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The police have dropped a probe into a leading academic who referred to former GB News presenter Calvin Robinson as a “house N***o”, The Independent has learned.
West Midlands Police officers visited Professor Kehinde Andrews at his Birmingham home on 4 September and then invited him to a voluntary interview, under threat of arrest.
The investigation followed 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 for alleged compliance with oppressive agendas.
In a video posted online in June, the academic argued that terms such as “house N***o”, “Uncle Tom”, “coconut” and “c**n” are “vital expressions of Black political thought that should be celebrated and not policed”.
However, the academic’s description of Mr Robinson prompted the right-wing commentator to complain to West Midlands Police, as first reported by The Independent last month.
The day after Prof Andrew’s interview with the police, officers decided that no further action would be taken.
”The decision has been made to NFA [no further action] Mr Kehinde Andrews,” said police correspondence, seen by The Independent.
Speaking to The Independent, Prof Andrews described the probe as a “circus” and said he is far from jubilant about this outcome.
“The police finally seeing sense in my case is no cause for celebration,” he said.
“Being threatened with arrest, and having to explain my intellectual work in a police station was punishment enough.
“I know people who are now more wary of speaking out because of the way that I have been treated, which has always been one of the reasons for this policing of Black political thought.
“As I was sitting in the station with three police officers and a solicitor I couldn't help think of the spectacular waste of public money the whole circus was. My case being taken no further also does not mean that others won't be persecuted in the future so it is important to mobilise when the next cases arise”.
A prepared statement by the academic, who is Europe’s first and only professor of Black Studies, was read out during the police interview in which he declared that “everyone involved in this process should be embarrassed”.
Months before being thrust into this West Midlands Police probe, the professor was approached by the Metropolitan Police as a qualified expert for advice in the highly contested case of Marieha Hussain, a British Asian woman charged with a hate crime over a satirical ‘coconuts’ placard which, the academic says, reflects his “credentials in the area of anti-racism”.
”It is frankly astounding that the very same expertise is now subject to criminal investigation by West Midlands Police,” the statement reads.
“I should stress that my mainstream credentials are not the primary reason that this interview is ridiculous.
“Whether I was a professor or unemployed, the notion that the concept of ‘House N***o’ can be equated with a racial slur punishable as a criminal offence is utterly ludicrous.”
“The police and the courts are already the brutal face of racism, with continued disproportionate arrests and incarceration,” Prof Andrews added.
“If, and this is a big if, the criminal justice system is serious about being an anti-racist institution then a small step in the right direction would be to discontinue the dangerous practice of criminalising our political expression.”
West Midlands Police did not respond to The Independent’s numerous requests for comment.
Calvin Robinson declined to comment when approached.
This comes as Marieha Hussain was cleared of racially aggravated public order offence after holding a placard at a pro-Palestine protest depicting Rishi Sunak and Suella Braverman as coconuts.
She has since made complaints to the Crown Prosecution Service and police watchdog, with lawyers arguing that the Metropolitan Police and CPS “failed inexcusably in their respective responsibilities, seriously undermined the exercise of free speech and exposed Ms Hussain to irreparable harm”.
