It's Rob Newman (Newton was the gravity guy)
LOL yes, I have no idea if that was an autocorrect or a brain malfunction. Anyway, he's been doing actual anti-racism in his work for years while Baddiel has been becoming increasingly boring with his competitive-oppression identity politics and highly selective anti-Semitism concerns.
I'm not sure I'd agree about his apology. It seemed sincere enough, and he looked vulnerable when having to account for himself to a calm, assured, articulate Lee, who was not seeking to put him through the wringer but was clearly not going to indulge him either. He admitted, to his credit, to fear and embarrassment. Yet he still managed to make it substantially about himself and his subsequent experiences of being targeted as a Jew, claiming that these helped him understand retrospectively what was wrong with what he and Skinner did to Lee. This is nonsense, in my view - the pleasure in that kind of racist bullying humour was always in the safety and complacency of being in the in-group - of picking an easy target in the knowledge that the same dynamic would play out in the audience and the crowds. It would be more honest just to admit it was cheap, lazy and racist, it worked out just fine for them at the time, and he never worried about what it meant for Lee , or for black footballers generally, until he had to, what with it being awkward for his transition from Lad Culture poster boy to self-appointed Celebrity Racism Authority.
Anyway I don't disagree with much of what he writes about anti-Semitism as racism, but if Baddiel wants to focus (as is his prerogative) on highlighting and unpicking the
particular character of anti-Semitism (his whole thesis is that it is uniquely pernicious because it is not always understood as racism, and that as racism it should not need explication with reference to other forms of racism - he constantly berated Corbyn for invoking other kinds of racism when asked to talk about AS) then it seems to me to be fine if black activists, or others with reason to do so, choose to focus on anti-black racism. As Monkers has mentioned upthread, he seems to want it both ways.
There's a lot more to say but I'm boring myself with all this reflection on Baddiel.
