wilman's, head on a platter? People have let the Top Gear franchise develop into the monster it has, including less-than-obvious reality checks on Clarkson's on-screen persona.

Most intelligent comment I've seen over this, is the observation that the BBC maybe should have been hiring people for the show drawn from a wider segment of the British population...
http://youtu.be/FgzOQ4PtxtU

 

[classical_hero]

I remember that rhyme. My grandmother used to say it, and after I was old enough to understand that it was racist, I asked her to stop saying it. She didn't have a clue that the "n-word" is considered offensive, but to her credit, she did stop.

I also said that nursery rhyme when I was younger until I knew what the word meant and stopped it straight away.

 

[warpus]

Just ban all of Europe, America#1 doesn't need any of that influence around. They can figure how to be offensive on their own.

 

[NovaKart]

Top Gear did an episode in Kurdistan but I haven't seen it. Heard about it many times.

 

[FriendlyFire]

Cant they just BLEEP it out instead ?
Worse come to worse just cut out the offending segment.

 

[Yeekim]

How about cutting people some slack once in a while?

Although that "firm of lawyers" presumably makes their living from from all sorts of hate-crimes, so attempts to fan hatred shouldn't be surprising.

 

[Verbose]

Cant they just BLEEP it out instead ?
Worse come to worse just cut out the offending segment.

From what I understand, it was never used. It's an unused out take.

If the clips on youtube are the ones in question (it seems so) he seems to go "Eenie, meanie, minie moe... Nunh a nih'he nhy nhe nho" in a first take. Makes a second one, where the "nih'he" is garbled to the extent that a "" cannot even be suspected, and in a final third take, where the replaces "" with "teacher".