BBC Sports presenter, Gary Lineker, The Telegraph reports, is accused of “posting content on Instagram that ‘caters to Jew-haters’ featuring a trope used by Nazi Germany to depict Jewish people”.
The trope, of course, is the depiction of Jews as rats, which even The Guardian – a decade ago – confirmed was an antisemitic image used by the Nazis.
I don’t have much to add to the existing commentary – which mostly states the plain-as-daylight obvious and doesn’t need to be rehashed – but I have no hesitation in adding to the chorus of calls for him to be sacked. Just look at the state of this (now deleted) post shared by Lineker:
Now of course, whenever these calls happen, they are followed by sneers of “oh, look, the right wing (sic) also indulges in censorship and ‘cancel culture'”. But firstly, it is not censorship as he is free to say whatever he likes. I’m not sure why he deleted his post, but he absolutely has the right to make his views known. More people should be made aware of his views. It is furthermore not an issue of “cancelling” because he works for the BBC, a corporation we are essentially compelled to pay for through via the licence fee. If he said this on a privately-owned network or channel – one which I could opt out of contributing towards – I would not complain in this way. I might criticise, of course.
Perhaps Sky has a job for him. He has no place on the screens of our National Broadcaster.
Will this be the last straw? The BBC does seem to have a “two tier” set of standards when it comes to Lineker. And they don’t seem very squeamish about “cancelation” when is suits them.
Photo credit: Gary Lineker, Photo by David Woolfall Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Gary Lineker Photo credit: Fred Duval/Shutterstock.com
