Natasha Devon challenges caller who says BLM has 'set back race relations 20 years'

11 September 2021, 21:55 | Updated: 11 September 2021, 21:56

Caller says BLM movement has 'put this country back 20 years'.

By Tim Dodd

This was the moment a caller who hadn't called a radio station "in 57 years" rang in to say the Black Lives Matter movement has "put this country back possibly twenty years with regards race relations".

It comes as one of the Queen's representatives has said she and the royal family are supporters of the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement.

Dean in Gainsborough said: "I think it's put this country back possibly twenty years with regards race relations.

"The government, the papers, they're loving it, they'll eat it up for breakfast because it makes division, it sells papers, and it keeps other headlines that should be in the papers out of them.

He added: "What I'd love to see [BLM] do is get some people up for members of Parliament, because then they can actually make a change."

The caller then said he "doesn't see" the movement "speaking about water in Africa, or... organising schemes for young Black people to get people out of poverty".

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Natasha replied: "That's exactly what they do... They collect funds in order to feed hungry children, help young people who might be disadvantaged, and also to help people to access legal representation who might be wrongly incarcerated."

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Dean said: "I've never known more racism exist now in all my years on this planet. It is worse now than it's ever, ever been.

"If Black Lives Matter continues and stokes up division, it'll be the recipe for the far right to get its foot back in the door again."

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Natasha then shared race statistics with Dean and asked him to consider what he thought the solution to racism was, if it was not Black Lives Matter.

Dean replied: "Plain and simple. If an employee discriminates against somebody applying for a job on race, they should be put in prison. Only for 3 months!"

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