LONDON (REUTERS) - The BBC has fired a British radio presenter who tweeted an image of a chimpanzee dressed in clothes below the caption "Royal Baby leaves hospital". Duchess Meghan Markle, the wife of Prince Harry, gave birth in the early hours of Monday morning (May 6) to a baby boy, Archie, the first mixed-race child to be born into a senior position in British royalty in recent history. "Just got fired," Mr Danny Baker, a broadcaster with BBC Radio 5 Live, said on Twitter. The call to fire me from @bbc5live was a masterclass of pompous faux-gravity. Took a tone that said I actually meant that ridiculous tweet and the BBC must uphold blah blah blah. Literally threw me under the bus. Could hear the suits knees knocking. #Fuckem — Danny Baker (@prodnose) May 9, 2019 The BBC also reported the news about the firing. A spokesman for the BBC did not immediately respond to a request for comment.<doc-sep>Archie Harrison Mountbatten-Windsor, a.k.a. Baby Sussex, the first child of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, has barely been on the earthside for three days. And yet, the little one is already being exposed to caustic racism and aggression due to his Blackness. It all started when BBC radio broadcaster Danny Baker thought it was a good idea to tweet a photo about the newest addition to the royal family – featuring an old black and white photo of a woman and a man holding hands with a chimp dressed up in a suit and top hat. The caption? “Royal baby leaves hospital.” Of course, the image and comparison immediately drew backlash. You’d think by now people would know of the historical reasons why you simply cannot compare Black people to apes and monkeys. Baker, 61, did delete the tweet and apologize, as CNN notes, calling the meme a “gag.” He then of course fell back on the “I’m not racist” clause, saying that the connotations had not even come up for him because his “mind [is] not diseased.” He insisted in another message that the tweet was “a joke about Royals vs circus animals in posh clothes but interpreted as being about monkeys & race, so rightly deleted. Royal watching not my forte.” Here we go. Opened door, grinning Mail hack. "Do you think black people look like monkeys?" Any other time you'd knock someone right on their arse for saying that. No mate. Gag pic. Posh baby chimp. Alerted to circs. Appalled. Deleted. Apologised. He asks again! #MailonRacism— Danny Baker (@prodnose) May 9, 2019 Now Sky at the door. Would have used same stupid pic for any other Royal birth or Boris Johnson kid or even one of my own. It's a funny image. (Though not of course in that context.) Enormous mistake, for sure. Grotesque. Anyway, here's to ya Archie, Sorry mate.#Occam #Razor Loading the player... May 9, 2019 But the damage was already done, and the BBC was, of course, not having it. “This was a serious error of judgment and goes against the values we as a station aim to embody. Danny’s a brilliant broadcaster but will no longer be presenting a weekly show with us,” a spokesperson told CNN. In another tweet, Baker accused the BBC of throwing him under the bus, calling the call to fire him a “masterclass of pompous faux-gravity.” The call to fire me from @bbc5live was a masterclass of pompous faux-gravity. Took a tone that said I actually meant that ridiculous tweet and the BBC must uphold blah blah blah. Literally threw me under the bus. Could hear the suits knees knocking. #Fuckem — Danny Baker (@prodnose) May 9, 2019 Speaking to the media outside his house, Baker tried to explain that he was not racist. “I’m annoyingly ebullient and if you’re accused of the kind of grotesque racism but you’re not, you don’t wring your hands. Ill-advised, ill thought out and stupid, but racist? No, I’m aware how delicate that imagery is,” he said, according to BBC. But clearly not aware enough, if he thought the image of the chimp was going to fly under the radar. Archie, is the first biracial child welcomed into the royal family—that we know of. His mother, actress Meghan Markle, is also biracial. His grandmother, Markle’s mother, is African American. Perhaps it comes to no one’s surprise that even this tiny one would be the target of careless aggressions (in the best case scenario). His mother has been the target of all forms of racist abuse across social media, to the point where, back in March, Kensington Palace staff announced that they would be directing more resources to deleting comments targeting Markle and blocking abusive media accounts. Still, it is still incredibly sad (and telling), that Archie couldn’t even make it a full week before being subject to this kind of treatment.<doc-sep>The BBC on Thursday fired radio presenter Danny Baker for a tweet about the Duke and Duchess of Sussex's baby. The post, which has now been deleted, showed an image of a couple holding hands with a chimpanzee, which is dressed in clothes, alongside the caption: "Royal baby leaves hospital". Screenshot/Twitter It drew criticism for making fun of the Dutchess' heritage — her mother Doria Ragland is African American. Executives were cited on the BBC News' website as saying he showed a "serious error of judgement". Baker labelled the tweet an "enormous mistake, for sure," adding: "Anyway, here's to ya Archie, Sorry mate." "Would have used same stupid pic for any other Royal birth or Boris Johnson kid or even one of my own. It's a funny image. (Though not of course in that context.)" he wrote. The 61-year-old later labelled the decision to fire him a "masterclass of pompous faux-gravity" and said it was his "turn in the barrel". Baker presented a weekend show on BBC Radio 5 Live for which he won a Sony Gold award for Speech Radio Personality of the Year three times and a Gold Award for entertainment show of the year. Meghan, wife of Prince Harry, gave birth in the early hours of Monday morning to a baby boy, Archie, the first mixed-race child to be born into a senior position in British royalty in recent history. Read more<doc-sep>
A BBC disc jockey has been fired after using a picture of a chimpanzee in a tweet about the royal baby born Monday to Meghan Markle, the Duchess of Sussex, and Prince Harry. Danny Baker tweeted Thursday that he has been fired after posting an image of a couple holding hands with a chimpanzee dressed in clothes and the caption: "Royal baby leaves hospital." The tweet was seen as a racist reference to the heritage of the couple's newborn, Archie, who was born Monday. The duchess's mother, Doria Ragland, is black, and her father, Thomas Markle, is white. Baker, 61, said the posting had been meant as a gag, tweeting late Wednesday that it was "supposed to be [a] joke about royals vs circus animals in posh clothes but interpreted as about monkeys & race." The post has since been deleted. "Enormous mistake, for sure. Grotesque. Anyway, here's to ya Archie, Sorry mate," he tweeted. BBC Radio 5 Live controller Jonathan Wall said in an email to staff that Baker had shown poor judgment. "This was a serious error of judgment and goes against the values we as a station aim to embody. Danny's a brilliant broadcaster but will no longer be presenting a weekly show with us," Wall said. Doria Ragland, the mother of the duchess, is seen with Prince Charles at St George's Chapel in Windsor Castle last May, following the wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan. (Owen Humphreys/Reuters) On Thursday, Baker insisted he is not racist and attacked the BBC for its handling of the situation. He said the call to fire him "was a masterclass of pompous faux-gravity" by the public broadcaster. When Harry was first dating Meghan, his office released a scathing letter in which he complained about sexist and racist coverage of Meghan, who at the time was starring in the TV show Suits. The flap over Baker's tweet came as Harry took a break from parental duties to travel to the Netherlands to promote the 2020 Invictus Games, an international competition he founded for injured service personnel and veterans. Harry grinned and made funny faces for the cameras as he held up a tiny baby outfit given to him by Princess Margriet of the Netherlands. Baby Archie was introduced to his great-grandparents, the Queen and Prince Philip, Wednesday. Harry and Meghan posted an Instagram picture of the meeting, which also included Meghan's mother, who is staying with the royal couple.