It doesn’t matter that she referred to refugees fleeing terror as “cockroaches”, because we know she will get people talking.
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| Why would those "cockroaches" want to escape this? |
She will revive our flagging show.
It doesn’t matter if her country is partly responsible for the terror inflicted upon them, for forcing thousands to flee their homes.
She says she doesn’t care when she sees them drowning from capsized boats or queuing up for food on a cold Greek island.
She wants to set gunboats upon them, because they have no right to land on our shores.
She mocks them when they live in squalor, when they flee bombs and bullets in search of a better life.
“Make no mistake, these migrants are like cockroaches,” she says. They are a threat to her beloved society and built to survive a nuclear bomb.
An ideal guest for a light entertainment show on a Friday night, don’t you think?
Let's overlook the fact that her country, the UK, has played an appalling role in supporting the kind of "rebels" who terrorise ordinary people and imposed Sharia Law across huge swathes of Syria and Iraq.
Let’s hire a racist. Sure, isn’t it fantastic that we don't need to import one from the UK when we have a home-grown one of our own?
“Our own” – now, perhaps they are the Irish words of the year in "post-truth" 2016.
Why look after refugees living on €19.10 per week for the past 15 years when we have so many homeless people of our own?
Why allow Muslims into this country when we have so many people lying on trolleys in hospital wards?
Funny, how these migrants always threaten the poorest in society – not the tiny elite who bankrupt the country eight years ago or the multinational corporations who have no interest in paying a proper level of tax in the Emerald Isle?
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| Columnist Ian O'Doherty: racism's good for ratings |
Funny how we stage protests to make sure that Apple locate their factory in Athenry, but none at all to reclaim the estimated €13 billion plus they owe us in taxes.
Yes, we do need to talk about “our own” homelessness, health crisis, and the lack of job security faced by so many.
But do we really need to hand over our TV screens to people with false claims about the number of rapes carried out by Muslims?
It's easy to forget there are 1.6 billion Muslims in the world when people who thrive on shocking us insist that there are "swarms" of them arriving on our shores, hell-bent on destroying our wonderful way of life in the West.
Most of the Muslims I met in at least 15 trips to countries such as Egypt, Jordan, and Morocco have no interest in invading the "infidels" in Britain and Ireland. They are ordinary people who just want peaceful, happy lives.
Do we really need to mock the unfortunates fleeing places like Aleppo in terror only to face derision and racism on our shores?
But it’s ok to feature commentators who thrive on hatred, because we know they’ll get people talking and watching our fading shows.
If people like Katie Hopkins or Ian O’Doherty were in New York in the 1840s, they would have mocked the starving Irish as they fell off the ‘coffin ships’ on their way to the ghettoes of the Bronx and Hell’s Kitchen.
They would have called for the gunboats to turn the starving Irish back as those desperate people sought new lives so far from home.
And now we invite the kind of people who would have erected “No blacks, no Irish, no dogs” signs in London 50 years ago onto our Friday night entertainment shows.
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| Trump's election has emboldened racists on this side of the Atlantic |
Even though we now have racist, sexist, xenophobic buffoons of our own.
Who cares about ordinary people fleeing bombs and bullets in terror as they try to build new lives for their children?
Because the only thing that matters is that we look after “our own”.
And racists are good for ratings in 2016.
It could be argued that those who give people with xenophobic views a platform are just as guilty as the racists themselves.
Whether we like it or not, our annual €160 TV licence fee is being used to invite people who get a kick out of spreading fear and hatred onto the airwaves.
But don't complain about the lack of informed debate guys, because complaints will get you nowhere as Katie Hopkins showed.
Tough luck, because racism's good for ratings ... and we should only look after "our own".
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| Walking through the ruins of eastern Aleppo this week |
Ciaran Tierney is a journalist, blogger, and digital storyteller, based in Galway, Ireland. You can hire Ciaran to ghost write your company's blog.
Check out Ciaran Tierney Digital Storyteller on Facebook.
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