Floyd’s death hastens shift in police pop culture portrayals
HILLEL ITALIE, Associated Press•June 13, 2020

FINALLY THE BORING REPETITIVE LAW & ORDER SUV IS BOOTED OFF AIR

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America Protests-Fictional Cops
In this image released by NBC, Jason Beghe portrays Hank Voight, left, in a scene from the crime series "Chicago PD." The May 25 killing of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police has set off protests worldwide and transmitted images of law enforcement that long remained far outside the narratives of crime stories. (Matt Dinerstein/NBC via AP)

NEW YORK (AP) — Gary Phillips, a prize-winning crime novelist from Los Angeles, grew up on TV shows that showed a world nothing like the one he lived in.

"I watched them all, ‘Dragnet,’ ‘Adam 12,’ ‘The Wild, Wild West,’ ‘Mannix,’ ‘Cannon,’ ‘Peter Gunn’ reruns and on and on. Now these were white guys and they were tough but fair and even-handed,” he told The Associated Press in a recent email, referring to popular programs mostly from the 1960s and 1970s.

“I remember a ‘Dragnet’ episode where tight-ass Joe Friday solved racism among black and white officers in a weekend retreat. But I was a kid growing up in South Central and even then some part of me knew a lot of this was jive. We knew the cops out of Newton and 77th Division policed the ’hood a lot different than shown on TV.”

The May 25 killing of George Floyd, a black man who died after a white Minneapolis police officer pressed a knee to his neck, has set off protests worldwide and transmitted images of law enforcement that long remained far outside the narratives of crime stories — beatings and lethal chokeholds of handcuffed suspects, firing mace and rubber bullets at peaceful protesters, harassing and cursing at journalists.

Police stories have evolved far from the prime of Sgt. Friday. But the idealized crime fighter remains a cultural touchstone even when countered by such recent narratives as Ava DuVernay's Netflix series “When They See Us,” about the wrongfully convicted Central Park Five, and Angie Thomas' “The Hate U Give,” a best-selling novel about a black teen murdered by police that was adapted into a feature film of the same name.

“Hopefully what we're seeing on TV now, and on social media, is that bubble being popped,” Thomas told the AP.

Protests have already changed television. “Cops,” which for 33 seasons helped shape an authorized narrative that allowed viewers to sympathize and identify with real police on patrol, was dropped this week by the Paramount Network. A&E did the same with a similar show, “Live PD,” one of its mostly highly rated programs. Earlier this year, five police procedurals were consistently in the Nielsen company's top 20 ratings, including NBC’s “Chicago PD” and CBS’s “FBI.” Now, even those portraying law enforcement officials are pulling back: Griffin Newman, who appeared as a detective on the CBS series “Blue Bloods,” announced he was donating his earnings from the show to help raise bail for arrested protesters.

The divide between crime fiction and real life dates back to the genre's origins, more than 200 years ago. Law enforcement violence and corruption were extreme in the mid-19th century and some police forces were rooted in the patrols that used to chase down runaway slaves. Meanwhile, “The police in early crime fiction were depicted as good, courageous, and brilliant,” says Otto Penzler, the crime fiction publisher and bookseller.

In the 20th century, shows such as “Dragnet” and “Highway Patrol” were collaborations between law enforcement and the entertainment business, to the point where J. Edgar Hoover was permitted to vet the politics of the actors appearing in “The FBI,” the long-running series starring Efrem Zimbalist Jr. Otherwise, police and other officials were portrayed as jaded and self-contained in the fiction of Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett, comical and bumbling like the Keystone Kops or the misfits of “Police Academy,” rumpled and savvy like Peter Falk's Columbo, or witty and indomitable like Bruce Willis' New York City detective John McClane in the “Die Hard” movies.

Walter Mosley, known for his “Easy Rawlins” novels about a black detective in Los Angeles, noted that even if the plot included a bad cop “it wouldn't be instituonalized. It would be that cop is bad because he or she is a bad person.”

For Gary Phillips and many others, it took years to find stories in which they could see themselves. Naomi Hirahara, the Edgar Award winning author of the Mas Arai detective novels, remembered the “fantasy” or watching the white male protagonists in “Columbo,” “The Rockford Files” and other shows. As an adult, she was drawn to African American crime writers such as Mosley and Chester Himes, and now admires Rachel Howzel Hall’s novels about the African American LAPD homicide detective Elouise “Lou” Norton, books “revealing the complexity of a black woman in a system that has traditionally disempowered minorities.”

Penzler and others cite Joseph Wambaugh's 1971 novel “The New Centurions” as a turning point in showing a more realistic portrait of police, although no single trend has prevailed. Over the past 50 years, the image of law enforcement has sometimes mirrored debates between liberals and conservatives. Sidney Lumet's 1973 film “Serpico” dramatized the corruption of New York City police and the heroism of the real-life title character's willingness to speak out. Around the same time, Clint Eastwood's “Dirty Harry” movies positioned Eastwood's San Francisco lawman as a needed rule-breaker in a system too permissive of crime. Spike Lee's landmark 1989 release “Do the Right Thing,” in which a black man is choked to death by police, was released two weeks after the premiere of “Lethal Weapon 2” and the crowd pleasing defiance of Mel Gibson's Sgt. Martin Riggs.

“Cops,” which allowed the departments it covered significant control over its content, has been contrasted by the tougher perspective of Lena Waithe’s Showtime series “The Chi." But even shows like “The Wire,” and “The Shield” that take frank looks at police abuses can end up making the audience identify with officers.

“At first it’s ‘police are dirty bums’ and it’s ‘look at the awful thing they did,’” says Miki Turner, a professor at the University of Southern California who specializes in diversity and controversial topics in the entertainment industry and television. “And th

Africa's most famous silverback gorilla Rafiki has been killed by poachers and people are heartbroken

#BUSHMEAT 

Posted 10 hours ago by Louis Staples in discover

iStock

One of Africa’s most famous mountain gorillas, Rafiki, has been killed.

Four men have been arrested in Uganda and face a life sentence if found guilty of killing an endangered gorilla.

Rafiki was killed by a sharp object that penetrated his internal organs, an investigation found. There are only 1,000 of his species left in Uganda and the Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA) described Rafiki's death as a "very big blow".

The silverback gorilla was the leader of a group of 17 mountain gorillas.

Bashir Hangi from the UWA told the BBC:

The death of Rafiki leaves the group unstable and there is the possibility that it could disintegrate.

It has no leadership at this time and it could be taken over by a wild silverback.

To find the poachers, a UWA team tracked a suspect to a nearby village, where he was found with hunting equipment. He admitted that he, and three others, had been hunting smaller animals in the park and that he killed Rafiki in self-defence when he was attacked.

The mountain gorilla species is restricted to protected areas in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda and Uganda. They are classified as endangered.

On social media, people were devastated about the gorilla’s death.

After his sudden death, it's not clear who the next leader of his tribe will be, or if it will continue.

UK Far-right protesters filmed doing 'Nazi salutes' in front of the cenotaph war memorial in London

WHILE CLAIMING TO BE PROTECTING IT 

Posted 5 hours ago by Louis Staples in news


Screengrab: Twitter

In London, a shocking video has emerged which appears to show protesters doing Nazi salutes standing just metres away from the cenotaph war memorial.

The disturbing video emerges as far-right protesters take to the streets of London, supposedly in opposition to statues of slave traders being forcibly removed and against London’s Winston Churchill statue being defaced last weekend.

London Mayor Sadiq Khan had warned Black Lives Matter protesters, who were planning a second weekend of protests, that the far-right were planning to “hijack” the occasion by staging counter protests. Shortly after this warning, official Black Lives Matter protests were called off as "All Lives Matter" protesters confirmed plans to stage large counter-protests against them.

Despite the fact that BLM protests were called off, the far-right counter-protests have gone ahead anyway under the guise of "protecting" statues (which are now boarded up anyway, for protection) from the now non-existent anti-racist protesters.

Onlookers have said that the far-right protesters – who are overwhelmingly white and male – have become increasingly loud and belligerent, with many appearing to have consumed large amounts of alcohol. There have been reports of violence against police, members of the public and even each other. A photographer was allegedly assaulted and there are videos of bottles being thrown at police as well as xenophobic chanting.

The emergence of a video of people appearing to do Nazi salutes on the streets of London, standing just feet away from a war memorial, takes things to a new level. In the clip, a group of men can be seen walking forwards doing what looks very like a Nazi salute.

On social media, people immediately recognised the gesture and were shocked and disgusted.

On Twitter, some people defended the protesters by saying they simply had their hands up singing. But others felt that the gesture was unmistakable and truly shocking.

Family demands investigation after black man found hanging from tree

Crowd chants 'speak the truth' at official during press conference on Friday Rory Sullivan


The family of a black man who was found hanging from a tree in California has called for an urgent investigation into his death.

Early on Wednesday morning, a passerby noticed the body of 24-year-old Robert L Fuller in the city of Palmdale in northern Los Angeles County.


Members of a nearby fire crew arrived on the scene shortly afterwards and determined that the victim was deceased.


In a statement, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department (LASD) said Fuller’s death was being treated as an alleged suicide and that a full autopsy would soon be carried out.

However, the victim’s family said it did not agree with the department’s verdict and is seeking a full investigation into his death.

One of the victim’s cousins told a local TV station: “We are not going to stop until we get answers.”


On Friday, a crowd of people attending a news conference on the incident in Palmdale expressed their outrage that Fuller was thought to have died by suicide.

In response to the comment, audience members chanted “speak the truth” and demanded to know why the LASD called it suicide when the coroner had deferred making comments on the death “pending additional investigation”.

An online petition calling for a “thorough and transparent investigation” has been signed by more than 91,000 signatories. Kim Kardashian is among those who has shared it on Twitter under the hashtag #JusticeforRobertFuller.

The change.org petition also asks for video surveillance from the surrounding area to be made available. However, a city official said on Friday that there was no footage of the incident.

A GoFundMe page set up by Fuller’s family to cover funeral costs had raised more than $140,000 (£112,000) by Saturday morning.

Protesters demand investigation after young Black man is found hanging from tree in Palmdale

Luke Money, Matt Hamilton, Kiera Feldman,
LA Times•June 12, 2020

The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department is investigating after the body of 24-year-old Robert Fuller was found hanging from a tree in Palmdale. (Los Angeles Times)

The discovery of a 24-year-old Black man hanging from a tree near Palmdale City Hall this week has sparked alarm in the Antelope Valley as investigators try to determine whether his death was caused by suicide or if foul play was involved.

A passerby spotted the man's body at 3:39 a.m. Wednesday in the 38300 block of 9th Street East, according to authorities. Emergency personnel responded and determined that the man — identified as Robert Fuller — was dead, authorities said.

Lt. Kelly Yagerlener of the Los Angeles County medical examiner-coroner's office said the death was initially reported as an apparent suicide, but a decision on the cause of death is deferred pending an investigation. A full autopsy is planned.

"Investigators have been in contact with Mr. Fuller’s family and are continuing their investigation into the circumstances surrounding Mr. Fuller’s death," Palmdale officials wrote in a statement.

Fuller's death has generated intense attention, especially after weeks of protests over the police killing of George Floyd. Kim Kardashian West tweeted about the case, urging people to sign a petition demanding a full investigation.

Community members confronted city officials at a news briefing Friday, questioning why they were quick to label Fuller's death a suicide and asking whether he might have been the victim of homicide.

The residents asked whether there were cameras around the park. The city said there were no outdoor cameras, and video recorders on a nearby traffic signal could not have captured what happened.

Some of the community members detailed examples of racism in the high desert city, including confederate flags, and said officials should not be quick to dismiss it as playing a role in Fuller's death.

"We have a history with nooses. We don’t like ropes around our necks," said one man. "It was a message for the protest we had in Palmdale and Lancaster."

City Manager J.J. Murphy acknowledged, "Maybe we should have said it was 'an alleged suicide.'" Then he added: “Can I also ask that we stop talking about lynchings?”

The audience erupted with cries of “Hell no!”

Capt. Ron Shaffer of the L.A. County Sheriff's Palmdale station said homicide detectives are investigating and urged members of the public to contact the homicide bureau with any information.

"I have doubts about what happened," said Marisela Barajas, who lives in Palmdale. After the press conference, Barajas walked over and joined a crowd gathering at the tree where Fuller died. An American flag flew nearby.

"All alone, in front of the City Hall — it's more like a statement," she said. "Even if it was a suicide, that in itself is kind of a statement."

Fuller's family has launched a GoFundMe page seeking help covering funeral expenses.

"Words can’t describe how my family is feeling. We grew up there in the Antelope Valley, we have so many friends, families that loved Robert," one wrote.

Facebook fires worker who protested Mark Zuckerberg’s inaction over Trump’s inflammatory posts

Employee backlash was sparked by the president's infamous "looting" remark

Katie Paul

Facebook fired an employee who had criticised Mark Zuckerberg's decision not to take action against inflammatory posts by Donald Trump this month, citing his tweet challenging a colleague's silence on the issue.

Brandon Dail, a user interface engineer in Seattle, wrote on Twitter that he was dismissed for publicly scolding a colleague who had refused to include a statement of support for the Black Lives Matter movement on developer documents he was publishing.


Mr Dail sent the tweet a day after joining dozens of employees, including the six other engineers on his team, in abandoning their desks and tweeting objections to Mr Zuckerberg's handling of Mr Trump's posts in a rare protest at the social media company.

“Intentionally not making a statement is already political,” Mr Dail wrote in the tweet, sent on 2 June. He said on Friday that he stood by what he wrote.

Facebook confirmed Mr Dail's characterisation of his dismissal, but declined to provide additional information. The company said during the walkout that participating employees would not face retaliation.

Read more

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Mr Dail did not respond to a request for comment.

Mr Trump's posts which prompted the staff outcry included the racially charged phrase “when the looting starts, the shooting starts” in reference to demonstrations against racism and police brutality held after the 25 May killing of George Floyd, a black man who died in police custody in Minneapolis.

Twitter affixed a warning label to the same post, saying it glorified violence. Facebook opted to leave the post untouched.

Mr Zuckerberg defended his decision at a tense all-hands meeting with employees that week. During the meeting, Mr Dail tweeted that it was “crystal clear today that leadership refuses to stand with us”.

Mr Dail again voiced objections this week after both Facebook and Twitter declined to take action against a Trump post that contained an unsubstantiated conspiracy theory about Martin Gugino, a 75-year-old protester who was critically injured by police in Buffalo, New York.

“Trump's attack on Martin Gugino is despicable and a clear violation of Facebook's anti-harassment rules. It's again extremely disappointing that we (and Twitter) haven't removed it,” he said.
e advice and analysis you need


Internal dissent is often encouraged at Silicon Valley tech giants, but the companies have been accused of penalising workers who organise and air complaints publicly.

Alphabet's Google fired at least five workplace activists late last year, while Amazon dismissed critics of its warehouse conditions during the coronavirus pandemic.

Both companies denied firing employees for speaking out.

Reuters

SNL star Jay Pharoah says police officer knelt on his neck during LA incident: ‘I literally could have been George Floyd’

Comedian posted an Instagram video where he recounted his experience of being stopped and held at gunpoint by police

Roisin O'Connor @Roisin_OConnor

Comedian Jay Pharoah has shared an Instagram video in which he reveals he was recently stopped and handcuffed by police in Los Angeles while out exercising.

The former Saturday Night Live actor said the incident took place around a week before Ahmaud Arbery was shot and killed by two white men in Georgia. He also said that one of the officers knelt on his neck in a similar way to the office charged in the killing of George Floyd.

Security footage included in Pharoah’s video shows him walking down a street when an officer runs up pointing his gun at him.


That officer is joined by another on foot, and two more officers who exit from a police cruiser that arrives on the scene. Three of the officers have their guns drawn and pointed at Pharoah.

“They tell me to get on the ground, spread my arms out,” Pharoah said in the video. “They put me in cuffs. The officer takes his knee, puts it on my neck. It wasn’t as long as George Floyd, but I know how it feels.”

Pharoah said he told the officers to look him up on Google: “You will see that you made a big mistake.” The officers released him “a minute later”.

The 32-year-old said the officers told him he fit the description of “a black man in this area, with grey sweatpants and a grey shirt”.

He later went on CBS show The Talk to discuss his experience, where he described the moment the officer knelt on his neck as “totally gratuitous”


“I was just trying to exercise,” he said. “It could have easily turned into another situation if I wasn’t who I am. And the point is that being black in America is just that, being black in America.

“Other people can’t level with the same fears I have. Leaving the house, we should not have to fear going to the grocery store, going to get some gas, running down the street. It’s called human civility. That’s what it is. It’s called being a human. That’s why everyone is out protesting. Corona put us in the house, and George Floyd took us out of it.”

Pharoah ended his video by urging all black men to educate themselves on the law in case they were ever stopped by police.

“Be in the know,” he said. “I’m Jay Pharoah, and I’m a black man in America. And my life matters. Black lives always matter.”

An LAPD spokesman said: “The person in the Instagram post was detained as a possible suspect of a crime. It was determined to be the wrong suspect and he was let go. The incident is being investigated.”

KOO-KOO FOR CO-CO PUFFS 

Donald Trump has claimed police chokeholds sound “so innocent and so perfect” during a bizarre Fox News interview in which he compared his administration's achievements to the work of Abraham Lincoln.

Mr Trump said he did not like chokeholds and would “generally speaking” support ending the practice, although he suggested there were scenarios where he would back their use.
Trump offers mixed message on police chokeholds

WHILE YOU WEREN'T LOOKING
Trump administration rolls back Obama-era healthcare protections for transgender people and abortion access with HHS ruling

Move comes in middle of Pride month


Alex Woodward New York

Donald Trump‘s administration has rolled back nondiscrimination healthcare protections for women and transgender people by reversing a rule that would prevent healthcare workers and insurance companies that receive federal funds from refusing to provide services like abortion or gender-affirming care.

The rule changes could allow health providers to deny coverage and care to women and transgender people, as the nation is in the grip of the coronavirus pandemic.

They also arrive in the middle of Pride month on the anniversary of the Pulse massacre, when 49 people were gunned down inside a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida.

Invoking “religious freedom”, the Department of Health and Human Services had revised a rule under the Affordable Care Act to revert to “the government’s interpretation of sex discrimination according to the plain meaning of the word ‘sex’ as male or female and as determined by biology”.

The changes revoke discrimination protections on the basis of ”gender identity” and sex, including patients seeking an abortion.
https://www.thefader.com/2017/09/08/church-of-satan-missouri-supreme-court

New Trump appointee suggested America is a ‘homo-empire’ on Twitter

Crossing state lines for an abortion while America locks down

Transgender woman at centre of civil rights case dies before ruling

What trans people want you to learn this Transgender Day of Visibility

They are likely to be challenged in court: the American Civil Liberties Union, Lambda Legal and the Human Rights Campaign and other groups have already announced plans to sue the administration.

“In the middle of a global pandemic, with our nation in uproar over a systemic devaluing of Black lives, this administration chose to prioritise a rule change attempting to roll back anti-discrimination protections in health care,” said LGBT+ legal advocacy organisation Lambda Legal. “Despicable doesn’t begin to describe it.”

Human Rights Campaign president Alphonso David, said: ”LGBTQ people should not live in fear that they cannot get the care they need simply because of who they are. It is clear that this administration does not believe that LGBTQ people, or other marginalised communities, deserve equality under the law.”

Initial rules under former president Barack Obama‘s administration established civil rights protections in healthcare, barring discrimination on the basis of race, colour, national origin, age, disability or sex as well as gender identity. Health providers and insurers, under those anti-discrimination rules, would have to cover costs associated with gender-affirming care.

U.S. health agency reverses Obamacare transgender protections

Reuters•June 12, 2020

A sign on an insurance store advertises Obamacare in San Ysidro

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services issued a rule on Friday that would lift anti-discrimination protections under Obamacare for transgender people and women seeking abortions, drawing condemnation from Democratic lawmakers.

The rule reverses some provisions of the Affordable Care Act passed during President Barack Obama's administration, also known as Obamacare, that extended civil rights protections in healthcare to cover areas including gender identity and the termination of a pregnancy.

LGBTQ rights groups, Democratic lawmakers and Democratic-controlled states have decried efforts under the administration of Republican President Donald Trump to erode protections for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer citizens. One group said it planned to sue the administration over the new rule.

U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi called the decision a "shocking attack on the health and well-being of countless vulnerable communities, including women, LGBTQ individuals, and people of color."

The Trump administration has also sought to restrict access to abortion.

The Health Department, or HHS, said a regulation issued by the Obama administration in 2016 to implement the anti-discrimination Section 1557 of Obamacare had "redefined sex discrimination to include termination of pregnancy and gender identity, which it defined as 'one's internal sense of gender, which may be male, female, neither, or a combination of male and female.'"

That regulation was struck down by a federal court in October 2019.

"HHS will enforce Section 1557 by returning to the government’s interpretation of sex discrimination according to the plain meaning of the word 'sex' as male or female and as determined by biology," the department said on Friday.

The Human Rights Campaign, an LGBTQ advocacy group, said it planned to "sue the Trump administration for exceeding their legal authority and attempting to remove basic health care protections from vulnerable communities including LGBTQ people."

(Reporting by Mohammad Zargham; Editing by Tom Brown and Sonya Hepinstall)

Boris Johnson book depicts Jews as controlling the media

AND HIS TITLE IS ISLAMOPHOBIC

The 2004 novel Seventy Two Virgins, written by the Tory leader, is full of questionable portrayals of ethnic minorities
Jon Stone Monday 9 December 2019 

Boris Johnson depicted Jews as controlling the media and being able to “fiddle” elections in a little-known 2004 novel written while he was a Tory MP, it has emerged.

The Conservative leader was branded “unfit to be prime minister” over passages from Seventy Two Virgins, which also includes numerous other questionable portrayals of ethnic minorities.

While telling the story of a fictional terror attack on Westminster Mr Johnson deploys descriptions of Kosovan Muslims as having “hook noses” and describes a mixed-race character as “half-caste”.

The now prime minister also repeatedly uses racial slurs in authorial voice, introducing a group of characters as “pikeys”, an ethnic slur for travellers, and another as a “Chinaman”.

The context of the passage regarding Jews is a part of the story in which all the countries of the world are made to vote country-by-country on whether the prisoners at Guantanamo Bay should be released.

Describing the situation, Mr Johnson wrote: “And the news from the voting was still bad for America, though not as bad as it had seemed at first. Some countries, such as Saudi Arabia were reporting almost 100 per cent insistence that the prisoners be sent home. But there were odd pockets of support for the President. He might have thought that Russia, after her humiliation in the Cold War, would take the chance to put her boot on the neck of the old adversary. But no, the Russians had their problems with Islamic terror. Maybe there was some kind of fiddling of the figures by the oligarchs who ran the TV stations (and who were mainly, as some lost no time in pointing out, of Jewish origin), but it seemed that Russia, one of the most populous countries in the world, was voting heavily for America."


The passage is just one of dozens of racially-charged and questionable parts of the novel. In a separate part introducing one of the terrorists, named Jones, Mr Johnson also appears to suggest that having “brown skin” is not compatible with being Welsh.

Mr Johnson wrote: “‘Quickly,’ said the one called Jones, coming back from the toilets. ‘The traffic wardens will be here.’ There was certainly something lilting and eastern about his accent; but if you shut your eyes and ignored his brown skin, there were tonic effects – birdlike variations in pitch – that were positively Welsh.” Notably, Jones’s ethnicity is referred to as an “Arab-type thing” by another character, a vague description that is largely unclarified by the end of the novel.


In 2016 Boris Johnson suggested that “part-Kenyan” US president Barack Obama had an “ancestral dislike” of Britain because of his ethnicity. His novel also makes repeated use of this line of thinking when discussing its ethnic minority characters.
The book was written while Mr Johnson was a Tory MP (Jon Stone)

Near the beginning of the book Mr Johnson uses an extended metaphor to depict a traffic warden working in Westminster as a “hunter-gatherer” because he is an African immigrant.

“He went down Horseferry Road, past the obelisks with their odd pineapple finials, past the bearded stone Victorians who had conquered the continent from which he came, and he, the colonial, became to hunt in the former imperial metropolis,” Mr Johnson also wrote of the character.

This theme continues in other parts of the novel. One of the main characters in the book is Roger Barlow, a bicycle-riding tussle-haired Tory MP who saves the day and who reviewers have interpreted as being a transparent cipher for Mr Johnson himself. In one bizarre racialised description of a phone call between the fictional MP and a journalist “with an Asian name”, Mr Johnson wrote:
Maybe there was some kind of fiddling of the figures by the oligarchs who ran the TV stations (and who were mainly, as some lost no time in pointing out, of Jewish origin)Boris Johnson, Seventy Two Virgins

“The reporter was a woman with an Asian name, and from the minute she introduced herself, Barlow feared her. He feared her as British soldiers on the Northwest Frontier once feared the Afghan daughters, and their knives, and their traditional knowledge of how to cut a live human being.”


Continuing, and apparently trying to approximate a stereotyped South Asian accent in eye dialect, Mr Johnson wrote: “‘I’m reely sorry,’ she said, after his initial evasions, ‘but I reely do feel you are going to be better off talking to me”.

In a separate section describing one mixed-race character’s thoughts about himself, Mr Johnson wrote: “The interesting thing about his half-caste looks, he decided, was that he didn’t look Negroid.” On another occasion Mr Johnson describes the same character as “the faintest coffee colour”.

One of the heroes of Mr Johnson’s book is a former Serbian paramilitary who Johnson introduces as having been a member of “Arkan's Tigers”, a real-life group whose commander was indicted for crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing against Muslims. The character is one of the first in the book to realise the terror attack is taking place because of his instinctive distrust of Muslims, who he describes as “sneaky bastards”.


In a scene with the character, Mr Johnson wrote: “As soon as he had gasped ‘Where is the police?’ he saw their burning eyes, hook noses and hairy black eyebrows that joined in the middle. He knew who they were. They were Skiptars. They were Muslims, almost certainly from Pristina. And they knew who he was. He was a Serb.”

One recurring theme of the novel is that the terrorists carrying out the attack repeatedly get away with their attack because of political correctness and a refusal to racially profile them.

In one instance the French ambassador’s partner, described as a “Palestinian Arab” is nearly banned from the event where the terror attack takes place because of racial-profiling, but is ultimately allowed to attend after someone stands up for her – she later turns out to be a terrorist after all.

In another episode, an MP lets a group of terrorists through a locked door because he does not want to be seen as racist. On another occasion, a military sniper hesitates and misses his chance to shoot the terrorists because he is momentarily worried he might be racist.

"If these extracts from this novel are as they appear, this adds to the long list of people that Boris Johnson has insulted,” Christine Jardine, the Liberal Democrats’ equalities spokesperson, told The Independent.

“The rise of anti-Jewish hatred must be condemned, wherever and whenever, and in all its forms. Boris Johnson has once again demonstrated that he is not fit to be Prime Minister.”

Approached for comment on this story, Downing Street said the issue was for the Conservative party to address. The Conservative party has been contacted for comment but has not issued a response.

Boris Johnson said colonialism in Africa should never have ended and dismissed Britain's role in slavery

Jon Stone The Independent 13 June 2020

Boris Johnson will come out of the crisis a diminished figure following the Cummings scandal: Getty

Boris Johnson said colonialism in Africa should never have ended and downplayed Britain's role in the slave trade, an article written by the prime minister while he was a Tory MP reveals.

Critics are urging Mr Johnson to explain whether he still holds the views expounded in the 2002 piece, where he argued that Africans would not have grown the right crops for export without British direction.

"The continent may be a blot, but it is not a blot upon our conscience," he wrote. "The problem is not that we were once in charge, but that we are not in charge any more."

The prime minister this week argued for the retention of controversial statues of slavers and British colonialists in UK cities, which he said should stay up because they "teach us about our past with all its faults".

But the article, written while Mr Johnson was editor of the Spectator magazine, reveals that the prime minister in fact has held an active admiration for Britain's colonial activities on the continent.

"Consider Uganda, pearl of Africa, as an example of the British record. Are we guilty of slavery? Pshaw. It was one of the first duties of Frederick Lugard, who colonised Buganda in the 1890s, to take on and defeat the Arab slavers," Mr Johnson says in the piece.

"And don't swallow any of that nonsense about how we planted the 'wrong crops'. Uganda teems, sprouts, bursts with vegetation. You will find fruits rare and strange, like the jackfruit, hanging bigger than your head and covered with green tetrahedral nodules. Though delicately perfumed, it is, alas, more or less disgusting, and not even Waitrose is pretentious enough to stock it.

He continues: "So the British planted coffee and cotton and tobacco, and they were broadly right. It is true that coffee prices are currently low; but that is the fault of the Vietnamese, who are shamelessly undercutting the market, and not of the planters of 100 years ago.

"If left to their own devices, the natives would rely on nothing but the instant carbohydrate gratification of the plantain ... the colonists correctly saw that the export market was limited."

Suggesting that one way to boost the economy of African countries would be for British tourists to holiday in them, Mr Johnson wrote: "The best fate for Africa would be if the old colonial powers, or their citizens, scrambled once again in her direction; on the understanding that this time they will not be asked to feel guilty."

Boris Johnson's spokesperson declined to comment on the article when approached by The Independent.

Opposition MPs urged the prime minister to consider his comments and explain whether they still represented his views today.



The continent may be a blot, but it is not a blot upon our conscience. The problem is not that we were once in charge, but that we are not in charge any more."

Boris Johnson

"Boris Johnson is the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. The history of the UK, Windrush, empire, colonialism should be told with sobering accuracy," Labour MP Dawn Butler told The Independent.

"In order to make sustainable progress we need the current PM who has power and privilege to reflect on what he has said and written.

"I urge the PM to review his previous articles, books and statements and to re-examine them through the brutal lynching that he watched of George Floyd and say whether he regrets anything of what he has said, done or written in the past."

Ms Butler said it was important not to "misrepresent or whitewash history", adding: "This Etonian attitude affects everyone who is not in that inner circle, no matter your colour. Instead of viewing history through rose tinted glasses maybe it is time to look at history through the lenses of a very visible modern day lynching."

Labour's shadow secretary of state for women and equalities, Marsha de Cordova said: "Boris Johnson's past comments are an example of why we need to educate people about the impact of colonialism.

"The legacy of British colonialism and its role in the slave trade is a scar on our society. To infer this is something to be proud of, and that African countries are worse off because they are no longer ruled by the empire, is an insult to millions."

Christine Jardine, Liberal Democrats' equalities spokesperson said: "It is vital that the Prime Minister today makes clear that the language he may have used and comments made in the past are no longer reflective of his views.


"Across the UK there is a collective discussion happening on how as a nation we deal with our history and the racism and prejudice that is part of that. It is the Prime Minister's duty to show leadership on this.

"We need to do more to tackle racism in the UK and if we truly want to change society, we must eradicate the existing injustice. Liberal Democrats are clear that we want to see a government-wide plan to tackle BAME inequalities be so that we can finally enact change for all those fighting for justice and equality."