A BBC breakfast presenter who had accused Donald Trump of his racist comments has said that she stands by her comments.
Naga Munchetty had said that the American’s President’s remarks were “embedded in racism” when he had asked women of colour like Ilhan Omar to “go back to their home”.
Munchetty’s remarks had created a massive controversy within the BBC after the broadcasting service decided that the journalist had breached the reporting standards of prejudice. The decision was later reversed by Tony Hall who said that the complaints unit had made a wrong call. Now, Munchetty has revealed her “horrible” experience of being censured for calling out Trump.
In an interview with British Vogue, she claimed that her comments were not unprofessional and explained that it was not her job to “be a robot”. She said,
“One of the balancing acts of being a Breakfast presenter is being comfortable enough to show who you are and your personality,” she said. “You have to show empathy. You cannot sit there and be a robot on that sofa.
“And I do stand by it. It is not OK to use offensive language, or to skirt around offensive language, to make a point or get attention.
“What it has done is raise an uncomfortable conversation that needed to be raised.”
Asked whether the BBC was institutionally racist, she said,
“I’m going to turn this on its head: find me a large organisation, and find me an employee from a minority group who feels they are able to bring their true self to work today. I don’t think you’ll be able to.”
At her Breakfast show, earlier last year Munchetty had said, “Every time I have been told, as a woman of colour, to go back to where I came from, that was embedded in racism”.
