Natalie Solent |
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Politics, news, libertarianism, Science Fiction, religion, sewing.
You got a problem, bud? I like sewing.
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Wednesday, May 11, 2005
Better to have been left in ignorance as to what Yasmin Alibhai-Brown said on Monday. Let that not diminish my gratitude to the nice person who responded to my shameless hints of yesterday by supplying the text, but, heavens, this is one of Yasmin's dopiest. The bigger politics is what concerns us activists much more than the race and/or gender profile of an MP. And so to the Tories. The election ushers in the first 'black' Tory MP, Adam Afriye (half Ghanaian and half English)Unless he has joint Ghanaian-British nationality he is all English. and Shailash Vara, the Ugandan Asian who has done time as deputy chairman for a party which has always repudiated equality and diversity policies and produced a string of racist politicians, including Winston Churchill.You mean she didn't want to talk about early socialist white supremacists after all? So is this the nasty party shedding its repulsive past? Not a bit of it. These results, for me, are a damning manifestation of the splintering of the anti-racist struggle, a triumph of uncle Tomism and worse. Here is what Clive Davis (whose blog I discovered via Stephen Pollard) said about that: "Uncle Tom" is the laziest insult in the book. How does Yasmin know that black and Asian conservatives "assimilate into the political establishment without a backward glance at their origins"? Isn't it just possible that their ideas are based on hard experience rather than an eagerness to get a seat at the top table? Has she ever considered the possibility that it's much easier to follow the right-on crowd rather than take the path of somebody like Shelby Steele, a writer who has been subjected to no end of personal attacks simply for questioning America's post-Civil Rights orthodoxies?Ms Alibhai-Brown continues: To witness the son of illegal Jewish immigrants strategically mobilising mob instincts against immigrants was bad enough. To then have the sons of an African and a Ugandan Asian reiterate these obscene prejudices made me suicidal. They say it isn't racist to control immigration. They know how a racist stench rises when they flash such statements across the land. The victors deserve to be despised by egalitarians and people who believe in human rights, just as Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice are by millions of Americans of colour.I agree with her view that it's what a politician does that counts, not his or her colour. The rest of the argument scarcely deserves the name. I am undecided on immigration, but even in my most libertarian phases I don't convince myself that someone saying it is not racist to control immigration is responsible for the racist thoughts that third parties may have when they hear this statement. There are probably people who think racist thoughts whenever they hear Yasmin Alibhai-Brown argue for some of her beliefs. She would not feel she had to remain silent to keep them from sin. |