As I’ve always said, what you do and say with your mates in Real-Life™ should stay that way, when you’re with relatively new people and ON NATIONAL TELEVISION, you should behave and realise that you need to keep up a certain amount of decency.
So why did Emily think that using the ‘N’ word was ok? Here’s the transcript (courtesy of DigitalSpy. Warning, contains offensive language):
Emily: (referring to Charley dancing/pushing her hips forward) You pushing it out you nigger.
Nicky: (shocked laughter) Em, I can’t believe you said that.
Charley: You are in trouble.
Emily: Don’t make a big thing out of it then. I was joking.
Charley: I know you were… but that’s some serious shit, sorry.
Emily: Why?
Charley: Oh my god. I’m not even saying it.
Nicky: Just don’t talk about it anymore.
Emily: I was joking
Charley: Do you know how many viewers would watch that?
Nicky: Okay, don’t make a big deal out of it.
Charley: Fancy you saying that. I can’t believe you said that.
Emily: Somebody has already used that word in this house.
Charley: No way. (Pause) Yeah, me. I’m a nigger.Nicky laughs.
Charley: I am one. Fancy you saying it. I know maybe you see it in a rap song. Maybe you and your friends sit there saying it.
Emily: I’m friendly with plenty of black people.
Nicky: And you call them niggers?
Emily: Yeah and they call me niggers. They call me wiggers as well.
Nicky: I’m quite shocked.
Charley: I’m fucking in shock.
Emily: It’s not a big deal though is it?
Charley: Not for us it ain’t. Fuck me.
What makes it worse is that Emily couldn’t be any whiter and no amount of excuses is going to change the fact that it just shouldn’t have been said. To be honest, I don’t think Charley should say it either, even if she is black herself. Although it wasn’t in the same context as the Celebrity Big Brother incident, it’s still something that shouldn’t have been said and Channel 4 have taken the appropriate response by removing Emily from the house.
What I’d like to class as a bullshit statement is this one from the Commission for Racial Equality, “Two series of Big Brother, two racist incidents – this just shows how prevalent racism really is in Britain today.” No, it wasn’t a “racist incident” this time, it was just a bit of stupidity from someone that didn’t realise that what was an intended innocent comment was not acceptable in the situation and environment that the person was in.