Have race relations in Britain got better or worse since the Black Lives Matter protests here, sparked by the death of George Floyd in America?
Even to ask the question seems daft, since it seems obvious that there has been a notable deterioration.
Lots of black people have been radicalised against a society (and presumably also against its majority white inhabitants) that they now believe to be systematically conspiring against them on racial grounds. And lots of white people – especially working class white people and those from post-industrial areas with few economic opportunities – are now simmering with resentment at being told by posh London commentators they have benefited from racial privilege and must ‘educate’ themselves about this.
When media supporters of Black Lives Matter (BLM) relentlessly promote figures and incidents showing BAME individuals getting an apparently disproportionate amount of attention from police, it’s small wonder that even the politically correct Met Police Commissioner Cressida Dick is moved to highlight uncomfortable facts about the “huge” over-representation of young black men in serious crime.
Likewise, when Premier League footballers all “take a knee” before every match, it’s small wonder that a plane trailing the banner “White Lives Matter, Burnley” is flown over a ground.
And anyone who believes that such feelings of resentment about being marginalised or ignored are only shared by Far Right types isn’t getting out enough.
Almost everything nowadays is being seen through the prism of race. The importing of Critical Race Theory from US academia and the penalisation of anyone in authority who contests it has imposed conditions that make the idea of living in a harmonious multi-racial society seem like a faraway pipe dream.
All of this might be contested by BLM supporters, but I must draw your – and their attention – to an extraordinary report by BBC News, Wales that was clearly designed to bolster the view that BLM campaigning is progressive and necessary but in fact demonstrates precisely the opposite.
In this article a series of BLM campaigners in Wales are interviewed about the impact the campaign has had on their lives.
One, Natera Morris from Cardiff, is quoted as saying: “I’ve had a lot of the same friends for 24 years and this has been the only thing that has divided us.” She has been left wondering whether these people were ever her friends at all. Yet, seeing as they formed and then sustained a friendship with Natera, they clearly cannot have been out and out racists in the first place.
“It’s not nice to have to throw away a long friendship over this but (BLM) is incredibly important to me,” she says.
Another campaigner, Joe Newman, fell out with a close friend who he judged to be using racist rhetoric when debating the issues raised by BLM. “This is a person I thought I knew. They didn’t even give me a chance to explain my views and to help educate them – they just refused,” says Joe.
He has removed half a dozen people he considered close friends from his social media circle.
Nadia Thomas, a BLM organiser from Chepstow, reports a similar experience, saying she was surprised to get a negative response from someone who had been in her life for years.
“Not all of these people who have a defensive position are necessarily racist. It was just their defensive response,” she says.
Naturally, this being the BBC, the report concludes with the Welsh Government saying it will step up its emphasis on racial education with “new learning resources” coming on stream soon to “improve the teaching of Black, Asian and minority ethnic experiences and history”.
But, of course, there is another way of looking at all this.
A saner way: A bunch of well-intentioned young people in Wales have fallen out with long-term friends after becoming fixated on race off the back of the BLM protests. Their friends were and are not racists and may well have had a genuinely colour-blind approach to forming a social circle – what we used to fondly regard as the ideal. But the ideal has now become impossible for all those who will not tamely submit to an analysis that defines ’whiteness‘ as a privileged characteristic that must be corrected and apologised for (what one of the BLM interviewees referred to as allowing him to “help to educate them”).
So, sorry lads and lasses of BLM, but it’s you who have in baked discord and division to no obvious good or useful end. At a peer group level you have seen long-term friendships break up, which must be sad and painful. I expect this is happening in multi-racial friendship circles all over the UK at the moment.
If I decided to obsess about historic injustice and suddenly started wandering around hyping my vaguely Irish Catholic heritage and demanding that my mates apologised to me for what Cromwell did in Drogheda and Wexford and for all those “No dogs, no blacks, no Irish” signs in 1960s boarding house windows, demanding they allow me to ‘educate’ them in correct political thinking, I reckon my own social circle might contract as well.
But I wouldn’t conclude that this meant there should be yet more official and media emphasis on the ancient injustices of Irish history or that the volume should be turned up to eleven until everyone agreed with me. I’d conclude that becoming a pain in the arse had turned me into Billy No Mates.
A contrary view of BLM, one that I happen to agree with. Although I’d be more scathing than calling them ‘a pain in the butt. Thankfully one party, the SDP, are prepared to debate this matter (as others), offering an alternative view.
It has become impossible to discuss the issue of #BLM. Let me assure you that having been born in a council estate in the 1950’s, if there was such a thing as White Privilege it has passed me by. Following Thatchers end to The so called “Jobs for life” my post Royal Naval work life was great between Redundancies. Finally being sacked for not being able to get NHS Treatment quickly enough in my early 60’s. Yet again my long suffering wife had to put up with losing another home because ESA does not pay the Mortgage. We have had to move away from our friends, again. I have experienced NO PRIVILEGE WHATSOEVER.
I bend my knee to my Monarch but no one else.
All blm supporters need educating about the extremely harsh lives that British coal miners and their families lived for a couple of hundred years and the farming peasants before that and life in UK work houses where we were treated abominable, the last of which only closed in the 1930s! How dare they call us privileged. My father and his mining family nearly died of starvation, my great grandfather ran a soup kitchen to stop starvation in our mining village! I’m so disgusted at their lack of knowledge of British white working class history. As one of the most invaded countries over the last 2,000 years should we hate the Romans, the Norman’s, the French, the Germans? We don’t and we shouldn’t, it’s ancient history but we should learn it and learn from it.
The whole concept of white privilege and critical race theory is extremely divisive and is a new cause of racial problems. BLM and the indoctrination associated with it is having the opposite of the intended effects. They are by all intents and purposes a far left group sowing hatred and racial tensions. It should be illegal as much as Naziism is illegal. Too far right and too far left is the same thing – intolerance, persecution, hatred.
Could it be that in just 2 months BLM have managed to put “the idea of living in a harmonious multi-racial society ” back 60 years?
Spot on , there agenda is extremely divisive and has no discernible limits to what it wants to achieve other than creating an ‘ us and them ‘ scenario , it is toxic
Very interesting and true. I do believe we have taken a backward step. I do not have black friends as such but black and brown work friends. It doesn’t feel right using these words and feels alien. I had not seen colour before, not consciously anyway. I am very saddened to see what’s happening and truely do not believe we live in a systematic racial country. It makes me angry now seeing protests and even the itv advert. I feel like it is being rammed in our faces whether we like it or not. I was born and raised here. I have never know such Assad times
Spot on, the BLM hysteria has harmed race relations, because people resent feeling they are being deemed racist.
Spot on. The BLM hysteria has harmed race relations. People resent being deemed racist and support for the cause on TV and by organisations and companies is both unnecessary and ridiculous. Which laws need to be passed or changed which don’t already exist? It’s a false narrative pursued by activists with a spurious agenda.
all I see protesting are white entitled bored middle class students who think they are entitled to speak for all of us
Great article. Thank you. This is also being reflected in genuflecting of masters degree educated people to the revolting falsehood of intersectionalism (which they deny is a form of racism), promoted by intelligent people who’ve either read a DiAngelo book (or say they agree with it), or think, having done a primer in critical race theory or a gender studies course, they now have the skills to rampage across the world making everyone conform to their delusions.
Firstly, these ways of looking at our unequal world are not accepted by much of the mainstream of social thought (even by some of the Left), as their believers deny proper evidence-based approaches are required to falsify them. Since I am no expert I shall not go further here. I may get it wrong.
This is a potentially disasterous moment for Western civilization. With the severe damage from covid19 some of us are very very worried about major unrest. It has been brewing for years, as radical leftism has fomented resentment and bitterness toward the culture that has given THEM the freedoms enabling their own thinking to be aired! They never read Alexander Solzhenitsyn perhaps.
The BLM have some power, but appear badly led. If we can get them to debate the real issues, then they can be exposed as intellectually and socially vacuous in thinking. Their Marxism must be exposed. They do not have case in the UK, I believe. The main problem in the UK is the extreme Left that has dominated state schools for 20 years or more. Schools such as the Michaela School in London have demonstrated that, free of Leftist governers and with good school discipline, children from all sectors, including black children, do very well.
There is a broader truth behind intersectionality, but one the social justice warriors seem blind to.
There are many things that affect our life chances. Race, gender and sexuality no doubt play a part, but of even greater importance are intelegence, psychological variables such as conscientiousness or nuerotisism, family background and education, even atractiveness. And each of us is a unique mix of all of the above. So ultimately the logic of intersectionality takes us back to the great truth of the liberal enlightenment, that we are all individuals, and should be valued and treated as such.
Very good article, all very true. The white privilege nonsense is exactly that. Certainly didn’t experience it in my life, from bedsits to council estate to Army to 5 redundancies & a crap pension from a government who couldn’t care less. Everything I’ve had in my life I’ve had to graft for. This BLM crap is the most divisive movement I’ve seen in this Country in my lifetime, stinks of the left wing view of something for nothing. I agree with Dominic Raab, only bend my knee to my wife to propose, & to my Queen.
This article is possibly one of the best and most accurate articles about the current state of the uk i have read.
A fair and balanced view of both sides.
Sadly i think we are in for much more or this before it gets better
They have systematically caused division and descention by there actions. I was never a racist but now find myself calling them for everything.. I saw the person not the colour but now because of comments from them are no longer interested in any of the verbal diarrhoea that comes out their mouths. A few have come out against them and I applaud them for that. Let them find a deserted island and set up their utopia.
The reason why the BLM demos are so large is that there are no real opposition to the crackball theories. I also agree that there stupidity and actions have put race relations back fifty years. Try telling my grandson who is white that he is in a privileged position due to his skin colour and I know what he would say.
Thank you Patrick, an excellent summary of the situation. BLM and their supporters and apologists have undoubtedly worsened race relations in this country. I have a particular concern for the Police in all this. Their actions, for instance in stop-and-search, are invariably linked to institutional racism, although I believe I am right in saying that the seemingly disproportionate stopping of black people is better explained by their disproportionate representation in the offender population than in the behaviour of the Police. To that end, I’ve thought for some time that our law and order policies should include a commitment to establish an independent Office of Evidence Based Policing, charged with the task of properly informing our endless debates about this and other policing issues. Fighting BLM’s misleading and socially damaging assertions with hard evidence might not stop the racists inside and outside the BLM movement from continuing to make a noise on the streets, but it would be invaluable in marginalising their views and hampering their recruitment of other ill-informed people. More importantly, it would give ordinary folk the information they need, in the privacy of their own homes and thoughts, to make informed views of what is really happening in their world and what, if anything, needs to be done about it.
Excellent. Told with great clarity and logic.
Laurence Fox, the actor, is proposing a new political party based on a desire to reclaim our country’s tolerant values. I hope he will not steal the ground of the SDP.
The authorities are wondering why the public has lost respect for the police. The answer is that we have witnessed them taking the knee to this toxic rhetoric and doing nothing whilst statues are torn down and thrown into the river.
After the Norman Conquest, the majority of the indigenous population in the Uk were made into serfs with the importation of a rigid feudal social and economic structure. A serf was owned by the lord of the manor, and tied to the land. In other words, the majority of white people in this country are descended from slaves as well. There were serfs/slaves in France and wherever feudalism was imposed. There were serfs in Russia until the nineteenth century.
In the UK, it was only the different conditions created by the deaths of between a third and a half of the population through the outbreak of plague known as the Black Death (I expect that will be renamed in due course) that led to the breaking down of serfdom and feudalism.
Yet the Black Lives Matter movement never mentions this obvious historical fact, that the majority of the white population are probably descended at least in part from serfs. Perhaps their historical knowledge is in fact, very limited? Do they in fact, need to ‘educate themsleves’?
This fact might make a good riposte to anyone shouting about ‘white privilige’.
Very little if anything good will be achieved by this radical movement and it’s appeasement by Organizations and authorities. It’s whole philosophy is based on grievance and revenge and not on reconciliation or redemption. I experienced a deeply troubling experience with my daughter around this issue when her genuine compassion for all disadvantaged people allowed the BLM message to influence her into thinking she was especially privileged purely because of her skin colour. I was deeply upset when she expressed her views to me and had not our relationship been so strong the ensuing discussion would have damaged it. She is indeed privileged in many ways but none of it due to her skin colour. Her grandparents were from the many poorly educated Irish labouring classes who came to England in search of work. They experienced petty prejudice and distrust but worked hard and overcame many obstacles to eventually become accepted and loved members of their neighbourhood. They bore no malice toward the people or the country that had given them the opportunity of a good life and opportunities for their children to do the same. My daughter owes a lot to those simple people who never looked for or received anything for which they didn’t work. I was incensed that my well educated and intelligent daughter could be so misguided by this false ‘gospel’ that she should feel guilty for being white and for prejudices which she didn’t express or even. possess. The BLM movement is deeply poisonous because it is rooted in hate, revenge and reparation. No successful or peaceful society can ever be built on these foundation stones.
Black people who don’t agree with BLM/critical race theory and who speak out against it, even mildly, are coming up against torrent of abuse denouncing them as “Uncle Toms”, “coconuts”, “coons”, “house negro” etc. by other black people on social media (and in some cases in real life), even here in the UK. It’s absolutely repellent and extremely ugly, and is designed to silence them into submission. Some of these power-drunk activists who hide behind the banner of anti-racism have no problem at all with spitting the most hateful racist slurs at other black people they disagree with. All of this woke stuff that’s seeped over from the US and radicalised people via online social contagion has created a situation where within minority groups, people feel entitled to abuse and shun anyone who doesn’t display the right fealties. I hate it.
I absolutely agree with this article in its entirety. But, perhaps more could be said about the sneaky ideology that drives BLM. Also, the fact that the increasing presence of critical race theory in mainstream media as if we all accept the truth of its fundamental premises has emboldened those such as Kehinde Andrews who is an out and out racist. This man can barely conceal his contempt and hatred for so called white people. Perhaps you have seen the website ‘make it plain’. The left has gone mad I have always considered myself as being’ on the left’ but oh boy they have lost me. I am most definitely looking for an alternative.
Thank you for mentioning Andrews – looked him up and agree.
I’m so glad I read this… Its clearly & logically written & sums up in an understandable way what I’ve repeatedly been trying to say on social media. I know I’m not a racist… I genuinely believe in racial equality… But BLM has nothing to do with equality & I’m tired of being attacked because I can’t put into words what I know & feel. Thank you.
Take a look at a piece in November’s issue of The Critic by writer and journalist Michael Collins titled Why I Am No Longer Talking To Black People About Race. At the time of writing this is not yet available on The Critic webpage but in the published hard copy of the magazine only.
I’m an Amercian and I couldn’t agree with you more. Very well-stated. The pendelum has swung so hard that you can say nearly anything you want about white people in the USA and you’ll be viewed a progressive but say anything about “African Americans” and no matter how well-founded and cogent the thought is you’ll be branded a “racist.” I believe BLM by name and strategy is incredibly divisive and potentially damaging to real progress. It’s ceratinly the opposite of what MLK preached. Thanks for sharing a saner viewpoint!
This seems like a common sense article. I have no idea what’s happening in our society but it’s all like crazy, dissonant sound clashing in our ears and the author of this article is right, because we can’t make sense of it we’re picking out the frequencies we’re most attuned to and that is polarising us as a nation.
There are issues to be addressed, no doubt, but these are never going to be solved by the divisive narrative which seems all of a sudden to dominate national consciousness, particularly of the young.
I was genuinely shocked (hurt would be a better description) when after an internet search I clicked on a link to the Girl Guides position on BLM which seemed like an article of political indoctrination rather than something which explained to young people the need to respect those of ever ethnic origin. It described the UK as founded on racism and as institutionally racist today.
BLM seems to have taken on a life of its own with all the symbolic trappings of ideology or religion, taking the knee for instance.
Agree. However Multiculturalism is always doomed to fail. Look at Yugoslavia as example. I live in Leicester where we are told we are a celebration of Multiculturalism. Yet in reality we are not. White, Black, Asian live in there own neighbourhoods. Rarely integrate, even speak English.
We then have to look at Bradford years ago. There was graffiti on walls telling White people to leave. Nothing was done and i suspect relations are worse.
Immigration can be good. If people are told to integrate and not giving special privileges. Keep your culture but remember you adopt ours as well.
Great piece!
BLM have backed themselves into a corner here, and are basically saying that they deserve a free ride over and above all other ethnic groups most of which are successfully embedding themselves into the fabric of our country. I for one felt things were going in the right direction prior to this development and colour was becoming irrelevant, and am saddened fearing that this will be a major step backwards.
I get sick of hearing people hanging on to the slave trade and basically making a career out of it!
The slave trade was an example of man kinds inhumanity on both sides. It happened’ move on and forge a new identity! its just lazy to eat the chips of your shoulder for the rest of your life.
Its also a matter of serious concern that mainly young black people are killing each other with knives on an almost daily basis, as they are choosing a path in life of no return, when they have the choice and resources not to do so. This for many people I speak to makes a mockery of the whole argument. Lets not forget one of the main causes of racism is behaviour not skin tone.
Absolutely agree with this article, my very best school friend of 30 years stopped talking to me last year after a discussion on this topic. When she was kicked out by her mother my family housed her from 15-17 years old as she was my mate and my family supported both her and me. I cannot tell you how it has rocked me to the core as we have been so close, we would talk every day. My mother looked upon her as a second daughter and treated her accordingly, later in life she asked my father to give her away at her wedding as her father was not in contact and hadn’t been since she was 7. We would spend holidays together, nights out. There wasn’t anything that we couldn’t talk about. Until last year, we would have stilted conversations about why I would be friends with a block woman and how I was a covert racist, not only that….my family were too.
It’s taken me about a year of upset to finally face the fact that I have lost my darling friend. I hope to god before I die that I will see her again and talk as we used to, as I miss her desperately.
Thanks for this article.
What absolute nonsense. The real enemies of racism or bias behaviour is now people are as well non Caucasian & not just White.
Black Lives Matter, or any doesn’t really matter to Sunak, Cleverly, Blair & other multi political party politicians that like to make indifferences & poverty with the lower/working classes.