TRIGGERnometry - Starkey, Racism and Cancel Culture with Katharine Birbalsingh

00:00:00.000 Hello and welcome to Trigonometry. I'm Francis Foster. I'm Constantin Kissing.

00:00:09.160 And this is a show for you if you want honest conversations with fascinating people.

00:00:14.120 As you can see, today we're on location, a secret location, and our guest, the returning

00:00:18.800 guest for the third time today, is the headmistress of the Michaela School, Catherine Burblesing.

00:00:23.420 Welcome to Trigonometry.

00:00:24.420 Hi there. Thanks for having me.

00:00:25.740 It's great to have you here. Let me set the context very briefly for why we're having

00:00:29.340 this conversation, because we spoke to you only a couple of months ago, and it's unusual

00:00:32.720 for us to come back to the same guest, but we've talked with you about education a lot.

00:00:37.940 Today we wanted to talk about something that we never talk about in society nowadays, which

00:00:42.120 is, of course, racism. That never gets talked about at all. But the reason is this controversy

00:00:47.780 with David Starkey happened. You had some interesting thoughts about it. Francis and I have talked

00:00:51.940 about it on live streams and got a lot of hate from every side for trying to just work out

00:00:56.280 what we think about it. And you and I were having a very interesting conversation on Twitter

00:01:00.200 where you were saying that you thought that not only was this comment that David, and we'll

00:01:04.900 get into what it was, made was racist, but actually he has a history of making these comments.

00:01:09.660 And then you added to that, quite unusually, that you quite like David at the same time.

00:01:15.200 And I just think that's such a weird thing to even be able to say in modern society.

00:01:20.280 So just give us your summary of what you thought David made this comment, maybe remind everybody

00:01:25.660 what it was, what he'd said in the past, and what your take on this whole situation is.

00:01:29.360 Yeah, well, David Starkey has made many racist comments over the years. We're talking more

00:01:34.480 than a decade that I know of his racist comments, but presumably there have been others before

00:01:38.260 that. And I think actually part of the reason why he's so bold is because he's managed to

00:01:43.120 get away with these kind of comments for so many years. And as I said, I quite like David

00:01:48.860 Starkey. You know, he's a funny guy. He's so eccentric. And I've met him. And he's very

00:01:55.540 entertaining. And I know that's odd to say, because people sort of think, but if you're racist,

00:02:01.020 then you must, you know, you're the worst person in the world. You know, you're Hitler,

00:02:06.140 is how we think. And the thing about the word racism is that it really does span, you know,

00:02:12.760 people right from, you know, the little old lady who clutches her bag when a few young black boys,

00:02:17.640 you know, go by to Hitler. And then there's everything in between. And, you know, I would

00:02:24.980 even go as far as to say that everybody, you know, that Avenue Q song, you know, everyone's

00:02:30.280 a little bit racist sometimes, you know, like, I kind of say that is the case. I would say

00:02:37.620 Starkey's a step above that, though. He's not just everybody's a little bit racist. And

00:02:41.320 most recently, the things he said, I mean, I actually went through, I have a little list here

00:02:46.300 of stuff in his most recent interview with Darren Grimes that he said, I mean, the main thing was

00:02:52.760 there's so many damn blacks in Africa. You know, what on earth? I mean, it's not just the fact that

00:02:59.240 he said that, the damn blacks in Africa, but I mean, the contempt with which he says it, you can see it

00:03:05.360 on his face. Now, I know some people will say, oh, but, you know, how do you make that judgment?

00:03:10.020 Well, you know what? If he just said that one comment and that was it, then maybe you might

00:03:14.560 give him the benefit of the doubt. But this has been happening for years. I mean, and also throughout

00:03:18.340 the thing, I mean, other things he said, you know, he said, well, we think of slavery as a terrible

00:03:22.600 disease when in fact, and I thought, well, sorry, but what? Slavery is a good thing. I mean, this is what

00:03:28.380 he, you know, he says he talks about blacks and their lifestyle and their music and their dress.

00:03:33.460 I'm like, well, do I have this lifestyle? Do I listen to this music and dress like that?

00:03:38.200 I mean, I think I look rather nice, actually, in what I'm wearing. I'm certainly not pulling

00:03:42.260 my trousers down and bopping along as Starkey would seem fit to describe me.

00:03:48.080 He talks about statues.

00:03:48.460 Catherine, if you did that, this show would get a lot more views, believe you me.

00:03:52.800 We would be crushing it on YouTube.

00:03:55.680 He talks about statues and he's dismissive of statues coming down, which, you know, I don't

00:04:01.300 agree with statues coming down, but his dismissal of them, he says, well, slavery was not the

00:04:05.140 equivalent to the Holocaust. Like what? So that's why statues shouldn't come down. I mean, he's so

00:04:10.680 lazy in his intellectual thought when it comes to race. So lazy. And this is a man who's extremely

00:04:17.180 intelligent and very good with words. And when people say to me, oh, but he just slipped up in

00:04:21.500 his speech. No, David Starkey doesn't slip up. Okay. This is a man who's very eloquent and he knows

00:04:27.000 what he's saying and he's allowing himself to be lazy in these spheres because he doesn't care

00:04:32.160 and he doesn't think it's important enough to get it right. He also talks about how, well,

00:04:36.660 slavery is done now. It was, it was 200 years ago. So we don't, we don't need to discuss it now

00:04:40.580 because it's all done. Well, actually slavery was only just finished. We only just finished paying

00:04:44.240 off for it, you know, for the slavers who were paid off. We've only just in the last couple of

00:04:49.960 years finished paying, paying them. So the fact is slavery isn't done. Now I happen to be

00:04:54.820 against reparations for slavery. I'm against the statues coming down, but David Starkey

00:04:59.520 is a racist. Now things that he said in the past on Newsnight in 2010, he talked about

00:05:04.500 how the whites have become black and what he meant by that actually coming back to the lifestyle

00:05:09.060 and the dress of black people. He was meaning that there is a culture among some white young

00:05:15.960 people to copy kind of gangster American style rap artists and so on. Well, that's a very different

00:05:23.660 thing from saying they've become black. What are these white chavs as he called them? Are

00:05:28.040 they, are they copying me? I don't think they are, but he's unable to make that distinction.

00:05:34.640 And I found it very interesting on Twitter because when people would try and defend him,

00:05:37.620 and I was horrified by the number of people who were defending David Starkey, a number of

00:05:41.500 my own followers, I might add. And I think it's because a number of people follow me who don't

00:05:46.660 see these issues because I often defend white people against racism that is against white people.

00:05:54.240 And because I'm critical of that, they see me as being on their side. When I'm most definitely not

00:05:58.320 on their side, I'm on the side of the truth. And what else has he said? Oh, he said that David

00:06:02.220 Lammy sounds white. Now, how does David Lammy sound white? I mean, what is it, what is it to sound

00:06:07.440 white? He's educated. That's exactly right. He's well-spoken. He's educated. Well,

00:06:11.140 so for Starkey, when you're white, you're well-spoken. When you're black, you, you know,

00:06:19.000 you dress in a certain way. You're a gangster, essentially. It's beyond a shadow of a doubt

00:06:25.180 that David Starkey's racist. Now, that doesn't mean he's Hitler. I don't think he's going around

00:06:29.120 committing hate crimes. But I do think he's a racist. And that's when the conversation then

00:06:34.580 gets interesting about, you know, what do you do with that and so on. But for me, it is perfectly

00:06:40.940 obvious that he's a racist. Every time he talks about black people, he twists his face in this

00:06:46.080 kind of just this this way as if he's kind of horrified, you know, in the way that I do when

00:06:52.280 I'm talking about racism. And and he's he's never stopped. And people have pulled him up on this time

00:06:59.180 and time again. They pulled him up on it for the Lammy comment, with the whites have become black

00:07:03.560 comment. And he's never changed. And so, you know, I'm a great I'm a headmistress. I'm a teacher at heart.

00:07:08.820 And I always believe in giving people a second chance. That's what you do with the kids. You

00:07:13.380 know, you say, well, look, this is how you got it wrong. Let's do it again. You know,

00:07:17.160 Starkey has never, never accepted that opportunity. In fact, he's just got worse and worse over time.

00:07:22.380 And so it is hard to then think, well, what do you do? I don't believe in cancel culture.

00:07:28.340 I have to say. Well, let's just pause there. Let's let Francis, with his slightly gamut voice,

00:07:33.880 I like that. She put she points at me talking about reminding me of racism.

00:07:39.620 Well, there's one more thing on my list, which is that he talks about Churchill and how and how

00:07:46.880 complex a man he was. And people often accuse Churchill of being a racist for the Bengal famine

00:07:52.420 because he he ensured that the food that was on its way to to them be rerouted and be brought to

00:08:00.720 the soldiers. And that was a very difficult decision. And one might say, yes, he decided

00:08:05.600 partly because he believed that Indians were inferior and he did. But he was also trying to

00:08:10.580 win a war. So I kind of I want to give the guy some slack. I get it. You know, he says this about

00:08:16.680 Churchill and says that Churchill thought that Indians could not govern themselves, which you've got to be

00:08:25.020 a bit of a racist to think that. You think people can't govern themselves. Well, Starkey goes on to agree

00:08:30.400 with Churchill. He says, well, well, the only reason why they could afterwards is because we British

00:08:36.340 had been in charge for so long in the first place. Well, I mean, now I can forgive Churchill

00:08:41.900 because he was a man of his time. Starkey is here right now in 2020 saying that. And I have a problem

00:08:49.240 with that. And I think it's quite right that we should call it out. We ought to. And and the worst of

00:08:54.620 that whole thing was Darren Grimes at the end saying, what should we conservatives do? Because we

00:09:00.500 conservatives need to fight back. And I was thinking, wait a minute, I would consider myself to be a

00:09:04.740 conservative, certainly a small C conservative. I'm not a big C, but I'm a small C conservative. I don't agree

00:09:09.140 with David Starkey. And I know a whole load of other conservatives who wouldn't agree. And it is it is really

00:09:14.560 worrying when we equate those kind of antiquated and racist views with conservatism because they really have

00:09:21.340 nothing to do with each other. And that's why you should always watch trigonometry, not Darren Grimes.

00:09:28.120 So we talk about Starkey and you mentioned that he's a man of great intellect. He's very

00:09:34.180 interesting. He has a lot to offer society and a lot to offer our culture. What do you do with

00:09:40.360 someone like that when they have views that you've described as racist? Do we just put them away and

00:09:46.100 then forget about them? Or do we try and rehabilitate them? I mean, it's a very difficult

00:09:51.120 question. Rehabilitation is a good is a good one. You know, what I'm always doing on Twitter when I'm

00:09:56.960 talking to people, I'm always trying and sometimes I can get a bit annoyed, but I try and keep it under

00:10:02.000 control. And I'm always trying to explain things to people so that over time they can come to see. Oh, well,

00:10:08.600 maybe actually, I might reconsider my views on that. And so I was doing that a lot over the Starkey thing. And I was

00:10:14.980 trying to explain to people why he was racist. And I think some people took on board a lot of what I

00:10:20.360 was saying. I think others didn't, but perhaps next time they will. I did notice that a lot of people

00:10:25.720 would try and defend him by saying he'd said something else other than what he'd said. No, no,

00:10:30.480 no, but he said that the blacks, that the whites were taking on American gang culture. No, no, no,

00:10:35.060 actually, he said they'd become black. And so because they like Starkey, they wanted to defend him.

00:10:40.960 Now, the thing about racism, it's kind of like people make the mistake in thinking with right

00:10:48.500 and left. They think there's kind of a line and they think that the lefties are the good people

00:10:52.800 and the righties are the bad people. And there's this line when in fact, it's a circle that goes

00:10:57.740 like that. And the extreme left and the extreme right meet each other there. I would say the same

00:11:04.580 thing comes for the line that people think exists between the woke and the racist. So there's the

00:11:13.020 woke and the anti-racist over here. And so you might put Antifa right at the end there. And then

00:11:18.740 you've got the racist over here. And I wouldn't put Starkey right at the end. You know, I'd put the

00:11:23.400 National Front right at the end, right? But it's not like a line. It's a circle. And so the National Front

00:11:28.300 meets up with Antifa down here. And the woke, I would say, are down here. And I think that they're

00:11:32.800 pretty racist too. And the David Starkey types over here as well, I think they're pretty racist.

00:11:38.240 And ultimately, what is racism? So racism, as I keep trying to explain on my Twitter feed,

00:11:44.240 is when you are unable to look at somebody and just treat them as a human being,

00:11:49.000 you judge them by the color of their skin. And what I mean by that is, oh, I don't know.

00:11:55.440 When I used to live in France, people would tell me to go back to Algeria. So they just look at me

00:11:59.740 and think, oh, she's obviously from Algeria. Of course, I've never been to Algeria. But

00:12:04.260 and they would tell me to go back there. That's pretty obvious. But then there are other times

00:12:08.580 where people ask me to be part of a group or on a board or something. And then they'll say,

00:12:13.000 well, we want you to be there because you'll tick the diversity box for us.

00:12:17.420 And I think, well, you know, I'm really skilled. I do. What I do in education, I think is pretty

00:12:24.800 amazing. You know, I've set up a school and there aren't that many people who have had the kind of

00:12:29.540 obstacles that I've had to overcome in order to achieve what we've achieved here at Michaela.

00:12:33.820 And yet the reason you want me is because I tick your diversity box. Now, what my color does at that

00:12:40.680 moment is it prevents them from seeing me as a person. They can't see my accomplishments.

00:12:46.580 They can't see me for who I am. All they can see is my color. That is racism. Now, the people who are

00:12:52.200 doing that are on the left. OK, so they've come on the circle this way. The David Stalkies of the

00:12:57.300 world who think, oh, well, she's black, so she must listen to certain types of music. He's on that

00:13:02.020 side. So it's the judgment of somebody according to the color of their skin and not being able to see

00:13:08.280 past that. And of course, because color is is a big part of somebody, you see it right away. So,

00:13:16.440 you know, you're unlikely to look at somebody's eye color. You know, you won't catch that as quickly.

00:13:20.900 But color is hard to not see. So you see that right away. And so it is good, I think, to talk

00:13:27.700 about race and to talk about these things to make people aware. Now, I know some of my Twitter

00:13:32.000 followers would be horrified to hear me say this, you know, the idea of unconscious bias and so on.

00:13:35.860 There's a lot of truth in the unconscious bias point that the left always put forward or that

00:13:41.080 the woke put forward. And what they mean by that is that people make subconscious decisions all the

00:13:48.480 time about others without sort of realizing what they're thinking about other people.

00:13:53.420 And unless you question that about yourself and think, hmm, well, is it that I always hire men and

00:13:59.520 never really think about women? Or I imagine that men are stronger. When I say stronger,

00:14:03.140 I don't mean physically. I just mean better leaders or more in control. And that's an assumption

00:14:08.460 of mine. Maybe I should think about that because, you know what, I might be missing out on some great

00:14:12.520 candidates when I'm hiring them who are women who I want to employ. Similarly, with black people,

00:14:17.940 you know, there are all sorts of ideas and stereotypes. And people then think, oh, but stereotypes

00:14:23.020 are OK. Well, no, they're not. That is racism. That's what racism is. Now, the problem we've

00:14:27.920 currently got is that if you're considered to be racist, people don't go, everyone's a little bit

00:14:34.520 racist. They don't do that. They say, cancelled. You've got to lose your job. You've got to lose

00:14:39.140 your family. You've got to lose everybody. And so, of course, everybody's then running around

00:14:42.460 on eggshells going, oh, my goodness, I'm not racist. I'm not racist. And that's really unhealthy.

00:14:48.800 And so, you know, if I was talking to black friends, I would be saying, I'm not sure. I'm

00:14:56.820 not sure it's what we want is to kind of browbeat white people into feeling so uncomfortable about

00:15:04.040 race that they never say anything. They never think anything. And they're just worried all

00:15:07.660 the time. You know, don't we want to have conversations and hear what they have to say?

00:15:13.020 And then if we're constantly beating people over the head, all you do is make people go

00:15:18.540 quiet and and then they're really uncomfortable. So. So, yeah. So coming back to that point about

00:15:24.760 Starkey, what do we do? The difficulty with Starkey is that he is in a position of authority

00:15:32.060 in a university and he is teaching young people. And that is difficult because there's no question

00:15:38.300 in my head that a man like that should not be teaching in a school. I don't think so, because

00:15:42.060 I do think he's a racist and I don't think he's willing to change because many people

00:15:45.860 over years have challenged him on this and he hasn't been willing to do that. Having

00:15:50.300 said that, he needs to be given the opportunity to do so. And I think this will have come as

00:15:55.020 quite a shock to him because he's got away with it for so long. There are such things as,

00:16:01.380 you know, suspensions, disciplinaries, you know, you have a conversation, you know, there's

00:16:06.320 a lot of in between before just, you know, firing somebody. I do think we need to have

00:16:11.100 some sort of standards for people, especially in education, because they've got a really

00:16:15.800 important and sensitive role in developing young people. I do think at university, look,

00:16:23.060 the universities are so woke that the young people there could probably argue, stalking

00:16:28.100 into the ground. So I'm not sure they need protecting so much, you know. But I don't think

00:16:34.560 it's as straightforward as some people on the right feel, which is that there just should

00:16:39.680 be absolute freedom for everyone to say whatever they want. You know, I mean, it was interesting.

00:16:44.180 I put it on my Twitter feed and I said, well, should we allow Holocaust deniers on TV every

00:16:48.520 night? Should they be out there just saying that the Holocaust never happened? And I had

00:16:52.720 somebody tweet me, you know, an article. Well, obviously the Holocaust didn't happen. I mean,

00:16:57.040 how could you be so stupid? Welcome to Twitter. Well, you know, and the thing is, is that the

00:17:03.680 assumption is when people say yes, but we just need to let everybody say whatever they want

00:17:07.120 and we'll, the truth will come out. And I think that's because we're in 2020 that we feel so secure

00:17:13.540 in saying that because the assumption is, well, obviously we wouldn't, we wouldn't take on racist

00:17:18.380 views. Obviously we wouldn't all start denying the Holocaust, but history has shown that people

00:17:24.440 can be very sheep-like and they can just follow somebody who has a lot of charisma, somebody who's

00:17:32.200 well-spoken, you know. And so, you know, there's a reason why Germany, it's illegal to deny the

00:17:38.340 Holocaust in Germany. There's a reason for that. And I get it. Now, it's not illegal in this country,

00:17:43.620 but, um, we would not, we wouldn't put Holocaust deniers on television. We wouldn't, uh, give a

00:17:50.380 massive voice. And that's the thing about Starkey. He's got a big voice. You know, he's on, he's being

00:17:54.760 interviewed. He's on TV. Do we want that? There's a difference between cancelling somebody and making

00:17:59.980 a decision of, you know what, they're just too contentious to put on television in terms of the

00:18:05.060 things that they're saying. Now, I know what people will say to me at that point. They'll say, but who

00:18:08.600 decides? Who decides who gets, who we don't do that with and who, well, who decides right now? We don't put

00:18:13.300 Holocaust deniers on. So somebody is deciding that. I'm not quite sure who is. I mean, maybe

00:18:17.820 it's just, I don't know, the general public and what they will put up with. Um, yeah, I, I also

00:18:24.640 think that, um, people, one of the reasons why the country feels so under siege, and I understand,

00:18:32.060 I also feel under siege at the moment, and I do think there is a culture war. And I mean, the irony

00:18:36.020 of this is, you know, I'm going on about Starkey being racist, but I'm, I really am on the other side

00:18:40.760 of the culture war, you know, as you know, we've had many conversations. Um, uh, you know, I consider

00:18:47.380 myself to be a small C conservative. Um, but Starkey is definitely a racist and the, the, we need to

00:18:54.380 have a, we need to have discussions. We do need to be open about these things, but there are, what

00:19:01.740 Twitter has shown me is that there are quite a lot of white people out there who refuse to have the

00:19:05.960 discussion. You know, I'll tweet about, uh, Peter Fryer's, uh, he's an author. He wrote, uh, historian,

00:19:12.500 he wrote a book in the nine, 1984 called Staying Power, the History of Black People in Britain.

00:19:18.280 And it gives you loads of facts about black people in Britain. And I tweeted this a number of times

00:19:23.780 saying, well, read this, you know, Hey, everybody, if you want to know, and it's really big book,

00:19:28.300 you want to know more about black people in Britain, why don't you read this? And then you'll

00:19:30.800 be more informed. I would get tweets back saying, thank you. I'm educated enough. And I think,

00:19:35.600 well, you've made this point, Catherine, I think it's a very valid point that if you keep, if,

00:19:40.500 if the invitation to educate yourself doesn't come from people like you, but it comes from

00:19:46.920 the woke camp who are saying, if you don't agree with me, it's because you're a bigot.

00:19:52.020 Here's 50 books like white fragility that you must read. People will become resistant.

00:19:56.940 Yes. And I think that's a big part of the issue. But let me, let me come back to David because

00:20:01.580 we've had David on the show. Yeah. And I'll be honest with you. I was not aware of the news night

00:20:06.580 comments. I was less political at the time. Right. But we, we spent an hour with him. Then we went for

00:20:12.760 dinner. He was articulate, intelligent. He agreed with many of the things you said about Jean-Jacques Rousseau.

00:20:20.400 Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And the impact of. Starkey and I agree on lots of stuff. Right.

00:20:25.240 Absolutely. Which is, which is why we're having this conversation. Yeah. You're someone with a very

00:20:28.900 nuanced and sensible view of these things. He never, in our conversations, said anything that

00:20:33.720 was in any way inappropriate. No. In my opinion, he didn't make any racist comments. No.

00:20:37.760 He was a lovely guy. He was charming. He was funny, as you say. Yeah. Right. So I guess the question for

00:20:44.120 me is, what do we do now? You know, you talk about this guy shouldn't be on, shouldn't be perhaps on

00:20:49.740 television as much or at all. Right. So if you, if you're opposed to cancel culture, how do we,

00:20:56.980 how do we, how do we do it? Do we have him back to talk about what he said? Yeah. Do we never talk

00:21:02.740 to him again? Well, maybe. Yeah. You have him back and you see whether or not I'm always want to give

00:21:08.020 people another chance. But then we're racist. But then we're racist. Right. I mean, we're already racist.

00:21:12.280 We're already racist. It's too far. We've gone down that route. Well, I don't think so. I think

00:21:17.640 I would want to talk to Starkey. I would want to say, look, can't you see how you say things?

00:21:23.200 Can't you see how it comes across? Can't you see? Like, look, this is how, if you wanted to say,

00:21:29.160 you could have had an interesting discussion with Darren Grimes about whether or not slavery was

00:21:33.020 genocide. You could have given the definition of genocide and said that you think that it means

00:21:38.520 that you need to have had the intention to wipe a certain people out. And to be so lazy in your

00:21:45.380 thing, in your speech, there's so many damn black people in Africa. I mean, you know, and so

00:21:52.100 dismissive. Like, who are these people? You know?

00:21:55.260 Do you really think that's what he meant? Because this is the counter argument I was hoping Francis

00:21:59.040 would put forward to you, but he chickened out. So let me put this to you, right? When he was talking

00:22:03.940 about that, my initial perception, and I'm just putting it out, I'm not saying this is true. I'm just

00:22:09.440 saying that was my initial perception. His exasperation was at what he perceived to be the

00:22:15.700 stupidity of the counter argument. In other words, he wasn't talking, the use of the word damned was

00:22:20.720 not, he didn't mean it to be about the black people. He meant it to be about the stupidity of

00:22:26.840 the argument that he was countering. Yeah, that is an odd thing, seeing as his interviewer was so

00:22:33.820 sycophantic, that he even described himself as being a sycophant. He wasn't arguing with somebody

00:22:39.360 and getting heated in the moment and getting really angry because the other person was being

00:22:43.280 unreasonable. He was just, he had the platform, could say whatever he liked. He was in total support

00:22:49.200 with the person who was interviewing him. It makes no sense, the idea that he would be so frustrated.

00:22:55.300 And there's a whole series of things that he then says in the interview, as I've been through,

00:22:58.680 and things that he said in the past, that Lammy sounds white, he can't get around that one,

00:23:04.980 you know. And so all the people who are trying to explain away, well, he must have meant this,

00:23:09.060 he must have meant that. What, over the last decade, he must have meant X, Y, and Z? I mean,

00:23:13.600 the fact is, the man is very lazy when it comes to his language around black people. And that's

00:23:18.020 because he doesn't think black people deserve that attention. He doesn't think that it matters what he

00:23:23.620 says. He thinks he can get away with being rude, racist, and obnoxious, and it doesn't matter.

00:23:29.860 And I'd love to say that to him, you know. I wouldn't be rude about it, and I'd be a lot less

00:23:35.560 kind of heated than I am right now. I'd want to show him and explain it to him, because I'd really

00:23:41.360 hope that he'd come around to what I think is the right way of thinking. Maybe we should get you

00:23:45.900 both on the show. Well, I'd be more than happy to talk to him and try and persuade him. I really would.

00:23:50.360 And that's because I don't believe in cancel culture, and I don't believe in giving up on

00:23:56.480 people, you know. And that is because I'm a teacher. I never give up on any kid, you know.

00:24:00.720 You always keep trying, because there's always, you just always got to keep trying it. And it's the

00:24:06.260 same thing now for me, because I tend to be fighting the woke and tend to be fighting the left,

00:24:11.300 because I believe in traditional education. I believe in the teacher standing at the front. I

00:24:15.100 believe in holding children to account. I believe in discipline. All of these things, for some reason,

00:24:19.400 on the left, they've just abandoned all these ideas. God only knows why. And I'm always trying

00:24:25.920 to explain to them via Twitter and via the talks I give, conversations with you, all of this stuff

00:24:32.340 about why it is that more small C conservatives thinking is what we need to do. And I've done that

00:24:39.580 for some time. And what I find really often, either via DM on Twitter or when I go to an event,

00:24:46.860 people come up to me and quietly whisper to me, I really like what you're saying. You're not going

00:24:51.720 to tell me their name. They quietly come and tell me. Or they'll say, I didn't like you a few years

00:24:57.060 ago. And I really didn't believe what you were saying. But I can see it now. I've been following

00:25:01.960 you on Twitter. And I can see it. I see what you're saying. It's just taken me a few years.

00:25:07.320 People can change their minds. I changed my mind. You know, I used to be a real lefty teacher.

00:25:12.960 I used to be, I used to think like a typical lefty teacher. You know, the reason why schools

00:25:20.780 were failing is there wasn't enough money. Black boys weren't achieving because of institutionalized

00:25:25.620 racism. I mean, a whole variety of things that I thought. I changed my mind over years. And that

00:25:31.580 was the experience of teaching that taught me to change my mind. Also the fact that I'm just open

00:25:35.340 minded. There are a lot more open minded people out there than we realize. And there are, of course,

00:25:41.180 the extremes. And I've met them both on my Twitter because they're, and I, you know, more recently

00:25:46.880 with Starkey, I met my right wing followers who were just digging their heels in and saying, no,

00:25:51.300 you know, people who are saying, well, obviously we're not racist. We follow you, Catherine.

00:25:55.880 So you follow a black person on Twitter and that means you're not racist. I mean, like, and then I

00:26:00.200 come to realize in talking with them, and that's where it's really interesting because I would never

00:26:03.080 meet these people normally. And, you know, I once many years ago met up with this, when I used to write

00:26:08.320 my blog, I used to write a blog called Smith with Love. And, and this was the day when there were no

00:26:13.740 blogs. And there was this guy called BNP member, and he was a member of the British National Party.

00:26:19.300 And he used to come in and comment on my blog because in those days, Twitter didn't exist. So if

00:26:24.260 you wanted to have a conversation, you had to do it via comments on the blog. And all these lefties

00:26:28.360 would come on and argue with him. And, and he would say things. And I always found him quite

00:26:32.440 interesting. He was an intelligent kind of self-taught guy, a white working class guy up

00:26:38.120 in the North. And, and then I suggested to him, you know, it'd be really interesting to meet you

00:26:43.020 because I'd never met a BNP member before. And so I met up with him and it was so fascinating because

00:26:48.780 he arrived and he was hobbling along. And I said, oh, you know, he was in a suit. I mean, you know,

00:26:54.160 I was in jeans and whatever. And, and he said, oh yeah, well, my feet hurt because the shoes are new.

00:26:59.360 He had bought the suit and the shoes to meet with me. And he said, well, you know, I figured you went

00:27:06.040 to Oxford University. So I needed to get dressed up for the occasion. This is really weird. You know,

00:27:11.440 at the same time, he was explaining to me about his girlfriend and how he'd gone around that morning

00:27:17.600 to his girlfriend's house and they have a little, they had a little toddler and he wanted to say hello

00:27:21.480 to his son. And he didn't, she wouldn't let him hold the boy because she said, you're going to see

00:27:27.160 that black woman and you're going to contaminate him. And so I'm not letting you hold on to him.

00:27:31.820 So all I'm saying is that race is complex. You know, on the one hand, this guy, this is the kind

00:27:37.060 of guy he is. And this is the environment in which he mixes. On the other hand, he's getting dressed

00:27:41.220 up in a suit and, and, and shoes that hurt his feet because I've been to Oxford University. You know,

00:27:46.240 I just always believe in trying to keep an open mind and in talking to people. And, uh,

00:27:51.160 uh, and so the, the, the race thing, you know, it's, um, the other thing that I wanted to talk

00:27:58.940 to you about was, um, was school and, uh, how we teach, you know, because one of the big problems

00:28:04.900 at the moment, I see on my sort of feet, a lot of white people who are very worried about what's

00:28:09.420 going to be taught at school. And there were, I mean, I've spoken to people, friends of mine

00:28:14.220 and so on who have said they're worried about, uh, the black lives matter influence and what,

00:28:20.460 you know, work that's being sent home that white kids have to, uh, interrogate their whiteness

00:28:26.080 and they need to talk to their, their parents about their privilege and, and what they do

00:28:30.740 as white people. And, and that it's dangerous stuff. And I do, I worry about them. And it's

00:28:36.480 something that we would never do here at Michaela. Now I have to say most of our kids here are

00:28:40.180 ethnic minorities, but there are a few white kids. I would just never want to divide the

00:28:43.980 children in that way. Uh, children, children nowadays, one of the ways in which we have

00:28:50.280 so advanced as a country is that when I was a child at school, uh, they talk about going

00:28:55.860 to the P-A-K-I shop. And if I was in the room, they'd go, oops, sorry, you know, and it was

00:29:01.000 normal to call people names. Nowadays, calling kids names, a racist name in the schoolyard,

00:29:07.820 it's the worst thing you can do. The kids would all jump on you. There's no way the kids won't,

00:29:13.180 will not tolerate racism. So to divide them up according to race and make them see this

00:29:18.760 thing. And that's the point about the circle. Woke people are constantly talking about race

00:29:23.860 and constantly defining us. Identity politics says that a black boy cannot identify with

00:29:29.660 Shakespeare. Identity politics says that, um, uh, black kids can't learn their French verbs.

00:29:35.840 They need to learn French rap instead. That's why the woke are racist. That position is racist.

00:29:41.520 And what is so terrible is that these woke people think, not all of them, I'm sure not all

00:29:47.880 woke people think like that, but some of them, they think that to be anti-racist is to keep

00:29:53.380 doing that. And that is racist, which is why it's a circle. The extreme right say, for instance,

00:29:59.780 that brown people, black people cannot be British. The woke would never want them to be British.

00:30:05.960 And in schools, one of the things that we do here at school is that we, uh, talk about being British

00:30:11.840 all the time. We're all British together. We have a British flag flying with pride outside. We sing

00:30:16.620 God save the Queen and Jerusalem. Uh, I vow to thee my country. Uh, when England was playing in the

00:30:22.740 World Cup, we had England flags everywhere. All I ever did was talk about football. I don't know

00:30:26.400 anything about football, but I made sure I found out about football so I could talk about it to the

00:30:30.060 kids, you know? Now, and that's because I want us all to be British. And the, and this is a really

00:30:36.280 important point, which is that the nation state, which the woke reject is what binds us together

00:30:44.200 and stops us from being racist. If you don't have the nation state, the nation state, it's, it's,

00:30:51.740 it's a group of values. It's our country. We believe in democracy. We believe in the rule of law.

00:30:56.980 We believe in the right to be gay and not have policemen throw you off the top of a building,

00:31:01.660 which will happen in many countries around the world, right? Now our country stands for something

00:31:06.720 and we are British, whether we are white or black. Now the fact is that too many people are ashamed of

00:31:14.240 being British. So we reject the nation state when it's the one thing that stops us from being tribal.

00:31:20.300 Because if you get rid of your nation state, then you have to reduce to race. And then you're white,

00:31:25.980 I'm black and, and, and, and I'm going to be with my people and you're going to be with your people

00:31:30.500 because we, we were, we were reduced to tribes. And that is how the one great thing about the West

00:31:36.640 is that nation state. Well, no, not the one great thing. There's loads of great things about the West,

00:31:40.260 but one of the biggest great things is that we have a nation of which, which, which binds us

00:31:46.220 together in terms of its values. But because too many British people, in particular white British

00:31:50.860 people, I would add, are so guilty because of the British, you know, history of colonialism and

00:31:57.140 slavery and so on. Um, which sadly, there are some people who are quite proud of that. And I, I, I do

00:32:03.680 think that we should be ashamed of that, but that doesn't mean that Britain didn't do great things

00:32:07.160 as well. Um, and, and when we teach our histories, you see here at, at Michaela, we teach British history

00:32:14.680 history and we teach British history, the good and the bad. And we don't sit there and

00:32:19.780 say white people are good, black people are, or black people are bad. Sorry. Black people

00:32:23.400 are good and white people are bad. And we don't relate it to the present. So we don't say things

00:32:27.420 like, um, look at how black people were treated during slavery. It's the same as what happens

00:32:32.040 now with racism. We wouldn't do that. We teach British history. And that's because all of us

00:32:37.920 have an entitlement to be taught British history so we can all feel British. Now that includes

00:32:42.740 slavery, that includes the Amritsar massacre in India, that includes Gandhi, that includes

00:32:47.980 colonialism, that includes the slave, Atlantic slave trade. It also, we would also include civil

00:32:52.540 rights and North America because that helps to shape the world that our children are growing up

00:32:57.460 in. We also teach things that aren't British. So the French revolution, for instance, because again,

00:33:01.420 that's part of Europe. Now, all of that, um, helps to ground our children. If ethnic minority

00:33:11.160 children are constantly told that they're not British by well-meaning white people. And what I

00:33:16.400 mean by that is they're well-meaning teachers who are ashamed of being British, so they never

00:33:20.560 talk about it. Or the media go on about race all the time or who go on about, um, not being,

00:33:28.280 uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, they don't celebrate Britishness, right? They don't do that. In fact, that

00:33:35.520 minorities feel like they don't belong to their own country. If they feel like the establishment is

00:33:39.340 against them, whether or not it is, that's a different argument. They cannot succeed. It's

00:33:44.740 impossible to succeed. And it is our job as educators to make children feel as if they belong to their

00:33:53.420 country. And if we believed in the nation state and in our values as being British, we wouldn't

00:34:01.480 reduce ourselves to tribalism. But that is where we have now reached. And that is why the woke are

00:34:07.040 running around saying white privilege, black people are good, need to take down the statues,

00:34:11.380 and they've lost their minds. And they're just running around. They don't know what they're doing.

00:34:14.460 And that isn't to say there aren't racist people like David Starkey, as an example, um, race is

00:34:20.440 complex. And, um, and our culture sadly has just deteriorated to this point because we have lost

00:34:28.760 the values of the nation state. And it's, it's a really powerful thing that you're talking about.

00:34:33.320 But as someone who was a former teacher, I saw this coming into education around about 10 years ago,

00:34:40.540 where, so I attended, for instance, a seminar on how to teach black boys and how we have to expect

00:34:46.760 different from black boys. And the thing that's really racist about that is seeing black people

00:34:51.480 as this monolith when you go, all right, so we're talking about black, but what do you actually mean?

00:34:55.320 Do you mean West African? Do you mean Caribbean? Do you mean Congo? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:35:00.200 All these different things. Exactly. And...

00:35:03.560 Which is exactly what Starkey does. Yeah.

00:35:05.280 It's exactly the same.

00:35:06.180 But which is people from both sides do that, right?

00:35:10.140 Yeah.

00:35:10.240 So I guess my point is, if both sides do that, how do we solve this problem?

00:35:15.920 I don't know. We do things like this.

00:35:17.820 Well, that was great interview.

00:35:20.560 Look, we do things like this. We talk about it. Um, this is actually the first time I've been able to

00:35:26.160 explain and, you know, one of the reasons why I thought this would be great, you know, to try and

00:35:30.000 explain in detail why I think we've reached this point in this country. You know, the two sides,

00:35:36.100 like I say to you, there are people on Twitter, you know, racists. I mean, I tell my Twitter followers,

00:35:41.280 I think some of you are racist and they follow me. If you can't see that Starkey is racist,

00:35:45.600 I think you've got a problem with race. I really do. Because the thing is, you watch it and you think,

00:35:50.660 oh, well, David Lammy's, uh, sounds white. That's all right. It doesn't jar with you. You don't go,

00:35:55.980 oh, wow, that's a bit weird. That's because you can't hear it. And you don't, you don't hear it

00:36:00.440 because you yourself have similar thoughts. And that's why I think you yourself are also racist.

00:36:04.240 However, hold on. I think that is a little bit unfair because for example, I, myself, I watched

00:36:12.400 strictly the Darren Grimes clip, just the clip. Yeah. I was not aware of anything David said

00:36:17.840 previously. Yes. And I watched that clip and I listened to it and I thought, well, I know David

00:36:22.820 as to, to the extent that I do. He never said anything inappropriate when we spent time with him.

00:36:28.560 I watched this clip and I can see that maybe his intent wasn't racist. Okay. So it's a lack of

00:36:35.720 knowledge on my part. But didn't you at that point go, I thought it was a very ill judged comment.

00:36:40.180 Yeah, fine. But, but I'll tell you why. But no, but that's important. Okay. You immediately,

00:36:44.920 your reaction was, ooh. Yes. Now you then tried to rationalize it because you like him. To

00:36:49.720 understand. No, I tried to understand why he may have made it. Well, because you're giving him the

00:36:53.740 benefit of the doubt. Yes. Exactly. And you're trying to rationalize it because you're thinking,

00:36:57.360 I like this guy. He's a good guy. He can't possibly have meant that. So maybe he meant this. And I

00:37:03.420 totally understand that. And actually, had it been just one comment that he'd made, I probably would

00:37:07.100 have done the same thing. It's the history and not just the history, but all the other stuff that he

00:37:10.940 says in the, in, in the whole interview that then makes me go, look, obviously this guy has a

00:37:15.520 problem. Um, what you did was natural and human. So this is my point is when you and I had a

00:37:20.760 conversation about it, you quote, I hate this word because it's misused, but you quote unquote

00:37:25.500 educated me, if you like, right. You persuaded me by giving me more information. Yeah. Fine. So

00:37:31.040 that's why I think it's maybe not the most helpful thing to say, if you can't hear it, then, then

00:37:34.980 you're thinking in racist ways because I was just giving someone the benefit of the doubt. Yeah. Yeah.

00:37:39.000 No, I mean, once you've heard all of my evidence. Oh, sure. Right. If you hear all of this and are

00:37:43.200 still saying, no, but David Lammy does sound white, then I, I, we've got a problem, but, but you need to

00:37:48.900 remember that when I say that the person's racist, I don't mean they're Hitler. I mean,

00:37:54.960 I think you're racist. I think you're probably a good dad or a good mom and you're a nice brother

00:37:59.780 and sister to somebody. And you know, I, like, I, I'm not saying, I'm not saying you commit hate

00:38:05.980 crimes. And that's not what I'm saying. Right. But isn't that part of the problem, Catherine,

00:38:09.900 that, and I don't use this term lightly, that we almost see if someone's a racist, it's, it's,

00:38:14.240 it's almost like being a pedophile. It's like the worst thing that you can be. The moment you say,

00:38:18.980 somebody is a racist. Everyone's like, well, they are the worst person in the world. I know.

00:38:23.520 I know. And that's a real problem because as I said at the beginning, racist kind of spans everything

00:38:29.660 from the little old lady who clutches her bag to Hitler. And obviously there's, um, there's a huge

00:38:35.600 number of things in between. And, and I also do think Avenue Q, everyone's a little bit racist,

00:38:40.820 you know, and it isn't the end of the world, but it is good to talk about these things. And the reason

00:38:45.860 why people get so angry about it, I suppose, with racism is that it's not something anyone

00:38:50.320 can change. You know, your race, uh, is, is something that's what you are. And, and you,

00:38:56.660 from the point of view of black people, it, the reason why that book, you know, uh, why I'm no

00:39:04.480 longer talking to white people about race, which I tried to read and actually couldn't read because

00:39:07.900 I found it so awful, you know, so I, I, I, I'm, I'm not a proponent for this, you know,

00:39:12.620 I don't, but I do get the point. It can get very frustrating as a black person, constantly

00:39:19.020 explaining race to white people because white people don't have the experience of, of racism.

00:39:25.360 Um, they can, it's very hard to explain it and then they don't necessarily understand.

00:39:32.140 And then you go back and forth. And when I was younger, I probably would have been a lot more

00:39:36.800 hotheaded and thought, forget this, you know, you're just an idiot white person and I'm not

00:39:40.760 talking to you anymore. But, you know, I'm older now. I am a headmistress. Uh, I believe in talking

00:39:47.780 to people. Um, you know, a lot of these people are young and they're hotheaded and I forgive them

00:39:54.360 for that because I was hotheaded too when I was younger. Um, it is, it's hard to, it's, it's hard

00:40:01.780 to keep your cool, especially when you're talking to a white person who is just refusing to listen

00:40:07.780 to you and refusing to recognize that his or her experiences are not the same as the black

00:40:13.640 person's experiences. And, you know, I once gave a talk, the battle of ideas about white

00:40:18.980 privilege. I believe white privilege exists, but I also believe that pretty privileges exist

00:40:23.180 and tall privilege and firstborn privilege. Um, there's all sorts of privileges that we all

00:40:28.960 have. And, um, we tend to just talk about white privilege, but if you're the firstborn

00:40:33.500 and you're, if you're the only child, you're super privileged and you're far more likely

00:40:36.940 to do well in life if you're an only child than if you're the fourth born. Um, if you're

00:40:41.560 really attractive, you're, you're far more likely. If you're ugly, you're however many

00:40:45.820 more times likely to go to jail. You know, like there, there are all sorts of privileges

00:40:50.740 that one has in life. Um, but people tend to take the opinion of either you really believe

00:40:55.320 on white privilege or there's no such thing as white privilege. Well, actually there is.

00:40:59.200 It's just that there's a middle way. And I'm always trying to say on Twitter, there is a

00:41:03.000 middle way. Um, you can believe that Starkey's a racist, but also believe that he shouldn't

00:41:07.940 be cancelled in the way that he was, that there should be a conversation. Um, it's just

00:41:13.140 that nobody allows these conversations to take place because they just go bam. And then

00:41:17.640 that's, you know, that's it for whoever it is.

00:41:19.740 Well, we're having it now. So let's maybe talk about this. Right. See, for me, white

00:41:23.640 privilege is, is it's more nuanced even than, than you're talking about, because I think,

00:41:28.620 uh, I would certainly acknowledge that in every society, there is majority privilege.

00:41:32.940 The majority ethnic group enjoys a certain level of privilege. What I find the concept

00:41:37.860 of white privilege quite insulting personally, because a lot of people would look at me and

00:41:41.560 say that I'm white, but I've experienced plenty of racism. So when someone says, well,

00:41:45.600 you're white, therefore you have no idea about racism. Well, that's not accurate.

00:41:49.240 So I am then being judged as a member of an ethnic group by someone who's quite ignorant

00:41:53.720 of my background. People who look like me in Russia are called black in Russia and treated

00:41:58.760 accordingly. Uh, in this country, people have been racist. I've, so that, that to me is why,

00:42:05.080 why it's a bit of a problem because it's used as a wedge issue to drive people apart. Whereas

00:42:10.080 when it's used in a more sensible way, you talk about majority privilege, high privilege,

00:42:14.520 attractiveness privilege, you put it in that sort of context, then you're not saying to white

00:42:18.540 people you are, you have some kind of original sin for which you must perpetually atone.

00:42:24.060 No. And that is the way that it has been. I agree. I agree. Which is where a lot of the

00:42:28.700 pushback, in my opinion, and a lot of the resentment comes from. Yeah. Which is where you then have people

00:42:33.540 go, I don't have any privilege. What are you talking about? Yeah. Right. And I think this is why

00:42:37.500 you talk about the circle. Yeah. Right now, it seems to me like the woke people have now driving quite a

00:42:44.700 few people on the other end further down towards the, the racist right, if you like. Well, exactly.

00:42:50.140 And what we need to do is be at the top of the circle. Right. That's where we should be aiming

00:42:53.100 to be. Right. You don't want to be woke. You don't want to be, you know, extreme right. Or,

00:42:57.180 you know, I would say Antifa, I suppose, to match up with the extreme right here. But the next step up

00:43:02.380 from that, you don't want to be them. You want to be in the middle. Um, and that means looking at every

00:43:07.900 situation, having a nuanced conversation. Um, the thing about racism is that it is, it is complex as

00:43:15.020 an idea and, and it requires unpacking in the way that we're doing now. And, um, you know, it's really

00:43:23.180 interesting about your background. I mean, I suppose what you're then saying is that you're not really

00:43:26.940 white. And so that's what you're saying. I don't think you're white. I've been trying to get rid

00:43:35.580 of you for a while. Now you're canceled, mate. You're going to be fine. And then you're saying,

00:43:39.580 well, people have just misunderstood that. And that's fine. I mean, they're just, what I'm

00:43:43.180 really saying, Catherine, and I think it is quite important is that, look, you, you, you are mixed

00:43:47.660 race yourself, right? I have friends who are, we, we have a friend who's from Barbados, for example,

00:43:52.700 and he's quite light skinned and he talks about, well, black people treat me differently because

00:43:57.500 my skin isn't quite black enough. There's all sorts of, so I, what I'm really saying is don't

00:44:04.220 judge me by my skin color. Don't judge me by who you think I am. Ask me, what is your experience?

00:44:10.300 Well, what has, what has happened to you in your life? Why do you think what you think?

00:44:14.300 Yeah. And then let's have a conversation. And you know what you're saying there? You're saying,

00:44:17.500 please don't be racist, right? That's what you're saying. You're saying, treat me as a human being.

00:44:21.180 Don't just judge me on the color of my skin. And too often now, white people are being judged

00:44:25.820 by the color of their skin. And that is wrong. And that is, I'm often commenting about that on

00:44:30.220 Twitter, which is why I then get a bunch of racists following me because they think,

00:44:33.500 aha, it's a line. She's on our side. And actually it's a circle. And I'm criticizing the people down

00:44:40.140 here. They're just right next to them on the other side over here on the circle.

00:44:43.820 Isn't part of the problem when it comes to white privilege and something that I get

00:44:47.260 quite frustrated about is that people use white privilege and they discuss it and

00:44:51.020 normally it's people from a very middle class, upper middle class background.

00:44:53.980 But if you say to somebody who is white working class that they have privilege,

00:44:59.900 when a lot of them really, really struggle, that's going to make them very, very angry.

00:45:04.940 It's something that we don't talk about in this country, which is class privilege.

00:45:08.300 Yeah. Well, and that's another, I mean, I didn't, I talked about Prissy.

00:45:11.580 I should have put class in there. But the thing is, is that if you take a white working

00:45:17.020 class person and then the black working class person, well, the white working class person

00:45:21.260 does have white privilege in comparison to the black working class person. But in comparison

00:45:25.980 to the white middle class person, obviously the middle class guy has the class privilege. I mean,

00:45:31.340 the thing is, is that I mean, even doing it like that, this business, you know why we're all doing

00:45:36.220 it. It's because of the victimhood, you know, Olympics that we've got going on, which is that

00:45:43.260 we have created a culture where you are liked the more of a victim you are.

00:45:48.300 Yeah. And so everybody's trying to hold on to as much victimhood. So even the royal family,

00:45:53.500 you know, I mean, they're white, they're pretty rich, they're all family. So then they start talking

00:45:58.060 about mental health, because the only thing it's the only card that they can play mental health

00:46:02.220 issues. Yeah, yeah, yeah, we too are victims. And the reason why everybody's having to grab on to

00:46:07.820 whatever victim card they can to be able to play is because that is how our culture as a society has

00:46:13.980 become. Once upon a time, you wanted to be the hardest working, you wanted to be the guy who

00:46:19.740 overcame every obstacle and the one who provided for your family and so on. No more. No, you want to

00:46:25.020 be the guy who's the most oppressed. And that is depressing, that our culture in our society now

00:46:31.420 in Britain is one where we are aiming for the lowest denominator. That's mad, right? And that's

00:46:38.060 why we're having that argument of, well, who's more oppressed? Is it the white working class guy? Is it

00:46:42.380 the black working class guy? Is it the black middle class guy? I mean, for goodness sakes, people need to

00:46:47.020 pull themselves together. That's what I did. You know, the fact is, you know how many people fought me to

00:46:53.420 set up this school? You know, you know how many people, you know, for three years I had to fight all

00:46:58.700 these people. People used to have placards out with Tory teacher written on there. They sent me racist

00:47:03.580 emails. They used to shout abuse at me. I would have parents evenings and they would, they would, they

00:47:08.060 would go on the parents evenings and start screaming abuse. They would stand up just to cancel me. You know,

00:47:13.020 I have been canceled. We talk about cancel culture. I lost, I was out of a job. I was told I would never

00:47:18.300 work in the state sector again. Now this is 2010. Before I wasn't on Twitter. Twitter was a very small

00:47:23.340 thing then. So people don't really remember. I got canceled. I lost my whole livelihood. I lost

00:47:28.380 everything. I couldn't work in the state sector. I was told that was it. And it took me three years of

00:47:33.980 struggling, struggling financially, struggling in terms of my health. I got very ill because I was attacked so

00:47:39.900 often the vitriol that came my way. Why? Because I dared to stand up at the conservative party

00:47:44.220 conference and tell the truth as I saw it, which was that the education system was broken.

00:47:48.300 Now that's crazy. But what I didn't do was sit around licking my wounds saying, oh, I'm a victim.

00:47:54.860 I'm a victim. What I did was I picked myself up. And every time I give an assembly, I say to the kids,

00:47:59.260 when they knock you down, you pick yourself up and you keep on going because that's all life's going to do.

00:48:04.380 It's going to keep knocking you down. And sometimes it's because you're black. Sometimes it's because

00:48:07.420 you're female. Sometimes it's because you're gay. Sometimes it's because your mother got killed

00:48:11.340 when you were six years old. Sometimes it could be anything, right? It doesn't matter.

00:48:17.180 You're going to have obstacles. It doesn't matter what they are. You have got, with the kids here,

00:48:22.220 we have got to instill a sense of resilience in them so that they can overcome those obstacles.

00:48:27.180 And what I can't stand about the woke is all they're ever doing is telling my kids that they're

00:48:31.340 oppressed, telling my kids that they can't make it in this world, telling them they don't belong in their

00:48:35.180 country, which is to undermine all of my good work. That is what I feel all the time. I feel so frustrated.

00:48:41.100 And why am I fighting the woke all the time? Because they are the number one people that stop my kids

00:48:45.340 from succeeding. So, you know, Starkey and his racism. I mean, I do think he's a racist. And you will see me

00:48:51.180 on Twitter there going at it, telling everybody how racist he is. But he is not my worry. My biggest worry

00:48:56.140 are the woke because of what they're doing to my kids. And they don't realize it. They think they're doing good.

00:49:00.780 You know, in Martin Luther King's time, it was easy to see. Martin Luther King, good.

00:49:06.300 Klutax Klan, bad. You know, it was obvious. Now it's not so obvious. We've got the circle. Nobody

00:49:11.900 understands it. Nobody understands what it is to be racist. We've got people campaigning to make sure

00:49:17.020 that we're teaching Stormzy in music class instead of Mozart. Oh, great. So my kids won't know who Mozart is.

00:49:23.260 You know, I once gave an assembly. This was right at the beginning when we opened up the school.

00:49:26.060 And I was showing them Beethoven's Fifth and I played it. You know, I wanted them to know Beethoven.

00:49:32.300 And I showed a picture of him with his wig. And then I said how difficult it was for them growing

00:49:36.060 up nowadays because they don't come across this kind of music. And actually, I was talking also

00:49:40.060 about the kind of awful music they can come about where, you know, women are shaking their booty and

00:49:44.780 all that kind of stuff. And I was saying, you don't want to listen to that. You want to listen to

00:49:47.820 Beethoven instead. And I said, when I was growing up, there was Kylie Minogue. Kylie Minogue was the worst

00:49:51.980 that there was, you know. Then later at lunch, I was eating with them. And it turned out,

00:49:56.140 when I was talking to them, they thought that Beethoven and Kylie Minogue were contemporaries.

00:50:04.620 The thing is, is that we don't realize how little kids know in schools, right? People are saying,

00:50:12.380 oh, well, we were never taught about slavery. Listen, they're talking about decolonizing the

00:50:16.140 curriculum. What I'm always saying to everybody is there's no point in talking about the curriculum

00:50:20.220 when kids are leaping out the window, you know? And when I say they're leaping out the window,

00:50:23.820 what I mean is that behavior is so poor, right? Or the teaching methods are so poor that nobody

00:50:29.020 remembers anything that they've been taught. You know, there is so much work to do on our school

00:50:33.260 system. You want to know what the solution is? You ask me what the solution is. It's school.

00:50:36.460 It's education. Why am I so passionate about education? Because kids are the future, right?

00:50:43.100 And we have to teach them properly. But what are we now doing as a knee-jerk reaction to Black Lives Matter?

00:50:48.700 We're running around telling white kids to interrogate their whiteness. I mean,

00:50:53.100 what kind of insanity is that? Look, we need to be teaching a good history, British history

00:50:59.100 curriculum. That's what we need to be teaching. We need to have assemblies that make the kids feel

00:51:03.260 like they belong. You know, I would say to everybody, I'm going to show, I brought it so I could show,

00:51:07.580 our book, The Power of Culture. It is all written by Michaela Teachers. And it's written,

00:51:14.620 look, you know, actually, I got a bit here, which I thought I might read out from one of my head of

00:51:20.140 history, who says here, there's no reason why medieval kingship cannot be taught alongside the

00:51:25.020 economic revolution of the Peasants' Revolt. Because often, the woke will want, let's talk

00:51:29.420 about the Peasants' Revolt. Don't teach them kings and queens. But why can't we teach them both? There's

00:51:33.820 no reason why the code breakers at Bletchley Park during the Second World War cannot be taught alongside

00:51:38.460 the tragic story of Alan Turing. Why is it tragic? Because Alan Turing, he broke the Enigma code.

00:51:43.740 Amazing. He was gay because of the time. He ended up committing suicide. You know, like you can teach

00:51:51.020 both, right? You don't just have to teach Britain is so brilliant. Look, we broke the Enigma code,

00:51:55.340 and leave his life out. You can also include it, right? In fact, a chronological narrative of English

00:52:00.860 and British history does not make it harder to incorporate the stories. It makes it much easier.

00:52:06.220 But do you know what they teach in schools? They teach history through medicine in time,

00:52:10.940 through crime. I'm telling you, look, if I went into detail on this, about how history is taught,

00:52:14.700 it is scandalous, right? The reason why nobody knows anything is because of the way in which we teach,

00:52:19.900 because of the behavior in our schools. And then they say-

00:52:22.300 All right, all right, okay, all right. So Catherine, there's a question that I've been wanting to-

00:52:28.380 I feel like I'm on the end. Catherine feels quite strong about some of these issues.

00:52:31.820 Yeah. My mother, drink everybody is from Latin America, and it does remind me of a

00:52:41.820 Venezuelan party when the rum comes in, where everybody gets very passionate.

00:52:46.540 You're making very good points, by the way.

00:52:48.220 Yeah, absolutely. But the question that I wanted to ask is this,

00:52:52.700 doesn't it come down to the way the woke and the way they behave and victimhood is that,

00:52:58.620 isn't it just easier to be a victim? Isn't it just easier to roll up and go,

00:53:04.780 you know what? I'm oppressed. You know what? If you, what you went through, it would have been so

00:53:09.820 much easier to go, you know what? Everyone's against me. Everyone doesn't like me. It's because

00:53:14.140 of my conservative leanings or whatever else I give up and the entire system is against me than

00:53:20.300 simply going, you know what? I'm going to fight against it. I've got these hurdles,

00:53:25.340 but I'm going to overcome them, whatever my hurdles might be. Yeah, yeah, exactly. So it is easier.

00:53:32.700 What we always say to the kids is, think about what your legacy is going to be when you're on

00:53:37.980 your deathbed. When you look back at your life, what are you going to be able to say you accomplished?

00:53:44.620 And do you really want to look back and say, well, everybody was racist, so I couldn't possibly make

00:53:49.260 something of my life or everybody was sexist, so I couldn't do X, Y, and Z. Or do you want to be able

00:53:54.140 to say there were these obstacles and I overcame them and I contributed, right? People always say,

00:54:00.540 well, what makes you so passionate about education? Because I want to be able to lie on my deathbed

00:54:05.260 and say I did something. I made the world into a better place. We teach the kids about personal

00:54:10.460 responsibility, about duty. You are responsible for yourself. You know, I am the master of my fate. I am the

00:54:16.460 captain of my soul. This is what we say all the time. Now, because you can make a difference and

00:54:21.100 change something in your life. My whole point of having a good school is to enable children to

00:54:25.580 change their stars. Because if all schools are doing is just enabling the working class kids to

00:54:30.780 just end up doing whatever, you know, as they would have done, enabling middle class kids to take the

00:54:34.540 jobs as the bankers and the lawyers, then we're not doing anything. I want to change things for these

00:54:38.940 kids or at least give them the opportunity, give them equality of opportunity. That is what we should

00:54:44.620 be doing in schools. We shouldn't be going around telling white kids to question their privilege.

00:54:48.620 What we need to be doing is giving them all a sense of Britishness because they will then

00:54:53.420 naturally come to these things themselves. They will question their own privilege at some point

00:54:57.660 or they will question their own lack of privilege. Because when you give kids lots of knowledge and

00:55:03.100 teach them lots and love them, they are then able to run with it. People come here all the time.

00:55:08.860 We get 600 visitors every year and they say, how come your kids are so inquisitive? How come they're so

00:55:13.420 curious? Look at all their hands up in the lessons. How come they're so resilient? It's because we teach

00:55:19.020 them. But you have to believe in the basics of really great discipline and great teaching methods

00:55:25.260 of standing at the front and leading forward. But over the last 30, 40 years, we've lost that in

00:55:30.380 education. And now we're talking about decolonizing the curriculum. It is not about decolonizing

00:55:34.460 curriculum. It's about getting good behavior in our schools. But I don't know. Nobody, you know,

00:55:40.060 I'm not going to say nobody's listening. They are listening. They are. They're the silent majority.

00:55:44.140 I'm absolutely convinced that the silent majority are on my side. Of course they are. But Catherine,

00:55:49.420 speaking about changing the world and people who have, you mentioned Martin Luther King earlier,

00:55:53.580 and I want to come back to that because I think it's important. I've had conversations in the last

00:55:58.460 few days with people where I was saying, I feel like we've moved away from his dream. I feel like we're

00:56:04.540 not judging each other on the content of our character. And that troubles me. You know,

00:56:08.540 you talked about identity politics. It's exactly the opposite of what he was talking about.

00:56:13.100 And people legitimately, I mean, I'm not making this up, will say to me, Martin Luther King was a

00:56:17.900 coconut. People say that? Yeah.

00:56:20.620 What? Really? Yeah.

00:56:22.380 Why? Well, because he was, he was not woke enough for them.

00:56:26.060 Yeah. So we have reached levels of insanity. Right. That I've. Right. So Martin Luther King's

00:56:33.180 getting canceled next. But my question, look, these people are very stupid who say that. But my question

00:56:39.340 to you would be, I mean, people, I don't even. Martin Luther King is a coconut. Yeah. I'm sorry.

00:56:45.580 Yeah. He was selling out black people, but. So meaning you've said to your audience,

00:56:49.660 meaning that he's white on the inside and black on the outside. Yeah.

00:56:52.220 That I get a lot. You know, right. Well, you get Oreo cookies, coconut,

00:56:56.300 race traits or all the rest. Yeah. Exactly.

00:56:58.140 All the rest. But basically what they're really saying is his view that we should treat people

00:57:02.780 as individuals is insufficiently taking into account structural issues, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

00:57:08.780 Now, do you think we just with society, we need to just go back to that? Or do you think we need to

00:57:15.820 incorporate some new thing into that? OK, I mean, yeah, good question. So like the thing about structural

00:57:21.660 racism, there's a difference between what I would say systemic or structural racism and

00:57:26.780 institutionalized racism. People tend to use them interchangeably. I don't think they are.

00:57:31.900 What is structural and systemic is what Martin Luther King, I mean, these people are idiots.

00:57:36.060 That's what he was fighting against. Right.

00:57:37.900 He was fighting against racist laws. Yes.

00:57:40.540 And it was lawful to divide the toilets. Yes.

00:57:43.820 He was fighting against racist laws. We no longer have racist laws. We have the Equality Act.

00:57:49.900 We do not. There is no structural racism. OK, there just isn't. What people mean is that there's

00:57:56.860 institutional racism. Now, institutional racism is more of a cultural thing, cultural racism thing.

00:58:03.420 So when people ask me to do X, Y and Z to tick a diversity box, I would say that was more

00:58:07.420 institutionalized racism. Yeah.

00:58:09.020 It's not that there's one individual who's a racist going, I hate you, Catherine, you're black.

00:58:13.260 Or even, you know, well, actually, I mean, I suppose they are seeing they are judging me on my color.

00:58:17.900 But it's so institutionalized, they don't realize that they're being racist.

00:58:22.140 That's what institutional means. You know, I was speaking to my head of history this morning,

00:58:26.540 actually, about about Tudor times. In fact, because of Starkey, because Starkey is a woman

00:58:32.060 called Miranda Kaufman, who's written this book on black Tudors, because what people don't realize

00:58:36.460 is that there have been black people in this country since Roman times. Now,

00:58:39.500 the vast majority of them, of course, came in the 1960s. But there were, I don't know,

00:58:43.820 a couple hundred black people living here in the Tudor times. And it'd be good to include that.

00:58:49.660 Why not in the teaching of history? Now, David Starkey actually refers to this. And he refers,

00:58:56.380 for instance, to John Blank, who is this trumpeter for King Henry VIII. And he's a black guy. And I mean,

00:59:03.260 he has access to the king. I mean, you know, and he dismisses it. Oh, these people and they're

00:59:08.860 ridiculous nonsense about this sort of stuff. Well, why are you dismissing this, David Starkey?

00:59:14.460 It's of interest. Isn't it interesting that there were black people living here during Tudor times

00:59:17.660 and people don't realize? I mean, I find that interesting. The diversity aspect of Britain

00:59:23.820 and England over, I mean, this is English. I mean, John Blank was English, very English. I mean,

00:59:29.820 that's something that black people probably wouldn't even say of themselves now. And yet,

00:59:33.020 here's a black man, King Henry VIII. And you know, like, it's amazing. It should be interesting.

00:59:38.700 And it should be interesting to a historian like David Starkey. And yet he dismisses it, right? Now,

00:59:44.460 stuff like that should be taught alongside, because otherwise, people leave school thinking that black

00:59:50.220 people only came to this country in the 1960s. It's not true. You want to teach accurate history.

00:59:54.220 Right. But Catherine, come back to my point. Come back to my point. What's your point? I can't remember.

00:59:59.180 Yes. Right. Well, you love education. And so you're always keen to draw back to it. But

01:00:04.060 I want to just broaden it a little bit. So let's just come back to Martin Luther King.

01:00:07.820 Yes. Is his vision, which is judge people on the content of their character enough?

01:00:15.180 Okay. So what I would say is, we have come so far in terms of race. Martin Luther King would

01:00:23.420 never have imagined us coming this far. He wouldn't have known what that looked like.

01:00:27.580 So he was fighting structural and systemic racism because he was fighting the laws.

01:00:31.900 We now have the Equality Act. That no longer exists. We have a kind of culture. I do think there is a

01:00:36.940 cultural and institutional racism that exists. And we can talk about that because the kind of

01:00:43.820 far right racism of, you know, calling somebody a name in the street and all that has nearly

01:00:49.660 disappeared. I mean, it's gone away. I say nearly. Look, I live in London. A guy on Twitter,

01:00:53.820 an Indian guy on Twitter the other day said, look, I've lost count of the number of times I get called

01:00:57.820 the P word, you know. So I don't know. I don't actually know what it's like outside in the rest

01:01:02.940 of Britain. I certainly know in London. There's no way that that sort of thing would happen to me.

01:01:07.980 I have seen the change of things over my lifetime. And, you know, I can remember the 80s. It's very

01:01:12.860 different. So we have come so far that we can now talk about racism, which is just more when they talk about

01:01:18.540 unconscious bias and all that. We're talking about more subtle forms of racism, which is why I don't

01:01:24.060 think we should be cancelling people because, gosh, it's not the same kind of racism as calling somebody

01:01:28.860 the P word or the N word and so on. It's nuanced and it's interesting and we should talk about it.

01:01:37.180 And by talking about it, we change it. But what happens, because we've got cancel culture,

01:01:42.860 everybody on the other side then just says, not talking about it, not interested and they shut

01:01:49.740 down and then the other side go and pull statues down. And then we just got this race war. And

01:01:55.420 where the hell are we going to go to from there? But isn't part of the problem as well that there's

01:01:58.940 this narrative, which is that, you know, we've never been more racist. The far right are rising

01:02:03.500 again. They've become ever more emboldened. And all of a sudden, you get both sides just getting

01:02:09.340 aggravated at that. And then you get the woke who are saying, right, we need to rise up. We need to

01:02:13.180 fight. And then the other side go, well, they've got too much power. This is ridiculous. And we've...

01:02:18.140 Yeah, it's a fight for power. That's what it is. And, you know, this whole situation reminds me a bit

01:02:25.980 of the kind of Israel and Palestine, you know, neither side is listening to each other. And you're

01:02:31.820 right. Things get exaggerated. And I don't think that helps anybody. I mean, look, I wish we could

01:02:39.820 bring some forgiveness into this. You know, we've lost sight of religion. You know, Jesus believed in

01:02:46.380 forgiveness. And people make mistakes. I think we need to forgive, you know, in our own lives, we need

01:02:54.940 to forgive, you know, personal, you know, friends, boyfriends, girlfriends, all of that, you need to

01:02:59.740 forgive. But you also, um, just in life, you know, that's why I say I'd happily talk to David Stocky,

01:03:07.820 because I would, I forgive, you know, and then you need to forget, you know, and then you need to move

01:03:12.940 on. But if you're going to keep bashing, you know, it, it doesn't help anybody. And, um,

01:03:18.940 yeah, it's, and then people go to the extreme. What I was going to say about John Blank was that

01:03:25.260 on the one hand, we want to teach that there are black people in Tudor times. But what you don't

01:03:30.460 want to do is go the other way, where you're teaching everybody all about black Tudors, and you

01:03:33.980 forget about all the white ones. And then, and then people come out thinking that Tudor times were all

01:03:39.100 black people. And, and, and, and the white guilt thing is highly problematic. And I would say to,

01:03:50.060 I mean, I don't want to talk to white people, but I suppose that I'd say to white people,

01:03:53.900 my advice is always, you need to find a black friend who isn't just bashing you, who has some

01:04:01.500 complex ideas around race, you know, so I think about myself as having complex and nuanced and

01:04:06.380 understanding, who can be critical of racism, but can also see that racism is directed towards white

01:04:13.260 people. And if you can find somebody like that, then you might be able to trust some of the things

01:04:18.140 that they tell you about the racism that they experienced. Um, and that white people should try

01:04:23.500 and get rid of the guilt. The guilt doesn't help anybody. Um, there's a great book by Jason Riley and,

01:04:29.820 uh, called, uh, please stop helping us. Uh, it's an, he's an African American and he, um, he's talking

01:04:37.260 to liberals and he lefty liberals. And he's saying, look, I know you're trying to help us, but you're

01:04:40.860 really not helping us. You're hurting us. Uh, and to all your kind of lefty viewers, I would say,

01:04:46.940 if you have any. Thank you, Catherine. We've got at least three. So we actually have,

01:04:53.020 most of our viewers are actually disaffected lefties. Oh, okay. Well, I would say read that

01:04:58.380 because, well, you know, he just explains why the, the, the help isn't helping. I would also

01:05:05.500 be aware. I mean, I hate saying all of this because I sound like some, you know, like I'm

01:05:10.860 some arrogant twit saying white people do what I say. But anyway, um, you know, if you feel really

01:05:17.260 guilty and if you're so worried about being a racist that what you're doing is running around,

01:05:22.380 making it look like you're non-racist. So you're putting a black box up on Instagram or you're

01:05:26.140 putting a letter on your corporate website. We believe in black lives matter. I'm like,

01:05:30.060 did you ever, did you know black lives matter before? Or are you just putting up now because

01:05:33.500 you feel pressure from society to do so? You know, if, if that's what you're doing, stop,

01:05:41.020 try and think, how can you live a good life? You can give money to charity. You can go and work in a

01:05:45.820 soup kitchen. You can go and become an inner city school teacher. You can become a social worker.

01:05:50.940 You can do all sorts of things to make the world a better place. I have spent over 20 years working

01:05:56.860 with kids in the inner city. I've dedicated my life to education and reform. Um, and I've taken

01:06:02.620 a lot of flack for it. I've lost my livelihood and my, my, you know, the ability to work in the,

01:06:07.820 in the world that I love. And then I had to spend three years vitriol guiding my way constantly.

01:06:13.260 You know, I've done everything I can. And I know that I can sit on my deathbed at the end of my life

01:06:19.420 and look back and say, yeah, I did something, you know, that's what we should all be aiming for.

01:06:24.380 Don't worry about how you appear right now. Forget about how you appear. You know, I talk to you,

01:06:28.860 honestly, just now I just tell you everything I think. I'm not thinking, gosh, what will people

01:06:33.740 think of this? Who's going to hate me? Who's going to like me? You know, what I would say to everybody

01:06:38.620 who I'm talking to, you know, the white people who are rolling their eyes and saying, you know,

01:06:42.460 she's such a woke, crazy person or the other ones who say, my God, she's so she's such a racist or

01:06:49.340 whatever. Look, it's coming from a good place. You know, it's coming from my heart. I'm trying

01:06:54.060 to do what's right. And, um, I'm trying to hold the middle ground. We all need to head for the middle

01:06:59.980 ground. And remember the circle that I spoke about. You don't want to be really woke and you don't want

01:07:05.500 to be really on the really right. You know, you want to be somewhere in between. I'm a small

01:07:10.940 C conservative because I believe in personal responsibility and duty and obligation and

01:07:15.100 tradition. You can believe all those things and still be an anti-racist, you know?

01:07:21.580 Well, Catherine, on that note, uh, we are out of time. Yeah. It's great. It's great to chat with you.

01:07:26.700 And, uh, we always ask the same question at the end, which is you're going to run out this being

01:07:31.900 the third time being on the show. What is the one thing that we're not talking about that we should

01:07:36.540 be talking about? And don't say education. Yeah, no, it's true. Well, I hope after people

01:07:42.940 watch this video, they might talk about the circle idea that I'm saying and that there is racism on

01:07:48.700 both right and the left. I don't think we recognize the racism on the left enough and we don't talk about

01:07:53.900 it enough. And people take refuge in the left because they think that's what makes them not racist

01:08:01.020 or anti-racist. And I want to push this middle way. That's where you can be an anti-racist by not

01:08:07.980 being on either of these sides that meet in the middle. Perfect. Well, thank you so much, Catherine.

01:08:13.500 If people want to follow you on Twitter, you are at Miss Snuffy. So that's Miss with an underscore

01:08:18.540 Snuffy, big S, N-U-F-F-Y. Thank you so much for coming on. It's been a brilliant interview. And thank

01:08:23.980 you so much for watching. Check in for another live stream or another wonderful episode. And we'll see

01:08:30.620 you very soon, guys. See you very soon. Take care. And don't miss the live streams Tuesday,

01:08:35.580 Thursday, Friday and Saturday. At 7pm.

01:08:53.980 We'll see you next time.

01:09:10.620 We'll see you next time.

TRIGGERnometry - July 08, 2020

Starkey, Racism and Cancel Culture with Katharine Birbalsingh

Episode Stats

Length

Words per Minute

Word Count

Sentence Count

Misogynist Sentences

Hate Speech Sentences

Summary

Transcript