On the Today programme this morning author Zadie Smith, in a recorded interview talking to Mariella Frostrup about her new novel NW, told us that she had discriminated in the way the characters in her novel are described and portrayed. Only white people have their race commented upon (and from the basis of an exerpt published in the Guardian at least one of these white characters is portrayed unfavourably in terms of behaviour, appearance and general obnoxiousness). Zadie Smith justified this racial discrimination on the grounds that American authors discriminate against black people (she quoted two American authors who have done this, although her novel NW is set in London and is about Londoners).
Zadie Smith is taking a risk in doing this, as under equalities legislation only one person has to make a complaint to the police about racial discrimination and the police must investigate it, no matter how trivial it might seem.
Presumably Hugh Muir will be castigating Zadie Smith in his Guardian column Hideously Diverse Britain.
Zadie Smith is taking a risk in doing this, as under equalities legislation only one person has to make a complaint to the police about racial discrimination and the police must investigate it, no matter how trivial it might seem.
Presumably Hugh Muir will be castigating Zadie Smith in his Guardian column Hideously Diverse Britain.
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