24 April, 2011
Your specialist subject? Institutionalized Victimhood.
We are now apparently required to panic about ethnic imbalance among the contestants of the TV quiz show Mastermind. I'm sure the mandatory CiF handwringing article plus shouting match will be along shortly (unless I blinked and missed it), whenever the Guardianistas get back from pissing on churches, or celebrating organic Kwanzaa, or whatever it is these people do over Easter. But the Independent has the shocking story.
I'm not sure what the "black and mixed ethnic populations" are, Mr Kelly. I believe the usual phrase is "black and minority-ethnic populations".
Anyway, perhaps they're not interested. Not everybody in the country is interested in attempting to answer random questions in a competition to win a glass bowl, or whatever it is these days.
Whatya gonna do, force them? Round up Blacks and South Asians off the street and strap them forcibly into the Black Chair? Of course, there is the (say it very quietly) competence question. Judging by the performance of one rather famous Black contestant, you may need to adapt the standard of questioning to meet your diversity targets.
Could get pretty tedious, I reckon.
Is any of this shit of the remotest interest or relevance to anybody, Black, White, Brown or Stripy, outside the incestuous circles of the BBC and the Liberal Elite?
As far as this White man's concerned, I can only quote the parting words of Rhett Butler in the director's cut of Gone With The Wind,
"Frankly my dear, I don't give a fuck."
But yesterday's attempts to broaden the programme's ethnic reach by staging auditions in the cultural melting pot of Bradford, West Yorkshire, failed to score when no Asian would-be participants turned up. Undeterred, the BBC insisted it had started the process, so it would finish.
Jon Kelly, the series producer, said that in order to overcome the perceived image of the show, the BBC had been advertising in publications read by ethnic minorities, marketing on-line and holding auditions in under-represented areas. "What we've found quite markedly is we aren't getting the applications from the black and mixed ethnic populations," said Mr Kelly.
I'm not sure what the "black and mixed ethnic populations" are, Mr Kelly. I believe the usual phrase is "black and minority-ethnic populations".
Anyway, perhaps they're not interested. Not everybody in the country is interested in attempting to answer random questions in a competition to win a glass bowl, or whatever it is these days.
Whatya gonna do, force them? Round up Blacks and South Asians off the street and strap them forcibly into the Black Chair? Of course, there is the (say it very quietly) competence question. Judging by the performance of one rather famous Black contestant, you may need to adapt the standard of questioning to meet your diversity targets.
Humphrys (for it is he): "Mr Ahmno Oyinbo, you scored 20 points and a 6-year prison sentence in your specialist subject, 'Nigerian 419 Fraud techniques'.
"Your general knowledge questions begin now...
"How many fingers am I holding up?"
Could get pretty tedious, I reckon.
Is any of this shit of the remotest interest or relevance to anybody, Black, White, Brown or Stripy, outside the incestuous circles of the BBC and the Liberal Elite?
As far as this White man's concerned, I can only quote the parting words of Rhett Butler in the director's cut of Gone With The Wind,
"Frankly my dear, I don't give a fuck."
# posted by Edwin Greenwood @ 20:18 
Comments:
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"Is any of this shit of the remotest interest or relevance to anybody, Black, White, Brown or Stripy, outside the incestuous circles of the BBC and the Liberal Elite?"
Nope.
Nope.
Trouble is that if they can't diversify Mastermind because of the lack of interest from minorities they will solve the 'problem' by simply closing it down.
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