Hasn’t Lenny Henry Already Received Shedloads of Undeserved Racial ‘Reparations’ From the UK TV Industry and BBC Licence Fee Payer?
I have always greatly disliked Lenny Henry. I have genuinely never known anyone who admitted to thinking him in any way funny, an opinion so common it was even referenced by the genuine comedian Ricky Gervais in a scene from his mid-2000s sit-com Extras. Instead, the most common comment I have heard about the man is “He only ever got on telly in the first place because he’s black,” an assessment I personally find all too plausible. In this, Sir Lenworth (for that is the true Caribbean-origin dead-name listed on his birth-certificate) was a probable early glimpse of our horrible televisual future.
There are plenty of talented black actors and entertainers out there, who get their roles reasonably and on merit; no one can complain Idris Elba was miscast or did a bad job in The Wire, or Sir Laurence Olivier in Othello. Sir Lenny wants something different, though, for he has now largely abandoned his former alleged comedy career, becoming instead an NGO-type campaigner for more ‘diversity’ on British screens – something he appears to consider a form of undeclared reparations for slavery.
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Disagree, Steven, because I always found Lenny funny and, growing up in the ’80s, I loved The Lenny Henry Show and I remember his hilarious characters, such as Delbert Wilkins. But isn’t comedy like art: highly subjective and a matter of personal taste? Therefore it’s such a shame to see he’s turned into a decidedly unfunny nobhead now.
I can’t be doing with people who carry their grievance mentality around like a fifth appendage, so immersed in their victimhood status they are. To me, you immediately lose all respect as soon as you do that.
What we need is more high profile black people speaking out against this ridiculous and tedious ‘reparations’ lark and calling out other black people who have this obsessive and unhealthy attitude, purely due to their race. People need to acquire some dignity because this behaviour is beyond pathetic and is actually demeaning. These whiners are not representative of all black people, after all.
I’ve never met anyone who found him funny.
But I guess he was to those people who found pantomimes funny as a child.
But don’t you think age is a factor as well? For instance, have you ever had that thing where you watch a movie you found awesome and hilarious back when you were a kid, but then when you watch it decades later as an adult it’s an anti-climax and you wonder what all the fuss was about? I had that with ‘Weird Science’. I also loved The Young Ones growing up, but I’d probably not find that humour as funny as I did when I was 12yrs old.
So comedy isn’t just subjective but our tastes often change as we age. Shows like ‘Last of the Summer Wine’ and ‘Yes, Minister!’ were always on in our house and I’d find them dull as dishwater, but now I might find them amusing.
We liked ‘The Young Ones’ apart from the episode where Vyvyan thought he was pregnant and was about to give birth. We suffered a sense of humour failure over that as Mrs SoR went into labour with our first child just before the program started.
To get back to Sir Lenny: I never found him funny but did like ‘Chef!’ – but not enough to watch any repeats. I found ‘Theophilus P Wildebeest (and we know what the ‘P’ stands for, don’t we ladies?)’ bloody annoying and many of his other comedy turns too.
Edit: Whoops – second child
LOSW wasn’t comedy it was a documentary.😉
“What we need is more high profile black people speaking out against this ridiculous and tedious ‘reparations’ lark and calling out other black people who have this obsessive and unhealthy attitude, purely due to their race.”
There seem to be more of those in the US, or they have a higher profile there.
We really need more blue people with yellow stripes speaking out against this as the fact that they have two skin colours instead of only one will naturally double the weight of their arguments.
It doesn’t matter in the slightest if people speaking out against this are black, blue, purple or orange, what matters is what they’re saying. And in this case, that’s rather simple: Nobody alive today suffered any material harm because slavery existed in the British empire until it was abolished in 1833. Hence, nobody’s owed any compensation payments for this non-existent damage.
I think it does matter because I feel fellow black people are more likely to be listened to and have more of an influence than if that same message came from white people. And I think the more popular and well known that person is the more impact they’ll have, potentially.
If we need black people because they’re black people (instead of because they’re talking sense) to save us from other black people, we’re toast. And I don’t feel like toast.
It takes all sorts. I found Dilbert especially, a toe-curlingly embarassing stereotype.
I’d imagine parodying a stereotype was exactly what Lenny intended. He’s certainly not alone in doing that. Besides, it’s comedy. We’re not meant to all agree on what’s funny in much the same way as what constitutes good music. Personal preferences and tastes will always come first.
18 trillion for reparations…?
Remind us, where did all the money donated to Black Lives Matter end up?
What a comedian. For the record, Sir Lenny, my family’s antecedents going back 250 years were smallholders, artisans and workers in an industry derived from British labour, raw materials and an energy source extracted from British soil. Nothing whatsoever to do with the slave trade.
Elsewhere, if descendents of royalty, aristocracy and commercial wealth feel guilty about benefiting from their ancestors’ deeds, that’s their prerogative, but don’t expect the rest of us to share your self-imposed guilt.
He’s an unfunny, sponging racist git!
Lenny Henry is obviously so concerned with the future of black people that he married Dawn French and has had another white partner for over a decade.
Does this make him a race traitor?
He married D French? Maybe he really does deserve compensation.
If reparations were ever taken seriously I think there would be a lot of conflict over competing black groups as to who really qualified and what their share should be. A very small proportion of black people have familial links with slave trade victims.
The really deserving ones would be those who died on the slave ships, of whom there are zero records and of course no descendents to pay anyway.
For the sake of racial harmony the stupid idea is best forgotten – it is only being used by racists who want to stir up disharmony – Lenny Henry, I mean you.
Lenny Henry isn’t a victim. He’s a lottery winner. Unlike the descendants of those that didn’t get taken as slaves, he’s ended up in the prosperous west living a life that your average west african now could only dream of.
A disappointingly mean spirited piece.
That is the writer’s style. I would not write like that, but I feel zero sympathy with Mr Henry – he is our enemy – so if someone is rubbishing him in writing I can’t get too upset about it.
Agressively politically incorrect jokes are Tucker’s trademark style (at least for these articles) and I rather like it.
Besides, claiming, based on a bunch of (US concoted) lies¹, that the present inhabitants of the UK owe Tucker and his associates 18 trillion pound because of something which has been illegal in Britain for the last 192 years after he became a rich and famous and even ennobled TV celebrity here precisely because of the support of the people he’s now accusing of incorrigible racism is hard to beat wrt “being mean-spirited.”
¹ Slavery is not something evil white people invented to torture poor black people but an institution of all of mankind which is about as old as the famous “oldest business in the world²”. In reality, what will have happend was that white merchants landed on African shores and contacted the locals to find out what business opportunities might be available there and the locals offered to sell them slaves which was considered a perfectly normal
and moral business at that time.
² Ältestes Gewerbe auf der Welt, German idiomatic euphemism for prostitution.
If you take the median income of the most prosperous West African countries and compare it to the median income of in western countries, it seems to me that people like Lenny Henry shouldn’t be asking for reparations but rather paying a commission for the service of having his ancestors plucked out of Africa and taken to a place that resulted in him having a better, more affluent life.
Pretty obviously borrowed money would incur interest payments. On top of that, if all the £18trn was injected into the economy at once it would also produce massive inflation.
This proposal would crush the economy and take the power elite with it. But sometimes it is sadly necessary to give someone everything they want and in double measure if they won’t listen to reason.
As slavey wasn’t ended in Brazil until the 1880s and in the USA until the 1860s, would all the descendants of slaves shipped to those countries before those dates have a moral claim on these reparations because the Royal Navy failed to prevent their ancestors’ transportation?
How is the Lenny Henry Centre for Media Diversity funded?
Taxpayers?
I only ever saw him in Broadchurch and he was the only weak link in an excellent series. He was wooden, without any talent and totally unbelievable as a character.
Henry is a vaguelly mediocre talent at best.
His Premier Inn Ads are probably his career highlight, but even I could lie on a bed and pretend to be asleep without much of a rehearsal.
What I don’t get, is how folk like him are so hard of thinking that it doesn’t dawn on them how implementation of their clever reparations wheeze would create bitter resentment and put inter-ethnic division on steroids.
I’ll be happy for us to pay reparations for slavery if the Arab and African slave suppliers are paying up too, and pay us for the British slaves they captured and sold.
To be fair to LH though, he did keep Dawn French out of circulation for 25 years…
I used to enjoy his comedy and even his acting. Thought of him as good role model for those want to do well regardless background etc. Sad to see his latest stance, which simply perpetuates a victimhood culture and does nobody any good.
There are plenty of talented black actors and entertainers out there, who get their roles reasonably and on merit; no one can complain Idris Elba was miscast or did a bad job in The Wire, or Sir Laurence Olivier in Othello.
Speaking personally darling, I didn’t think Larry was that good.
I agree with much of what was written, but whether Lenny Henry was funny or not is entirely irrelevant. You spoiled a quite interesting and amusing article by constantly saying it.