A Nigerian novelist told a white, American magazine editor that he did not get to “define what racism is” when the two got into a heated row over Donald Trump’s rhetoric during his presidential campaign.
On Friday’s BBC Newsnight programme Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie told Robert Emmett Tyrrell, editor-in-chief of The American Spectator, that racism is an “objective reality” which the president-elect has “inhabited”.
Tyrrell claimed Trump “hasn’t been racist”.
Adichie replied: “I’m sorry but... if you are a white man, you don’t get to define what racism is, you really don’t.
“You don’t get to sit there and say he hasn’t been racist when he objectively has.
“And it’s not about your opinion. Racism is an objective reality and Donald Trump has inhabited that reality.”
Tyrrell retorted: “Do you know of the false consciousness which is a theory you are talking about is a Marxist concept?
“In other words... I can’t even open my mouth here because I am a white male.”
Adichie said: “No, of course you can. I am just saying to you that Donald Trump has shown us and has said things that are objectively racist.”
When Tyrrell asked what Trump had said that is racist, Adichie replied: “If he says to us, for example, that a judge - a United States judge - is unable to judge him fairly because he is Mexican, that is racist - objectively racist.”
See the full interview below.
Adichie’s appearance on BBC Newsnight was widely-praised on social media.
Trump’s comments regarding Mexicans and Muslims have courted controversy since he launched his presidential campaign.
There has been widespread disturbance on the streets of the US after Trump received more Electoral College votes than his rival, Democrat Hillary Clinton, on Tuesday - despite Clinton receiving hundreds of thousands more popular votes.
Early on Saturday morning a protester at an anti-Trump rally in Portland was shot at.
Police in Oregon said a man was shot on Morrison Bridge and has been taken to hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.
Local media reports suggested he had been shot several times after arguing with a man who was driving a car.
Protesters have blocked roads, set fires and burned effigies of Trump in a series of demonstrations this week.