MIXED UP

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.)

Comments

[Yaffle]

Your "video link" link isn't quite right

[Clive]

Sorry - I must have made a mistake pasting in the URL. It's working now.

[Jay]

Jamie Whyte potentially has some very interesting things to say about how over-consciousness about matters of race might contribute to an individual feeling burdened unneccesarily, giving them a complex. AS it is, his article strikes me as one of the most arrogant and smug and limited I have read in a while. I am not a particular fan of Trevor Phillips, and I notice that Mr Whyte's book is called 'Crimes against Logic' -- oh the irony! Because his faughter has not experienced racism, there is no racism in society, and uppity black men should shut up about matters of race. Let me check how many copies of his book are in the remaindered bin.

[Welsh Windbag]

On a contrary note, I thought that article reminded me of how as a child I and most of my peers had little awareness of racial differences until pointed out by 'grown-ups' or other children echoing them. I remember my astonishment at a friend being called a 'Paki' and the furore visited on the perpetrator. We didn't think our friend (half-Indian, half-European) was any different - we were all Welsh and that was about it. Surely class and national identities can be just as powerful and can render colour less or even unimportant. Maybe that's naive, but the relative colour-blindness of children is worth thinking about.

[dearieme]

Since "racialist" doesn't seem to be used much nowadays, I thought he was suggesting a useful purpose for it. "Racist" is presumably beyond saving: once it referred to a repellent cast of mind, and associated behaviour, which resulted in pain, death and destruction. Now it means - what? "Someone winning an argument against a lefty" has been suggested, but that's too frivolous. But what?