BBC commentators are told: Don’t say cakewalk, it’s racist
THE BBC has banned sports commentators from using certain words and phrases which have been linked to slavery.
The terms include many in wide circulation, among them ‘cakewalk’, ‘nitty gritty’, ‘sold down the river’ and ‘uppity’.
The warning was made in an ‘avoiding racial bias’ webinar training session staged by the BBC in partnership with the Professional Footballers’ Association yesterday.
It comes ahead of the return of Match of the Day this Saturday following a brief break after the Covid-delayed end of last season’s football Premier League and in the wake of the Black Lives Matter movement.
Today’s Sportsmail reveals the full extent of the BBC’s ‘Avoiding Racial Bias – A Short Guide’, which was sent to participants of the training session.
‘Cakewalk’ – meaning to achieve or win something easily – is said to have ‘originated as a dance performed by enslaved black people on plantations before the American Civil War’ who ‘competed for a cake’.
The guide advises commentators to use an alternative such as ‘this is turning into a breeze, a walk in the park’. ‘Nitty gritty’, says the guide, ‘is thought to refer to the detritus found in the bottom of boats once a shipment of slaves had been removed from the hold.
‘The “nit” refers to a parasitic insect the “grits” are the grain which would have been used as a cheap foodstuff to keep a slave ship’s cargo barely fed.’
Suggested alternatives include ‘the basic facts’ or ‘the most important aspects or practical details’.
‘Sold down the river’ is to be avoided because ‘in the 19th Century, black slaves were literally sold down the river to plantation owners further south where brutal conditions awaited.
‘The use of that phrase in a sporting context waters down that association it has with slavery.’ As an example of an acceptable alternative, the guide suggests: ‘That back pass left the keeper with no chance’.
The guide also says that ‘uppity’ was ‘a word used by white people during racial segregation in the USA to describe black people they believed weren’t showing them enough deference’.
Black men and women were lynched by white mobs for seeming ‘too uppity’. The suggested alternatives include ‘agitated’, ‘jumpy’, and ‘het up’.
A total of 450 people took part in the session, Sportsmail understands, with the BBC inviting Sky Sports, ITV, BT Sport, Premier League Productions and talkSPORT along.
The list of banned phrase also includes ‘blackballed’, ‘blacklisted’ ‘black mark’ and ‘whiter than white’.
Earlier this summer Sky Sports bosses warned commentators against using phrases like ‘nitty gritty’ amid fears it might upset viewers.
Despite the claims that ‘nitty gritty’ has racist origins linked to the ‘debris’ left behind after slaves left a ship, others are sceptical that is the origin of the word. Some claim its origins are elusive as its first written example was not recorded until the mid-1950s.