Saturday, September 17, 2011

Kelis racist incident suddenly moves a few hundred miles south

The incident that Kelis reported on Twitter where she was racially abused in a London airport? It now turns out she was in Spain:

"Just to clarify, because apparently there's been some confusion, I was in the UK (as always) this time for Bestival (which was great)," she wrote. "I took a flight from Gatwick (airport) back to Spain so for those fact checkers that is approximately a two and a half to three hour flight.

She added: "I landed in Spain and that's when the fat pink faced British guy who was on the plane with me called me a slave and (told me) to call him sir. It was at passport control. I didn't think to make that clear at the time because I was shaken and furious. Now you know."
You'll note the dig at "fact checkers", by which she means those tiresome types who, erm, pointed out that her story wasn't straight.

Now, it's fair enough that you might be angry and annoyed and tweet something opaque - but Kelis had already returned to the subject once when challenged on her sweeping statements about racism in the UK, and neglected to mention the important location of the alleged incident.

And it does make a massive difference to the story whether this happened in London or Spain - part of the complaint was the man behind the passport control counter merely repeated the first bloke's "Kunta Kinte" jibe as if he was amused by it. If you're building an argument about how racism is rife and undiscussed in the UK, using the actions of a Spanish civil servant as part of your evidence would seem to undermine your case somewhat.

[Thanks to Peter D in the comments]


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