The day I was accused of being racist, I knew political correctness had gone mad, writes TREVOR PHILLIPS
Trevor
Phillips pictured in London in 2015
A few weeks ago, I observed that Barack Obama’s iconic status as the
first African-American U.S. President should not obscure his mixed political
record.
For that, I was accused by one Radio 4 commentator of peddling a ‘racist
narrative’.
As a black man and former chairman of the Equality and Human Rights
Commission, you might think I would be surprised to face a charge of racism —
but I was not.
For at a time when this country is crying out for frank discussion on
issues such as race and sexuality, debate is being closed down because those who
find offence in every-thing cry ‘racist’ or ‘sexist’.
The result — as I argue tonight in a TV programme — is that our political
and cultural elite seem unable to speak plainly about things that concern many
citizens.
While our rulers seem to have all the time in the world to debate who
should use which lavatory (in deference to the transgender lobby), they dismiss
anxieties about overcrowded schools or doctors’ surgeries as merely a bigoted
dislike of migrants.
How has this come about?
Forty years ago, ‘identity’ politics was about trying to end
discrimination. It led to revolutionary legislation on gender, disability and
race.
But recently the recognition of diversity has grown into a cancerous
cultural tyranny that blocks open debate.
In higher education, it has spread like wildfire.
Efforts to keep real racists off university platforms have been perverted
so bans are imposed on, for example, speakers with unfashionable views on
transsexuals.
Harmless academics are falling prey, too. Sensible people are appalled at
the way Nobel Laureate Sir Tim Hunt was hounded out of his post at University
College London for a weak joke about women crying in
laboratories.
Hardly a day goes by on campuses without a demand for a statue to be
removed or for ‘safe spaces’ where sensitive students can be sheltered from
robust views in a cultural debate or sexual violence in a classic literary
text. Mail.
