What Jade Goody and Celebrity Big Brother tell us about 21st century racism

Finally, finally – people will know how to spell and pronounce my name.

No, it’s not Shipla, Shoba, Shilba, Sheepa, Shilipa, Shilpla or indeed Shilpler. However, the fact that I shall henceforth be referred to by my actual name is perhaps the only positive thing to come out of the recent controversy over Channel 4’s Celebrity Big Brother – in which Jade Goody was accused of racially abusing fellow contestant, the Bollywood star Shilpa Shetty.
Okay, considering she’s my namesake, maybe I’m a little biased towards Shetty. Still, it is perfectly clear that Goody and her cronies, Danielle Lloyd and Jo O’Meara, were nothing more than schoolyard bullies and that their treatment of Shetty was a disgrace.
Clearly, I wasn’t the only one who thought so. Over 40,000 complaints were made to UK television’s regulating body, Ofcom – contrast this with the 2,000 calls prompted by the previous record holder, Brass Eye.
In the end, of course, it was the public which saved Channel 4’s bacon – choosing to evict Goody from the Big Brother House and bring to a close this unedifying spectacle.
Looking back, there are several lessons to be learnt from this furore. Firstly, Jade, along with her mother Jackie, embodies a virulent new strain of racism: rather than singling out Shetty’s colour Goody made “jokes” about Indian food. Obviously, this is less blatant than the racism of the past, but is perhaps all the more insidious for of it. In the 21st century, racists might not attack or heckle you in the street – but they can block your career path, or subtly erode your dignity and self-confidence.
Consider, for instance, that black people are still six times more likely than white people to be stopped and searched by British police. Or that, in the UK, ethnic minorities and women are more likely than white people or males to be passed up for promotion. Overt racism, thankfully, is passing into history in the UK. But racism, itself, endures.
Do I think Goody is racist? Despite what the tabloids would like us to believe, I seriously doubt it. The truth is less sinister: she just isn’t a very sophisticated person.
Besides, who are the rest of us to condemn Goody? There’s a Broadway musical called Avenue Q, which is to Sesame Street what South Park is to Looney Tunes. The first song of the show is called ‘Everyone’s A Little Bit Racist’ – one verse goes: “Everyone’s a little bit racist sometimes/Doesn’t mean we go around committing hate crimes/Look around and you will find/No one’s really colour blind/Maybe it’s a fact/We all should face/Everyone makes judgments/Based on race”.
And it’s true – we all make assumptions about those of different race or ethnic background. It’s a shorthand way of understanding people and, of itself, isn’t necessarily a bad thing. What matters is the context in which those assumptions are made and, more importantly, expressed: when friends ask why I worship cows and elephants I find it funny – if a bully like Jade did, I’d probably get arrested for what followed.
Post-Big Brother, the worst thing we could do is retreat into the suffocating political correctness of the past. Of course, we should never victimise someone because they are different. But nor should we be afraid to acknowledge those differences.