AN article published during Boris Johnson’s time as editor of the Spectator has resurfaced in which Jamaican men are referred to as having “the bodies of giants and the mind of a pea”.
The piece, written by Anthony Daniels under the pen-name Theodore Dalrymple, further describes Jamaican men as “self-satisfied, macho, lupine-gaited, gold-chained-and-front-toothed predators of the slums”.
Written in reference to migrants in the UK, the article then claims that the situation in Jamaica is "even worse".
It has come to light amid reports that Prince William and Kate will face protests calling for slavery reparations while in Jamaica as part of their ongoing Caribbean tour.
READ MORE: Boris Johnson must apologise for printing 'racist and cruel' article, Labour say
Journalist Ash Sarkar shared extracts from the article on Twitter, writing: “The early-2000s were wild. You could just rock up to The Spectator with 1000 words about why you don't like Jamaicans, and the editor (who would later go on to be Prime Minister) would say ‘yeah, let's run it’.”
Extracts shared by Sarkar include quotes in which Dalrymple blames the rap music industry for making “actual the stereotype of the Jamaican as a man of small brain but large appetites, with a powerful though primitive sense of rhythm”.
'Bang-bang-you're-dead culture of modern Jamaica'?????? British journalism has really always been in the gutter. https://t.co/dC1wgKKaFd
— CEO of Yelling (@ChantayyJayy) March 21, 2022
In the full article, which is still available on the Spectator’s website, he further claims that “racism” is not to blame for Jamaican men being kept “forever subordinate, marginalised and criminalised”.
Instead, the writer says “anti-racism (a kind of employment opportunity for bureaucrats of limited ability) has far more to answer for”.
He says anti-racism movements enable Jamaicans “to behave badly while convinced of their own moral superiority based upon permanent, insuperable and existential victimhood”.
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Dalrymple claims to be specifically talking about male second-generation Jamaican migrants to the UK, but he also says that the problems he sees with the Jamaicans in the UK are “even worse, more salient and exaggerated” on the Caribbean island, and that the women “subsidise the fecklessness of the men”.
Quoting from the article, Chanté Joseph, a writer and host of Channel 4's How Not To Be Racist, wrote: “'Bang-bang-you're-dead culture of modern Jamaica'?????? British journalism has really always been in the gutter.”
Radio host Lorraine King added: “Just read it and as a Jamaican all I can say right now is 'not today Satan'.”
Johnson was editor of the Spectator from 1999 until 2005. The article was published in August 2003.
In the same year, police looked into whether the magazine should face charges for inciting racial hatred after Johnson published a piece by Panagiotis "Taki" Theodoracopulos which led to a leading black lawyer receiving death threats.
Theodoracopulos had written that people from the West Indies had moved to the UK and been allowed to “multiply like flies”. “The rivers of blood speech by Enoch [Powell] was prophetic as well as true,” he wrote.
Johnson apologised for the publication of the piece, saying it was "a terrible thing" which "should never have gone in".
The Prime Minister has faced criticism in the past for rhetoric used in his own writing, including describing black people as “piccaninnies” with “watermelon smiles”. Johnson has insisted the comments were taken out of context.
Downing Street has been approached for comment.
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