Christopher Owens writing on the recent protest phenomenon in response to the US police murder of George Floyd.

"Shed some skin for the fear within
It's starting to hurt me with everything
Freed from the memory
Escape from our history...
And I just hope that you can forgive us
But everything must go
And if you need an explanation
Then everything must go
I look to the future it makes me cry
But it seems too real to tell you why
Freed from the century
With nothing but memory..."

Manic Street Preachers

As I start typing this, the phrase "Attack and Dethrone God" is trending on Twitter. It feels incredibly prescient. The last week or so has had an apocalyptic, end of days/tear down civilisation vibe running throughout it in our observations, our conversations and our coverage of events.

On one hand, I must admit that I admire the iconoclasm on display. Even more so when I come to the conclusion that some of those exuding it the most have no awareness of it. Look at the case of that woman shouting at teenagers for cleaning up a desecrated war memorial.

On the other hand, we (as a society) are heading to hell. And we need to stop and think before our emotions lead us further to the edge.

Throw in the lingering resentment over a lockdown, scorching heat and it feels like a modern retread of 1989's Do The Right Thing. Have we learnt nothing?

No doubt, the killing of George Floyd was an appalling act of violence and police brutality by officers with a history of using excessive force. Now it seems America is closer to civil war than ever.

For most people, it's been obvious for a while that something like this could happen. The country is deeply divided along partisan lines (thanks to the culture war, the 2016 election and economic inequality among other factors) and this age of spin (from both left and right) has allowed for a blurring of facts and narratives.

One such example was whenever Bob Kroll, the head of the police union in Minneapolis, What is not being told is the violent criminal history of George Floyd. The media will not air this...”

Sigh.

On one hand, he is correct about the likes of MSNBC, CNN etc not publicising this fact (being left to conservative media), and he is correct that Mr. Floyd did have a history of violent crime. However:

1: That does not justify a cop placing his knee on Mr. Floyd's neck under any circumstances. He was handcuffed and lying face down. He posed no threat.

2: A video was widely circulated of Mr. Floyd speaking out how "...our young generation is clearly lost..." and pleading for black youths to stop the violence.



Instead of police chiefs demonising Mr. Floyd, shouldn't they be discussing how he was making an effort to turn his life around? Isn't that something we should be encouraging people to do, to prove that there are second acts in American life?

3 - Police officials making claims about a media cover up and protestors being terrorists simply escalates tensions and divisions even further.

4 - Will there be talk from the union about the possibility that American police are heavily equipped and often thrust into dangerous situations with little training on how to deescalate a situation, thereby making some a little too trigger happy for their own good? Somehow I doubt it.

Of course, anyone who has been paying attention has long been aware that there has been a running battle between authorities and the media in any society. But with trust in the mainstream media at an all time low, it seems both sides have had to dial up the volume and rhetoric to get their point across.

So, with the "liberal" media downplaying Mr. Floyd's past and "conservative" media bringing it up, you have a zero sum argument scheme going on here. It isn't helpful to wider discussions.

You've undoubtedly read the claim that African-Americans are more likely to be killed by the police. That is certainly true on the basis of looking at the share of the population: African- Americans account for less than 13 percent of the population but they are shot and killed by the police at a rate that's over twice as high as for white Americans as the following graph shows.

However, if we look at the plain statistics, it seems that white Americans are far more likely to be killed by the police than any other ethnic group.



Obviously, this is not meant to disregard the pain for those families in African-American communities. But what it does demonstrate that there is much more to the story than cops disproportionally killing black people. And by not discussing that, we end up in a very toxic situation where families of white people and other minorities killed by police are left out of the conversation.

If you want proof, people on Twitter were asking why there were no such marches after the murders of Lee Rigby or Kris Donald. Although the answer is obvious (because, as appalling as those murders were, both were not members of a minority community), is it any wonder why people are asking these questions (both were, after all, victims of racist violence)? That is the result of zero sum thinking. And all it does is exacerbate racial tension. Especially when dismissed by some as "gammon thinking."

What is interesting that there has been little to no outcry from Latino groups about police brutality against their community until the last few days. Of course, I understand that African-Americans are more sensitive to this issue due to a long and painful history (and indeed Black Lives Matter is a necessary movement to highlight these issues), but I wonder if anyone can name any of the white or Latino people killed the way we know the names of Michael Brown, Trayvon Martin and many others?

Of course, I'd obviously be stupid to say that racism doesn't play a factor in police murders. Of course it does (to an extent) but I believe class is a much more decisive (if largely unacknowledged) factor. Indeed, Alfie Gallagher (of this very parish and the Left From the West blog ), wrote that:

...race certainly does not tell the entire story when it comes to police misconduct. Class is often the key feature. Indeed, I would imagine that an unarmed man of any race would be far less likely to be shot dead without consequences in Barack Obama's or Colin Powell's or Marco Rubio's neighbourhood than in the hollers of Kentucky or the streets of West Baltimore.

You've probably seen many people on social media denouncing those who criticise the riots and looters, claiming that it is not the place of others to tell the black community how to behave in such a situation. The same people went very silent when it emerged that looters had shot and killed 77 year old David Dorn (black himself)  who was helping to protect a pawn shop from looters (so far, the death total is 11, almost double those who died in the 2011 riots in London).

Writing about said riots in London, Kenan Malik  wrote:

There is clearly more to the riots than simple random hooliganism. But that does not mean that the riots, as many have claimed, are protests against disenfranchisement, social exclusion and wasted lives. In fact, it’s precisely because of disenfranchisement, social exclusion and wasted lives that these are not ‘protests’ in any meaningful sense, but a mixture of incoherent rage, gang thuggery and teenage mayhem.
Disengaged not just from the political process (largely because politicians, especially those on the left, have disengaged from them), but also from a sense of the community or the collective, there is a generation (in fact more than a generation) with no focus for their anger and resentment, no sense that they can change society and no reason to feel responsible for the consequences of their actions...
The question of moral failure is, therefore, central to any discussion of the riots. The trouble with the post-riot debate is that the very politicians who have helped create the moral deficit through their social and economic policies are now looking to blame everyone but themselves for the consequences. In that sense they are as self-regarding and nihilistic as the rioters themselves.
The relentless promotion of the market ideology over the past three decades has helped fragment society, tearing apart social bonds and creating a nation of isolated individuals. In many communities the authority of institutions, from families to trade unions, that once socialized young people and inculcated moral values have been broken. At the same time, the introduction of the market ethos into every area of life from education to health to the arts has helped institute an instrumental ethic in which all that has come to matter is value for money and in which wider social needs and moral issues have been ignored.

Stafford Scott  (a noted Tottenham resident prominent in the fight against police brutality) agrees with Malik to a degree about the reasoning behind looting. In his view:

...looting comes from the belief that if you cannot get equality and cannot expect justice, then you better make sure that you "get paid". "It's all about the money!" is the motto of too many young black men, who have given up all hope of attainment in a white man's world. This is an absolute belief for those looting at the weekend – born not only out of their experiences but their parents', too. They want to follow the rappers and athletes who live ghetto-fabulous lifestyles based on natural talents, as opposed to learned skills. They can't see that coming through education: those who live on estates generally survive from one wage packet to the next. Sadly this mindset also makes it easier to legitimise the selling of drugs, as that too "brings in the money".

Sounds familiar, doesn't it?

But sure, carry on with your simple "don't tell people how they should respond" rhetoric. Such zero sum thinking is not only an example of the failure to apply moral reasoning, it also implicitly suggests that African-Americans are unable to restrain themselves. The same thing that was said when (ironically) Do The Right Thing came out over thirty years ago, prompting writer/director Spike Lee to say:


That still bugs the shit out of me. I know people might read this and say “Spike, move the fuck on,” but I’m sorry — I can’t. They never really owned up to that, and when I think about it, I just get mad. Because that was just outrageous, egregious and, I think, racist. I don’t remember people saying people were going to come out of theatres killing people after they watched Arnold Schwarzenegger films.

Where has this nihilism come from? From a variety of sources.

The collapse of the importance of the nuclear family in modern society has led to generations of children and young adults without positive role models to look up to and use as a moral compass. Schools and universities are no longer places where people learn, but where people pay exorbitant amounts of money to jump through a number of hoops before being handed a degree which doesn't always guarantee a career. They have been told about the wrongs of the world while being implicitly told that making money and creating your own empire is important to get ahead in life.

As a result is it any wonder so many people, lacking critical and moral reason while in thrall to consumerism, latch onto the ideas of collective guilt, white privilege and systemic racism? Theories which emerged from academia (an incredibly privileged section of society who gave the critical thumbs up to people like Andrea Dworkin with her poisonous views on men) which sound excellent in theory, but are found wanting in real life.

Munroe Bergdorf (who grew up rich and was a model for L'Oreal before having her contract cancelled for announcing that white people were brought up racist) told the Guardian that:

You need to recognise that there is such a thing as white privilege and you can be homeless and still have white privilege, because you can still have a better chance of getting out of homelessness than a person of colour in the same position.

An example of it being a kind of original sin, where everything wrong with the world can be blamed on white men (regardless of class).

Without any evidence of such a claim, it's very easy to dismiss these as claims of an embittered activist but, at the same time, it provides an example of how much contempt a lot of middle/upper class people hold for the working class. That such people who grew up in comfort are now telling a homeless person that they enjoy privilege. That is insanity, how someone has been able to reinvent themselves as a victim by using terms like 'check your privilege.' Proof that class still remains the biggest obstacle for many to overcome.

Although I do believe that there is a basic truth to the concept of white privilege (in the sense that a white person is less likely to be racially abused than a person of colour), it can also be argued that that is also an example of majority privilege (has anyone asked the white population of Zimbabwe about their privilege). As well as this, the term has become an easy catch all for our modern society. The vast majority of whites are working class, reduced to using food banks. What privilege do they have, really? Often, they have far more in common with members of the Ugandan community who live in the same area than a university academic who is white.

If you look at most working class areas of Belfast nowadays, you'll find they're not monocultures anymore. Plenty of black, Asian and other minorities live there (largely) in peace and quiet. I think that's a testament to the belief in inclusion from most working class people in this day and age, and one that is not discussed enough. However, it's important to establish that this is not me giving the working class a by ball on these issues. I wrote that "...minorities live there (largely) in peace and quiet." Note the use of the word 'mostly.' That's me acknowledging that there is clearly an issue in places, but that most have been able to get along in peace.

Thinking in the long term, do we really want to divide people in communities along racial lines and perceived notions of privilege? Do we really want to recreate racism and have it defined by the middle class as a way of differentiating themselves from the plebs?

When all races are marching in vast numbers in protest at the death of George Floyd, that should be a demonstration that racism has no agency amongst most people. Let's not divide and conquer further.

What also exacerbates divisions is the wokerati on Twitter using the opportunity to discuss the "systemic racism" that runs through shows like Bo' Selecta and Ali G (therefore turning a generation into drooling racists). As eye-rollingly predicable such claims are (and a demonstration that Terry Eagleton was right when he said that nihilists and buffoons are allergic to the slightest hint of significance), they are essential to deal with.

Because we are all brought together by culture (be it popular, high or low). We've seen this happen many a time over the years with shows like Till Death Do Us Part (written and conceived by noted anti-fascist Johnny Speight as a way of lampooning racist and sexist attitudes) and Love thy Neighbour (where the men were portrayed as racist morons and the wives the voices of sense) and Benny Hill (once cited by Ben Elton as being responsible for rape and sexual assault). All of those shows are no longer broadcast on TV (despite being massively popular in their day) and discussions around them remain taboo, due to their perceived attitudes around race and sex.

In her book Steal As Much As You Can, Nathalie Olah deconstructs how everything from home improvement programmes, through to the BRIT school's influence on music and the side-lining of important works from the likes of Thomas Sowell have led to a shallow, one dimensional and middle class mould of popular culture, ignoring the works of working class artists as it doesn't fit their worldview.

When viewed through such a lens, and considering the previous comments about nihilism in the popular consciousness, it becomes evident that this denouncement of popular comedy is not so much inter-generational warfare, but a lack of education, faith in the human mindset and posturing on a grand scale.

And, to state the obvious, if you tell people who do not consider themselves racist that they are racist because they enjoy such works, this will build up a massive amount of resentment. And it will lead to cataclysmic situations. 

Far removed from the murder of Mr. Floyd, but a consequence of the outpouring of anger at his death.

Speaking in 1997, Andrew Eldritch wrote:

If the reference points for our whole belief system are forgotten, we find it that much harder to understand a shared belief system, or even to disagree coherently with a shared belief system. We end up in a vicious circle of incoherent, half-baked individual utilitarianism where nobody has any belief system at all and we lose the ability to communicate with each other. I think that's one reason why football is so popular again - it's a game which the citizen can focus on, where the rules are defined. Unlike his life. The citizen is becoming a pawn in a game where nobody knows the rules, where everybody consequently doubts that there are rules at all, and where the vocabulary has been diminished to such an extent that nobody is even sure what the game is all about. Hence the concomitant rise of fads like astrology, spiritualism, and generic "I want to believe"-ism. I'm a humanist. I believe people should be able to sort themselves out, as does the Judeo-Christian tradition, obviously, but for rather different reasons. Even for Western-European humanists, it's helpful to know about Isaac and Abraham for any discussion of belief/hope/obligation, especially if we wish to join a discussion which has been developed over two thousand years. It's a bit tedious to have to start the discussion from scratch every time by mulling over yesterday's soap-opera with the few people who actually watched it.
It's nevertheless hard to talk to Thatcher's Children. Apart from anything else, they have no concept of right and wrong beyond an apathetic and half-baked utilitarianism...The problem is, the things that decide their lives are not "relevant to them". The nuances of emotional politics are not "relevant to them". They have lost touch with the fabric of their lives and they don't even know how to have a good time without falling victim to the corporate fashion fascists and the evil social engineers of Thatcherite Britain."

And that is where we are in 2020. 

Disillusioned.
Disaffected.
Disarrayed. 

Wanting to fight for good, but not understanding nuance.

Like Latasha Harlins, Rodney King, Mark Duggan, Cynthia Jarrett. Dorothy Groce and too many others to list, George Floyd's death has led to a genuine outpouring of anger (and rightly so).

Don't equate this with the nihilism of looters and race-baiters.

⏩Christopher Owens was a reviewer for Metal Ireland and finds time to study the history and inherent contradictions of Ireland. He is currently the TPQ Friday columnist. 

A Very Post-Modern Protest

Christopher Owens writing on the recent protest phenomenon in response to the US police murder of George Floyd.

"Shed some skin for the fear within
It's starting to hurt me with everything
Freed from the memory
Escape from our history...
And I just hope that you can forgive us
But everything must go
And if you need an explanation
Then everything must go
I look to the future it makes me cry
But it seems too real to tell you why
Freed from the century
With nothing but memory..."

Manic Street Preachers

As I start typing this, the phrase "Attack and Dethrone God" is trending on Twitter. It feels incredibly prescient. The last week or so has had an apocalyptic, end of days/tear down civilisation vibe running throughout it in our observations, our conversations and our coverage of events.

On one hand, I must admit that I admire the iconoclasm on display. Even more so when I come to the conclusion that some of those exuding it the most have no awareness of it. Look at the case of that woman shouting at teenagers for cleaning up a desecrated war memorial.

On the other hand, we (as a society) are heading to hell. And we need to stop and think before our emotions lead us further to the edge.

Throw in the lingering resentment over a lockdown, scorching heat and it feels like a modern retread of 1989's Do The Right Thing. Have we learnt nothing?

No doubt, the killing of George Floyd was an appalling act of violence and police brutality by officers with a history of using excessive force. Now it seems America is closer to civil war than ever.

For most people, it's been obvious for a while that something like this could happen. The country is deeply divided along partisan lines (thanks to the culture war, the 2016 election and economic inequality among other factors) and this age of spin (from both left and right) has allowed for a blurring of facts and narratives.

One such example was whenever Bob Kroll, the head of the police union in Minneapolis, What is not being told is the violent criminal history of George Floyd. The media will not air this...”

Sigh.

On one hand, he is correct about the likes of MSNBC, CNN etc not publicising this fact (being left to conservative media), and he is correct that Mr. Floyd did have a history of violent crime. However:

1: That does not justify a cop placing his knee on Mr. Floyd's neck under any circumstances. He was handcuffed and lying face down. He posed no threat.

2: A video was widely circulated of Mr. Floyd speaking out how "...our young generation is clearly lost..." and pleading for black youths to stop the violence.



Instead of police chiefs demonising Mr. Floyd, shouldn't they be discussing how he was making an effort to turn his life around? Isn't that something we should be encouraging people to do, to prove that there are second acts in American life?

3 - Police officials making claims about a media cover up and protestors being terrorists simply escalates tensions and divisions even further.

4 - Will there be talk from the union about the possibility that American police are heavily equipped and often thrust into dangerous situations with little training on how to deescalate a situation, thereby making some a little too trigger happy for their own good? Somehow I doubt it.

Of course, anyone who has been paying attention has long been aware that there has been a running battle between authorities and the media in any society. But with trust in the mainstream media at an all time low, it seems both sides have had to dial up the volume and rhetoric to get their point across.

So, with the "liberal" media downplaying Mr. Floyd's past and "conservative" media bringing it up, you have a zero sum argument scheme going on here. It isn't helpful to wider discussions.

You've undoubtedly read the claim that African-Americans are more likely to be killed by the police. That is certainly true on the basis of looking at the share of the population: African- Americans account for less than 13 percent of the population but they are shot and killed by the police at a rate that's over twice as high as for white Americans as the following graph shows.

However, if we look at the plain statistics, it seems that white Americans are far more likely to be killed by the police than any other ethnic group.



Obviously, this is not meant to disregard the pain for those families in African-American communities. But what it does demonstrate that there is much more to the story than cops disproportionally killing black people. And by not discussing that, we end up in a very toxic situation where families of white people and other minorities killed by police are left out of the conversation.

If you want proof, people on Twitter were asking why there were no such marches after the murders of Lee Rigby or Kris Donald. Although the answer is obvious (because, as appalling as those murders were, both were not members of a minority community), is it any wonder why people are asking these questions (both were, after all, victims of racist violence)? That is the result of zero sum thinking. And all it does is exacerbate racial tension. Especially when dismissed by some as "gammon thinking."

What is interesting that there has been little to no outcry from Latino groups about police brutality against their community until the last few days. Of course, I understand that African-Americans are more sensitive to this issue due to a long and painful history (and indeed Black Lives Matter is a necessary movement to highlight these issues), but I wonder if anyone can name any of the white or Latino people killed the way we know the names of Michael Brown, Trayvon Martin and many others?

Of course, I'd obviously be stupid to say that racism doesn't play a factor in police murders. Of course it does (to an extent) but I believe class is a much more decisive (if largely unacknowledged) factor. Indeed, Alfie Gallagher (of this very parish and the Left From the West blog ), wrote that:

...race certainly does not tell the entire story when it comes to police misconduct. Class is often the key feature. Indeed, I would imagine that an unarmed man of any race would be far less likely to be shot dead without consequences in Barack Obama's or Colin Powell's or Marco Rubio's neighbourhood than in the hollers of Kentucky or the streets of West Baltimore.

You've probably seen many people on social media denouncing those who criticise the riots and looters, claiming that it is not the place of others to tell the black community how to behave in such a situation. The same people went very silent when it emerged that looters had shot and killed 77 year old David Dorn (black himself)  who was helping to protect a pawn shop from looters (so far, the death total is 11, almost double those who died in the 2011 riots in London).

Writing about said riots in London, Kenan Malik  wrote:

There is clearly more to the riots than simple random hooliganism. But that does not mean that the riots, as many have claimed, are protests against disenfranchisement, social exclusion and wasted lives. In fact, it’s precisely because of disenfranchisement, social exclusion and wasted lives that these are not ‘protests’ in any meaningful sense, but a mixture of incoherent rage, gang thuggery and teenage mayhem.
Disengaged not just from the political process (largely because politicians, especially those on the left, have disengaged from them), but also from a sense of the community or the collective, there is a generation (in fact more than a generation) with no focus for their anger and resentment, no sense that they can change society and no reason to feel responsible for the consequences of their actions...
The question of moral failure is, therefore, central to any discussion of the riots. The trouble with the post-riot debate is that the very politicians who have helped create the moral deficit through their social and economic policies are now looking to blame everyone but themselves for the consequences. In that sense they are as self-regarding and nihilistic as the rioters themselves.
The relentless promotion of the market ideology over the past three decades has helped fragment society, tearing apart social bonds and creating a nation of isolated individuals. In many communities the authority of institutions, from families to trade unions, that once socialized young people and inculcated moral values have been broken. At the same time, the introduction of the market ethos into every area of life from education to health to the arts has helped institute an instrumental ethic in which all that has come to matter is value for money and in which wider social needs and moral issues have been ignored.

Stafford Scott  (a noted Tottenham resident prominent in the fight against police brutality) agrees with Malik to a degree about the reasoning behind looting. In his view:

...looting comes from the belief that if you cannot get equality and cannot expect justice, then you better make sure that you "get paid". "It's all about the money!" is the motto of too many young black men, who have given up all hope of attainment in a white man's world. This is an absolute belief for those looting at the weekend – born not only out of their experiences but their parents', too. They want to follow the rappers and athletes who live ghetto-fabulous lifestyles based on natural talents, as opposed to learned skills. They can't see that coming through education: those who live on estates generally survive from one wage packet to the next. Sadly this mindset also makes it easier to legitimise the selling of drugs, as that too "brings in the money".

Sounds familiar, doesn't it?

But sure, carry on with your simple "don't tell people how they should respond" rhetoric. Such zero sum thinking is not only an example of the failure to apply moral reasoning, it also implicitly suggests that African-Americans are unable to restrain themselves. The same thing that was said when (ironically) Do The Right Thing came out over thirty years ago, prompting writer/director Spike Lee to say:


That still bugs the shit out of me. I know people might read this and say “Spike, move the fuck on,” but I’m sorry — I can’t. They never really owned up to that, and when I think about it, I just get mad. Because that was just outrageous, egregious and, I think, racist. I don’t remember people saying people were going to come out of theatres killing people after they watched Arnold Schwarzenegger films.

Where has this nihilism come from? From a variety of sources.

The collapse of the importance of the nuclear family in modern society has led to generations of children and young adults without positive role models to look up to and use as a moral compass. Schools and universities are no longer places where people learn, but where people pay exorbitant amounts of money to jump through a number of hoops before being handed a degree which doesn't always guarantee a career. They have been told about the wrongs of the world while being implicitly told that making money and creating your own empire is important to get ahead in life.

As a result is it any wonder so many people, lacking critical and moral reason while in thrall to consumerism, latch onto the ideas of collective guilt, white privilege and systemic racism? Theories which emerged from academia (an incredibly privileged section of society who gave the critical thumbs up to people like Andrea Dworkin with her poisonous views on men) which sound excellent in theory, but are found wanting in real life.

Munroe Bergdorf (who grew up rich and was a model for L'Oreal before having her contract cancelled for announcing that white people were brought up racist) told the Guardian that:

You need to recognise that there is such a thing as white privilege and you can be homeless and still have white privilege, because you can still have a better chance of getting out of homelessness than a person of colour in the same position.

An example of it being a kind of original sin, where everything wrong with the world can be blamed on white men (regardless of class).

Without any evidence of such a claim, it's very easy to dismiss these as claims of an embittered activist but, at the same time, it provides an example of how much contempt a lot of middle/upper class people hold for the working class. That such people who grew up in comfort are now telling a homeless person that they enjoy privilege. That is insanity, how someone has been able to reinvent themselves as a victim by using terms like 'check your privilege.' Proof that class still remains the biggest obstacle for many to overcome.

Although I do believe that there is a basic truth to the concept of white privilege (in the sense that a white person is less likely to be racially abused than a person of colour), it can also be argued that that is also an example of majority privilege (has anyone asked the white population of Zimbabwe about their privilege). As well as this, the term has become an easy catch all for our modern society. The vast majority of whites are working class, reduced to using food banks. What privilege do they have, really? Often, they have far more in common with members of the Ugandan community who live in the same area than a university academic who is white.

If you look at most working class areas of Belfast nowadays, you'll find they're not monocultures anymore. Plenty of black, Asian and other minorities live there (largely) in peace and quiet. I think that's a testament to the belief in inclusion from most working class people in this day and age, and one that is not discussed enough. However, it's important to establish that this is not me giving the working class a by ball on these issues. I wrote that "...minorities live there (largely) in peace and quiet." Note the use of the word 'mostly.' That's me acknowledging that there is clearly an issue in places, but that most have been able to get along in peace.

Thinking in the long term, do we really want to divide people in communities along racial lines and perceived notions of privilege? Do we really want to recreate racism and have it defined by the middle class as a way of differentiating themselves from the plebs?

When all races are marching in vast numbers in protest at the death of George Floyd, that should be a demonstration that racism has no agency amongst most people. Let's not divide and conquer further.

What also exacerbates divisions is the wokerati on Twitter using the opportunity to discuss the "systemic racism" that runs through shows like Bo' Selecta and Ali G (therefore turning a generation into drooling racists). As eye-rollingly predicable such claims are (and a demonstration that Terry Eagleton was right when he said that nihilists and buffoons are allergic to the slightest hint of significance), they are essential to deal with.

Because we are all brought together by culture (be it popular, high or low). We've seen this happen many a time over the years with shows like Till Death Do Us Part (written and conceived by noted anti-fascist Johnny Speight as a way of lampooning racist and sexist attitudes) and Love thy Neighbour (where the men were portrayed as racist morons and the wives the voices of sense) and Benny Hill (once cited by Ben Elton as being responsible for rape and sexual assault). All of those shows are no longer broadcast on TV (despite being massively popular in their day) and discussions around them remain taboo, due to their perceived attitudes around race and sex.

In her book Steal As Much As You Can, Nathalie Olah deconstructs how everything from home improvement programmes, through to the BRIT school's influence on music and the side-lining of important works from the likes of Thomas Sowell have led to a shallow, one dimensional and middle class mould of popular culture, ignoring the works of working class artists as it doesn't fit their worldview.

When viewed through such a lens, and considering the previous comments about nihilism in the popular consciousness, it becomes evident that this denouncement of popular comedy is not so much inter-generational warfare, but a lack of education, faith in the human mindset and posturing on a grand scale.

And, to state the obvious, if you tell people who do not consider themselves racist that they are racist because they enjoy such works, this will build up a massive amount of resentment. And it will lead to cataclysmic situations. 

Far removed from the murder of Mr. Floyd, but a consequence of the outpouring of anger at his death.

Speaking in 1997, Andrew Eldritch wrote:

If the reference points for our whole belief system are forgotten, we find it that much harder to understand a shared belief system, or even to disagree coherently with a shared belief system. We end up in a vicious circle of incoherent, half-baked individual utilitarianism where nobody has any belief system at all and we lose the ability to communicate with each other. I think that's one reason why football is so popular again - it's a game which the citizen can focus on, where the rules are defined. Unlike his life. The citizen is becoming a pawn in a game where nobody knows the rules, where everybody consequently doubts that there are rules at all, and where the vocabulary has been diminished to such an extent that nobody is even sure what the game is all about. Hence the concomitant rise of fads like astrology, spiritualism, and generic "I want to believe"-ism. I'm a humanist. I believe people should be able to sort themselves out, as does the Judeo-Christian tradition, obviously, but for rather different reasons. Even for Western-European humanists, it's helpful to know about Isaac and Abraham for any discussion of belief/hope/obligation, especially if we wish to join a discussion which has been developed over two thousand years. It's a bit tedious to have to start the discussion from scratch every time by mulling over yesterday's soap-opera with the few people who actually watched it.
It's nevertheless hard to talk to Thatcher's Children. Apart from anything else, they have no concept of right and wrong beyond an apathetic and half-baked utilitarianism...The problem is, the things that decide their lives are not "relevant to them". The nuances of emotional politics are not "relevant to them". They have lost touch with the fabric of their lives and they don't even know how to have a good time without falling victim to the corporate fashion fascists and the evil social engineers of Thatcherite Britain."

And that is where we are in 2020. 

Disillusioned.
Disaffected.
Disarrayed. 

Wanting to fight for good, but not understanding nuance.

Like Latasha Harlins, Rodney King, Mark Duggan, Cynthia Jarrett. Dorothy Groce and too many others to list, George Floyd's death has led to a genuine outpouring of anger (and rightly so).

Don't equate this with the nihilism of looters and race-baiters.

⏩Christopher Owens was a reviewer for Metal Ireland and finds time to study the history and inherent contradictions of Ireland. He is currently the TPQ Friday columnist. 

6 comments:

  1. Christopher

    That is a very nuamced, considered, balanced but necexssarily passionate anaysis of race relations and the social atomisation that is the legacy of the hegemony of the idealogies of possessive individualism and consumerismn that have enabled the nihilists and lootders to piggy back on BLM protests.

    Instead of engaging in privilege and most oppressed people dever compeitions can we not as human beings base our opposition to racism, sexism and all other inter-personal,systemic and cultural prejudicdes on humanism or on thde recognition of the things and values we share in our common humanity?

    Am I being too naive?

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    1. Barry,

      thank you very much. Greatly appreciated.

      I'm afraid that it looks like we are now in intersectional hell. This piece was written before the Colston statue came down and that was the moment whenever mob rule became the order of the day. Now, our supposed neutral institutions kotow to them.

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  2. It is brave writer who wades into the elephant trap of race related matters without towing the woke middle class media line. Kudos to you for this thoughtful piece Christopher.

    Black Lives Matter (the organisation) are the embodiment of what Tom Wolfe first identified exactly 50 years ago as ‘Radical Chic; The Party At Lenny’s’ in his very long essay of the same name (online and well worth reading). It details Wolfe’s observations of attending a party in Leonard Bernstein’s Manhattan penthouse with the Upper East Side New York liberal elite which was a fund raiser for the Black Panther Party.

    The BLM website has statements on trans rights, cis gender rights, talks of freedom from ‘heteronormative thinking’ and disrupting ‘the Western prescribed nuclear family structure’. It is certainly no grass roots organisation, more like the ‘Cultural Marxism’ of academia. Candace Owens has said it is funded by rich white liberals. David Horowitz a former radical and a former member of the Black Panther Party always says in respect of single issue campaigning in the USA, ‘the issue is never the issue, the issue is the revolution’.

    Here in London BLM is embraced by politicans, the mainstream media and ‘woke’ capitalism - the powerful. So one has to wonder what the point of protesting/marching is when the establishment largely agree with your woke views and those who don’t are be too scared to challenge those views publicly. The same applies to Extinction Rebellion. The mainstream media coverage features a very narrow range of opinion. It requires going online to find voices like Burgess Owens (a black american retired sportsman and Republican) talking at length and with calm insight about the current situation in the USA.

    As always in England, class is the elephant in the room. The current purging of unwoke people and culture will result in nothing more than a redistribution of roles among the already privileged. In the meantime most people have more serious personal worries regarding the long term consequences for them of the economic shutdown.

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    1. Paul JPMN,

      thank you for the compliments. Greatly appreciated.

      That's a pretty apt description and comparison. Like Ken Kesey hanging out with the Hell's Angels. Must review a Wolfe book at some point.

      I see Candace Owens was attacked by Dave Chappelle in his piece on George Floyd. This idea of being an Uncle Tom (or whatever phrase can be used) is one that I find very difficult to fathom. The concept of not thinking outside the box, because you are a particular race. Very bizarre and self-defeating. For the record, I think Candace Owens makes some good points here and there but I also find

      You do have to wonder what the actual rebellion is if the establishment agrees with you. There's an excellent article from UnHerd which discusses the typical activist in 2020 and concludes that they are fighting such wars because they have nothing to inherit.

      https://unherd.com/2020/06/why-the-rich-are-revolting/

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  3. There is no obvious African-American community leadership today as there was in the era of Martin Luther King, Malcolm X etc.

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    1. There certainly isn't. On one hand, it can be argued that this is a good thing as it demonstrates the progression that blacks have made in the last fifty years to where they can afford to have a variety of opinions on black matters.

      On the other hand, it is dismaying to see no one attempt to take the reigns and direct it at Trump as opposed to looting.

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