Douglas Murray on intolerant politics

I think it's very generous of Barbara to assume a capacity to engage with the debate and give reasoned arguments!

upfield “ . I believe identity politics is pushed by those who don't have this experience and have discomfort/guilt dealing with people from different ethnicities. They make it an issue, because for them an ethnically diverse society is theoretical rather than first hand experience.”

Maybe, but it’s quite hard to believe that some if the followers of identity politics didn’t have similar backgrounds?

A whole thread with a nuanced discussion of identity politics, with thoughtful, respectful participation from both sides of the political divide, and input from people with lived experience of being on the receiving end of racism.. then up pops a poster with a one line telling-off and a screen grab of a tweet hectoring us to "repeat after me."

Does it never cross your mind, Toc, that engaging with the debate and trying to give reasoned arguments to people might be a more effective strategy than assuming they are bad people and telling them off?

I'm still laughing at....

CIVIL RIGHTS FOR HETEROSEXUAL BOURGEOIS WHITE MALES NOW!

Only the far right would vote against this!

Yeah, those ones.

I wonder if it ever occurs to people who start statements with "repeat after me" (a rather rude command) that the quite reasonable response might be "no".

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Do you mean the white males with a "gender identity" in the US, more of whom voted for Trump than for Clinton?

Well that's you scolded, ladies!

Don't enjoy it too much, some of you are sounding very far-right-white-male-supportive.

I’m trying to listen to that BBC Sounds thing but the presenter has an awful voice

Oh I know, @AutumnRose1hes a bit painful to listen to, but the discussion is interesting.

But it does strike me that no woman with such a difficult voice would get such BBC prime airtime ...

Nothing to add personally but I love this thread. I'm agreeing with so much.

Interesting discussion which I'm afraid I don't feel I can contribute to significantly theoretically, but anecdotally, reading this has made me remember the ethic mix of my friendship group as a child, which I'd never really thought about. In primary school, in the early 80s, my best friend was Chinese, I also had a Jamaican, German, half-Pakistani and a Nepalese friend (all 2nd generation). Working class background, majority white area, parents the opposite of woke. My sister's best friend was Indian. I believe identity politics is pushed by those who don't have this experience and have discomfort/guilt dealing with people from different ethnicities. They make it an issue, because for them an ethnically diverse society is theoretical rather than first hand experience.

MoltenLasagne that sounds awful. Personally I'm appalled too. The fact we as a country largely take that kind of coercion of girls for granted, and excuse it as cultural differences etc is just wrong. It's the perfect example of those girls (I'm guessing most were born here) just not being afforded any kind of the same level of protection as other British girls.
Not that many girls have freedom from coercion sadly.
We pass a few laws but don't really enforce them, so they aren't really worth having.

I’m trying to listen to that BBC Sounds thing but the presenter has an awful voice.

Hipster “ if people feel that, say, the government/large, important organisations don’t reflect the ethnic mix of the country as a whole, and better representation is needed“

I always thought that kind of thing was a mistake anyway. I think it’s ridiculous to try to staff any organisation according to the optics.

I’m aware people are pushing for it and have been for ages. But I’m not in favour of it and I see it as the starting point of a lot of the problems we have now.

The racism that's targeted at new arrivals exacerbates racism for people who ethnically look the same though, even if they've been here a long time. You could say that about Indians in Australia. Many new arrivals are unemployed and form a majority of job applicants where they are ignored en masse.

I think some of the above is the overlap between nationality and ethnicity and how racism often doesnt distinguish between the two.

AutumnRose, if people feel that, say, the government/large, important organisations don’t reflect the ethnic mix of the country as a whole, and better representation is needed, surely its easier to argue for that as a larger notional BAME grouping. It’s a very broad grouping so might not be useful beyond a point, but in the short term it serves a purpose.

(I didn’t bring up 3rd gen - like you, I’d not heard of it until I read it here - I was quoting someone else. But BAME isn’t to do with nationality anyway, but ethnicity.)

We have to find the things that unite us as humans rather than endlessly focus on the things that make us "other" surely?

Bit of both?

IfNot “ We have to find the things that unite us as humans rather than endlessly focus on the things that make us "other" surely?”

And it’s not even a task, when integrating was a norm, this was just good common sense.

Maybe next time I get “where are you from” I’ll just say “I don’t do identity politics”.

hipster your unionisation comment really baffles me in this context. Firstly, the “3rd generation” immigrant is a British person. Secondly, what are the rights you think they would seek together? What rights are either of them missing to start with?

Molten I’ve never been to Birmingham but that’s an interesting experience in relation to stuff I’ve heard from one friend working there. She travels in from a suburban area though, she doesn’t live there.

Isn’t it a sort of unionisation? It’s hard getting your voice heard as a small minority (any kind, really) so it makes sense to come together to ask for minority issues, generally, to be considered. And sort out the specifics later.
I guess so. And dont get me wrong, a lot of things have been shit for a lot of immigrants to this country, so efforts to recognise different perspectives are coming from a good place, but the slavish adherence to separating people out leads to just..a lot of separate groups eying each other with suspicion. We have to find the things that unite us as humans rather than endlessly focus on the things that make us "other" surely?

Do you think it had anything to do with the importation of Wahhabism

I honestly don't know - I was a teenager seeing the fallout rather than the cause. There was a vocal minority of Somali parents who I remember refusing to let their children wear the school jumper because there was a teeny tiny cross as part of the logo. That was the first really obvious clash I remember when I was about 12 and the first time I knew the kids by their background but I think that was just the impact of new immigrants rather than the type of Islam. At 14, one of my friends got sent to Pakistan during summer holidays because a cousin had spotted her with Hindu friends outside school and she never came back. It was after that that it got really bad, unsurprisingly. I was appalled, the other girls were terrified.

It's like BAME. I mean, what is that? It covers bloody everyone! What does a 3rd generation Kashmiri from Keighley have in common with a newly arrived Nigerian student? Nothing but humanity, and yet they are both "BAME"

Isn’t it a sort of unionisation? It’s hard getting your voice heard as a small minority (any kind, really) so it makes sense to come together to ask for minority issues, generally, to be considered. And sort out the specifics later.

Molten that is so sad 😞

I wonder how and why that happened.

Autumn basically because it very quickly went from "you can't hang out with white girls" to "you can't hang out with Hindu girls" to "She's Bangladeshi, and we're Indian / Pakistani" to "Well what do you expect from Sunni Muslims?" Just this ever decreasing circle of who was allowed to socialise with who and a whole lot of bad feeling to go with it.

It was worst for the black kids at school because anti-black racism from asian kids went through the roof which was really horrible. My school photos show this gradual segregation but worst was this feeling of being pre judged for what you were rather than who you were.