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Cambridge University’s very modern bigotry The institution promotes an academic tweeting racism, yet considers Jordan Peterson to be beyond the pale

One rule for Barnsley another for Cambridge. Credit: Oli Scarff / Getty

One rule for Barnsley another for Cambridge. Credit: Oli Scarff / Getty


June 26, 2020   5 mins

What is the opposite of equality? It is inequality, surely. And what does inequality look like? Well that’s any time in which an outcome varied solely due to the nature of a person’s inherited characteristics.

So if two people have precisely the same qualifications and fitness for a role, but one of them has a racial or sexual difference and is either advanced or held back because of it, you could legitimately say that the subjects had been treated unequally.

Even in a country as tolerant and open as Britain, it is undeniable that historically people have been disadvantaged because of their sex, sexuality or skin colour. Roles for which they have been eminently fit and suited have been closed to them because of a characteristic over which they have no say. Not all the bad blood from this has gone away.

Of course the way to dissipate any remaining bad blood would be to visibly and consistently strive to appoint people to positions based on their merit, confident that in the course of time people of ability will rise to the positions which they deserve. But what would be the most divisive way in which to go about trying to address such inequalities? Well, that would be to very visibly and obviously create and institute a mirror version of the old system: to attempt to carve out special privileges for people who look like those who suffered discrimination in the past, and to treat with a special disdain and contempt the people who look like they might have once benefited from discrimination.

There have been a number of fine examples of this emerging catastrophe in recent days. There has, for instance, been the exceptionally light-touch policing which allowed early Black Lives Matter protests to descend into violence and disorder in London. And the very heavy-handed policing (justified, as it happens, but which could have been used at the previous protests) when groups of predominantly white and often violent protestors turned up to ‘defend’ statues which were under attack from some BLM protestors.

Then there was the sacking of the 24-year old who arranged the “White Lives Matter Burnley” stunt, after a month of hearing politicians, media, corporations and street protestors repeatedly citing the slogan of BLM.

Of course, you might for a time say that ‘Black Lives Matter’ should be a promotional matter and ‘White Lives Matter’ a sackable one. But it begs the question of how long you want to keep that standard up for? A month? A year? Indefinitely? If indefinitely isn’t achievable we get back to that issue I have raised here before, which is how you would know when you have ‘over-corrected’ for long enough.

The question hovers over institution after institution, even at places that used to be our major seats of learning.

Most people in the UK will never have heard of Priyamvada Gopal. A scholar of ‘post-colonial studies’, she holds a fellowship at Cambridge University and lectures in the English faculty there, despite not being especially distinguished even in her own field. A small body of work sits behind her — but a greater body of grievance clearly sits within her. Two years ago she made headlines after berating the college porters at Kings College, Cambridge, accusing them of calling her “Madam” instead of “Dr Gopal”. And this act of “racism” caused Dr Gopal to not only berate the lower-order porters, but to threaten to withhold her talents from the inhabitants of King’s.

That mixture of haughtiness and incendiarism appears to be Gopal’s preferred register. On Twitter she regularly produces content which is so unbecoming of an academic at any institutions — let alone at our second-greatest university — that I confess that for a while, after first coming across her, I assumed that she was a spoof. Surely nobody who acts in such a deranged and deliberately provocative manner could possibly have any role at an institution of higher learning?

But she does, and this week Cambridge reaped their latest reward from her presence. On Wednesday Gopal chose to send out a message on Twitter saying:

“I’ll say it again. White Lives
Don’t matter.
As white lives.”

Quite how this racist little rant adds to the store of Cambridge University’s reputation in the world would be a matter for that university’s authorities. If it had any. As though to prove that her intentions were honourable and sane, Gopal followed this up with a Tweet simply saying, “Abolish whiteness”.

Which is of course totally normal behaviour, and definitely the way that academics at publicly-funded institutions are meant to pass their time. But what was most interesting on this occasion was once again not the ugly and divisive rhetoric of one undistinguished academic, but rather the reaction of the University’s authorities.

Amazingly enough, Gopal’s statement that the lives of white people do not matter did not land with universal acclaim. Surprisingly — which must have come as a great grief to her — some members of the public objected to her use of her platform and time to spread racism. Some complained to the university. And on Wednesday evening Cambridge University issued its own statement:

Of course that statement is a flat-out lie. Cambridge has been deeply unwilling to stand by its academics in recent years. Last year the University dismissed the young researcher Noah Carl after a mob that was totally ignorant of Carl’s areas of research decided that he was guilty of racism. A most cursory investigation was performed, and then they revoked the contract they had already given him.

Also in the past year came the case of Jordan Peterson. The Canadian academic and professor was meant to take up a visiting position at Cambridge University, only for the institition to rescind their offer after it was brought to their attention that one fan at a meet-and-greet had once had his picture taken beside Dr Peterson while wearing a t-shirt saying “I’m a proud Islamophobe”.

Both Peterson and Carl are white men. Both were dismissed by Cambridge University for racism ‘adjacency’ (to use one of the weasel words of the time). Neither was remotely guilty of the charge of racism because neither man is a racist. But I suspect that if either of them had ever tweeted out a statement saying, “Black lives don’t matter”, or “Indian lives don’t matter” or similar racist garbage, then I strongly suspect that Cambridge University would have dismissed them even more swiftly than they did. If that were possible.

So what is the difference? The only variable that explains Cambridge’s prejudicial standards is that Gopal is not white. Cambridge University has carved out a racism-allowance for Gopal where she can act in a manner in which others would not. She is literally priviliged.

And it is not just an allowance, but a positive ladder. After her Twitter rant, Gopal started to point to abusive messages which her racist tweets had garnered and pointed to these as evidence that she must be right — a renowned cry-bully move. But on Thursday she announced how well this had all worked for her, because the evening before “Cambridge promoted me to a full Professorship”. Was there some sudden surge in quality in Gopal’s work? A sudden swell of academic material which suddenly opened the University’s eyes to the gem that was sitting in their midsts? Clearly not.

Like all really successful 21st-century privilege-wielders, Gopal knows how to play the game. You pretend that you are in a position of weakness and vulnerability, when you are actually in a position of power. You present yourself as a victim as soon as people call you out as an aggressor. And you pretend to be the offended party after going out of your way to cause maximum offence yourself.

I don’t know how long these new racist standards will be allowed to run. Perhaps longer than they did before. But what should be clear by now is that anything less likely to foster harmony or tolerance than these current inverted standards could hardly be imagined.


Douglas Murray is an author and journalist.

DouglasKMurray

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Fraser Bailey
Fraser Bailey
4 years ago

Devoid of all reason or grace, Professor Gopal typifies all the nastiness that is now enveloping us. She is the perfect embodiment of those who succeed in our society, across politics, the media and academia. Above all, she is emblematic of the depths to which our once great universities have sunk.

Judy Englander
Judy Englander
4 years ago
Reply to  Fraser Bailey

Berating college porters (I’ve read that she’s done this at two universities) is a particularly nasty instance of ‘punching down’. She sounds like an utterly loathsome character.

Neil John
Neil John
4 years ago
Reply to  Judy Englander

The typical behaviour of a number of female academics in my experience, all too often the higher they climb the slippery pole the worse they get…

Mark Corby
Mark Corby
4 years ago
Reply to  Fraser Bailey

In short she is not “potty trained”, as we used to say.

cjhartnett1
cjhartnett1
4 years ago
Reply to  Mark Corby

Potty mouthed though.

Mark Corby
Mark Corby
4 years ago

Well done indeed Mr Murray, a splendid piece. Using almost surgical precision, you have skewered that pretentious Gopal to the wall, like a malignant butterfly.
Even allowing for an infinitesimal amount of Oxford bias, you have clearly exposed the University of Cambridge for the pestilential cesspool of academic achievement it has been since time immemorial. One only has to think of the wretched traitors spawned there in the 1930’s, Blunt, Cairncross, Philby & Co.
Nurtured and suckled by the heady atmosphere of sodomy, treachery and deceit, so prevalent at the time, particularly in the infamous Apostles ‘Society’, no single institution has done so much damage to England.
Gopal, an over promoted, entitled cretin, seething with rage, and continually spewing vitriol like some demented Gorgon, is but the latest in the horrors that Cambridge has visited on this once ” green and pleasant land”.

srhodes5
srhodes5
4 years ago
Reply to  Mark Corby

Malignant butterfly: wonderful metaphor!

Richard
Richard
4 years ago
Reply to  srhodes5

Probably going to provoke a ‘Human Rights’ case by lepidopterists, an unfashionable club, at the best of times. I can see dozens of lepidopterists massing in their twos and threes, the length and breadth of the nation to protest this calumnisation of their hobby/scientific pursuit. Come back Peter Simple….please!

Richard
Richard
4 years ago
Reply to  srhodes5

Have tried to post a reply and am being moderated. Supremely, amusingly ironic, not to say, bonkers…

Dan Poynton
Dan Poynton
4 years ago
Reply to  Mark Corby

I’m not sure if your facts are right or not, but that was sheer poetry! I found it nearly as satisfying as Mr Murray’s splendidly surgically skewering article.

Alys Williams
Alys Williams
4 years ago
Reply to  Mark Corby

Great comment. I am in awe.

dewill275
dewill275
4 years ago
Reply to  Alys Williams

Me too.
😍🤩😍🤩😍🤩
Esp the ‘Sodomy’ part.
Never trust those homos eh?
I wonder where they dig you people up from.

Mark Corby
Mark Corby
4 years ago
Reply to  dewill275

No, you missed the point completely!
Nothing wrong with sodomy, but in 1930’s Cambridge, it’s illegality added a certain spice to the heady cocktail of treachery spawned by those entitled morons, the Apostles.

Stephen Lloyd
Stephen Lloyd
4 years ago
Reply to  Mark Corby

Have you looked at the University of Oxford’s record on “wokeness” recently? They are certainly in no position to throw stones.

Mark Corby
Mark Corby
4 years ago
Reply to  Stephen Lloyd

I had rather hoped nobody would mention that, but you are perfectly correct. Oxford, and Oriel in particular, have been, and continue to be, an absolute disgrace.
Perhaps it’s time for another Thomas Cromwell to ‘dissolve’ both, and start again?

Trevor Q
Trevor Q
4 years ago

I think we are in this situation because the great majority of the population have dismissed wokeness as so silly as not to be worthy of their attention. My eyes were opened by reading The Madness of Crowds. Now people can’t ignore this any longer and hopefully there will be a kickback. The sad thing is is that the extreme woke positions are going to setback race relations and tolerance rather than advance them. They are very clearly being intolerant and divisive and yet they have the nerve to call themselves progressive when they are deeply regressive. They need to be called out on this.

A Spetzari
A Spetzari
4 years ago
Reply to  Trevor Q

I really think the net result of all these shifts in the US will be a second Trump term. Most normal people who are not racist or particularly anything “ist” will have looked at what has been going on and will think “no thanks”. I’m not a fan of Trump at all personally, but he probably offers their best counter to all this nonsense.

For the UK it remains to be seen where a similar point will come from. Most normal people will have been too concerned with real, important issues (work, family, Covid) but i suspect equally unimpressed with the mad crowd.

Geoff Cox
Geoff Cox
4 years ago

Come on Douglas – start your own political party. Policies to include:

Unambiguous free speech and association
Repeal all hate speech laws
Repeal all discrimination laws (eg the Race Relations Act) but make unlawful all discriminatory actions – both “positive” and “negative”
Stop all immigration to give us a breathing space
Our slogan to be “No wokery” – it worked in Elizabethan times when it was “No Popery”.

You’ll need help, but help will come from high and low.

Others feel free to add to the Douglas Murray manifesto.

Simon Latham
Simon Latham
4 years ago
Reply to  Geoff Cox

The SDP needs a few more Parliamentary Candidates.

David J
David J
4 years ago
Reply to  Simon Latham

They won’t get any MPs until they put some effort into raising their subterranean public presence.

Danny Shintag
Danny Shintag
4 years ago
Reply to  Geoff Cox

Isn’t that the SDP, more or less?

Geoff Cox
Geoff Cox
4 years ago
Reply to  Danny Shintag

Hi Danny – yes perhaps. I’ve just had a look at the SDP policies and there is not a lot I could disagree with. I think they would describe themselves as centre-left. I am more centre right plus! So their policy of maintaining public sector spending at 41% is far too high for me. But there is some good stuff on the BBC and hate speech etc. If Douglas Murray could be happy in that Party, I could be. But I think there is a need for the political centre ground to be reset rightwards, so I’d be keen on a Party stressing individual self responsibility, small government, laissez faire capitalism (though with a strong anti-trust arm) etc. But if a real Conservative Party was to alternate in power with the SDP, there wouldn’t be much wrong with that.

Richard
Richard
4 years ago
Reply to  Geoff Cox

This begs the question – ‘Where would one find a ‘real Conservative Party’? I haven’t observed one for some considerable time.

Mike Hearn
Mike Hearn
4 years ago
Reply to  Geoff Cox

I’d drop “stop all immigration”. ALL immigration is a big step taken by no country anywhere, which would result in immediate retaliation from other countries who would then stop Brits immigrating there. This in turn would seriously restrict people’s career paths and family lives.

It’s also got relatively little to do with wokery / culture war issues, except that wokery is the reason why there’s never any progress on reducing levels.

There’s no need to stop all immigration. The alternative to “not woke” is not an equally extreme inversion of their positions. The policies the Tories keep saying they will implement are enough, except it’s clear they’ll never actually do it (especially with Boris at the helm who is very pro immigration). The neuralgic part of immigration in British politics is that voters can choose between a party that claims to care about reducing the level but is lying, and parties whose positions are that the UK needs even more. All that’s needed is a reasonable position combined with honesty and a real commitment to implementing it.

Pierre Brute
Pierre Brute
4 years ago
Reply to  Geoff Cox

Sign me up.

Richard
Richard
4 years ago
Reply to  Geoff Cox

How on earth did you get this past the mods? I’m sadly puzzled. PS Agree absolutely.

MUKUNDARAJAN V N
MUKUNDARAJAN V N
4 years ago

As an Indian, I condemn Gopal’s racist tweet. There cannot be different standards for judging racism.Non-whites do not have the licence to mock at whites merely because they have embraced victimhood. ALL LIVES MATTER.

Sridhar Raman
Sridhar Raman
4 years ago

I understand you, Mukundarajan. Unfortunately, the damage has been done. Going by some of the comments here (and the supporters), it is irreparable. Non-whites are losing sympathy in the eyes of whites. What do we do now?

Glyn Reed
Glyn Reed
4 years ago
Reply to  Sridhar Raman

It is sad you are feeling that way but I can understand it. I think many of us, no matter
our race or faith, are feeling very anxious at the moment. Many people are sick and tired
of the victim/identity rubbish and offended by baseless accusations of racism and the attacks on our culture and pluralistic society but I believe those who dare to stand against extremist nonsense unite on grounds that transcend race and skin colour. We must be united. A lot of West Indian people are speaking out against the aims of BLM and the likes of Gopal as are others from ethnic communities – all who speak out need support for their courage.
I’m grateful to them, it restores some hope for the future.

Andrew Butler
Andrew Butler
4 years ago

I wouldn’t mind in the least living in a neighborhood composed of people who think as you do even if I were the only white person to call it home. Your race and mine is of little interest to me. It is refreshing to spend one’s time with the members of other other races who couldn’t care less about which one you belong too and vice versa I’m sure. “All men are brothers” is superior to “All men are equal.” The former encapsulates the latter: it recognizes that we are created equal in dignity and value but it also denotes relationship and a responsibility that cannot be imposed as a matter of positive law. I am my brother’s keeper and he is mine. There is no greater hedge than that against the modern form of cannibalism that endorses the idea that one is justified in “consuming” others to satisfy a hunger that has nothing to do with food, or to advance a set of interests that serve one’s self to the exclusion of all others.

Alexander Allan
Alexander Allan
4 years ago

We need a libertarian philanthropist willing to bank role a libertarian lawyers to take Cambridge University et al. to court on discrimination. We also need the current crop of cowards in the Conservative party to grow a spine and challenge this leftist authoritarianism but unfortuately most of them, particularly the leader, have fully embraced progressivism.

ianmac3801
ianmac3801
4 years ago

Race Relations Act 1965 and Equality Act 2010. A prosecution under these would make it embarrassing for Cambridge. A nice little injunction preventing Cambridge from paying her legal costs would be an interesting aside.

ianmac3801
ianmac3801
4 years ago

Go for it

David George
David George
4 years ago

Thank you Douglas. How very sad.

Bill McCardle
Bill McCardle
4 years ago

Another incisive article by Douglas. He has that ability to strip away ephemera and get to the heart of an issue. The hypocrisy and double standards at Cambridge are breathtaking. Just gutless.

Fiona E
Fiona E
4 years ago

It is time people like Douglas Murray and Jordan Peterson started a university if we wish to preserve western civilisation (or even better a political movement but I know that’s just wishful thinking!) Failing that I don’t see why any public money should go to places like this or why our ‘conservative’ government isn’t doing more to challenge the ‘liberal’ left types who seem to be in charge of all our institutions – the police, law, education, arts, media – even the army! I wouldn’t really mind if they were doing a good job but they’re not and identity politics does nothing but divide and antagonise people. In fact they’re just like the useful idiots who enabled the French or Russian revolutions, and they’ll be in for a nasty surprise when the Neo-Marxists come for them. I wonder how long it’ll be before we’re at this stage https://www.wsj.com/article

Alex Mitchell
Alex Mitchell
4 years ago
Reply to  Fiona E
Richard
Richard
4 years ago
Reply to  Fiona E

The independent University of Buckingham has been going for a few decades. A few more like this would be worthwhile. I’d close half of the existing British universities in a trice and deploy the funds for technical/mechanical/engineering/IT colleges, or ‘polytechnics’, and other vocational education and linked skills’ apprenticeships. Just a thought.

Nigel Clarke
Nigel Clarke
4 years ago

Any sympathy or understanding white people have for non-white people is rapidly diminishing.

Gopal is a racist.

Richard Goodley
Richard Goodley
4 years ago
Reply to  Nigel Clarke

I hope not …. this woman is clearly a malevolent harpy but my nephews Indian Wife and Family are lovely people … don’t go down the identity route because Hell lies there

Dan Poynton
Dan Poynton
4 years ago

Totally agreed. But isn’t it marvellous the the Unherd editorial team are allowing these comments to stand, in their true spirit of free speech. Sunlight is the best disinfectant.

Nigel Clarke
Nigel Clarke
4 years ago
Reply to  Dan Poynton

Yes, very refreshing.

Richard
Richard
4 years ago
Reply to  Dan Poynton

If only this were true. I’m stuck with the mods in a post referring to lepidopterists. I’d guess that they haven’t got a dictionary handy.

Pete Kreff
Pete Kreff
4 years ago
Reply to  Dan Poynton

Perhaps Nigel Clarke does not mean that he personally is losing all sympathy and understanding for non-white people, but that this is a likely response from some people to anti-white hectoring that seems to be entirely tolerated and even applauded.

The White Lives Matter banner might be an example of a possible backlash.

Dan Poynton
Dan Poynton
4 years ago
Reply to  Pete Kreff

Thanks. Yes, I’m sure he must mean something like that, but the way he expresses it makes it sound chillingly like a “white versus the rest” and that it’s somehow some sort of courteous effort for the “whites” to have sympathy and understanding for “non-whites”. Whether he meant it or not, or whether I’m just too stupid to understand his wording, I think it’s worth calling out.

Nigel Clarke
Nigel Clarke
4 years ago

Hope springs eternal, only in this case i’m afraid the spring dried up a long long time ago.
It isn’t just this one tweet, this particular one is the doing the rounds, but this persons twitter stream. She hates white people. Have a look, swap a few of the words…and then tell me you still have hope that this person is not just a black racist but misinformed, or misunderstood. Remember, she is a Professor in an English department.
The problem here is one of hypocrisy and double standards. Why should this woman be allowed to tweet incendiary racist tweets, when other people tweeting similar racist comments are censored?

Sridhar Raman
Sridhar Raman
4 years ago
Reply to  Nigel Clarke

Interesting that this sympathy should reduce _rapidly_ because a (gosh) non-white person spoke something about white people. Hmm … makes one understand the other side better. Thanks for that.

Giulia Khawaja
Giulia Khawaja
4 years ago
Reply to  Sridhar Raman

Sympathy- if there ever was any for an unknown – has rapidly reduced, not because of her race but because she’s is an extremely unpleasant woman who cannot be civil to the porters when they politely call her madam, not an insult last time I looked, and who, despite an evident lack of either talent or wit, boasts about being promoted after tweeting what would have earned a white man instant dismissal.
Evidently you feel some racial empathy. I doubt it’s reciprocated.

Sridhar Raman
Sridhar Raman
4 years ago
Reply to  Giulia Khawaja

Sorry, that is not what the commenter said. Nice try.

Frederick B
Frederick B
4 years ago
Reply to  Sridhar Raman

How could it not reduce? Contrast the sacking of those young people in Burnley for saying “white lives matter” with the promotion of Dr. Gopal (coincidentally or not) after saying “white lives DON’T matter”. I’m glad you now understand the fury of “the other side”, but baffled that you don’t share that fury at such a gross injustice. Why don’t you?

Sridhar Raman
Sridhar Raman
4 years ago
Reply to  Frederick B

A comment made by a non-white reduces the commenter’s sympathy for non-whites. And I am supposed to defend my argument against this stupidity?

More importantly, it smacks of an arrogance of “putting people in one’s place”.

Nigel Clarke
Nigel Clarke
4 years ago
Reply to  Sridhar Raman

I very very much doubt you understand anything other than your own victim status, judging by your comment.

And you illustrate most of the points discussed within these comments perfectly.
Thanks for that.

Sridhar Raman
Sridhar Raman
4 years ago
Reply to  Nigel Clarke

And you illustrate most of the points discussed within these comments perfectly.

We are totally in agreement there.

Sridhar Raman
Sridhar Raman
4 years ago
Reply to  Nigel Clarke

‘victim status’? :)) Are you, by any chance, referring to Douglas Murray and his article(s)?

Mark Corby
Mark Corby
4 years ago
Reply to  Nigel Clarke

Yes indeed, and also an attention seeking lightweight. The real tragedy is there is not enough water in the Cam to wash her white.
This realisation of this ‘cruelty’, the gift of the Goddess Fortuna, has in reality, destroyed her life.

Dan Poynton
Dan Poynton
4 years ago
Reply to  Mark Corby

To “wash her white”? You and Ms Gopal should be put in the ring together.

Mark Corby
Mark Corby
4 years ago
Reply to  Dan Poynton

Well admonished! I was stupidly trying to be ‘clever’ and see if anyone picked up on a pun from Shakespeare. To whit, Henry V Act 4 .Scene 7: ” All the water in Wye cannot wash your Majesty’s Welsh blood out”.

Nigel Clarke
Nigel Clarke
4 years ago
Reply to  Mark Corby

Haha…i’m sure there’s a point here that needs discussion…viz your original comment and the reaction to it.

Mark Corby
Mark Corby
4 years ago
Reply to  Nigel Clarke

It should be axiomatic that something from Shakespeare is taught each and every day in our schools. It is impossible to exaggerate the sheer ‘nectar’ our children would enjoy.
Additionally it is the greatest paean to England ever written, and a perfect antidote to the Woke drivel that abounds today.

Mark Corby
Mark Corby
4 years ago
Reply to  Nigel Clarke

I mustn’t try UnHerd’s patience too far, I think you will agree?
They have been very generous so far.

Dan Poynton
Dan Poynton
4 years ago
Reply to  Mark Corby

That is quite funny actually! However you have certainly now exposed my lack of Shakespearean knowledge for the whole world to see.

lvkinnyc
lvkinnyc
4 years ago
Reply to  Mark Corby

You weren’t off, in the sense that I do think a lot of this springs from cultural jealousy. They protesteth a bit too much about how singularly horrible the West is.

Mark Corby
Mark Corby
4 years ago
Reply to  lvkinnyc

You are absolutely correct.
However one must have an iota of sympathy for ‘them’ I think.
Frankly it is rather embarrassing to admit in India’s case for example, that a small bunch of
Englishmen wearing red coats, white breeches, black tricorn hats, and carrying ‘Brown Bess’ muskets, sailed half way around the World and conquered the Indian sub continent, is it not?

David Morley
David Morley
4 years ago
Reply to  Nigel Clarke

“Gopal is a racist.”

Yes, but lots of “non-white people” aren’t, so let’s not ditch our empathy and fellow feeling just because some bourgeois from Cambridge is a racist.

Nigel Clarke
Nigel Clarke
4 years ago
Reply to  David Morley

People are sick of the double standards being applied to the race issues extant in the UK at the moment. It is counter-productive and will only lead to more division. People can see this pretty clearly now, and so yes, sympathy and understanding is being undermined by Gopal and people like her.

If you are non-white you can say whatever you want, no matter how incendiary or racist the comment is. Whereas if you are white, you can’t. And it is as simple as that.
All you have to do is read around on the web to see this.

Yes, not all non-white people are racist, but we are seeing an awful lot of them being racist.
Tommy Robinson is a racist, but not all white people are either. But do you think if Tommy Robinson tweeted something similar to Gopal he would get a free pass and a promotion?

Dan Poynton
Dan Poynton
4 years ago
Reply to  Nigel Clarke

I hate to say it, Nigel, and perhaps you misspoke, but your comment’s “optics” approach the racism of Ms Gopal’s.

Nigel Clarke
Nigel Clarke
4 years ago
Reply to  Dan Poynton

Explain. Seriously, i’d like to know why you think the optics or anything else in my comment can be construed as “approaching” racism.

Dan Poynton
Dan Poynton
4 years ago
Reply to  Nigel Clarke

Nigel, I’m sorry I didn’t see your query (I find the notification system on Unherd disastrous). Below is the answer I gave to Pete Kreff who thought I might have simply misunderstood your words (very possible):
“Yes, I’m sure he must mean something like that, but the way he expresses it makes it sound chillingly like a “white versus the rest” and that it’s somehow some sort of courteous effort for the “whites” to have sympathy and understanding for “non-whites”. Whether he meant it or not, or whether I’m just too stupid to understand his wording, I think it’s worth calling out.”

David J
David J
4 years ago
Reply to  Nigel Clarke

Gopal seems a vile body and is certainly a nasty racist.
But please don’t fall for her wiles and paint all non-whites with her unpleasant brush.

Glyn Reed
Glyn Reed
4 years ago
Reply to  Nigel Clarke

Gopal certainly sounds like a racist but I won’t let that make me into one. I abhor what is happening but I can see people -many of them very poorly educated even if they’ve spent thousands on a useless degree – are being manipulated. Having met with little resistance the toxic narrative of the far left has been allowed to root and gain ascendency particularly in schools and universities.
Now it is in virtually all our institutions. It is time it was met with robust and insistent challenge. A good place to start would be with the National Curriculum. The way history is taught in schools needs changing fast.

singh.vishal971204
singh.vishal971204
4 years ago
Reply to  Nigel Clarke

I agree as Indian we have our own Identical Trash where our own Culture is degraded by our Media & Television Industry ,Many Campuses filled with Left garbage with so called SJ Warriors mud slinging other who don’t agree with them

Peter Dunn
Peter Dunn
4 years ago

Another brilliant article from Douglas M.
He is amongst the very few straight-talking and fiercely honest writers we have.

Mark Corby
Mark Corby
4 years ago
Reply to  Peter Dunn

Glad to hear we agree on this subject.

Susannah Baring Tait
Susannah Baring Tait
4 years ago
Reply to  Peter Dunn

Here is another excellent and sensible article: https://www.theatlantic.com

Robin P
Robin P
4 years ago
Reply to  Peter Dunn

Another baah baah comment. Here’s what might be a more thoughtful review.

I agree with the article. BUT. The crucial conceptual basis is lacking here. You cannot very meaningfully talk about “equality” without clarifying the distinction between equality of opportunity and equality of outcomes.

And the problem with these “anti-racists” etc is that they insist that inequality of outcomes is proof of inequality of opportunity.

David Barry
David Barry
4 years ago

I’ve always been suspicous of the term ‘hate speech’, but given that it exists, I think this is as good an example as any.

I’m not a lawyer, but to me this would appear to be illegal under the Public Order Act 1986. Section 18 of the Act says:

A person who uses threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour, or displays any written material which is threatening, abusive or insulting, is guilty of an offence if”

(a) he intends thereby to stir up racial hatred, or

(b) having regard to all the circumstances racial hatred is likely to be stirred up thereby.

ianmac3801
ianmac3801
4 years ago
Reply to  David Barry

Get to it and start prosecution. Stop p***y footing around.

Dr Irene Lancaster
Dr Irene Lancaster
4 years ago

Gopal is a Fellow of Churchill College Cambridge. In 2017 Churchill College invited me to visit re its ties with Haifa Technion (the Israeli university currently working on technology and masks to protect against Covid). I was therefore a guest of Churchill College and, as such, was also shown around their Churchill and Thatcher libraries.

Imagine how I felt when all I encountered from staff of the college was a barrage of antisemitic tropes, especially aimed at some of college’s Jewish donors. The piece de resistance was discovering that the college’s Churchill Archive housed books by convicted Holocaust denier and antisemite, David Irving, whom they appeared to regard as a serious historian. The following day, leaflets full of antisemitic abuse were scattered all around the city of Cambridge, much of it penned by David Irving himself, who also backed Jeremy Corbyn, by the way.

Are we therefore surprised at the Maxine Peakes and the Rebecca Long-Baileys of this world, when the intellectual foundation for their own brand of crass and mendacious antisemitism originates in the UK’s universities – because Cambridge is not alone.

David Morley
David Morley
4 years ago

Then there was the sacking of the 24-year old who arranged the “White Lives Matter Burnley” stunt

I don’t want to support the stunt, or claim to understand the motives of the people behind it, but there is a point here.

Whatever you think of the relative problems faced by poor black and poor white people both here and in the states, there is a difference. When black people suffer, the world listens. Celebrities show their solidarity, academics send tweets and rush out papers, and the upper middle classes flood onto the streets. Even Piers Morgan is on board. If the sufferers are white, nobody cares.

From the perspective of white, working class Burnley, it probably does look like a reminder is needed that “white lives matter”. Like “black lives matter” it’s a kind of shorthand – in longer form, it probably means: just because you are white, working class, northern and probably voted Brexit – doesn’t mean your life doesn’t matter too.

Michael Whittock
Michael Whittock
4 years ago

Cambridge has been full of cultural Marxists long before the term was coined so it was no surprise to me that they de-platformed Jordan Peterson and are aiding and abetting Priyamvada Gopal. It makes me angry and sad in equal measure. I owe Cambridge a great deal but I’m ashamed of what the woke establishment in the University are being allowed to do without any robust internal opposition being ranged against them.

Neil John
Neil John
4 years ago

David Starkey’s recent comment about the Cambridge ‘english’ department and defunding it rings true, too many University departments are simply Marxist indoctrination centres that shouldn’t receive ANY public funding. including tuition fee’s from publicly funded student loans.

AB Tyagi
AB Tyagi
4 years ago

Prof. Gopal & “academics” like her are example of opportunistic attention seekers. They exploit the very nature of freedom of speech, free press, democracy, acceptance. Her statements are plain forward vile & racially biased. It is called playing victim card, that sitting within the safe boundaries of political correctness, minority-label they actually do exactly what they present to be fighting against, two words – hypocrisy & bigotry.

Without doubts, I can say she is extreme-left biased, probably rejoicing & feeling thrilled on hearing damages, attacks done by BLM, Antifa on those of other opinion. She is not respected in the country she belongs to and have opened her hate-shop in institution which supports such bigotry. If I would be her student I will deny to attend her classes, not because she is dark-skinned but because of inferiority-complex & vileness she oozes of in her comments.

Interesting fact – Ironically, her first name “Priyamvada” in Hindi translates to “One who speaks kindly & politely”.

michael harris
michael harris
4 years ago

She is a Brahmin. Or as she puts it ‘from a Brahmin family’. But that does not make her a Brahmin, says she. She calls for the abolition of Brahmins and ‘Brahminness’ As if! She is the embodiment of Brahmin arrogance, the caste born to rule. And which has, through Nehru and his descendents, controlled the Congress party and India until the last few years.
The elite, now in this iteration of history, dress up in revolutionary clothes. But if, God forbid, they succeed in their revolt, some of them will be first to the Guillotine.

Neil John
Neil John
4 years ago
Reply to  michael harris

As a Dalit I hold her attitude in the highest contempt.

Sridhar Raman
Sridhar Raman
4 years ago
Reply to  Neil John

That’s an interesting point. And I agree that the Dalits have been some of the worst treated. But, what’s really the difference between the claims made by Brahmins on caste and whites on race?

Most of these comments here are really no different from the countless discussions I’ve seen in Indian forums, with Brahmins denigrating other cases, and making themselves the victims.

This original article is just deja vu to me. Unfortunately.

Sridhar Raman
Sridhar Raman
4 years ago
Reply to  michael harris

Brahmins, whites. Potatoes, potatoes. Glad you realise that.

Also, you may see echoes of these complaints by Douglas Murray (and other commenters) in Indian forums by Brahmins feeling victimised. This story just repeats itself in different flavors.

Mark Corby
Mark Corby
4 years ago
Reply to  michael harris

My ICS handbook describes Brahmins as Priests and Scholars. ‘Rulers’ apparently were a different caste.
All in all the whole system is an embarrassing anachronism that should be abandoned. Is it any wonder that so many have ‘jumped caste’ and joined Islam?

AB Tyagi
AB Tyagi
4 years ago
Reply to  michael harris

She is neither representative nor of Brahamans or India, she represents Marxism, racial-bias, hypocrisy. About Brhamans & caste system – it was system made based on the job people used to do, slowly with time original purpose got diluted & replaced by position in society, noble-born, etc.

Caste system is in process of going away. Educated, young, working class Indians already don’t care about any of this, there are remote villages, areas where it can still be felt. For 70 years, non-Brahamins are enjoying the special reservation which lets them to jump merit and get admissions to engineering, medical schools, early promotions in govt. jobs. The Brahman person would need to get 80%+ in high school or entrance exams while those with lower-caste privileges can get admission at 45%. Such half-measures are keeping casteism alive not helping to eradicate it. It is like trying to fight fire with fire.

Richard Goodley
Richard Goodley
4 years ago

The divisiveness is intentional. The goal is to destabilise then destroy the ‘patriarchy’ as numerous people have explained for a long time. I wasn’t listening until a couple of years ago when, by chance, I saw Jordan Peterson and Cathy Newman. Listening to him from that point and the magnificent Mr Murray, amongst others, and it does become rather obvious.

The problem here is Cambridge University not this absurd harridan Creuella De’Gopal.

Frederick B
Frederick B
4 years ago

I suppose the university could be abolished by statute. Then a “Technical University of Cambridgeshire” could be set up to carry on the useful stuff that the defunct university was doing. The redundant colleges could be used to house asylum seekers.

Mark Corby
Mark Corby
4 years ago
Reply to  Frederick B

What a brilliant idea!

Ralph Windsor
Ralph Windsor
4 years ago
Reply to  Frederick B

Or sacked welders from Burnley

maggie6360
maggie6360
4 years ago

She has posted a LOT more than they are letting in.
She is an out and out hater of everything white. If I could post a picture on here of her latest tweet made yesterday after Cambridge University publicly backed her AND promoted her, you’d be horrified.

Susannah Baring Tait
Susannah Baring Tait
4 years ago
Reply to  maggie6360

A DT comment: J SM

This was a comment in the DT 26 Jun 2020 1:49PM

“No comments allowed on Priyamvada Gopal, the racist Cambridge lecturer.

Her notorious tweet of 22nd June is well known: “I’ll say it again. White Lives Don’t Matter. As white lives”.

Her tweet of 25th June (now deleted) is even worse: “Now we have the opportunity to carry out a resolute offensive against the whites, break their resistance, eliminate them as a class and replace their livelihoods with the livelihoods of people of colour and LGBTQ.”

Surely this is a clear case of Incitement to Racial Hatred under the Public Order Act 1986

Steven Bower
Steven Bower
4 years ago

Is the 25th of June post genuine? It really sounds too stupid to be true, and PG is not stupid. What kind of ‘offensive’? ‘Eliminate’ them by what means? What will be done with them when their livelihoods are ‘replaced’? She says some pretty nasty stuff but that one sounds OTT even for her.

Sridhar Raman
Sridhar Raman
4 years ago

You do realise that the 25th June tweet was a fake one, right? Or maybe it doesn’t matter?

Alec Jordan
Alec Jordan
4 years ago

It would appear that Change.org has taken down the petition that she should be sacked by Cambridge Uni.

ianmac3801
ianmac3801
4 years ago

Start with Race Relations Act 1965 and Equality Act 2010. I am sure there is a case for Madam to answer

ianmac3801
ianmac3801
4 years ago

I live in Australia so unfortunately can’t follow through with this suggestion. “Professor” Gopel should be prosecuted. Who of you are prepared to lay a complaint? If the police won’t act, crowd fund a private prosecution. When she looses ask Cambridge why they employ a convicted racist? Time you lot stopped whinging and took some action. Hands up volunteers please.

Michael Collins
Michael Collins
4 years ago

If our man with the banner had thought about it a little more he could have turned into the white knight we’re waiting for.

It is very much a case of it being very easy to give up hope of common sense prevailing when so many lazy, publicly-funded Brit haters now control the communications networks.

Boris, abolish the licence fee, wage-cap managers in all public service bodies, privatise the non-emergency NHS. Depoliticise the police, dismantle the quangos.

Do it now because it’s getting a little bit too near being too late!

David Morley
David Morley
4 years ago

Not exactly short on privilege. I’m not sure how much more bourgeois you could get.

Gopal was born in Delhi, India. The daughter of an Indian diplomat, she spent her childhood moving between India, Sri Lanka, and Bhutan, and attended an international high school in Vienna, where her father served as a diplomat in the mid-1980s.[3][4]

borrieboy
borrieboy
4 years ago
Reply to  David Morley

Who came first..? Her or Afua Hirsch?

David Morley
David Morley
4 years ago
Reply to  borrieboy

Just checked AH out. They’re all the same, privileged upbringing, private education, poor little rich girls. Isn’t all that unearned privilege enough for them – so now they want unearned victimhood too?

William Wilkinson
William Wilkinson
4 years ago

Great article. It’s like what I think but I’d struggle to put into words like that.

Red Asp
Red Asp
4 years ago

The overwhelming feeling I have is sadness: sadness at how cowardly people and those that run institutions are. Their cowardice is generating a great deal of anger, I suspect. Anger which, when the fashionable wind-changes – and people are “free” to say what they think again – will express itself violently.

worldwidedetectors
worldwidedetectors
4 years ago

Loved the line “A small body of work sits behind her ” but a greater body of grievance clearly sits within her” great stuff

Seumas Gibson
Seumas Gibson
4 years ago

A massive thanks to Mr. Murray for his writing, thinking, living, and breathing in these bizarre times. Peace, love, and many victories.

Michael Whittock
Michael Whittock
4 years ago

Professor Gopal is a Fellow of Churchill College and was Dean for some years. I wonder if she has demanded that the name of her College be changed given Winston’s fervent support for the Empire.

Martin Byrne
Martin Byrne
4 years ago

Great article, and another example of how organisations that are state funded are allowed to behave in anyway they see fit, and another example of a government that talks about equality and freedom of speech and then goes away and hides in the corner just in case the woke comes for them…….nothing will change……88% of this country do not matter, their lives do not matter…..Burnley Football Club want white people to pay the club money and then say their lives do not matter…….nothing changes

kevinbroad
kevinbroad
4 years ago

I used to work in the University system at unnamed places the bias against white hetero males is awful, people need to wake up or you will get completely marginalised, Most of us are in positions to disrupt these people, it just needs to be done on the sly

Andrew Baldwin
Andrew Baldwin
4 years ago

Great analysis by Douglas, as usual. Casual observation, without any hard data on the matter, suggests that South Asians are much over-represented in the white guilt industry not only in the UK but in my own country of Canada. The former Liberal, now so-called Independent Senator, Ratna Omidvar would be exhibit A for a Canadian example, although Senator Omidvar is certainly not deranged like Gopal. It would be above my pay grade to do a formal statistical analysis on the subject or to speculate on the reasons why but it would seem to be a useful topic of inquiry for someone at a higher pay grade. My only suggestion, which again, is just based on casual observation, is that South Asians brought up as Christians seem unlikely ever to toil in the white guilt industry. Their faith teaches them that Christ does not care about skin colour.

Sridhar Raman
Sridhar Raman
4 years ago
Reply to  Andrew Baldwin

Hmm interesting dog whistle?

David Morley
David Morley
4 years ago

A bit of a missed opportunity with the picture though. It should surely have shown a very privileged brown skinned woman in the punt, with a white man doing the pushing 😀

ed martin
ed martin
4 years ago

BLM – bacon lettuce & mozarella?

Neil John
Neil John
4 years ago
Reply to  ed martin

Burn Loot Murder, according to some black American commentators.

Ray Hall
Ray Hall
4 years ago

I had not heard of racism ‘adjacency’ until I read this very good article. I am reminded of one of the reasons why people were imprisoned in the USSR during dear comrade Stalin’s reign- ‘ contacts leading to suspicion of espionage”.

angersbeagle
angersbeagle
4 years ago
Reply to  Ray Hall

You mention Stalin, how appropriate since much of the Social Media Conditioning evident in these protests would have our Comrade nodding his head in approval….

Francis Lankester
Francis Lankester
4 years ago

Of course she says that White lives (I’m suprised she capitalised white) don’t matter as ‘powerful, oppressing White lives.’ But she knows that you don’t start a conversation on a nuanced and difficult question by tweeting anything.

cjhartnett1
cjhartnett1
4 years ago

Another magnificent calling out from one of the very few must-read cultural commentators of our times .
The Madness Of Crowds has established Douglas as a titan , one of the few who are ” too big to fail”.
Cherish him whilst we still can.
Cambridge exemplifies the death of academe, when hustlers like Gopal get stroked, whilst Peterson is barred? Time to climb the funeral pyre , you cringing Camshams…..

Patrick Harpur
Patrick Harpur
4 years ago

As ‘Desmond’ remarks in Thomas Love Peacock’s novel Melincourt (1817), “I profited little at the university, as you will easily suppose. The system of education pursued there, seemed to me the result of a deep-laid conspiracy against the human understanding, a mighty effort of political and ecclesiastical machiavellism, to turn the channels of enquiring minds into channels, where they will either stagnate in disgust or waste themselves in nugatory labour. To discover, or even to illustrate, a single moral truth, to shake the empire of a single prejudice, to apply a single blow of the axe of philosophy to the wide-spreading roots of superstition and political imposture seems to me to render a real service to the best hopes of mankind; but all this is diametrically opposed to the selfish interests of the hired misleaders of society”¦” Plus ca change. (I especially like ‘hired misleaders’…)

rosie mackenzie
rosie mackenzie
4 years ago

In the seventies, my Jamaican friends used to enclose photographs of themselves with every job application, though none was required. They knew even then they were in a privileged position.

David J
David J
4 years ago

The tragic thing is that Cambridge University has proved yet again that clever people can be very stupid.

purplejayd2011
purplejayd2011
4 years ago

It is my experience that people who behave like Dr. GoPaul – as described in the above article – usually have low self-esteem/self-worth issues. Those truly comfortable in their skin (no pun intended) rarely berate others in a general manner (Deepak Chopra springs to mind!). Maybe, unconsciously, she feels she does not deserves her position – in terms of merit – and only has it because of her ethnicity. This will only fuel feelings of low self-worth. Such bizarre “positive racism” is not what the world needs at all – as the author points out – one wonders why Cambridge University feels it needs to do this.

aelf
aelf
4 years ago

With apologies to Mark Steyn, it’s a good basic axiom that if you take a quart of ice-cream and a quart of dog feces and mix ’em together the result will taste more like the latter than the former & that’s the problem with Cambridge.

CYRIL NAMMOCK
CYRIL NAMMOCK
4 years ago

Our second-greatest University is Oxford, Douglas.

A Spetzari
A Spetzari
4 years ago
Reply to  CYRIL NAMMOCK

Yeah I first assumed it was merely a deliberate tongue in cheek dig (Murray obviously being an Oxford alumni)

But apparently Oxford appears higher rated in slightly more league tables, international and national:

https://www.topuniversities
https://www.timeshighereduc
https://roundranking.com/ra
https://www.studyin-uk.com/… (Cambridge higher here)

So no doubt still a bit wry, but also accurate

Robin P
Robin P
4 years ago
Reply to  A Spetzari

The notion that these are the best universities or that the various league tables have some proper validity as indicators of bestness, is absolute cobblers. There is a self-confirming nonsense going on here. You went to the “best” university so you get the “best” job, and so on. To a very substantial extent, what is “best” about these “top” universities is that they have those who most excel in mindless conformity parrotting of the existing “correct” nonsenses. Indeed you can see some of that in Gopal’s case.

But she is far from alone. There is a famous “leading expert” professor at Cambridge, of whom I can’t be more specific just now (but will shortly), who is every bit as much of a charlatan, indeed a serious liar rather than mere tweeter of Gopal-style claptrap which isn’t even untrue.

And this is far from confined to Cambridge, or Oxford, they merely reach the highest heights of the epidemic of intellectual incompetence which now infests universities in general.

They are by their very nature the most authoritarian of entities, so it is hardly surprising that they are being ruined by the authoritarian mentality (mindless parrotting) of those they have promoted to their own top places of supposed excellence. You can read more about this all-but-complete failure of the system of “expertise” in “universities” in (pdf) http://www.pseudoexpertise.com/ch-... (pdf file).

Basil Chamberlain
Basil Chamberlain
4 years ago
Reply to  CYRIL NAMMOCK

Mr Murray, an Oxford man, was clearly being deliberate provocative to Cantabrians, i.e., it was a joke.

Andy Yorks
Andy Yorks
4 years ago

Cambridge is a very recent set up.

Mark Corby
Mark Corby
4 years ago

No,I don’t think so.
If that had been the case he would not have spoken of Cambridge, but would have referred to “the other place”, would he not?

Mark Corby
Mark Corby
4 years ago
Reply to  CYRIL NAMMOCK

What, after Stow-on-the Wold?

Robin P
Robin P
4 years ago
Reply to  Mark Corby

Sshhh! We don’t want hordes of maximally-conceited UCAS applicants flooding round here.

Mark Corby
Mark Corby
4 years ago
Reply to  Robin P

Sorry, I forgot about that. Well said.

Mike Hearn
Mike Hearn
4 years ago

Every time this sort of thing happens, a whole lot of us mentally downrank “degree from [some supposedly fancy university]” as a meaningful statement of something. I’ve been a job interviewer hundreds of times in my career and at this point encountering such a degree holder doesn’t impress me anymore. Moreover I’ve noticed that when encountering a professor at these institutions my initial expectation is actually worse; I expect to be disappointed.

It’s not just the politics. It’s the continuous flood of papers that are routinely passed off as respectable and highly advanced works of science that when read instantly fall apart or are filled with logical contradictions. The administrations at these universities seem to be filled with incompetence. Promotion of people for political reasons appears rampant: look at the consequences Neil Ferguson suffered at ICL for being constantly wrong in devastating ways for twenty years … none whatsoever.

Recently Nature, amongst other scientific outlets, tweeted #ShutdownAcademia. Supposedly academics refusing to work for one day would strike a blow against racism, or something like that. Yes, there’s good work done in academia and good academics. But it increasingly feels like they happen more by accident than design. Perhaps that hashtag should be appropriated for a longer term change: at this point taxpayers are shovelling money into a machine that generates hate and pseudo-science on an epic scale.

robertbutterwick
robertbutterwick
4 years ago

I think everyone agrees that the oppression of the Uighur Muslims within China is unjustifiable, but nevertheless…
https://telecoms.com/505214

raul.groom
raul.groom
4 years ago

That’s not what “Begs the question” means, Mr. Award-Winning Author.

CYRIL NAMMOCK
CYRIL NAMMOCK
4 years ago
Reply to  raul.groom

That’s right, and that particular catachresis really bugs the sh5t out of me. Seriously.

Blatancy Rose
Blatancy Rose
4 years ago

Excellent article.
I totally agree with everything said. It is truly appalling to witness this new anti-white rhetoric and ideology, particularly when our oldest seats of learning are getting involved. We have seen the rioting and violence that has encapsulated this new ‘progressive’ idiocy, in full view.
It is not racist to say White Lives Matter, because they do, it is a fact, just as Black Lives Matter is. It is when someone inserts the word ‘don’t’ that it becomes so.

Alan Girling
Alan Girling
4 years ago
Reply to  Blatancy Rose

It is the triumph of rhetoric over plain speech. ‘White lives matter’ is considered racist because the culture already takes if for granted, so the only reason to say it is to oppose ‘black lives matter’, which the culture does not take for granted. Or so they believe. For them, the meaning of the words is beside the point. It is taken as a form of violence.

ranjit.saimbi
ranjit.saimbi
4 years ago

I find her bizarre. She is the one who has come up with these categories, and wields them insanely. She is not deserving of death threats and the like, but can she not see how utterly poisonous her politics is? She wishes to correct the “faults” of history with equal and opposite vigour – but, as well know the faults of history are much more complicated than her singular, identitarian lens will allow for.

David Morley
David Morley
4 years ago
Reply to  ranjit.saimbi

Yes – far better if she got a few thousand tweets telling her not to be so silly. Vitriol and death threats are both wrong and pointless. It only reinforces the poor woman’s view of the world.

Jeremy Hummerstone
Jeremy Hummerstone
4 years ago

This is a test message to see if I am still being moderated (and if I am, why is that?).

Jeremy Hummerstone
Jeremy Hummerstone
4 years ago

If I write a comment I always get the message “Hold on, this is waiting to be approved by UnHerd”. Is that the same for everybody, and if not, why me? What have I done wrong.

David Morley
David Morley
4 years ago

There is always a delay before my posts appear, and when they do it’s in a clump with others. So I think it’s general practice.

Alan Girling
Alan Girling
4 years ago

Yes, general practice. If you click your profile, you’ll see your posts labeled ‘pending’. What might happen is if they don’t like a post, it will be labeled ‘removed’. I know from experience, and there doesn’t seem to be a way to find out why.

Iain Hunter
Iain Hunter
4 years ago

Thank you, Douglas, for again kicking open the door that allows the rest of us to follow through. Pretty much all of what I feel about the woman has already been posted in the comments so I’ll add only this: For a Cambridge ‘academic’ she really isn’t very bright. What she put out remains in the public domain and she is now known and marked. As for Cambridge University, it would be good to see it pay in some way, no matter how small, for its support of her. I don’t think it can be singled out; this culture or race ‘war’ is going on everywhere. All we can do is advise our children against taking their degree courses and agitate for the public defunding of them so that they wither and decay. Covid 19 is starting that process for us. We may then begin to see the worst of the ‘woke’ universities and colleges begin to close as is, I believe, happening across the US.

Richard
Richard
4 years ago

It seems that one can be moderated out of discussion by mentioning lepidopterists. It’s a puzzle.

Richard
Richard
4 years ago

A lovely invitation.

Bernhard Pesch
Bernhard Pesch
4 years ago

Another fine but increasingly irrelevant piece of Mr. Murray. I do not mean to be negative or reject what Douglas has to say in these troubling times. He is indeed always on the money. BUT all this should have been the focus of attention of the conservatives 60 years ago. I just watched Yury Bezmenov’s warning to the United States from the eighties again. Back then the conservatives were busy defeating the evil empire while they never realized, even in 1989 with the break up and downfall of the Soviet Union that the West was already heavily pregnant with Socialism and Postmodernism. Yes we had defeated the enemy in “open combat” so we thought and rolled in the victory for many years until our own blind belief in the “superiority” of the enlightenment ideas and the assumed overwhelming urge for freedom and individuality made us complacent and arrogant. As you said Douglas;”We found out that the Enlightenment went only skin deep”. Forgive me if I quoted you incorrectly. We are trying to fight something that has rolled over us in the past couple of decades and now that every institution has been captured by these ideologues we start to worry now about the future. It is too late now for a meaningful and rational intervention. We should have listened to Gramsci and the Frankfurt School Marxists but we did not. This cannot be solved anymore by democratic means. And that is what nobody wants to openly admit. The other side has no qualms about using increasingly undemocratic and violent, oppressive ways to “convince” the rest of us that we are wrong. We are running out of options fast. So it looks like that one nonviolent countermeasure could be this: Let it go down the drain and let Socialism defeat Socialism as it always does. And while Socialism eats its own children and destroys itself the rest of us and I mean the conservative movement in the West could use the decades to come to finally understand how to achieve and maintain cultural hegemony. (We have to become the “better” Socialists) 🙂
It will also be crucial to understand how un-tethered capitalism and corporate greed (the laws of economics) have contributed to the downfall of the West. Only then do we have a chance to abolish Socialism for good from the face of the earth. But that will be the end of conservatism as we understand it as well and this is exactly what has to happen. Conservatism has ultimately no defense against the leftist ideologues, it is inherently incapable as it is to provide an effective counter narrative to the socialists. We need to understand this before we ever want to have a chance for a lasting comeback.

David Barnett
David Barnett
4 years ago
Reply to  Bernhard Pesch

The rot really set in as a backlash to McCarthyism. by the 1960s It became impossible to call out the ratchet of lefty entryism without being accused of seeing “reds under the beds”. As the entryists progressed up the establishment hierarchies, they gave deliberate preference to people espousing their worldview and the suppression of dissent from it.

Given the above, I sometimes wonder whether Joe McCarthy was a communist agent. His infamous “un-American activities” hearings began after Truman’s purge of Roosevelt era fellow travellers.

Jeremy Hummerstone
Jeremy Hummerstone
4 years ago

Moderators, please reply to this. Why are my comments being withheld?

Peter B
Peter B
4 years ago

Good question. I have the same problem.

David Barnett
David Barnett
4 years ago

To study at Cambridge was my ambition as a child (almost six decades ago), and I was proud to graduate from there. Now I cringe at what has become of a formerly great university. Does it even merit the description “university” any more?

stuuey
stuuey
4 years ago

It’s a mess alright…
I’m proud to say none of my three children went to university but parted company with the education establishment early on and have studied online as and when they decided to. I’m more proud that they are all well adjusted members of society in managerial or self employed work and definitely not woke headed…
The woke / protest thing seems to afflict those with no such aspirations and those in government jobs or other short sighted organisations who can be extorted to join in…
The education sector will soon fall apart and only good and useful ones will survive because there will only be demand for courses doing real learning….

hayden eastwood
hayden eastwood
4 years ago

Quite recently I had a debate with some Oxford development studies students about race and gender. To say that they were regurgitating slogans and cliches would be too charitable. The social sciences have been well and truly colonised by the likes of Professor Gopal, and her likes are busy purging the same institutions of the last vestiges of opposition, and brainwashing new generations of zombies to continue sacking Rome from within.

Thomas Paine
Thomas Paine
4 years ago

She is a woman (cis- or trans-: BOTH ARE WOMEN!!!) and she is note white.

Because of those characteristics, her legal privileges are without bound.

The neutered, white guilt-laden stench of the woke is strongest in the halls of English academia.

Mark Corby
Mark Corby
4 years ago
Reply to  Thomas Paine

That will just have to stop and the ‘journey’ starts here!

davidgcreech
davidgcreech
4 years ago

Did Douglas Murray miss the point ? The whole point of these movements is to divide and promote agression – yes and hatred. Dogma and ideology using these these methods and tactics – looks and sounds chillingly familiar?

J A Thompson
J A Thompson
4 years ago

“And the very heavy-handed policing (justified, as it happens, but which could have been used at the previous protests) when groups of predominantly white and often violent protestors turned up to ‘defend’ statues which were under attack from some BLM protestors.”

The MSM, BBC at the forefront, tend to brand demonstrations of which they are in favour as ‘peaceful’ and provide commentary and pictures to promote that viewpoint. Anything which goes against their narrative appears to be automatically labelled ‘right wing’ usually plus ‘extreme’ and, in the case of individuals ‘thugs’, with the narrative and footage adjusted to reflect this.

There are people on you tube who question the reporting of the rally to protect the statues and provide footage to support their claims. Have a look before you make up your minds.
try this to start with – https://www.youtube.com/wat

Anthony Lewis
Anthony Lewis
4 years ago

Thank you Douglas for calling a spade a spade – if it looks and smells off it probably is very very off

B David
B David
4 years ago

“Abolish whiteness.”

In a lot of elite institutions, masochistic personalities have become predominant. Powerful people are known to often gravitate toward masochism. Makes for an intriguing prrsonal psychological dynamic. And truly terrible public policy and decision making.

David Barnett
David Barnett
4 years ago

People have been condemned for going to a party in “black face”. Why the condemnation? Why the transchromaphobia?

Kirk B
Kirk B
4 years ago

I zipped over to Twitter to read her tweets from the source, but unless you’re on Twiiter yourself they are “protected”. Another benefit of not being a Twitter user.

Robin P
Robin P
4 years ago

I agree with the article. BUT. The crucial conceptual basis is lacking here. You cannot very meaningfully talk about “equality” without clarifying the distinction between equality of opportunity and equality of outcomes.

And the problem with these “anti-racists” etc is that they insist that inequality of outcomes is proof of inequality of opportunity – partly due to their also insisting that everyone is equal in potential rather than having any significant genetic differences. They’d probably even deny that dark-skinned people have superior ability to absorb light radiation.

Philip Clayton
Philip Clayton
4 years ago

Whenever someone starts insisting “White lives matter”, like Trump, they are not making an intellectual point but a racist one. Nobody, as far as I am aware, in the BLM movement, in any country, is saying white lives have no worth. But the response to Trump and his bigoted supporters is simple: “Where are the white, mainly young men, unarmed, being gunned down in their thousands every year? Where are the hundreds of young white men dying in police cells and in the back of police vehicles? Where are the tens of thousands of young white men being daily harrassed by the police for the colour of thir skin?

BLM exists because to most political institutions, very large numbers of corporations, and above all the police and judiciary, black lives don’t matter. Every single piece of criminological research, across all ‘European’ counties, so including Australia, New Zealand and Canada, as well as mainland Europes, shows clearly that Black people, or lighter skinned minorities such as the Inuit, face discrimination at every stage of the judicial process; that is also replicated in employment, education and housing. How strange that the prison of perpetual poverty becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy of failure.

If you are a black male born in the Bronx in the richest country in history, your life expectancy is lower than that of a Bangladeshi peasant. Still, I suppose Black people just like it that way and it’s all their own fault.

However, Mr Murray won’t let facts get in the way of a good rant. There are idiots to be found everywhere, but Mr Murray will take one and hold that person up as ‘representative’ of everyone who believes in fighting injustice.

As for the garbage about deriding people as ‘woke’ I am old enough to recall a time when it was ‘normal’ for even reasonably educated people to use racist language as everyday speech; while also accepting it as ‘natural’ that in the 1970’s a woman couldn’t have a bank account without permisssion from her father or husband; or acceptable to treat gay people as some kind of sub human section of society

The people who fought endlessly, and with great courage, against these unacceptable views (and are still fighting them all over the world) were what the infantile right call ‘woke’. Well, the opposite of ‘woke’ is asleep. I know which I would rather be.

Richard Vanderkooy
Richard Vanderkooy
4 years ago

Douglas Murray, it’s worth listening to and considering the argument Prof. Priyamvada Gopal makes. You don’t mention the context of her tweet, which was an aerial banner flown over a professional sports game stating “White lives matter”. You begin immediately to denounce her person, ad hominem, which is stupid and wrong if you want to seriously contribute. She explains the meaning of her tweet here: https://www.theguardian.com

White lives don’t matter”as white lives. Lives matter; race simply isn’t a determinant in lives mattering. It is no longer that black lives live in reference to white lives, but that the whites stop using skin colour as the basis for an ideology of power over those of other skin colours.

The very one whose clarity of ideas can save you from your fright as a British white man”Gopal”you despise.

Richard Willoughby-Woodward
Richard Willoughby-Woodward
4 years ago

Since when have whites used ‘skin colour as the basis for an ideology of power’ in the UK? Gopal openly states she wanted to assault white men, just in different words and had to ‘resist the urge’. 500,000 white girls over 40 years haven’t mattered because they are and were white. It is the equivocation instead of calling out [real] racism that is causing so much pain to children and now adults in this country. Racism is wrong and she should be sacked. If this were reversed, she’d be gone already and rightly so. Goal is the BNP for the ethnic minority communities, though thank God she does not speak for the majority.

David Waring
David Waring
4 years ago

It seems the “liberal” snowflakes in London do not recognize their own bias against the English in the Regions.
Time to support the SNP at Hollyrood and not the Wets at Wastemonster.

Kristján Arngrímsson
Kristján Arngrímsson
4 years ago

Since when are universities meritocratic institutions? This article is quite disingenious since Mr. Murray knows very well what actually drives universities, august or not. British or not. (Perhaps especially British, come to think of it). Also, Mr. Murray should know how to use the phrase “beg the question”.

gerarddearie
gerarddearie
4 years ago

Perhaps, you shouldn’t lecture someone who speaks English as a first language on how they speak that language. “Begs the question” is used colloquially in the way he used it, perhaps your criticism shows more of your ignorance of idiomatic English, than it does of Murray’s unfamiliarity with formal rhetoric.

Andrew Baldwin
Andrew Baldwin
4 years ago

Sharp eye, Kristjan! Douglas should have said “leads to the question”, not “begs the question”. Henry Fowler noted “begging the question” long ago as a logical term that is frequently misused, so much so that one often doesn’t even notice it. I didn’t, when I read Douglas’s article.

Mark Corby
Mark Corby
4 years ago
Reply to  Andrew Baldwin

Wasn’t it beg not begs that Kristjan picked up on?

Stephen Wikner
Stephen Wikner
4 years ago

So, fill us in, Mr Arngrimsson. What – in your view – ‘actually drives’ universities?

Neil John
Neil John
4 years ago
Reply to  Stephen Wikner

As one on the ‘inside’ MONEY, nothing else much matters to the management, most VC’s are simply figureheads now with a ‘professional’ CEO/COO appointed by ‘council’ (the governing body, which consists mostly of business people) to run the operation.

Susannah Baring Tait
Susannah Baring Tait
4 years ago
Reply to  Stephen Wikner

Actually, both Carmine and Kristjan are correct. Modern parlance tends to favour Carmine, though. Very well-explained at https://www.merriam-webster

Sridhar Raman
Sridhar Raman
4 years ago

> that I confess that for a while, after first coming across her, I assumed that she was a spoof.
Ha! Interesting that that is exactly what I feel whenever I read this author’s articles.

> Of course the way to dissipate any remaining bad blood would be to visibly and consistently strive to appoint people to positions based on their merit …
Ah the age-old “merit” argument. I thought such points of discussion would have been infantile in a high-school debate. I am surprised that the Unherd continues to publish them.

Finding good articles in Unherd is becoming increasingly hard. But I shall plough through. 🙂

David Morley
David Morley
4 years ago
Reply to  Sridhar Raman

You’re entitled to your view, but you haven’t actually presented an argument, just thrown insults around.

johnofbahrain
johnofbahrain
4 years ago
Reply to  Sridhar Raman

You think merit is “infantile’? How did you reach whatever position in society you occupy?

Sridhar Raman
Sridhar Raman
4 years ago
Reply to  johnofbahrain

Kindly read my comment. The “argument of merit” is infantile.

What position should I reach in society for me to comment here? Please tell me.

Juilan Bonmottier
Juilan Bonmottier
4 years ago
Reply to  Sridhar Raman

Yawn

Mark Corby
Mark Corby
4 years ago
Reply to  Sridhar Raman

You noble fellow!

Sridhar Raman
Sridhar Raman
4 years ago
Reply to  Mark Corby

Thanks!

Isabela Fairclough
Isabela Fairclough
4 years ago
Reply to  Sridhar Raman

Poor you, my heart goes out to you! Don’t let us detain you a moment longer from rushing back to the warm embrace of The Guardian.

Sridhar Raman
Sridhar Raman
4 years ago

Thanks for your concern. But, if I may, I will decide who detains me or not. 🙂

N A
N A
4 years ago

I don’t know enough about the Peterson and Carl situations to have a view but I think you’re being unfair towards Gopal. There’s an important piece of context you’re ignoring, which is “As white lives.”. Her point, as I understand it, is that we don’t need to say “White Lives Matter” because almost no white people in Western society are dying because they’re white. We don’t need a “White Lives Matter” movement, because white people aren’t being systematically killed at a higher rate due to being white. Black people are. That’s her point, not that white lives don’t matter. I think it’s badly worded tweet and as you’ve shown easily misunderstood. It’s ambiguous and unclear. But its intent is not to be racist against white people and we shouldn’t insist on firing people for bad communication.

Neil Mcalester
Neil Mcalester
4 years ago
Reply to  N A

She is a Professor in the English dept. at Cambridge; this was not ‘bad communication’ she knew exactly what she was doing and what she hoped would result from it.

maggie6360
maggie6360
4 years ago
Reply to  N A

She has said a lot more than this! She IS a racist but because people kept retweeting this one comment, everyone assumes that’s what all the fuss is about. She HATES everything white. I have her tweets to prove it.? But don’t take my word for it, look her up on twitter! She’s so sure she’s untouchable she tweeted more bile yesterday after getting backed by Cambridge!

Andrew Harvey
Andrew Harvey
4 years ago
Reply to  N A

“almost no white people in Western society are dying because they’re white”

Tell that to poor white people in places like West Virginia experiencing an epidemic of legally peddled opioids that has killed hundreds of thousands while the official response is to do next to nothing because they’re all just “white trash”. Or poor white girls in the UK who are raped and killed by Pakistani men specifically because they’re white, as again, the authorities do nothing because they’re all just “white trash”.

N A
N A
4 years ago
Reply to  Andrew Harvey

Do you have evidence that those poor whites were targeted because they were white rather than because they were poor? Obviously that’s a travesty and I’m not denying that white people suffer. I’m saying they rarely suffer because they’re white. And of course there are exceptions such as the above. Just because we need to tackle problems with the system due to race doesn’t mean we ignore other issues.

Alex Mitchell
Alex Mitchell
4 years ago
Reply to  N A

Which is a valid point, but it is an equally valid point for bad outcomes for ethnic minorities, too, but rarely listened to. The perfect example is in the article where the ‘madam’ rather than Dr is interpreted as racist with zero justification. This idea that any perceived negative outcome must be racially driven is deeply divisive and caustic.

stuuey
stuuey
4 years ago
Reply to  N A

There’s obvious evidence of racism in the second instance because Pakistani men don’t groom Pakistani girls and only groom white girls. White lives matter?

Andrew Harvey
Andrew Harvey
4 years ago
Reply to  N A

“we shouldn’t insist on firing people for bad communication” Yes, give her a break.
She’s only on the English faculty at Cambridge. You could hardly expect someone like that to be able to write a simple sentence

ahesketh65
ahesketh65
4 years ago
Reply to  N A

<insert color=”” or=”” race=”” here=””> lives don’t matter.
As <insert color=”” or=”” race=”” here=””> lives.
This surely ends up being appalling no matter what choice of words is inserted?

Barry Wetherilt
Barry Wetherilt
4 years ago
Reply to  N A

I would have some sympathy with the BLM movement if they actually addressed the largest killer of Black Lives; Black men. As it is ‘Black Lives Matter’ is a deeply divisive term which insinuates that White people kill Black people and that leads to the conclusion ‘White Lives don’t matter’ (‘as White Lives’ or not). As for Gopal it requires remarkable intellectual contortions to conclude she isn’t racist to the core.

N A
N A
4 years ago

Why does “Black Lives Matter” have to lead to the conclusion ‘White Lives don’t matter’? I’ve personally always read it as a criticism of the system not of white people.

Juilan Bonmottier
Juilan Bonmottier
4 years ago
Reply to  N A

I agree with you the slogan can be interpreted in a more neutral and acceptable way. However, as with everything, one needs to read it in context.

The BLM website specifically rails against what it terms ‘white supremacy’ -as a movement it is self evidently antagonistic to ‘whites’. BLM seeks to ‘deconstruct’ all features of ‘white’ society -it is a thoroughly racist organisation -defining its very existence on prejudicial racial judgments about white people and white culture.

Unfortunately few people who support BLM have actually taken the time to visit its website and see what cultural idiocies and ideological horrors exist there -in part because they only read the public slogan and see it as something that sounds perfectly reasonable.

But its naive to read BLM slogans outside of this context.

“Lebensraum” -the space in which to live and grow freely -can sound like a pretty reasonable idea until you put it in the context of Nazi atrocity.

Robin P
Robin P
4 years ago

“Criminals’ Lives Matter”?

Dave Lowery
Dave Lowery
4 years ago
Reply to  N A

You are incorrect. Find Sam Harris’ podcast “Can We Pull Back From The Brink.” The numbers of white deaths vs black deaths at the hands of the police does not show what you think.

Nigel Clarke
Nigel Clarke
4 years ago
Reply to  N A

“…because almost no white people in Western society are dying because they’re white…”

I might remind you of the murder of 3 white men a couple of nights ago…not motivated by race or culture at all….

Edit: now 3 more white people in Glasgow have been murdered.

“…white people aren’t being systematically killed at a higher rate due to being white…”

Out of 1001 people killed by the police in the US last year, 9 were black men. The other 992 were not.

“…I think it’s badly worded tweet and as you’ve shown easily misunderstood. It’s ambiguous and unclear. But its intent is not to be racist against white people…”

There is zero ambiguity. Gopal’s tweet is racist. She is a racist.

“…I don’t know enough about the Peterson and Carl situations to have a view…”

But, you will extend one anyway, and then, even though you admit you know nothing about the situation, subsequently treat us all to your “opinion”.

Yes yes, we’re all entitled to an opinion I hear you say. Wrong, we are entitled to an informed opinion, no-one is entitled to ignorance.
And you’re “opinion”, such as it is, is quite simply ignorant.

Sam Mac Gill-Eain
Sam Mac Gill-Eain
4 years ago
Reply to  Nigel Clarke

Out of 1001 people killed by the police in the US last year, 9 were black men. The other 992 were not.

I’m sorry but that cannot be true.

Here, while being moderated I found this that shows number was at least 235.

https://www.statista.com/st

Guy Lachlan
Guy Lachlan
4 years ago
Reply to  N A

So you’re saying black people are being systematically killed at a higher rate due to being black? I’d like to see your source data please. Everything I’ve seen shows most black people killed are killed by other black people.

Fraser Bailey
Fraser Bailey
4 years ago
Reply to  Guy Lachlan

In the US, 95% of black homicide victims are killed by other black people. But to the Woke brigade those lives don’t matter, because they were not taken by whites. Moreover, far more whites are killed by the US police than blacks. Obviously, this is largely because there are more whites than blacks in America. But however brutal those deaths – and a white man called Timothy Timper was killed in exactly the same way that George Floyd was killed – they are not reported or celebrated.

N A
N A
4 years ago
Reply to  Guy Lachlan

I’ll see if I can find more sources but here’s one example. Look at the arresting deaths near the end and compare those to demographics:

https://www.bjs.gov/content

davidlcrs
davidlcrs
4 years ago
Reply to  N A

This is false as proven by the death in custody statistics in the UK as quoted by retired Chief Superintendent Hurley and also false in the US,again with statistics to back it up.
Sweeping generalisations that are untrue do not become true by repetition.

N A
N A
4 years ago
Reply to  davidlcrs

Can you share? Here’s one example that implies a disproportionate rate of deaths among minorities.

https://www.bjs.gov/content

Andy Yorks
Andy Yorks
4 years ago
Reply to  N A

Hmmmm I see. So you would be equally happy to say ‘Black lives don’t matter. As black lives’ ?? An equally valid statement.
You then go on to say “white people aren’t being systematically killed at a higher rate due to being white. Black people are’. Really ?? Even Floyd didn’t die because he was black: he died because he resisted arrest. Had he not done so he might still be here today. I don’t think the statistics support your assertion.

rosie mackenzie
rosie mackenzie
4 years ago
Reply to  N A

Police of all races in the US are 18 times more likely to be killed by African American men as the other way round. You are twice as likely to be killed by the American police if you are Caucasian as if you are African American. The statistics for killings of Caucasians by African Americans are much, much worse. BLM is built on a great big lie.

Lionel Shriver writes in the Specator:

“black people have many more encounters with the police, given that in 2018 this 13 per cent of the population committed 53 per cent of the murders ” and overwhelmingly, the victims were also black; that’s 7,407 black lives that should also matter ” and more than half of robberies. Moreover, because plenty of police killings are committed by minority officers, analysis of public records has failed to document a pattern of disproportionate white-on-black police homicide.”

M Holyer
M Holyer
4 years ago
Reply to  N A

She is a racist bigot, I’ve seen enough of her over the past couple of years to know what I see and hear, not just this weeks dreadful “miscommunication”

Social Constructs are a bit like memes, no one has seen one in a lab.

Race is a blunt hammer than never hits the target because the target is not there, but genetic flow is real and it requires scientific understanding and discussion in scientific and cultural terms. Gopal needs keeping away from things way above her capabilities.

As for the higher death rate for Bame people which I think you are referring to in the COVID pandemic. Here is actual data.

>> When patient characteristics are
taken into account, no excess HDU/ICU admissions or deaths are seen in the BAME group.<<

https://assets.publishing.s

Toby Bray
Toby Bray
4 years ago
Reply to  N A

“white people aren’t being systematically killed [in Western society] at a higher rate due to being white. Black people are.”

If you’re going to make a huge assertion like that, you need to have some facts to back it up. Have you looked at the statistics about how black people are killed? In the US, for example, 90% of black murders are by *other black people*. Is that what you mean by ‘systematic killing’?

Aside from that, the double standards in this situation are mind-blowing. Gopal says “White lives don’t matter” and is defended by Cambridge University. But a bloke who hires a plane to fly a banner saying “White lives matter” gets fired. You couldn’t ask for a better way to exacerbate resentment and conflict.

johnofbahrain
johnofbahrain
4 years ago
Reply to  N A

Exactly Guy, where’s the data to support this assertion? As for Cambridge firing this vicious and odious pseud? Not a hope in hell – their cowardice and hypocrisy are breathtaking. Why does this place still receive tax payer funding?

Helen Wood
Helen Wood
4 years ago
Reply to  N A

She also referred to Sayid Javid as a coconut…Id say thats a racist remark.

David Morley
David Morley
4 years ago
Reply to  Helen Wood

Do you have a reference for that? That’s awful. She sounds like a racist and a snob to boot. Probably fits in pretty well at Cambridge.

David Morley
David Morley
4 years ago
Reply to  Helen Wood

“Coconut”

Couldn’t find that, but I did find:

“For anyone inclined to get boners around the whole ‘oh look WE people of colour in the cabinet’, please remember that much Asian Toryism is built on anti-blackness: ‘WE are hardworking & smart, THEY are lazy & stupid.’ Asians have good line in white supremacy.”

Of course, even if she were right, a far more efficient explanation would be that racism is not limited to white people or simply a product of “white supremacy”.

Geoff Cox
Geoff Cox
4 years ago
Reply to  N A

Yes, Cameron, but as we know, when it’s perceived or packaged as a “far right” comment, context is irrelevant. Hence the ridiculous firing of Roger Scruton. Not only was context not taken into account, his quote was altered but left in quotes. Eventually he was reinstated, but the Guardian journalist who did the hatchet job carries on without any apparent damage to his reputation.

N A
N A
4 years ago
Reply to  Geoff Cox

Yeah, misquotation and growing self-victimisation is a massive issue. I 100% agree.

Jonny Chinchen
Jonny Chinchen
4 years ago
Reply to  N A

Yes, we already know that white lives matter – unless you’re a young white girl in Rotherham, 3 gay white men in Reading, a white soldier or policeman, or Emily Jones.
White Privilege wasn’t functioning correctly for these people, and so as not to encourage the wrong narrative they were under-reported in the mainstream media – another benefit of being white?

Sridhar Raman
Sridhar Raman
4 years ago
Reply to  N A

Ooops. Well said. But prepare to be down-voted by the hordes.

Juilan Bonmottier
Juilan Bonmottier
4 years ago
Reply to  Sridhar Raman

at least these ‘hordes’ are the ones engaged in discussion and not burning down their cities

Sridhar Raman
Sridhar Raman
4 years ago

Why do you think that the “others” are not engaging in discussion? Is this forum the only platform?

Juilan Bonmottier
Juilan Bonmottier
4 years ago
Reply to  Sridhar Raman

Chanting mindless slogans, adopting dogma and ideology as a substitute for thinking -it’s not discussion -but if that’s what you’re after I’m sure you know where to go to join them.

Sridhar Raman
Sridhar Raman
4 years ago

I do. But how is that relevant to this discussion?

Juilan Bonmottier
Juilan Bonmottier
4 years ago