What it means to “be British” – a response to Nick Griffin

Like 8 million other Britons, I watched BBC’s “Question Time” on Thursday night. Nick Griffin, the head of the British National Party (a right wing party who restrict membership to white’s only and want to keep Britain “British” – by which they mean white, Caucasian) was given a place on the stage alongside other panel members. Click here to see a list of uploaded YouTube clips of the hour long Question Time.

Besides the fact that the BNP’s central issue of race is abhorrent, it is also an impossibility for them to actually enforce (or even define). They want Britain to be for those who “aboriginal” Britons – for the “original inhabitants”. They claim that this goes back 17,000 years, and is irrefutably about white people (not English speaking, of course, but they come very close to claiming this in their made up histories on their website). They want a complete halt to all immigration, and a return to a white Britain.

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What Microsoft’s “racism” teaches us about ourselves

The ether is alive with enraged twits, tweeting and blogging on about Microsoft’s racist blunder. If you’ve not heard the buzz, it has to do with MS photoshopping an advert as it transported it from the US (where it features a white woman, older black man, and an Asian man) to Poland (where it now features a white woman, a young white man with a black hand, and an Asian man). Outrage, disgust!

Here are the two pictures:

Microsoft is pulling the advert, and after investigation discovered that all four of the people responsible for the advert have left the company (how convenient).

I am NOT going to join the clamour of voices shouting racism, though. This is just good business (and bad photoshop), and a bad marketing decision, and a great example of the new world of work (yes, it is all of these things).

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