David Lammy is usually a source of lightweight PC-buffoonery, but this time he's absolutely spot on. From the BBC:
Stacey Dooley has challenged MP David Lammy after he said "the world does not need any more white saviours" following her Comic Relief posts from Africa.
Clearly, he used the word "white" to refer to Westerners generally i.e. non-Africans, it was not a comment about the actual skin color of Bono, Bob Geldof and their imitators. But she deliberately misinterprets it anyway:
She tweeted: "David, is the issue with me being white? (Genuine question)... because if that's the case, you could always go over there and try raise awareness?"
She's [sic] posted images on Instagram of her holding a young Ugandan child.
OK, David Lammy is "black" in a racial/skin color sense, as his parents (or grandparents?) came here from Africa. But he is as English/Western as she is (which makes her comment pretty racist, even by my non-PC standards), and he shouldn't be posing with African orphans any more than she should.
The example I like to use is all these charities asking for money to help save Indian tigers from extinction. How is that any of their business? If I were an Indian with a few bob to spare, I'd round up the last few tigers, fly them over and let them loose in the Home Counties.
Mr Lammy said: "This isn't personal and I don't question your good motives."
Clearly it wasn't personal, he was using her as an example, here's what he meant:
The Labour MP for Tottenham added: "My problem with British celebrities being flown out by Comic Relief to make these films is that it sends a distorted image of Africa which perpetuates an old idea from the colonial era."
Just to reinforce how out of touch these celebs are...
Dooley, who recently won Strictly Come Dancing and has made documentaries for the BBC on topics including fast fashion and an Isis sex slave, said: "Comic Relief have raised over £1bn since they started. I saw projects that were saving lives with the money. Kids' lives."
OK, £1 billion sounds like a lot of money doesn't it? Averaged over 34 years, it's £30 million a year. That's about one per cent of the BBC's staggeringly bloated annual budget; about the same as the total annual salaries of the dozen highest paid BBC employees; about 0.002% of UK official aid payments each year, funded by UK taxpayers and spent by the UK government; or about 2p per capita per annum for each African. Naff all, in other words.
Particularly puke making is these people climbing up Kilimanjaro "for Comic Relief". What is the point of that? How does it have any relation to the specific problems that certain African countries are facing? How is that a sensible use of anybody's money? They'd have done far more good just going on a normal holiday in an African country, putting some money into the real local economy and encouraging others to do the same.
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