But forgive me if I really don’t have a strong opinion, one way or the other, about the decision by the sixth-in-line to the throne to step away from royal duties. The fact that they’re going to lose their HRH titles from so-called Meghxit seems like a reasonable quid-pro-quo, and I’d be ready to move on without wasting everyone’s time writing an article about it except that this has become a scandal about alleged racism within the national press.
The argument goes as follows: William and Kate receive more positive media coverage than Harry and Meghan for doing pretty much the same things. Meghan is of mixed heritage; therefore, the press must be racist. Furthermore, some people – especially on Twitter – have made racist comments. Having been involved in politics in the past (though I’m now on the road to recovery), Twitter is full of every kind of despicable trolling imaginable. Twitter is about as representative of the real world as Midsomer: murders do happen in real life, but you don’t get a serial killer every week in a single sleepy village. You’ll meet the occasional racist in the real world, but that’s about all.
I struggle to see the media’s approach to Harry and Meghan as being remotely related to the fact that Meghan’s mother is African-American. Perhaps the different treatment is because William is expected to become King some day and exudes a statesmanlike approach in everything he does. Perhaps it’s because of some of Harry’s previous indiscretions. Perhaps it’s because Kate chose to join the Royal Family and adapt to it, earning a certain amount of goodwill. Most likely, the national tabloid ‘gutter press’ are guilty of sensationalism not racism.
But the biggest thing that worries me in recent days is the ‘identity politics’ narrative. This is the Orwellian notion that nobody who is white is entitled to have an opinion on such matters – terrifying because if there’s one thing that will breed racism, it’s telling people that they’re not allowed to have an opinion because their life experience is different. It’s as though the whole response were being designed to stoke up racial tension.
When actor Laurence Fox appeared on Question Time, he answered a question on this subject by saying he believes that Britain is a tolerant nation. For that, he was hounded by an audience member saying “what worries me about your comment is you are a white privileged male”. For reacting to that he’s been pilloried: it seems that the ‘privilege’ is the ‘privilege’ not to be entitled to hold an opinion.
My view is simple: nobody’s voice should be worth more or less based upon their gender, skin colour, sexuality or anything else for that matter. In the UK we beat the ethnic white nationalism of the BNP by rejecting such political correctness. I’m scared we’re bringing it back: evidence from the USA already points to rising white nationalism as a backlash: when identity politics based upon skin colour is normalised, it spreads. As with economics, when America sneezes the rest of the world can catch a cold.
Instead of tilting at windmills, we should fight actual incidents of racism wherever they arise. The threat of rising anti-Semitism is huge: only Jews in the UK routinely require armed guards outside their places of worship to keep them safe.
The fact that 13% of the foreign-born population of the UK say they’ve suffered racial abuse [Migration Observatory at Oxford University] in the last year is indeed appalling, and should be fought robustly, but please let’s stop acting like it’s 100% and that all British people are to blame. Over 90% of migrants to the UK say they believe they can get ahead if they work hard. Fix what’s wrong, but please don’t let us fall down the ‘identity politics’ rabbit-hole which can only lead to worse racial tensions, and – ultimately – a rise in extremism. Jonathan Arnott, Northern Journal.
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