So Trevor Phillips is a racialist because he "thinks that your race is the most important fact about you"? Oh, please... Jamie Whyte's op-ed about ethnicity in Britain is an example of how a clever person can be logical and wrong-headed (not to mention smug) at the same time. Besides, basing a column on the life experiences of your three-year old mixed-race daughter is, let's say, stretching things a little. Good for her that she's growing up in "a nice bourgeois suburb" (as are my sons). But most people aren't. End of conversation.
As a matter of fact, I feel quite optimistic about the way the next generation of mixed-race kids will cope. Things have improved no end since the days when Ronnie Barker's fellow con, McLaren was just about our only role model on TV.
But it's still a leap to pretend that race doesn't matter at all. Which is partly why I was a little testy in the Celebrity Big Brother discussion on 18 Doughty Street last Tuesday. [Thanks to Iain Dale for supplying the video link.] I often get the feeling that some conservatives are so intent on scoring points against the bien pensant establishment that they airbrush genuine problems out of existence. For instance, as I tried to explain after we came off air, I would have major problems dealing with a friend who was a Stalinist, but I could probably find some way of coming to terms with that affliction. A friend who decided to join the BNP, on the other hand, would instantly become an ex-friend: it would be personal. I don't see a way around that. I was surprised to find that other panellists had a hard time grasping the point.
(As for Big Brother, I'm glad Shilpa took the high road in the post-release interview last night. Turning Jade into a public enemy would just have been counter-productive. In the end I watched a full hour of the climactic programme last night. Amazing to see how a frothy entertainment can turn into a vehicle for serious issues. And, no, I don't think the controversy was a result of the "success of militant multiculturalism", as Joseph Loconte puts it. The British public isn't that gullible.)