The succulent churnalism of the Daily Radar usually leaves me indifferent.
Occasionally my derision at their venal sycophancy towards all things Ibrox tips over into hilarity.
However, today anger was my main emotion.
I did a double take when reading a piece of “journalism” today about the latest signing target for the Gerrard regime.
The kid, Umar Sadiq, is from Africa and the term “Dark Continent” was used in the Daily Radar article.
I immediately tweeted a screen grab of the offending item. Once I had brought attention to this bit of award-winning racism my notifications piled up.
There were not any dissenting voices from my basement of this award-winning shite.
It took two hours from my tweet until the offending article was amended.
“Dark Continent” was replaced simply with “continent”.
Now, was that so difficult?
Recently the term was referenced by the BBC when President Trump had referred to “shithole countries”.
Here it is within that report:
We have longstanding and differential associations between the colours white and black. For much of our recent history, white has always represented all that is pure, clean, and desirable. These associations are found in the language of our dictionaries, the one-time definition of Africa as the “dark continent”, and the way we demarcated slaves from non-slaves throughout the slave trade. These associations define our beauty standards, animated through film and television’s past and present. And, these colour associations still dominate our perceptions of leadership, images of success and attributions of worth and value
It is clear from the foregoing that the term “Dark Continent” is archaic and racist.
It is the geographical equivalent of the “N” word and it harks back to a time of European imperialism.
That period in history is known as “the scramble for Africa”.
From Cape to Cairo the Brits were major offenders in this carnival of genocidal plunder.
When they came to blows with Dutch settlers, the “Boers”, the British invented a new idea called the “Concentration Camp” in 1900.
The Germans picked up the idea from there.
Lest we forget…
When it comes to the Daily Radar I’ve come to terms with the fact that they will never deliver anything other venal mediocrity.
However, I cannot let racism go unchallenged.
