Nobody should be surprised that Danny Baker has been sacked by the BBC from his job as a DJ on Radio 5Live for posting a photo of a posh couple holding a monkey dressed in human clothes captioned ‘Royal baby leaves hospital’. The use of such an obvious racist trope to comment on the birth of the first mixed race baby in the royal family has rightly cost him his job. Baker is a much-loved broadcaster and many are frankly surprised that he could be so insensitive. His style of humour isn’t malicious, but it clearly blinded him to the obvious connotations of using such an image in that context.
Baker’s shtick is based on banter with his audience. It was there in his reaction to being fired, when he tweeted ‘Just got fired from @bbc5live. For the record – it was red sauce. Always’. Any ideas why he mentioned the red sauce? No, me neither. Apparently it was a reference to the Sausage Sandwich Game, a popular feature on his Saturday morning radio show in which listeners are asked to guess what sauce Danny’s studio guest would put on a sausage sandwich. The guest then reveals their choice.
It’s a silly game that all involved treat with a mock seriousness that makes the whole thing even more silly. Danny, his guest and listeners are all in on the joke. It’s the kind of banter that Baker excels at; his free-association sense of humour can result in his live theatre show running for four hours. But the problem with banter is that it relies on everyone being in on the joke. When expressed outside of the initiated, as in his ‘just got fired’ tweet, it risks causing confusion or, in some extreme cases, offence.
Banter is a form of social lubricant. Among tight-knit groups who live or work together it offers a means of getting through what may be mundane or difficult situations. We banter a lot on the road. Five guys stuck in a van for hours each day travelling to gigs, we use it in conversation to keep ourselves entertained.
However, the key feature of banter is mock humiliation, ‘taking the mickey’ out of each other. Knowing that you can say things about the behaviour of a mate that would otherwise be hurtful – and being able to take the same treatment in response - has the effect of creating a bond among the group. Our friendship is so great that we can say these transgressive things about one another (I’m not talking about racism or sexism or other bigoted discourse – which is never acceptable, even among friends; I’m referring here to general piss-taking).
The trouble arises when that banter comes into contact with the outside world. Those not within the group, unaware of the permissive bond between members, can only take what’s being said at face value. As a result, statements that participants recognise as being in jest can sound hostile, derogatory, racist.
Apparently Baker has a running joke on his show about monkeys dressed in human clothes. It may be that he was making assumptions about how his tweet would be viewed based on that thread. Whatever it was that blinded him to the racist nature of his post, I don’t think it was intentional. Why? Because he has no previous.
Compare his reaction to being called out for a racist remark with that of Boris Johnson. Baker has spent the past days apologising profusely for the offence he caused, at first maybe a little begrudgingly, but the sincerity of his Twitter thread mea culpa on Friday was clear. Meanwhile, Boris Johnson has still not apologised for comparing Muslim women to letterboxes, a racist slur that was just the latest in a litany of bigoted statements about people of colour.
I’m willing to give Baker the benefit of the doubt, to recognise, that, although he made a racist statement, it was a massive error of judgement rather than the product of a racist mindset. I don’t have the same sympathies for Johnson, who clearly believes he can get away with his dog whistles to bigotry. Give me Danny’s embarrassed contrition any day over Boris’ entitled sense of impunity.
That said, Baker has no grounds for complaining that he has lost his job and should reflect that, for all his love of banter, it doesn’t matter what you intended with your remark, it’s how others, those from outside of your trusted group of initiates, perceive what you have said.
In the febrile discourse of online debate, it’s perception, not intention that must be considered when posting a comment. It is a lesson that we should all take on board.