TRIGGERnometry - Racism and the Diversity Agenda

00:00:00.000 welcome to trigonometry i'm francis foster i'm constantin kiss and this is a show for you if

00:00:12.080 you're bored of people arguing on the internet over subjects they know nothing about at trigonometry

00:00:17.200 we don't pretend to be the experts we ask the experts our fantastic expert guest this week

00:00:22.760 is the former deputy mayor of london for education and culture who now works in the arts

00:00:27.340 Muneer Merza, welcome to Trigonometry.

00:00:29.180 Hi.

00:00:29.480 He's a journalist and a researcher at Sheffield University.

00:00:32.680 Remy Adekoyer, welcome to Trigonometry.

00:00:34.720 Thanks for having me.

00:00:35.520 Our amazing expert guest this week is Brendan O'Neill, who's the editor of Spiked Online.

00:00:40.500 Brendan, welcome to Trigonometry.

00:00:42.060 Thank you very much.

00:00:42.900 He's an Australian economist, the CEO of Lateral Economics, and a self-styled general pontificator.

00:00:49.800 Nicholas Groen, welcome to Trigonometry.

00:00:51.160 tell us a little bit of what's happening in Australia one of the things we talk on this

00:00:59.480 show a lot about is the culture wars and all this kind of stuff where are you guys with that

00:01:03.860 well I think we were in a very good place in the 80s and 90s where we led the world in

00:01:10.400 economic policy and we had a government in fact there was a bipartisan consensus on things like

00:01:18.700 race, gender, and so on. And that broke down as you could, if you were looking to blame the Labor

00:01:27.600 Party, you would blame Paul Keating, because he was, who was the Prime Minister from 1991 to 1996,

00:01:37.440 and he was very divisive. But he was still part of the bipartisan consensus, which didn't go after

00:01:44.980 culture wars. But then on the change of baton to John Howard as Prime Minister, he famously was

00:01:51.640 very insightful in revving up what seems to have been latent in the Australian psyche, which is

00:01:58.320 that if white Rhodesian farmers were boat people floating off our coast, I'm sure we would have 1.00

00:02:05.140 wanted to save them. But if they're brown people from the Middle East or Asia, not so much. And so 1.00

00:02:11.360 we've slid into a pretty unpleasant state of affairs where, you know, where, well, we

00:02:24.120 are keeping people out. Now, of course, we have to keep people out. There are 60 million refugees 1.00

00:02:32.080 who, not all of which could come to Australia, but it's appropriate that we don't just say any

00:02:39.700 old person can come in here. But the links that we've gone to in dehumanising people is a national

00:02:48.840 shame and most people feel it. But there we are, it wins elections and neither of the major parties,

00:02:55.060 a bit like Brexit, where the elites sort of kind of appreciate it might not be the greatest policy,

00:03:02.840 they think that the people will crucify them if they move away from that policy. So we've got

00:03:07.960 something similar going on in Australia. And do you think that that policy has been brought about

00:03:13.920 because of racism or do you think it's brought about through other things as well? Like we had

00:03:19.140 one particular guest on who, you know, who was saying, you know, it's because they want to keep

00:03:24.600 the reason we voted for Brexit is because we want to keep British culture intact. Do you think that

00:03:30.240 is what is going on in Australia or do you think it's more of simply that the distrust of another

00:03:35.080 Before you answer that, sorry, Francis, that interview will come out after this one.

00:03:39.040 So Francis has given you a tasty preview of our interview with Eric Kaufman, who will

00:03:42.500 be out in a couple of weeks.

00:03:43.200 That's what I like about you.

00:03:44.180 You're just an advertising man.

00:03:45.460 That's right.

00:03:46.620 So anyway, Nicholas, go ahead.

00:03:48.100 I'm a believer in presumptive generosity.

00:03:50.360 When you're interpreting people, it makes sense to try and interpret.

00:03:55.480 You're trying to make as much sense of what they're saying and doing and the way they're

00:04:00.740 acting as possible.

00:04:01.660 And it's a perfectly legitimate thing to say that we've built a great society here, certainly better than many societies around the world, and we want to protect that.

00:04:14.760 So I don't have any people who feel anxious that too many migrants are coming in from very different cultures.

00:04:25.860 I don't feel that way, but I don't demonize that.

00:04:29.460 I don't demonize that at all.

00:04:31.100 And then there are some racists. Then there are some very small-minded, bigoted racists. But that's not the way I look at the debate in Australia or anywhere else, really.

00:04:42.020 Do you think it's cultural, essentially?

00:04:43.980 It's cultural and it's perfectly legitimate to say we say, as the Japanese say, we are proud of our culture and it's not compatible with too many people coming in here because then it'll be a different culture. 1.00

00:04:57.580 I think people underestimate that.

00:04:59.380 They underestimate the extent to which a culture can remain, can protect the best parts of it and then become more exciting.

00:05:07.140 We have a commentator in Australia called Philip Adams who I think his line is that we invited a lot of European migrants into Australia and found that it was so much fun we wanted more.

00:05:20.180 So that's my attitude to immigration.

00:05:22.820 But, you know, I'm not an open-door policy person either.

00:05:28.440 I'm in favour of a vigorous and expansive immigration program for Australia.

00:05:33.040 And I respect people who want to, I don't hold up the cross and say you're a racist if people feel differently.

00:05:41.860 So your concern is how those refugees are treated, essentially?

00:05:45.180 Well, I don't want to, one of my concerns is self-righteousness.

00:05:49.080 So it's very important for me not to be self-righteous about this because I'm a privileged person who's going to say to a desperate person, sorry, you're not coming. 0.94

00:05:58.520 And whether I draw that line at $200,000, $300,000, $400,000, a million a year, and at the moment it's something like $200,000 a year, I'm going to be just as much of a bastard as anyone else. 0.93

00:06:13.620 So let's get off our high horses. Let's try and make ourselves as comfortable as we can be 0.96

00:06:19.580 with a policy, whatever policy we come up with, and we will be making heartless and cruel decisions.

00:06:29.220 Nevertheless, let's make them as, let's minimise that and let's feel as good as we can about it.

00:06:36.620 and locking up little kids on islands off Australia

00:06:42.400 without any judicial review, there's nothing good about that.

00:06:46.120 It doesn't make people feel good.

00:06:48.180 I mean, numerous people have died who needed medical attention

00:06:52.800 and didn't get it.

00:06:54.640 I raised $10,000 for refugees at a party about a month ago

00:07:01.040 and a great writer of ours, Christos Solkis,

00:07:04.100 read the names of those people.

00:07:05.780 So I feel very strongly about this. I don't feel self-righteous about it.

00:07:10.200 And there's a big difference.

00:07:11.660 My father was a refugee, so that's another reason I feel strongly about it.

00:07:15.380 So do you think the Australian government, I think you've just intimated,

00:07:18.420 is unnecessarily cruel in their treatment of refugees?

00:07:20.780 Totally. Well, what would you do?

00:07:22.240 If you have my view or anybody else's view,

00:07:24.560 and you know that there's a kid on Manus Island who's self-harming,

00:07:28.580 who has pneumonia, who needs medical attention,

00:07:32.500 and you say, oh, well, they might be pulling our leg,

00:07:37.740 they might be pulling a stunt.

00:07:38.980 They probably are pulling a stunt, OK?

00:07:41.320 But they need medical attention

00:07:43.600 and we should be giving them medical attention and we're not.

00:07:47.460 Whenever I watch an Australian comedian at a comedy club,

00:07:50.580 the first joke they make is about Australia being a racist society

00:07:54.320 and it always gets a big laugh and everybody claps and cheers.

00:07:57.920 Is that true?

00:07:59.280 Or would you say that...

00:08:00.700 Well, we're all racist, so...

00:08:02.160 Well, of course we're all racist. I mean, you know, these tests on basketball umpires,

00:08:09.160 you know, I have a friend, I just had, I just had a cup of tea with a friend who,

00:08:15.740 he's a Dutchman and he organized, he was instrumental in organizing an experiment on

00:08:23.160 buses where people got onto a bus and said to the bus driver, I'm really sorry, I don't have

00:08:28.860 any money. I just need to get to the next stop. Would you mind me riding to the next stop?

00:08:33.520 Now, these numbers are made up, but they're indicative. So just assume they're right for

00:08:37.420 the purposes. The 71 or 2% of people had yes said to them. Sorry, about 65%. But if you were white, 0.66

00:08:48.820 it was much higher. If you were black, it was lower. And those bus drivers, I don't think they 1.00

00:08:53.620 were black hating racists but so let's let's relax about these things let's get let's not 0.92

00:09:01.400 get too much on our high horses. 0.97

00:09:07.560 Theresa May announced when she became Prime Minister that she was going to tackle burning

00:09:10.880 injustices in society and one of the announcements she made was that the government would run

00:09:17.320 something called a racial disparities audit so it would look at how different ethnic groups

00:09:21.760 fair in British society, in the public services, so the NHS, in health, in education, but also in

00:09:28.080 areas like employment and other kinds of discrimination, policing, criminal justice

00:09:35.260 system, and so on. And the report was published last year, or a website was launched that showed

00:09:42.400 these statistics. And interestingly, the audit revealed that the picture is very complex. It's

00:09:49.920 not clear-cut that white people always do better and ethnic minorities always do worse. In fact,

00:09:55.000 there are some areas where ethnic minorities are doing really well. So, if you look at the NHS,

00:09:59.000 for instance, about a third of doctors in the NHS are BME, the non-white, or a third of senior

00:10:05.240 consultants in the NHS are non-white. So, there are some areas where actually there's a real 0.91

00:10:09.120 success story, there's something to celebrate. But when the audit was published, all the emphasis

00:10:13.860 from government and from the media was on the negatives, where ethnic minorities are not doing

00:10:17.680 well. And it perpetuated what I thought was a very negative, inaccurate picture, really,

00:10:24.680 of British society. It reinforces this idea that ethnic minorities are being systematically

00:10:30.160 oppressed, that there's a kind of institutional problem. When in fact, what we've seen in the

00:10:35.680 last 20 years is a kind of liberalisation and opening up for many people. And my worry has

00:10:41.800 always been that when you tell that negative story, it skews policy. It means that people

00:10:47.480 make bad policy decisions because they think they're trying to correct something that's actually

00:10:50.260 working quite well but it also reinforces for a lot of younger people this idea that they can't

00:10:55.900 succeed and that I think can have quite a big material impact it can mean that they're not

00:11:00.900 motivated to go out apply to university go and be ambitious seek good jobs because they'll think

00:11:07.140 that they've always got a kind of white racist decision maker who's holding them back and I

00:11:14.060 I think that can create a lot of tension and division in this society.

00:11:16.800 If you're constantly telling people from ethnic backgrounds that this society is against you,

00:11:23.700 that's not going to be great for engendering harmonious social relations.

00:11:27.540 You know, they're going to be resentful.

00:11:28.860 You've made the point even further, actually, that, for example,

00:11:32.840 a black defendant who's suspicious about his lawyer is more likely to make a bad decision,

00:11:38.980 for example, to plead innocent when, in fact, they should plead guilty.

00:11:42.560 And as a result of that, you end up with young black men getting harsher sentences because they don't trust the system and they don't do what they ought to do kind of in a percentage play situation. 0.96

00:11:54.940 Yeah. The criminal justice system report, which was authored by or led by David Lammy, MP, showed that there was this disparity.

00:12:04.120 I mean, in many other areas, many other parts of the criminal justice system, the disparity between ethnic groups can be explained by a number of different factors.

00:12:13.020 The fact that there are proportionally a higher number of black men in the criminal justice system is, you know, there are reasons for that. 1.00

00:12:22.360 You know, the higher proportions of arrests, you know, you can go into the detail of that.

00:12:29.600 There was one disparity which was interesting in that report, which is why is it that black men are more likely to receive harsh sentencing?

00:12:36.460 And they found, interestingly, as you say, that they were not pleading guilty because they didn't trust the advice of their solicitors and they didn't trust the system.

00:12:45.760 and that's I would argue is partly a result of not completely but it's partly a result of

00:12:51.920 their fear that the system is going to be prejudiced against them so it has this really

00:12:56.280 counterproductive effect it's you know damaging to their life chances really and the same things

00:13:01.740 happened in other areas like mental health for instance where we know that there's been a huge

00:13:06.120 amount of debate and discussion about whether the institutional there's institutional racism in the

00:13:09.680 mental health system because a higher proportion of ethnic minorities are likely to appear in the

00:13:14.760 system and to be detained, forcibly detained, which is obviously worrying when you look at the

00:13:19.440 statistics and think, well, why is it? You know, are they more likely to have mental illness? Yes,

00:13:23.240 they are actually. You know, there's lots of good research to show that they're, for all sorts of

00:13:26.760 reasons, they have higher risk factors. But also what researchers have found is that a lot of people

00:13:32.660 from ethnic groups are worried about how the system is going to treat them. So they don't 0.99

00:13:37.080 report until it's almost too late, until their condition has worsened to a point where they may

00:13:42.800 end up being violent to themselves or other people. And at that point, they need to be

00:13:46.340 forcibly detained. At that point, the police get involved. And the system has to react

00:13:51.660 differently to you. So the thing that frustrates me is that people use these statistics almost

00:13:57.220 with a political agenda to try and prove a point about systematic racism. But the effects

00:14:01.920 of that is even more damaging. And if we were more honest, if we were looking at the statistics

00:14:06.560 more dispassionately, you would see that it's just a really complex picture. And I think

00:14:11.960 ethnic minorities are, you know, the ones who suffer the most often, you know, because no one's 1.00

00:14:16.200 really thinking about their interests as, you know, as individuals in the system. They're just

00:14:19.660 thinking, how can we make a political point? How can we show that we're virtuous? You know, I think

00:14:23.740 in the case of the government, I think the government was trying very hard to show that it

00:14:26.980 wasn't the nasty party anymore and that, you know, they care about these vulnerable groups.

00:14:31.420 But in doing that, they, you know, they have perpetuated a lot of these perceptions and this

00:14:37.280 very negative story. Francis, can you say something really loud to mask?

00:14:41.400 I was going to say, this is going to... 0.99

00:14:42.500 There's a fucking helicopter that's just decided. 0.99

00:14:44.080 I can see it on the side. 0.99

00:14:46.300 See, we keep telling you, Trigonometry,

00:14:48.440 that no one wants us to be having these conversations. 0.99

00:14:51.220 There's a fucking helicopter hovering above us. 0.98

00:14:54.540 By the way, we forgot to explain at the beginning of the interview 0.99

00:14:56.680 that we're on location, as we told you last week,

00:14:59.980 and one of our big fans is...

00:15:02.360 Is it quite literally just above us?

00:15:03.860 Yeah, there's a helicopter hovering above us,

00:15:05.620 just recording everything and reporting us to the police for a hate crime.

00:15:09.140 There we are.

00:15:10.000 Yeah.

00:15:10.880 I think we're going to have to make a run for it.

00:15:12.520 Yeah, we are actually going to have to leave.

00:15:15.740 And as the white man, I am going to get off Scott Freese.

00:15:20.320 See you all later, guys. Bye-bye.

00:15:22.800 Typical.

00:15:23.680 Typical, exactly.

00:15:24.460 But there's one thing that we didn't cover.

00:15:26.120 When we look at these stats, and I, as a former teacher,

00:15:28.280 I do find it incredibly interesting,

00:15:30.320 is white working-class boys are always at the bottom 0.78

00:15:35.320 when it comes to stats.

00:15:36.580 And I sometimes think that if it had been working-class,

00:15:39.400 black boys working class asian boys there'd be a massive outcry about it rightly so but because 1.00

00:15:43.840 it's working class white boys we tend just to shrug our shoulders and go oh well what can you

00:15:48.840 do let's crack on and they do tend to be forgotten almost yeah i think i think that has changed

00:15:54.980 actually i mean in the last few years there's been more awareness of the fact that uh it's not just

00:16:00.380 it's not just a racial thing yeah and and what we don't want to get into is this idea that somehow

00:16:04.940 white working class boys are being failed because of their whiteness either you know there are 0.99

00:16:08.900 problems with our education system i actually i think what's happening is that a lot of

00:16:12.720 immigrant families are correcting and are intervening and are uh you know getting their

00:16:18.020 kids to go to private tutors to correct for faults in the system and um you know it's not unusual if

00:16:24.440 you're going you know if you're driving around south london um you will see in shop windows

00:16:28.520 adverts for maths and english tuition um for immigrant groups you know there are saturday

00:16:33.160 schools there's a very strong culture of supplementary schools in the afro-caribbean

00:16:36.140 community for instance these are all to try and correct for what they perceive to be

00:16:39.720 problems in the education system and that hasn't been the case for a lot of white working class

00:16:44.760 communities um but yeah you know we have to i think we should focus our education system on

00:16:51.180 you know supporting the people who are struggling whatever their ethnic background and for too long

00:16:56.040 we've racialized a lot of these problems this is the point where it is like what france's question

00:17:01.620 reveals and your answer is that we we think in terms of race all the time now and this way of

00:17:06.860 thinking encourages white people to think about well well if you're talking about these ethnic 0.51

00:17:11.000 minorities what about us we are victimized in this area or that area and it's just like and even if

00:17:15.700 you don't agree with it as i don't like i was driving home the other day and there was a girl 0.77

00:17:19.800 waiting to cross the road and it was like one of those choice situations i could have driven or i

00:17:24.020 could have let her pass and i swear to god i looked at her and she was black and i went oh she's black 1.00

00:17:28.260 i gotta let her through you know this is how we start to think and it's crazy isn't it this is

00:17:33.520 absolutely mental that we've we've been encouraged to think in this way well done for not being racist

00:17:37.800 even laughing about it um yeah i think people change their behavior and um they're on guard

00:17:48.220 there's a sort of sensitivity about it and in a way the the the end result is that you end up

00:17:54.780 treating people differently because they're race and they know it so um i remember um i think i

00:18:00.000 may have said it even at the battle of ideas session that i was at that um there was one

00:18:03.420 writer um i won't name her she wrote a blog um who complained that white people would come up to her 0.99

00:18:10.780 and say how articulate she was and she felt that this was an insult because really they weren't

00:18:15.340 expecting her to be articulate because she's a black female and i thought you know even when 0.95

00:18:19.040 when compliments are treated as some kind of, you know, expression of racism, you know,

00:18:25.160 there's literally nothing you can do, everything you say. And it could be that they just thought

00:18:29.440 she genuinely was articulate and they were congratulating her for it. But people then

00:18:33.580 become very defensive and afraid. I remember reading a report a long time ago. It was,

00:18:40.080 I think it was in the, it was a report of the Met Police. It wasn't about 10 years ago.

00:18:45.360 And they noted that black police officers were more likely to be formally disciplined than white police officers in the Met.

00:18:53.180 And there was a discussion in the paper about, you know, what was the driver behind this?

00:18:58.360 And it turns out one of the reasons was because their superiors were so worried about having informal conversations with them about problems that they felt they had to go through the formal means.

00:19:06.680 And that's what happens.

00:19:07.740 We don't trust our instincts.

00:19:09.600 We don't trust how people will perceive.

00:19:12.000 We don't think that they will give us the benefit of the doubt.

00:19:13.740 So we do everything in a much more formally regulated way.

00:19:17.480 So in the workplace, people are afraid of interacting with their colleagues in a particular way.

00:19:22.840 You know, a word said incorrectly or a slightly insensitive remark, you know, where do you come from?

00:19:29.160 That kind of thing is now regarded as racism could get you disciplined.

00:19:33.640 You could end up in a racial grievance situation.

00:19:36.060 You know, the workplace is, you know, essentially it's still a workplace.

00:19:39.000 You know, you have a boss. They have the power to sack you. 0.94

00:19:41.500 So the kind of informal social relationships that you need to be healthy in order for a civic society to be strong are being weakened by, you know, people's, you know, kind of desperation to jump onto anything as being potentially offensive.

00:19:55.460 you wrote an article for quillette which i think got a lot of people's attention including ours

00:20:05.740 and for anyone who hasn't read it we'll put it in in the in the youtube below but tell us a little

00:20:11.080 bit about what was the kind of the just the crux of your article for anyone who hasn't seen it

00:20:14.940 well the crux of the article was essentially was based on a conversation essentially i had with a

00:20:19.540 friend of mine, a black friend of mine, and it was about how we discuss race, when I say

00:20:25.740 we, I mean black people, in public and in private, and how there's a big difference

00:20:31.020 usually.

00:20:32.200 And there are calculations which are made regarding what we should say in public and

00:20:37.960 what we shouldn't say in public.

00:20:39.800 These calculations are essentially based on how many black people view our interests.

00:20:47.960 So essentially, I'd say maybe on self-preservative instincts, like I wrote in the article about how, OK, I was talking to this friend of mine and he was complaining about a black friend of his at the workplace who sort of, you know, plays the race card anytime there's a difficult situation with a white person.

00:21:04.300 Yeah. The friend is like a friend of my friend is like, oh, you know, bring out the race card and most likely 99 percent of the time a white person will back down.

00:21:14.460 So my friend told me, oh, he finds this disgusting, doesn't like it, this is completely wrong,

00:21:19.640 et cetera.

00:21:20.240 And in this conversation we're having, I said, yeah, exactly.

00:21:23.460 So that's why we have to start criticizing this, you know, black identitarians and people 1.00

00:21:28.000 sort of, you know, trying to essentially leverage some of the horrors which our ancestors went

00:21:35.900 through for some form of advantage today.

00:21:40.020 OK.

00:21:41.120 And then my friend said, well, actually, I don't agree with you on that, you know.

00:21:46.620 And I'm like, you know, why?

00:21:47.520 But you just said now that you don't like people leveraging race like this.

00:21:53.220 And he says, yeah, but actually, if you look at the big picture, you'll find out that, look, he says, look, let's think about it.

00:21:59.000 How many of us black people are there here in the U.K.?

00:22:01.220 OK, about 5 percent of the population.

00:22:03.680 Do we have a lot of economic and political power?

00:22:06.420 No, we don't.

00:22:07.440 OK, that's the reality.

00:22:09.380 Now, what is actually preventing the white population, about 87 percent, who control almost all the political and economic power, from actually dominating us overtly, my friend asks me.

00:22:20.360 The only thing that's stopping them from doing that is the fear of being called racist, yeah, is political correctness, is the restraint which has been placed on them by society regarding how they should talk to minorities, yeah?

00:22:33.740 And he says that's the only saving grace we actually have.

00:22:36.460 And he says, take that away, and what do we have?

00:22:38.760 Take that away and we could have a situation like we had in the 70s and the 80s, OK, where people on the road are, you know, using the N-word freely.

00:22:45.960 And don't feel afraid to do that because there's, you know, no social ostracism, no social consequences from doing that.

00:22:52.580 So they're going to—people are going to be doing it.

00:22:54.500 And he's like, what was interesting here, my friend, who is a very intelligent guy, very successful banker in a city in London,

00:23:01.000 I said it's not because, you know, white people are evil or something like that, but he said that's simply human nature.

00:23:05.760 If you put people in a position of dominance over another group of people and they're not Czechs, OK, they are going to abuse that position. 1.00

00:23:15.180 So his argument is essentially that you need white guilt to protect minorities.

00:23:20.100 Yes, that without white guilt, we'd be in a much more difficult situation here.

00:23:25.300 And essentially, you know, white people sort of wouldn't have any restraints towards, you know, talking to us anyhow or using exploiting that advantage, which they do have over us in numbers, in political power, in economic power, etc. 0.64

00:23:37.920 He's like, you know, that's the only restraint.

00:23:40.020 So he sees that as a sort of necessary evil.

00:23:43.340 He's like, I don't like it aesthetically, morally.

00:23:47.040 I don't really like it, but I think we need it, you know, in order to protect ourselves

00:23:51.820 because it's all we've got.

00:23:52.880 If we let go of that, if we black people start criticizing identity politics, black

00:23:58.180 identitarians, then, and mainstream white society says, well, you know, since it seems

00:24:02.820 that even black people don't agree with these identitarians, then, you know, maybe why bother 0.89

00:24:06.840 with this whole, you know, political correctness thing?

00:24:08.920 And he's like, looking at that in the long term, it's actually going to be bad for us.

00:24:13.180 And what do you make of that argument, sorry, Francis? 0.93

00:24:15.280 Look, that argument, I'd be lying if I told you at that argument, I was like, oh, that's rubbish.

00:24:22.200 It's an argument which made me think.

00:24:24.320 I actually, you know, started imagining certain scenarios.

00:24:27.700 I started actually thinking, OK, fine.

00:24:29.440 What if tomorrow now, you know, political correctness was simply, you know, dubbed unnecessary by mainstream white society? 0.99

00:24:37.220 Because there's obviously already a segment of society which says it's rubbish.

00:24:40.000 But I'm talking of mainstream majority, 60, 70 percent of the people. 0.98

00:24:43.480 What if they actually said political correctness is rubbish? Actually, we should be able to say anything we like, more or less, to black people, etc. Would that be a more pleasant environment for me to live in, being a minority here in numbers? I can't imagine it being, yeah, if that were to be the case, if it were to go in that direction that people would want to exploit that advantage. 0.97

00:25:07.020 So, like I said, I couldn't—I definitely didn't, you know, think what my friend was saying was rubbish, but I thought about it.

00:25:14.520 And the thing is, you know, maybe it's—I don't know, maybe it's naive or something, but based on my experiences with—especially people here in the U.K., because I've had different experiences also in Poland, that's a different kettle of fish.

00:25:27.860 But based on my experience with people here in the UK, I do believe fundamentally that a majority of the white population here does not have racist instincts and would not exploit to their advantage, yeah, if, you know, the whole race thing and the numbers advantage they have and the political advantage they have, if, say, political correctness theoretically was to disappear.

00:25:52.420 That's what I believe, that there's a fundamental decency in most people who live here.

00:25:57.200 I believe that 200%, 300%, based on experiences which I've had, based on experiences—I'm married to a Nigerian wife.

00:26:04.000 My wife is 100% Nigerian.

00:26:05.640 She's actually lived in the U.K. a bit longer than me, counting on the intervals and all that.

00:26:10.080 And based on her experience also, you know, based on things we talk about, based on experiences of some other people, when we actually sit down and talk—because, you know, sometimes black people may complain about racism here.

00:26:22.120 But, you know, when we sit down, when I say we, when we black people sit down in the room, you know, and I'm like, yeah, but guys, come on.

00:26:27.860 You know, these people really, they're not that bad.

00:26:29.820 They're actually pretty tolerant.

00:26:31.480 You know, they're actually pretty tolerant.

00:26:34.220 They're like, yeah, yeah, of course we know, you know.

00:26:36.860 But, you know, we can't, we shouldn't sort of say that out.

00:26:41.020 we sort of have to keep up that moral pressure, yeah, just to make sure they don't one day taken

00:26:45.760 into their heads to start exploiting those advantages of us and treating us the way they

00:26:50.340 used to treat us 20, 30 years ago. So it's not like people don't know this. It's not like a lot

00:26:54.800 of people who might even, you know, retweet black identitarians, you know, for lack of a better term,

00:27:00.260 post on Twitter saying, maybe not the most radical ones, but let's just say something

00:27:05.460 sort of insinuating that there's a lot of racism in the UK. It's not like every black person who 0.98

00:27:10.440 retweets that, actually really believes it's that bad. OK. But it's just part of, you know, 0.87

00:27:15.880 keeping up this pressure and part of, you know, trying to sort of protect ourselves from this

00:27:21.820 white power, which a lot of people actually fear, you know. And as I argued in the piece,

00:27:28.720 there's historical reasons, of course, for that fear. But doesn't the rise of something of someone

00:27:34.220 like Trump in the U.S. mean that their fears are actually well-founded, because although

00:27:40.380 obviously I'm not black, I'm half Latin American, and when Trump came out and did this speech 0.94

00:27:45.080 and talked about Mexicans and illegal immigrants, some of them are rapists, immediately I had 1.00

00:27:53.320 a sinking sensation inside, and if I went to the U.S. in certain areas, I wouldn't feel 0.97

00:27:58.820 comfortable speaking Spanish, which is my second language.

00:28:02.400 Of course—and, you know, there's no pretending, and it would be silly to pretend here that

00:28:07.220 there's, you know, no such thing as racism, or it's a very, you know, marginal thing

00:28:11.200 which, you know, only 5 percent of the white population, you know, subscribe to and all

00:28:16.320 that.

00:28:17.320 No, that's not the way it is, it's something which is very real and exists among more than

00:28:23.160 5 or 10 percent of the white population in standard, let's say, Western society.

00:28:28.960 So, of course, that exists.

00:28:30.540 And Trump, paradoxically, has only strengthened, you know, identity politics among minority,

00:28:38.560 minority sort of intellectuals, because they're like, see, we told you guys.

00:28:43.180 You guys were saying these white people, you know, that they're not that racist,

00:28:46.600 they're not that bad, et cetera, et cetera.

00:28:48.480 Now, do you see?

00:28:49.420 Look who they voted for.

00:28:50.660 They voted for a guy who said all the things he said. 0.83

00:28:53.760 So even the black people before—I focus here on black people.

00:28:57.180 That's the community I know, obviously the other minority groups.

00:29:00.540 Even the black people before, who were sort of neutral or didn't buy into those narratives

00:29:06.000 that, oh, essentially every second white person is racist, you know, sort of now feel sometimes 0.75

00:29:12.560 a little bit silly, thinking, ah, actually, I was naive, yeah? 0.99

00:29:15.960 It seems these white folk are actually pretty racist. 0.99

00:29:18.340 I mean, they did vote for this Trump guy who said all those things. 0.95

00:29:21.600 So, you know, maybe I was the one who was naive and not these identity politics guys, yeah?

00:29:26.220 Maybe they were the ones who were right, yeah?

00:29:27.900 And there are some others who say, yeah, well, of course, you know, Trump doesn't represent all white people, etc., etc.

00:29:34.060 But since there is such a political force right now, we definitely need to stand on the side of our people, OK, and defend our people who are being attacked by this kind of politics.

00:29:46.780 So even if we don't agree 90 or much less 100 percent with the black identitarians, we definitely need to hold the line with them because, you know, these are the guys fighting for us.

00:29:57.580 Definitely Trump is not fighting for us.

00:29:59.280 And the people who support Trump are definitely not fighting for us.

00:30:02.160 OK, so it's sort of it's bad for people like me.

00:30:06.660 Bad is a strong word.

00:30:08.420 It's difficult for people like me because now there's a line drawn.

00:30:11.160 Yeah. So you say, you know, are you with them or are you with us?

00:30:14.100 okay are you with the trump folk who are saying the things they're saying or are you with us

00:30:19.400 who are trying to you know sort of resist the trump folk you know so it's um it's tricky right

00:30:26.400 now you you just wrote a recently a column about how uh white guilt is essentially become a perverse

00:30:39.460 way of signaling your virtue and it's become almost white pride in a way could you that sounds

00:30:44.680 very counterintuitive what do you mean by that yeah it's all these people who who are constantly

00:30:48.900 checking their white privilege and um you know they go online they go on twitter they go on

00:30:54.880 facebook or they write articles and they say i'm white um i have to recognize i'm a very privileged

00:31:01.180 person i shouldn't speak over black people i shouldn't speak over women and so on um and i've

00:31:07.140 I've been watching this go on for a few years now and I was thinking it's really strange

00:31:09.680 because it looks shameful, you know, they're very shamed of being white, they're very shamed

00:31:14.080 of what they call white history and colonialism and empire and everything else, so they express 0.76

00:31:18.040 this great shame, but they do it in such a showy, narcissistic, ostentatious way, like

00:31:24.100 look at me, I'm so ashamed.

00:31:26.420 And what you realise is that actually there's a real boastfulness to this checking of your

00:31:30.340 white privilege and they're really making a public display of it.

00:31:33.140 So I think what's going on here is that this expression of white shame or this expression

00:31:37.660 of white guilt has really become a new form of white pride, because in essence, what they're

00:31:42.340 saying is we are good white people.

00:31:45.660 We're very socially and politically aware.

00:31:47.840 We're switched on.

00:31:48.900 We're sensitive to the crimes of history.

00:31:51.280 We're sensitive to the needs and interests of black people. 0.93

00:31:56.720 We're good whites, not like those other whites, the uneducated ones, the uncouth ones, the 1.00

00:32:01.320 ones who didn't go to Oxford University, the ones who don't read The Guardian, the ones who don't 0.99

00:32:04.820 use Twitter, they're the bad whites. So what you see is they're creating almost this new white 1.00

00:32:10.480 nationalism, ironically, where they are demonstrating their decent whiteness in contrast, 0.94

00:32:16.680 largely, to bad white people. So it's a very racially driven form of narcissism, I think,

00:32:22.960 this checking of your white privilege. So not only does it demean bad whites, I think implicitly 0.88

00:32:28.480 demeans bad whites it also demeans black people because it's driven by this idea that black people 0.98

00:32:34.460 are quite fragile uh and therefore there are certain things you shouldn't say in their presence 0.98

00:32:38.580 or there are certain things that we maybe shouldn't publish or there are certain speakers

00:32:41.800 we shouldn't invite to campus because black people would disappear into a crisis of self-esteem 1.00

00:32:46.660 which i think is also a very racially driven denigrated view of black people so i think this 0.84

00:32:53.220 idea that whiteness is this all-powerful thing and it can even induce trauma in people because 0.92

00:32:59.320 you know whiteness is this powerful force actually what that says is that white people are very strong 0.96

00:33:04.620 and black people who might crumble if you say something racist or might crumble if you invite 0.86

00:33:10.480 Tommy Robinson to your campus are very weak so it actually rehabilitates this politically correct 0.91

00:33:15.940 um white guilt which is now incredibly fashionable actually recreates the idea that 0.78

00:33:22.360 whites are the adults with great power to cause distress, and blacks are the children who might 1.00

00:33:29.060 sometimes need censorship and other things to protect them from offensive ideas. I find it 0.98

00:33:32.780 really repugnant. And that's one of the examples of how identity politics, when you think hyper

00:33:39.660 racially all the time, you end up rehabilitating racial stereotypes. In this case, that whites are 0.64

00:33:45.960 all powerful and blacks are weak. And that's where this identity politics is taking us. It's 0.99

00:33:51.640 taken us down a very dark alley towards the old racist politics that so many of us spent a lot

00:33:56.880 of time trying to escape or to defeat. So what do you make of the concept of white privilege in

00:34:02.060 general then? I think it's bullshit. I think it expresses a very infantile way of understanding 1.00

00:34:09.860 society and the dynamics within society. Do I think there's racism? Of course. But I also think

00:34:17.520 racism is far rarer now than it was in the past. I think it's become this minority pursuit among

00:34:23.860 pockets of people, whereas in the past, and even I'm old enough to remember this, it was a fairly

00:34:28.700 dominant ideology in Western societies. I think that's faded away, and that's all to the good.

00:34:37.220 But racism, yes, racism still exists. But the white privilege isn't about racism. Sorry to

00:34:41.280 interrupt. It's not about racism. It's the idea that you and I walking down the street will be

00:34:45.500 treated differently to two black people walking down the street by other people by shop assistants

00:34:49.900 by the police by whatever that's the idea of white privilege yeah but that's not necessarily

00:34:54.220 true but the reason i think it's a it's a very narrow way to understand society is because i

00:34:58.500 think a far greater um influence on people's fortunes is class and that's how i think is a

00:35:06.700 far better way to understand society so the idea that you know people say privileged white men

00:35:11.080 privileged white this, privileged white that, the vast majority of white people don't enjoy

00:35:17.060 any form of privilege and are actually quite poor or working class, the majority of them.

00:35:22.980 And the idea of white privilege is actually one that comes from the very privileged strata of

00:35:29.640 society, which is academia and professors and all these kind of young people brought up in very

00:35:35.220 middle-class homes who go off to university and come up with these theories about white privilege. 0.97

00:35:38.540 so it's this very bizarre twisted ridiculous idea that um you know these um like those black kids 1.00

00:35:47.860 at oxford who are all there on roads scholarships so they come from incredibly privileged backgrounds 0.92

00:35:53.240 and they're on road scholarships at oxford the finest university in the world and they spend

00:35:57.160 the whole time going on about how privileged white people are what including the the polish 1.00

00:36:01.060 white man who who built the extension to your house or i don't know the the turkish white man

00:36:08.520 who cleans your toilet what are we talking about here there's a real uh unwillingness to understand

00:36:15.980 the complexities of modern society and the fact that in my view class remains the uh deciding

00:36:22.920 factor as to your fortunes and where you go and how successful you can be um you know this was

00:36:28.780 really brought home by there's a trans there's a black trans woman called monroe burgdorf and she 1.00

00:36:34.820 gave an interview to the guardian recently because she got in trouble because she said all white

00:36:38.140 people are racist and she gave an interview to the guardian and she was explaining her concept

00:36:42.580 of white privilege and she said even a homeless white man has privilege and the justification 0.95

00:36:48.140 she gave was that in comparison with a homeless black man he's got more chance of getting out

00:36:53.840 and she didn't provide any statistics for that or anything like that but the point is she came she

00:36:57.840 comes from an incredibly privileged background her mother was very successful in business she had a

00:37:02.660 lovely upbringing she now has a very lovely life and she is telling the man who lives under a bridge

00:37:07.800 and is addicted to heroin and might starve to death any moment now,

00:37:11.580 that he enjoys privilege. 0.99

00:37:13.240 That's how screwed up identity politics has become.

00:37:15.960 And I think identity politics increasingly looks like the revenge of the elite.

00:37:21.480 And it's a way for them to fly in the face of all the evidence

00:37:27.680 and to argue that they are the victim.

00:37:30.180 They are the great victims of life because the white man who's living in a skip 0.99

00:37:35.300 has more privilege than they do.

00:37:37.800 It's utterly surreal. I don't think it's sustainable.

00:37:41.000 And I think it's a very, again, it's a very poisonous argument

00:37:43.380 because it divides society along racial lines,

00:37:46.220 when in fact I think the key divide in society

00:37:48.100 is still on matters of wealth and class.

00:37:53.040 That's very, very interesting how you pointed that out.

00:37:55.780 To me, I think that identity politics is actually one of the greatest dangers

00:38:00.320 to freedom of speech in that people aren't willing to engage in debate

00:38:03.800 because what people now do is they don't...

00:38:06.580 You put forward that argument, but I know that there's a counter-argument to that,

00:38:10.320 which would just be, well, as a white man, you're not entitled to those views or opinions

00:38:14.880 simply because you've never experienced the struggle in inverted commas

00:38:18.840 and therefore completely denigrating your argument instead of actually engaging with the argument

00:38:23.480 and putting forward a counter-point of view, which is entirely reasonable.

00:38:27.920 It's simply to attack the person speaking.

00:38:30.440 and the moment you do that i've i think that all semblance of discussion and freedom of speech it

00:38:36.720 just goes out the window it's dead yeah it's terrible because people's ideas and views are

00:38:41.100 judged on the basis of their skin color and or their genitals or whatever it might be rather

00:38:46.760 than on what they're actually saying which runs counter to every democratic liberal ideal which

00:38:54.340 is that you should hear people out have the discussion have an open discussion and then

00:38:57.700 work out as a society what's good and what's bad and where we should go and so on so it runs i

00:39:03.080 completely agree it's completely destructive of freedom of speech and open debate um and what it

00:39:09.220 does it really causes people to clam up so people feel that there are certain things they shouldn't

00:39:13.340 say in public or and lots of when i go to campuses and so on there's often white men who just are

00:39:19.100 really unsure about whether they should say something in this meeting or they should just

00:39:22.140 sit there and it was really brought home there was some demonstration in the u.s a year or so

00:39:27.240 ago and there was this white man on it holding up a placard saying i was going to write a placard

00:39:31.880 but i thought it was we've heard enough from white men so i won't and that was his placard 0.97

00:39:35.820 which is which i thought well apart from anything else it's still a fucking placard yeah it's still 1.00

00:39:41.500 a placard so he's an idiot but it was a very good it was a very good example of how narcissistic 0.99

00:39:45.880 this checking of white privilege is because he was really saying i'm i'm a i'm the best white 1.00

00:39:49.940 person in the world that's what he was really saying um but it's that thing of people close

00:39:54.460 down and clam up they're not sure what they can say and so it gives rise to one of the great

00:39:59.080 scourges of our time I think which is self-censorship and that uncertainty and that well can I say this

00:40:04.920 I've got white skin I was born male am I allowed to say this or should I not say it and you think

00:40:10.520 what a destructive situation that is for us to find ourselves in I think it also the other side

00:40:17.000 of it it's not only that it is destructive for freedom of speech it also really whips up this

00:40:21.360 victim politics because you have this competitive victimhood now where everyone is trying to

00:40:25.900 demonstrate that they are a greater victim than someone else because being a victim is now the

00:40:31.020 way in which you win social praise even in some cases government funding you know that's the

00:40:37.740 basis on which lots of community groups win government funding is through saying we have

00:40:41.200 all these various problems it's the way in which you win moral authority through being a victim

00:40:46.220 whereas in the past you might have won moral authority by demonstrating your autonomy and

00:40:49.940 your adulthood and the fact that you were capable of governing your own life now in a complete flip

00:40:54.560 reversal you win moral authority in 21st century britain by showing your wounds i'm a victim i've

00:41:00.560 had a really crap life so what that does it encourages people to constantly exaggerate and

00:41:06.460 blow out of proportion the problems they faced you know and so i think there's a lot of myth 0.97

00:41:11.580 making among some of these identitarians about how awful their lives have been i don't buy it

00:41:15.240 for a minute because they're encouraged to do that because they need that victim um authority

00:41:19.980 and also it gives rise to this incredibly divisive competition between different groups well we're

00:41:25.960 bigger victims than you and it has this fragmentary process even within identity groups so even within

00:41:31.880 for example trans the trans community as it's called even there people will say oh but you're 0.69

00:41:37.080 a white trans person i'm a black trans person and we have it worse than you or in the gay community 1.00

00:41:42.200 people will say oh but I'm Muslim and gay that's far harder than some whatever Peter Tatchell's

00:41:47.740 ever had to face so this kind of complete breaking apart even off the identity groups themselves so

00:41:54.480 that you end up with all these tiny sectarian blocks who just are constantly fighting for that

00:42:01.160 moral high ground of victimhood so they can say well I'm the chief victim therefore I deserve the

00:42:05.360 money and I deserve the newspaper column and I deserve the sympathy so um that's really bad and

00:42:11.100 And I think it's had a really destructive impact on the new generation in particular, 0.99

00:42:14.740 because I go to campuses and speak, and I constantly meet these young people

00:42:18.440 who have really plummy, posh voices, and you can tell they had a really nice upbringing.

00:42:22.880 And they want to convince you that they suffer from structural oppression,

00:42:26.600 that they've faced abuse and hardship every day of their life,

00:42:30.840 that they are the most downtrodden community in living memory.

00:42:35.700 And you just want to shake them and say, that's not true.

00:42:38.020 But of course, what you really should do as someone who cares about the future of society,

00:42:41.100 It's check your privilege.

00:42:42.560 It's check my privilege and try and work out why they're saying this.

00:42:46.160 Why are they saying these things which are patently untrue? 0.99

00:42:48.760 And the reason they're saying them is because identity politics encourages you to see yourself as weak and pathetic. 0.64

00:42:54.640 Whereas left wing politics in particular, but also right wing liberal politics used to encourage you to see yourself as confident and capable.

00:43:04.920 And that shift is really worrying.

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TRIGGERnometry - January 13, 2019

Racism and the Diversity Agenda

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