The fallout from Omid Scobie’s explosive Endgame book continues to be a topic of discussion on social media. Amid continuing furore, one former BBC journalist has weighed in on the conversation, questioning whether it’s racist to discuss the potential appearance and skin tone of an unborn child.
News Agents podcast host Jon Sopel took to X (formerly Twitter) to question the controversy surrounding the alleged royal race row.
He wrote: “This is driving me nuts. Can someone explain why two family members discussing what a new grandchild or nephew/niece will look like, whose hair colour the infant will have, what skin tone is racist?
“It’s what we all do. Let me go further, it would be unnatural if we didn’t.”
Many users agreed with Sopel’s stance. One replied to his post: “Exactly! I’m Caucasian and we talked about what the baby would look like, what color the baby’s skin would be it’s NORMAL conversation! It’s not racist it’s not even unconscious bias!”
Another user wrote: “My wife is of Arabic/african heritage. Guess what we talked about for nine months.”
One user also shared their experience: “Agree. My children are half Japanese and there were discussions on who’d they most take after.”
Sopel’s tweet was in response to another critical tweet from journalist Alastair Campbell, who pondered why a book written by someone “most of us have never heard of” was commanding so much press coverage.
“Can someone explain to me why a book written by someone most of us have never heard of, credentials unknown, is commanding such media attention? Utterly bizarre even by our media standards”, he wrote on Twitter.
Omid Scobie’s book has dominated headlines, following the naming of two royals who were accused of raising concern over the skin tone of Prince Archie, during Meghan Markle and Prince Harry’s Oprah Winfrey interview in 2021.
The Dutch version of Scobie’s Endgame was released this week, and was found to include the names of two royals who are said to be involved in the ‘race row’.
Buckingham Palace is said to be “considering all options” following after two royals were implicated in Scobie’s Dutch publication of Endgame and accused of “unconscious racial bias”.
Scobie appeared on ITV’s This Morning yesterday and denied naming the royals caught up in the ‘race row’.
He insisted: “I have never submitted a book that had their names in it.”
Saskia Peeters, the woman who translated the book from English to Dutch, said the names were already there. She said: “As a translator, I translate what is in front of me.
“The names of the royals were there in black and white. I did not add them. I just did what I was paid to do and that was translate the book from English into Dutch”, she told MailOnline.
So far, there has been no official comment from the palace around the claims made in Omid Scobie’s Endgame.
