There are increasing doubts about the character of Ruud de Wild: is this radio DJ racist or not? Critics point out that he has previously been discredited for using the N-word…
Ruud de Wild is in the middle of a huge media storm about racism. At first it all seemed a bit exaggerated — some babi-pangang documentary maker thought his lame jokes were racist — but critics say this isn’t the only incident. Are we indeed dealing with a racist man here?
“I’m not talking!”
According to Steven Brunswijk, the radio maker refused to shake hands with his brother Eric in the distant past – in 1999. Why? “I don’t talk to niggers. I don’t talk to blacks,” he allegedly said.
It causes astonishment to the outside world. “Well, I see that boy… He’s quite big. Then I would have swung him around the ears, yes,” says René van der Gijp at the table. Today Inside.
Pernicious
Johan Derksen has mixed feelings about it. “Yes, but if I were that boy… This is a very pernicious comment. If I were that boy, I would also have filed a complaint about it. Because there were people there and someone would have heard it. But he comes up with it now that Ruud is in trouble. That incident was in 1999!”
That was 27 years ago, according to Johan. “He’s coming a bit late with that, isn’t he? (…) That Brunswijk is nothing anymore, you never hear him at all anymore, so he needs some publicity, but now that our disc jockey has his back against the wall due to a few incidents, they come up with this story.”
Ruud denies
Ruud denies everything. He said in a written response: “What nonsense! I would never say something like that and I couldn’t even think of it. This is enough. This really says everything.”
VI star Wilfred Genee has his doubts. “The only thing I wonder is: why would someone like that say this? Isn’t it very strange to say this? That man must have thought about it himself and you know what the reaction would be if you were to say this so many years later. You can’t just say that, can you?”
Desperate
It can also be an act of desperation, according to Johan. “People who are desperate want to be in the picture. Then you shout something like that and you can go anywhere.”
Wilfred: “Do you really think that’s why they did it?”
Johan: “Why would they do it differently?! 27 years later! Explain!”
Wilfred: “Because it has apparently been bothering him all this time.”
Table guest Job Knoester: “If it has really been said – and of course we don’t know – then I understand that you can still be pissed about it, that you don’t forget that. I still understand that.”
N-word
According to Johan, it is important to put this in context. “Yes, but in what context was that said, right, if it was said.”
Wilfred: “Well, there’s no context for that when you say this.”
René: “No, there is no context for that. No. No.”
According to critics, a relevant context is that Ruud was already in 2020 the N-word was being used on the radio. And he was given a severe reprimand for that. For example, an angry listener said: “Darling, you should know that the N-word is taboo for white people. The charge is too intense, too big… Especially in times like these. Don’t do it again.”
