A BBC radio personality was fired on Thursday after tweeting an image of a couple holding hands with a suited chimpanzee alongside the caption: “Royal Baby leaves hospital”, according to Nytimes.com reports.
The radio host, Danny Baker, who had an anarchic Saturday morning call-in show on the British broadcaster’s national news and sports station, Radio 5 Live, posted the tweet Wednesday evening, hours after the Duke and Duchess of Sussex introduced their newborn son to the world.
Mr Baker deleted his tweet within hours, but it circulated widely online and drew outrage for its racist imagery. British social media users called for the BBC to fire him.
He announced his firing with another tweet Thursday morning. Radio 5 Live confirmed the news in a statement, calling Mr Baker’s initial tweet a “serious error of judgment” that “goes against the values we as a station aim to embody.”
“Danny’s a brilliant broadcaster but will no longer be presenting a weekly show with us,” the statement read.
The newest addition to the British royal family — Archie Harrison Mountbatten-Windsor — is also the monarchy’s first multiracial baby in recent history.
He is half-American through his mother, Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, and some of his ancestors were born into slavery.
The baby’s arrival has captivated the world, and he has been seen by many as a symbol of change within the British monarchy. His multiracial identity has also become a symbol of greater inclusion for a long-marginalized group.
Earlier, Mr Baker had attempted an apology, tweeting first: “Sorry my gag pic of the little fella in the posh outfit has whipped some up. Never occurred to me because, well, mind not diseased,” and then: “Once again. Sincere apologies for the stupid unthinking gag pic earlier. Was supposed to be joke about royals vs circus animals in posh clothes but interpreted as about monkeys & race, so rightly deleted.”
But the damage had been done. Critics were swift to call out both Mr Baker’s initial post and those that attempted to explain away the situation.
The Duchess, better known as Meghan Markle, has been the target of abuse from the British tabloid press in the past. In 2016, Prince Harry condemned “racial undertones” in coverage of their relationship.
The royal family this year introduced social media guidelines for engaging with its myriad accounts following reports of abuse, noting that promoting “discrimination based on race” — among other things — would not be tolerated.
Charlene White, a newscaster for Britain’s ITV network, pointed to that history and “veiled racist abuse” of the Duchess from the start of the couple’s relationship.
“To post a pic picturing a 3-day-old baby of mixed heritage as a monkey, then claim it was a joke?” she wrote in the tweet. “That’s old-school prejudice and racism at its peak. And for a trusted broadcaster working at a public service broadcaster to feed that prejudice? It’s unacceptable.”
Mr Baker has been fired from broadcasting jobs before, including at Radio 5 Live. The station previously dropped him in 1997, after he said on a soccer show that he would understand if fans physically attacked a referee.
But he appeared unrepentant after his dismissal on Thursday, describing the BBC’s phone call to inform him of the decision as “a masterclass of pompous faux-gravity.”
Source: New York Times
