A man might lose his job – or not. Over a racist thing he has said – or not. I’m referring of course to Jeremy Clarkson’s latest gaffe, where he might have uttered – or not – the taboo N-word. Far from being an unique occurrence we are here witnessing one more event in a career made out of toying with the unutterable, in more or less subtle ways. This is Clarkson’s talent.
Clarkson can touch a nerve deep down the British collective unconscious, playing with our repressed collective micro-racism. He can condense it in half-uttered images, saying without saying. And a big sector of the British public loves him for this. This remains the biggest problem, that many find him funny. Doubtless, Clarkson’s brand of casual racism shouldn’t be given space, let alone having the British public pay for it (even the ones who don’t find this type of casual racism funny). But it would be worth questioning whether his departure from the BBC would contribute to eradicating racism from British society or whether it would just contribute to the illusion that racism in the UK is only fostered by clown-esque characters like Clarkson or a few UKIP candidates (also voted by a large stratum of society).
Clarkson is clearly a clever man. He understands that today flirting with racism demands a certain degree of flair – Bernard Manning would be impossible today. Degrading Mexicans for what are heinous national stereotypes went through without much of a problem; Mexicans are rather ‘unknown’ to the British public – subtlety wasn’t required on this occasion. The possibility of using the term ‘slope’ with racist overtones took many by surprise (me, for one). However, his toying with “Eeny, meeny, miny moe” is more problematic: everybody in this country is familiar with blackness and the ways in which black people are discriminated against, the stereotypes, the key insults, the history of abuse. That one of the most famous versions of the rhyme includes the line “grab a n***** by the toe” didn’t escape the Mirror, nor Clarkson (and I am willing to claim nor did it escape Top Gear’s producers). This take didn’t go through for a reason.
Can we say – without a hint of a doubt – that Clarkson used the N-word? I personally can’t. But this is not the important point: whether he said it or not is rather meaningless. Here is where his apology comes handy. After first denying he used the N-word Clarkson claimed:
“I was simply mumbling – saying ‘ner ner’ or something similar, anything but the N-word. It was my mistake and I apologise for not covering it up.”
This statement amounts to: “I’m sorry I had the N-word in mind and failed to hide that I had it in mind”. This is exactly what a sector of the British public finds funny in Clarkson: he fails to unsay what they have in mind – a bit like UKIP but with jeans and cars and jokes about murdered prostitutes.
