Jade Goody and Ghandi - an unlikely comparison. GCSE History question: compare and contrast Jade Goody and Mahatma Ghandi, their historical impact and political achievements, giving reasons and examples…
Here’s a slant on racism, aproposMs, Goody:
It is considered perfectly acceptable for the media to refer to her as a thick fat ugly chav, or a typical rough Essex girl.
She cannot help where she was born and brought up, nor can she help her social background. She cannot do anything about her innate (low) level of intelligence. She is entitled to be overweight as are most people of her age, and although she is in a privileged financial position, and could afford to have cosmetic surgery, why should she do so to conform to a socially constructed ideal of feminine beauty?
Yet it is widely considered to be perfectly acceptable to criticise her and insult her for these things that she cannot help. (Yes, she can help her behaviour, but that’s not the point here.) Then, as a normal product of her background, she displays behaviour based on an uneducated low level racism clearly arising from ignorance rather than any carefully thought out philosophy (I doubt she’s read Nietzsche), and she is torn to pieces by the self-righteously baying hounds of the shallow and trivial culture that propelled her to celebrity status in the first place.
With an illegal war still raging, and tens of thousands dead; with a huge migrant labour force ruthlessly exploited by gang masters, drug barons and pimps; and with racial origin remaining a very accurate indicator of likely educational and economic achievevement, we have found a scapegoat - someone we can all feel good about hating.
So we can call her a thick fat ugly Essex chav with impunity, and she stupidly calls an Indian a “Paki” and she has to be protected from the public because of death threats.
And if the Indian actress had not been elegant and exceptionally attractive?
You all should know me well enough that I will always speak out against racism and bigotry, but on this occasion, the media have been hypocritical, applying a double standard, and losing all sense of proportion.
