Tory Candidate for London Mayor Boris Johnson said ‘sorry’ for calling black children piccaninnies and claiming Africans had `watermelon smiles’. But it was far from an apology.
Johnson was only sorry that black people were upset, adding they had no reason to take offence because his quotes had been taken out of context.
Challenged by former New Nation editor Michael Eboda at a London Evening Standard debate last week, Johnson said: `I’m sorry you’ve raised this now’.
He added: ‘I feel very sad that people have been offended by these words but if you look at these articles it doesn’t bare the construction that’s been put on them. I think we need to move on and not put people in boxes and go on endlessly about race’
Eboda said he and many others had read Johnson’s articles, published in recent years in The Spectator magazine and the Daily Telegraph, adding: ‘they were extraordinarily abusive of black people.’
Eboda came under a barrage of heckling from the predominately white audience at a prestigious Sloane Square venue, Cadogan Hall, many of whom were members of the Evening Standard’s Eros Club and appeared extremely well-heeled.
Eboda, of Nigerian heritage, later complained that one audience member shouted: 1**k off back to Uganda, you c**t’. The small handful of black people in attendance reported hearing other obscenities.
Writing about his experience, Eboda said: `Cadogan Hall was engulfed by a cacophony of boos, jeers, some “shut ups” and a few “sit downs” and a couple of people told me some more colourful language had also been spat my way!
If this was how Johnson’s supporters behaved it showed how far the Conservative Party has got to go, he added.
