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The UK’s first professor of Black studies is facing a criminal investigation over a video in which he called right-wing commentator Calvin Robinson a “house n*gro”.
Prof Kehinde Andrews was visited by three police officers at his Birmingham home on Wednesday morning and invited to attend a voluntary interview.
In a video posted online in June, the academic argued that terms such as “coconut”, “house n*gro”, “c**n” and “Uncle Tom” are “vital expressions of Black political thought that should be celebrated and not policed”.
But the comment Prof Andrews made about former GB News host Mr Robinson in the video has prompted a complaint to West Midlands Police.
In the video, Prof Andrews went on to explain the origins of the term: “Malcolm X popularised the idea of the ‘house n*gro’. Those people who, because of their relative privilege, relative connection to the master, tend to be deluded into believing they’re not slaves,” he said.
“On the plantation, they live in the house... get slightly better conditions; they’re not catching hell from sunup to sundown. So, because of that, house n*gro starts to identify with the master... more than the master identifies with himself.
“The point of this is to say that house n*gro’s wrong. Because they’re treated slightly better, they’re missing the point they’re still slaves. This is ‘love teaching’ from Malcolm. He’s calling out, saying ‘You are still a slave, you are still suffering from racism (...)’.
“The whole point of it is to say we’re all in the same boat, we’re all catching the same hell but you can’t see that because you’ve got the house n*gro mentality.”
When approached by The Independent, Mr Robinson declined to comment about Prof Andrews’ video and the investigation.
However, he posted on Twitter/X that he had filed a complaint against Prof Andrews, adding that he believed the academic was racist.
West Midlands Police told The Independent: “We’ve received a report of racist comments being posted online and we’re carrying out enquiries. There is no place for hate crime and we’ll investigate any reports we receive.”
Prof Andrews, who teaches the UK’s first undergraduate Black studies course at Birmingham City University, described the police probe as “utterly ludicrous”.
“As I go to lengths to explain in the video, ‘house n*gro’ is a political critique and has never been used as a racial slur,” he told The Independent.
“The whole point is to remind those who think they have ‘made it’ (...) that we are all still ex-slaves, colonial subjects, who will experience racism no matter how much they embrace the ‘master’ (in modern times, this would be the nation, government, etc).
“Malcolm X uses it as an anti-racist metaphor to promote resistance, which is exactly what I did in the video. The fact this is a police issue just shows how little respect there is for Black political thought.
“The terms ‘house n*gro’ and ‘field n*gro’ have a decades-long history, with countless books including their use.
“It is deeply concerning that the police would want to haul in a professor to question me about my area of expertise. This would never happen if I were white or the work I do was given the respect it deserves.
“The police have a long history of criminalising Black and brown people, now we are seeing that converge with the wider attack on Black knowledge which is being erased from university, the closure of Black courses and more.”
The investigation follows a string of cases where Black and Asian people have faced prosecution for hate crimes after using specific language to criticise other people from ethnic minority communities.
In March, The Independent first reported on the case of a Black man who was acquitted of hate crime charges after sending a raccoon emoji to Conservative MP Ben Obese-Jecty on social media. A Black HR professional was interviewed under caution for sending a gif of Daffy Duck tap-dancing to the same politician, as first reported by The Independent in May.
Prof Andrews has said he will attend a voluntary interview later this month. The CPS has been approached for comment.
