George Galloway's credibility took a further nosedive on Celebrity Big Brother yesterday after he remarked that he made allowances for the US basketball star Dennis Rodman's lewd behaviour because he was "an inarticulate black American".
His remarks have led to accusations on Big Brother talkboards that at worst the Respect MP is a racist and at best utterly patronising. One poster on Digital Spy's Big Brother Forum comments: "To say that you have *cough* 'made allowances' for someone that you wouldn't have tolerated if he was a white man does smack of racism concious [sic] or not and by any definition is a racist remark. That said do I think George is a racist? er no..... I think he's arrogant, pompous, blinkered, ludicrously prudish, out of touch and could articulate himself a whole lot better. Given his chosen profession and responsibilities he's scored a massive own goal there and really needs to have a think about a few of his attitudes IMHO."
Criticism of Gorgeous George's attitudes towards race has gathered pace in the blogosphere this week, with several suggesting an MP representing one of the most ethnically diverse constituencies in the UK should know better. His claim that he would be the first person to detect racism in the Big Brother house drew guffaws of derision. As did his argument that nominating Rodman for eviction was anti-racist as the MP thought he was "attacking constantly the other black person" on the show - former Baywatch babe Traci Bingham.
Galloway's latest comments are seen by others as indicative of his inflated self-image as the voice of the oppressed. When the housemates were asked to decide who was the most famous among them the Bethnal Green MP mused "there are one and a half billion Muslims in the world, and all of them know who I am." This prompted a poster on the Barbelith weblog to sarcastically remark: "Oh, really George, they all know who you are, and have a little picture of you next to Mohammed, that they kiss." To add to his humiliation, BBC Radio 4's Today programme this morning aired a poem by its resident Pam Ayres, Ian Mcmillan, which dismisses the MP as just another "Z-list mug."
But Galloway isn't the only Big Brother housemate in hot water for his comments about race. Rula Lenska has also been accused of racism after calling Galloway a "lying Arab". While the Mirror today claimed Faria Alam, the second housemate to be evicted, sparked a race row in the house by claiming that Big Brother would never allow a non-white contestant to win.
This isn't the first time allegations of racism have hit reality TV contests. Last month there were claims that black contestants in ITV's X Factor and BBC1's Strictly Come Dancing lost out to less talented white entrants. And the last 'pleb' Big Brother saw the house divided on racial lines, with contestant Saskia Howard-Clarke declaring in her audition tape: "I don't like people coming into the country. I cannot generalise, but they all want to kill us, bomb us and they call us names." Perhaps as Richard Adams commented in the Guardian the one service the show provides is in exposing the "racial flashpoints that lie so close to the surface in British society".
