This is why I love Boris Johnson

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

Did this love for Boris shine on unabated when he was publishing racist stuff?

[Saras]

http://newsthump.com/2014/11/16/kim-kardashian-slammed-for-offensive-science-shirt/

Also, that guy is a Cannibal Corpse fan, so the feminist argument is invalid.

[kentonio]

Did this love for Boris shine on unabated when he was publishing racist stuff?

Such as?

[I AM MOBIUS]

Boris Johnson is a giant thundering tw@t - he looks like an albino panda FFS!

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

Such as?

This one-

What a relief it must be for Blair to get out of England. 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; and one can imagine that Blair, twice victor abroad but enmired at home, is similarly seduced by foreign politeness.
They say he is shortly off to the Congo. 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.

And there's this gem.

Visiting Uganda, Johnson cheerily said to UN workers and their black driver: "Right, let's go and look at some more piccaninnies." (The Observer, October 5 2003)

[Hauldren Collider]

Is picanninny a racial slur? That didn't strike me as racist, just a fairly accurate assessment of the degree to which the congo is a searing ****hole.

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

Is picanninny a racial slur?

Yes.

[kentonio]

This one-

Have you actually read the article which that is a quote from? Which just happened to be a parody article mocking Tony Blair's tendancy at the time of flying into troubles countries around the world playing the role of the peace bringing wise white man.

The original is here btw..

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/p...tay-there.html

[Hauldren Collider]

I see. If you said "piccaninny" here, people would probably assume it meant some sort of ninny who was extra-ninny.

xpost

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

Have you actually read the article which that is a quote from? Which just happened to be a parody article mocking Tony Blair's tendancy at the time of flying into troubles countries around the world playing the role of the peace bringing wise white man.

The original is here btw..

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/p...tay-there.html

I've read it before.

Would you be confident to discuss piccaninnies with watermelon smiles around black people face-to-face? In the office, perhaps?

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

It's also wryly amusing to see Boris mocking one supposedly playing the wise white man to the savages when he also wrote....

he problem is not that we were once in charge, but that we are not in charge any more... Consider Uganda, pearl of Africa, as an example of the British record. … the British planted coffee and cotton and tobacco, and they were broadly right... If left to their own devices, the natives would rely on nothing but the instant carbohydrate gratification of the plantain. You never saw a place so abounding in bananas: great green barrel-sized bunches, off to be turned into matooke. Though this dish (basically fried banana) was greatly relished by Idi Amin, the colonists correctly saw that the export market was limited... The best fate for Africa would be if the old colonial powers, or their citizens, scrambled once again in her direction; on the understanding that this time they will not be asked to feel guilty.
Discussing his views on Africans and "Instant Carbohydrate Gratification" The Spectator 2 February 2002

[kentonio]

It's also wryly amusing to see Boris mocking one supposedly playing the wise white man to the savages when he also wrote....

If you read more of his writing you'd understand just how wryly amusing the idea of him 'playing the wise white man' really is.

Africa is a mess, but it is simply not credible to blame colonialism,

says Boris Johnson YOU would need a heart of stone not to have been moved by the little Aids-ridden choristers. We sat under a mango tree, before a dancing-space of packed red earth, and what a preposterous delegation we were. There was Mr Rod Liddle, the big white chief of the Today programme, not looking especially kempt. There was Vicky Scott of Unicef, and there was your correspondent, addressed repeatedly by the pleasing title of 'Mr Honourable Johnson'. And as we sat in our armchairs, as though at some durbar, the choir formed in a semi-circle before us: dozens of tiny children in lacy, embroidered dresses. Their parents were almost all dead, and on some of the children you could see the twin tendons already standing out at the back of the neck — a symptom that the disease is moving to its close. At a signal from their teacher, they began to chant to the tune of 'She'll be coming round the mountain': We are happy to receive you, wel-o-come; we are happy to receive you, wel-o-come; we are happy to receive you, happy to receive you, happy to receive you, wel-o-comer Then they danced, magically, even the ones who were ill.

Believe me, you blush, you fat, white chiefs, at that kind of reception. You feel embarrassed, and obscurely ashamed, and it is that feeling of shame I wish to confront.

http://archive.spectator.co.uk/artic...the-guilt-trip

Yes, you can disagree with his stance on colonialism, and his language is certainly deliberately provocative, but just cherry picking a few lines and going 'look he's a racist!' is disingenous when he's spent many years digging at the smug superiority of whites who fly into troubled areas of the world like caped crusaders.

[Hauldren Collider]

OK I like this guy. That's a pretty ****ing awesome article. I didn't know who this dude was before this thread but now I want him to be prime minister of planet earth

[kentonio]

OK I like this guy. That's a pretty ****ing awesome article. I didn't know who this dude was before this thread but now I want him to be prime minister of planet earth

Well he may well be Prime Minister of the UK at some point, so that's a start.

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

Yes, you can disagree with his stance on colonialism,

Talk us through it.

and his language is certainly deliberately provocative, but just cherry picking a few lines and going 'look he's a racist!' is disingenous when he's spent many years digging at the smug superiority of whites who fly into troubled areas of the world like caped crusaders.

Whereas reverting to colonialism is preferable? How does that work?