What is Racism?

I'm pleased to have ignored Big Brother so far .. but this furore over alleged racism is too noisy an issue to ignore. What is unclear is whether any comments or behaviour observed is, in fact, racism. This brings the question: what constitutes racism?

Is "Goodness Gracious Me" racist? There is certainly caricaturisation of "Englishness" in there: mocking English behaviour and accents. Personally, I'd say it's very funny and probably well deserved. There was that "blacked up men" routine that hit a slight nerve, though.

Dictionary definitions usually refer to the belief that physical traits and cultural differences are determined by (biologically distinct) "race", and that this may in turn imply or define superiority or inferiority. The American Heritage Dictionary puts this rather succinctly as "Discrimination or prejudice based on race".

So the point about racism appears to be prejudice. If an individual or organisation pre-judges another based on their race, that is racism. Referring to an individual by their race is not, in itself, racist.

With this in mind, let's examine the alleged racist behaviour in the BB house.

Jackiey Goody's behaviour is questionable - but could have been triggered by personal disagreements. An inability to pronounce foreign names (and arguably some native ones) is not racism. Imitating an Indian accent is IMHO not racist either (otherwise so is "Goodness Gracious Me").

Jo O'Meara's suggestion that Indians were thin because they were always ill as a result of undercooking their food is probably not racist - but certainly an unjustified slur.

Danielle Lloyd's comment "You don't know where those hands have been" must be viewed as dodgy, though. Whilst it could be argued that it was personal, without specific grounds for questioning Shilpa's cleanliness it sounds clearly racist.

I think the main problem is that it is easy to brush over such incidents and to explain away the prejudice. Humans have, I beleive, an instinctive need for "us" and "them". As social animals we have to define a "them" in order to know who "us" is. This is all well and good, but in a shrinking world in which we all have to co-exist, prejudice must be tackled. Most important of all, we should not as a society permit such prejudice to be explained away.