It was completely avoidable.
Coronation Street is one of our most popular and widely loved television shows. The iconic soap has been ever present on our screens for over 55 years, and has regularly been praised for shedding light and bringing focus onto various important issues. But this week it has been embroiled in some totally unnecessary real-life drama.
The ITV show has come under fire for a throwaway remark that many deem as racially insensitive, in a scene that hardly required it. It is not as though the plot centred around a character being racist or offending another one of Weatherfield’s inhabitants, but rather it was something said for laughs as a comical one-liner.
It was as innocuous as Cath Tyldesley’s character Eva Price going to the salon to get her hair dyed. During Monday’s episode, Eva was shown complaining to Audrey Roberts about her dark roots showing through her last dye job, commenting: “I have more roots than Kunta Kinte!”
Kunta Kinte is a character from the novel Roots: The Saga of an American Family by Alex Haley. Haley claimed that Kinte was based on one of his ancestors: a Gambian man who was enslaved and taken to America, dying in 1822. The best-selling book was turned into an incredibly moving and seminal drama about black slavery in 1977.
Not surprisingly, the Corrie line has caused offence to a great number of people.
@itvcorrie why would you allow such a racist comment about Roots and Kunte Kinte? Shame on you.
— Vanessa 🇬🇾🇬🇩🇬🇧 (@sthlondongirlie) August 30, 2016
@itvcorrie WOW!
"More roots than Kunte Kinte"
I'm actually stunned that you think that is acceptable broadcast something so racist.— SHILOH (@shilohmusicldn) August 30, 2016
Yo @ITV So what's up with the cultural insensitivity on #Coronationstreet? "I got more Roots than Kunta Kinte" That's kinda racist…
— Epic Mase RCG (@RedCloudGawd) August 29, 2016
A comment on the Coronation Street blog reads:
“This Kunta Kinte comment was way, way, way inappropriate and very very offensive to black viewers. It was unnecessary and not relevant to the storyline what so ever…[it is sad that] a slave “joke” mocking the horrific history of black people and the brutality and injustice that still happens today.”
Such has been the level of outrage since the episode was aired on Monday that ITV have been forced to apologise for the comment, stating: “We apologise if this dialogue has caused offence.”
