Afua Hirsch's Fiery Response To "Disgustingly Toxic" Racist Tweet

16 December 2018, 08:09 | Updated: 16 December 2018, 08:11

Afua Hirsch had a passionate response to a tweet that said it was in the DNA of black people to "do anything for money and notoriety".

The tweet, which Afua described as "disgustingly toxic", listed things like drill videos, drug dealing and the glorification of guns and violence being part of the DNA of black people.

"Does racism exist in Britain?" she asked, "I give you exhibit A".

"This is one of the most disgustingly toxic tweets I have seen today and you know what it really reveals? How much prejudice and hatred towards black people there still is out there. 

"The idea that there's something in the DNA of black people that makes them different, that makes them criminal, that makes them greedy.

"That's not an original idea, that's something that British people helped invent as an ideology, and you know why they invented that idea that black people were inherently inferior and degraded and deranged?

"They did that to help justify the trans-Atlantic slave trade."

She continued: "You think that black people have a monopoly over drug dealing?

"Where do you think the drugs come from? Who do you think is buying them? Who do you think the majority of drug users in this country are? Do you think they're black? Because they're not.

"And you know why you think that black people are somehow uniquely involved in drugs?

"It's because of the way the media reports drug dealing. When black people are involved, it's black gangs, it's black on black violence, it's black crime.

"When white people are involved in gangs, they're just gangs. They're not white gangs, they're not white crime, they're not white stabbings, they're not white drug dealing. It's just regular vanilla crime. 

"We get radicalised for everything we do, and as a result people like you who are too ignorant to do the work or know the history or look into the actual facts.

"It is dangerous, it is divisive and it is feeding into an ignorance that is far older than either of us.

"I pity you because you obviously haven't done the thinking for yourself but you're also a victim of something that is much bigger than you and that is the media that makes it easy for people to continue having these racist illiterate and ignorant ideas."

Watch her fiery response in full in the video above.