subscribe
/ Sign Out

I'm not a racist, so why am I being weird about Derek Chauvin's conviction?

By Roy Hobbs

I’M not a racist, but I feel a strange need to try to undermine Derek Chauvin’s conviction for something he clearly did. Did I mention I’m not a racist, by the way?

Now that I’ve established how racist I am not, let’s look at the facts of the case. Derek Chauvin was reaching out to the black community and saying ‘I don’t just arrest white criminals, I will forcibly restrain you too’. To me that’s diversity in action. 

Then, purely by accident, Chauvin killed someone. This was utterly wrong, obviously, but everyone makes mistakes. I’m not saying it’s on the same level, but I almost ran over my neighbour’s cat when I was reversing out of the drive. Does that make me an attempted murderer? No.

Why, Roy, you might ask, are you so interested in defending Derek Chauvin when you live in a small village in Worcestershire and have no understanding of decades of racial tension in the United States?

That’s simple: I have a natural sense of justice, whether you’re black, white, yellow or purple. Which once again establishes my non-racist credentials, just so long as they don’t move in around here.

Now a hard-working police officer is facing life in prison on the flimsiest of evidence. Can we really be sure that the whole thing wasn’t a false flag operation by a BLM activist wearing a ‘whitey’ mask? I can’t say for certain; I don’t have all the facts.

All we really know about this tragic incident is that I’m definitely not a racist. I think Daley Thompson did a smashing job at the Olympics, so case closed.

Six children's TV shows still troubling you to this day

UNLIKE the slick shows of today, the children’s TV of decades past was made by crazed surrealists on micro-budgets. Which is why these shows still keep you awake at night: 

Jigsaw

No, not the guy from the Saw films. Something far more terrifying: Mr Noseybonk, with his white mask and giant, phallic nose, intended to be fun and wacky, universally understood as malevolent and evil. Amid the show’s nightmarish dreamscapes and a talking jigsaw piece was Janet Ellis, giving every male viewer their first taste of doomed, unrequited love.

Worzel Gummidge

In a supernatural rural dystopia, Worzel Gummidge was a scarecrow who kept interchangable heads in a barrel, possibly just his own but it was never confirmed. An Aunt Sally doll was his lifeless love interest. As portrayals of the countryside go, it made Deliverance look like Countryfile.

The Enchanted Castle 

Or more accurately The F**king Terrifying Castle. Children trapped inside the belly of a stone dinosaur, Guy Fawkes-style dummies with blank, menacing, paper faces coming to life – such is the stuff of happy childhood memories.

The Adventure Game 

Another puzzle show, this time with all the fun of a cryptic crossword combined with sudoku. No child could work out the value of the ‘drogna’ currency, and the many variations on the word ‘dragon’ introduced you to the abject tedium of anagrams. Featured celebrities played themselves entirely straight, causing lifelong trauma when Derek Griffiths was vaporised by the Vortex.

Cloppa Castle

Many people assume they dreamt this. You did not. It featured grotesque uncanny valley puppets doing largely tedious things in a castle. With a few tweaks it could easily have been turned into a horror movie about evil marionettes.

The Flumps

These deeply racist caricatures of Northerners appeared to live in bombed-out Dresden. The fact that they were essentially a head on legs with no real torso was disturbing, as were their cold, dead eyes, like those of sharks.

Next story ›