Big Brother 'racist' row

By Joe Robinson

It seems slightly typical of today’s society that it would take a reality show like Big Brother to finally wake people up to the important issues in life when celebrated Bollywood actress Shilpa Shetty came face to face this week with the great British attitude towards foreigners in this years Celebrity Big Brother.
The incident, which involved housemates making ‘racial’ comments on how Indians all have Diarrhoea and don’t wash their hands, has seen Channel 4 and the Broadcast regulation OfCom receive over 10,000 complaints.
Celebrity mother Jackie Budden called Shilpa “The Indian” while the shows main sponsor Carphone Warehouse has said that it is “reviewing” the deal with the show. Keith Vaz, MP for Leicester East had been asked by his constituents to table a motion in parliament over this issue, so now instead of discussing terrorism, taxes or anything of importance in Parliament, they will be talking about Big Brother.
Great.
You’d think with racial attacks occurring across the country, Britain would realise there is a problem.
It seems that when it’s an ethnic person that no one has ever heard of it’s ok, but when it’s a famous ethnic person who no one has ever heard of, the government must act.
But what does the public think of this row?
On the BBC News website many are of the agreement that this has been “blown out of proportion” or is simply “female rivalry”.
Others have criticised Big Brother for not stepping in purely because Shilpa has “not voiced any concerns” of her own.
Even Big Brother fan’s think this incident has gone a bit too far, pointing out that fellow housemate Germain Jackson called the girls “White trash”, which of course isn’t racist in the least.

*academic piece
Sub-Edited by Tom Whitman