Ette-itorial by Anushri Sood
London-born Jameela Jamil is a British woman. That is, until she opens her mouth. And no, it’s not the accent.
Last week, Jamil appeared on the pop culture podcast Yestergays, where she and the hosts discussed her role as Tahani Al-Jamil on the comedy series The Good Place. The character was originally written as American, but Jamil suggested changing her to a posh British socialite, reasoning it would make her even more insufferable.
In a passing comment, Jamil labelled the British as “the most evil people in history,” and followed that claim with an Oxfam-backed finding that the British owe “43 trillion to India, adding, “we colonised the world.”
Saying these things was her first offence. Her subsequent offence was being a brown woman.
Jamil —who is of Indian and Pakistani descent —copped a week of threats and racist slurs on social media, a character assassination in the UK’s Telegraph and Spectator, and a spray by broadcaster Piers Morgan (who diverted the energy he has for hating Meghan Markle to Jamil) describing her dislike of British colonialism as “anti-British”.
Parts of the Australian media got in on the pile-on. News Corp’s regional newspaper The Toowoomba Chronicle called Jamil a ‘depraved actress’ while The Australian published an article accusing her of ‘spreading dangerous rhetoric.’
Sky News Australia host Rowan Dean took the first opportunity to indirectly reference Pauline Hanson’s recent rhetoric of endorsing a monoculture.
“This is the sort of garbage that’s being taught in our universities, our politicians buy into this sort of stuff, and here, you have the very reason why multiculturalism has been such a disaster for Britain because unless you accept that you’re all part of the one culture, that’s what you get.”
