This Is White Fragility: The Hounding of Adjoa Andoh
The Owen Jones Podcast
Owen Jones
4.4 • 1.4K Ratings
🗓️ 14 May 2023
⏱️ 10 minutes
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Summary
This tells us so much about modern Britain. The brilliant actor Adjoa Andoh remarked on the contrast between the diverse crowds at the Coronation - and the whiteness of the Royal Family. The result? Thousands have complained to Ofcom. This is white fragility: a certain type of white person who feels angrily resentful at racism being challenged, and relishes any opportunity to turn the tables.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Now some of you may have heard the term white fragility, some may be familiar with it, some less so, but this is a textbook case. |
| 0:05.6 | Now the brilliant actor, Joa Ando, featured in ITV's coronation of King Charles III, and let's just hear some comments that she made. |
| 0:14.8 | From the the rich diversity of the Abbey to a terribly white balcony, I'm very struck by that. |
| 0:22.0 | I'm also looking at those younger generations and thinking, what are the nuances that they will inhabit as they grow? |
| 0:29.9 | The nuances that Charles has exhibited from a teenage into early 20s, young man, thinking of the life ahead of him and thinking about the world. |
| 0:41.0 | But that final wave was out... |
| 0:42.8 | Okay, just with a key section there, looking at all those young people, there's a bit of me that has gone from the rich diversity of the Abbey to the terribly white balcony and they struck by that. |
| 0:51.2 | Okay, so I'll be next. I'll tell you what happened. |
| 0:53.4 | More than 4,000 people, with very little else to do with their lives, complained to off-com, which regulates broadcasting, supposedly in this country. |
| 1:02.7 | Those who run by right wingers who don't regulate them, they do properly. |
| 1:08.1 | But it has become already the most complained about televised moment of 2023. |
| 1:13.2 | This is a country which GB News operates just to bear it that in mind. |
| 1:16.7 | Now she went on to apologize later, saying, I think I upset a few people yesterday. |
| 1:20.8 | I've told him about the day and how marvellous it was and then looked at the balcony at the end and suddenly went, oh it's so wild because the day had been so mixed and I didn't mean to upset anybody. |
| 1:27.9 | Why is she apologising? Don't apologise for that. What he said was completely valid. |
| 1:31.2 | You didn't say anything wrong in any shape or form. |
| 1:34.2 | Let's just examine just a bit of context, which I think is important. |
| 1:37.2 | And this is going to make people get really angry and furious because what you're about to see in the comments section of this video and many of the responses on Twitter and Facebook is white fragility in action. |
| 1:49.3 | That is discomfort and defensiveness, definition here, on the part of a white person when confronted by information about racial inequality and injustice. |
| 1:57.2 | Okay, so basically there's a subsection of white people who get a profoundly emotional response when there's any mention of race and specifically racism. |
| 2:05.9 | That's 50 reasons. It may be because they have themselves racist views. |
| 2:11.0 | And they regret a sense that those racist views have become to a degree stigmatised and they resent the fact that you receive pushback if you say things which are racist, if you indulge attitudes, ideas which are racist. |
... |
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