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Telegraph - White teenagers guilty of racist murder

Mohammad Parvaiz, 42, [father of three,] was stoned and battered to death when he inadvertently became caught up in a dispute between neighbours.

He was lured to an isolated dead-end where he was dragged from his cab and set upon by the gang who were armed with stones, bricks and fence posts.

During the unprovoked attack they were heard shouting racist taunts as they rained blows and kicks on their defenceless victim.

Minutes later, Christopher Murphy, 18, who had stamped on his head, inspected blood stains on his shoe and said to a friend in a pub: “I wonder if I’ve got Paki juice on the bottom of my shoes?”

Imagine what Jesse Jackson et al would make of that?

Times Online - Indian Government wades in to Big Brother racism row

Complaints began to flood in at the start of the week after the former Big Brother housemate Jade Goody, her mother Jackiey Budden, Jack Tweed, her boyfriend, as well as Danielle Lloyd and Jo O’Meara, the pop singer, allegedly began bullying the Indian actress.

In one outburst, Lloyd asked Shetty: “Do you get stubble?” In another, Budden, who constantly called her “the Indian”, asked: “Do you live in a house or a shack?”

The actress has been called a “dog” and contestants have complained about her touching their food. Ms O’Meara declared that Indians were thin because they were always ill as a result of undercooking food. Shetty’s accent has also been mocked. Channel 4 has denied reports that Tweed called the actress a “f***ing Paki”.

Speaking to Sky News from her home in Bombay, Shilpa’s mother, Sunanda, said today: “As a mother I find it it very painful and alarming to watch my daughter cry.

Nice. Quality television made even better.

Update (1.19):

Telegraph - When colour is the only weapon left
Racist outbursts in the Big Brother house have provoked an international outcry. Far more alarming, says Shyama Perera, is the deeper social malaise they reveal

At its simplest, when celebrity ceases to be about personal achievement and becomes a function of ignorance and liposuction, of manufactured pop and sexual availability, of personal vanity and obsessive disorders, it becomes impossible for us to know what is normal within society and what is not. This is best demonstrated by a recent survey that found 50 per cent of 16-year-old girls wanted to be glamour models.

Cogitating and agitating in corners of the Big Brother house, Jade Goody, Danielle Lloyd and Jo O’Meara are ciphers for the highly complex issues and behaviours that underscore modern social ills. These encompass falling educational standards, unrealistic expectations and confused sexual politics.

Into this mix prances Shilpa Shetty, the supremely confident Bollywood superstar. She, too, lives a gilded life, but unlike Jade, Jo and Danielle (whose respective claims to fame are former Big Brother winner, teen popstar and WAG), she’s well-educated, well-spoken and beautiful without augmentation. While the programme-makers may not have anticipated the tenor of what followed, it was a deliberate placing of the cat among the pigeons. An incendiary move.

Yeah, that would explain it.

The question we should be asking, then, is why three women who’ve done well enough in life are so threatened by a star from a different continent. The answer I would venture is that when the other party has the upper hand on just about every count, the only weapon left is colour.

We keep reading that Indian children are disproportionately successful in exams. Shilpa speaks six languages, she’s a black belt in karate, a woman intent on, and confident with, success. In our ”all must have prizes” society, she’s a reminder of old-fashioned values and the far higher levels of success they can bring. …

The lesson from the Big Brother furore is not that we’re a racist nation on a collision course but that we have started celebrating ignorance as if it’s an achievement. In doing so, we’re like the crowds watching Daniel being thrown to the lions, except it’s society that we’re throwing into the den.

And if we continue to think of the Jade Goodys, Danielle Lloyds and Jo O’Mearas of this world merely as unpleasant individuals, rather than as signifying a deeper national malaise, I’m afraid issues surrounding racism will be the least of our problems.