Exeter MP and Culture Secretary has branded Emma Thompson’s comments ‘untrue and insulting’. Emma (’star of some films’, according to the Western Morning News) said the whiteness of the city would make the BNP’s Nick Griffin feel at home and she recounted times her black son had suffered racism while he was at Exeter University.
That’s not good enough for Ben Bradshaw, who said: “Emma Thompson is a great actress but her comments about Exeter, racism and the BNP are both untrue and insulting.”
Jonnie Beddall, president of the University of Exeter Politics Society, also disagrees with Emma’s assessment of what her son told her and has launched a campaign to make her apologise.
He said: “Contrary to Emma Thompson’s scandalous claims that both city and University of Exeter are racist, we know that it is not. Not only is Exeter an especially welcoming place for people of all backgrounds, but why should we feel guilty just for belonging to a community that doesn’t represent metropolitan London?”
A comment on this site says: “I moved from London about two years ago and I have to say that I’ve been pretty shocked by how much racist language I’ve heard in Exeter.”
Seems to us, though, that Emma was talking from her own experience of what her son went through while in the city, and isn’t that what we should be considering?
Comments below, please
(image: the Blue Boy in Exeter – are all colours welcome in the city?)
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(4 votes, average: 4.75 out of 5)
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I am shocked. To deny Thompson’s son’s experience of racism is shamefully racist itself.
Whatever Ben Bradshaw and Jonnie Beddall have to say, did they experience Exeter University life as a young black immigrant? Their responses are unreceptive, unsympathetic, and collude with the ignorance and prejudice that people of non-white races, and immigrants, have to endure. Their attitudes reflect a shameful lack of leadership on this issue.
I am frequently shocked by local attitudes to race and ethnicity. Insulting terms, and attitudes towards mixed-race people are all too common in Devon localities where I live (a few miles outside Exeter) and work (wider Devon, various).
I would urge Ben Bradshaw and anyone else to seriously consider the cultural consequences of denial, and to approach this complaint made via Emma Thompson with active enthusiasm. There are many cultural tragedies in history and in this present day, of how denial by ‘liberal’ whites perpetuates the actions and attitudes of racism – and good role models who stand against it.
Exeter and its surrounding areas do, after all, have established BNP members in the area. It was only because of recent activism by the Socialist Party and antiracist shoppers on the street, that a local BNP stall that had set up in Exeter High Street, was gracefully scuppered.
Wake up, Ben Bradshaw.
Of course there are fabulous anti-fascist, non racist individuals and policies in Exeter – both community and its establishments – but this does not mean the problem does not exist, or that we should be slack about facing up to racism where it does occur and that we should deal with it effectively, courageously, and immediately.
Just because we are white it does not mean that we are racists.
Of course, the likes of Jane Elliott would argue otherwise through her own biased eye experiment.
Normally, when the racist card is played, we are silenced because the experiment makes the assumption that we are all of the same ilk made via the same ethnocentric reading – people of european decent must be racist.
Leading to the point that we must be sent on a course of diversity training to reprogram our tainted souls. An idea which would make Mao and Hitler smile with glee.
Another fine example of the thought police trying to turn us in to a 21st century upstanding politically correct citizen of the utopianistic conformist new age.
Dare, ladies and gentlemen, dare to think for yourselfs. Dare to be free!
The BNP has done very badly in elections in Devon. I imagine the students from Exeter University are from all over the UK not just Devon.
Ethnic minority councillors have been elected in Teignmouth, and the people of Teignmouth backed the town council’s campaign for Filipino care workers to be allowed to stay, after the Home Office threatened to withdraw their work permits.Dawlish’s only black resident, became Devon’s first black Mayor.
Saying everyone in Devon is racist because they are white, is in itself racist.
Good to see that the West Morning News are keeping up to their standards of reporting; to state that Emma Thompson has been ‘in some films’ is akin to saying Hitler wasn’t very nice!!
To L.L. – criticising Ben Bradshaw for standing up for Exeter seems a bit churlish, and in his comments to the WMN he clearly says ‘any incidence of racism in our city is one too many’. However Emma Thompson’s assertions were clearly untrue – the BNP do not find Exeter welcoming. And I’m pretty sure I have seen Ben Bradshaw campaigning against the BNP with Unite Against Fascism in Exeter City Centre. Credit where it’s due please.
Thompson didn’t say that the BNP would find Exeter ‘welcoming’ – she said they’d feel at home in the city. Bradshaw, on the other hand, offers a blanket dismissal of Thompson’s son’s experiences of racism saying she ‘is a great actress but her comments about Exeter, racism and the BNP are untrue’. Never mind L.L. being ‘churlish’ – I think S Thomas is being a tad disingenuous