It’s a tricky subject, laden with emotional baggage, this matter of racism. Many racists lurk out there, carefully picking their spots to score points and speaking out in a carefully devised code. On the other extreme, you get the rigid politically correct who are too quick to look for and label any comment of criticism of blacks as racist.
A good example of the latter has caused a real brouhaha in U.K. David Starkey, a renowned historian who frequently appears on television, has been catching hell for remarks he made last Friday night on a program called “Newsnight” about the recent riots. Mr. Starkey was taken to task for daring to state that black “gangsta” influence of today had a major impact on the riots. In his words, “A particular sort of violent, destructive, nihilistic, gangster culture has become the fashion…It’s not skin colour, it’s cultural.” Even a few noted black supporters of education also condemned this influence. One named Tony Parsons wrote in "The Daily Mirror": “…without the gang culture of black London, none of the riots would have happened---including the riots in other cities like Manchester and Birmingham where most of the rioters were white.”
Starkey believes that it is a problem of social scale. At the top, numerous blacks have achieved success in the white elite world and been integrated seamlessly into that world. At the other end of the social spectrum, in addition to the black “gangsta” types, you have disadvantaged white youth merging into the same kind of culture and prone to the same uncontrolled behavior and destructive mores illustrated by the recent riots.
Where Starkey really touched a nerve---and many of his friends and supporters say he made a real mistake---was quoting Enoch Powell, a Northern Irish Member of Parliament back in the fifties and sixties, who was inflammatory and violently opposed to the immigration into Britain of colored races. He made a famous speech, known as ‘The River of Blood Speech” where he predicted racial war in Britain. Starkey brought Powell into the equation by reviewing historically the reaction of liberal elements in both the Labour and Conservative parties to Powell’s speech and their resultant efforts to combat racism by condemning the working class for their attitude on race and, to quote Starkey again, “…the white working class could never be trusted on race again. The result was a systematic attack over several decades on their perceived xenophobic patriotism”; in other words, race hatred became an excuse for super-patriotism and jingoism.
The result of this attack, this anti-Powellism, according to Starkey, was a loss of national identity. Starkey makes the point that in other areas of Britain, even where areas of deep unemployment exist, such as Wales, Yorkshire and Scotland, runs a deep streak of national identity in all classes. Interestingly, there were no riots in these areas. I’m no student of British sociological history or race relations. I do remember the impact of Enoch Powell forty years ago and his incendiary effect.
In America we have had more than our share of incendiary verbal as well as actual bombers, both right and left. Racial relations have been subject to pendulum swings throughout our history. I do believe, bit by bit, America is seeing the reconciliation of races, although it still has a long way to go. But, if you are old enough, think back forty years, and the improvement is palpable. I think---and hope---we are reaching a stage where constructive criticism, back and forth between the races, should be possible.
Part of this interracial dialogue should be the right to criticize on the part of both blacks and whites. If whites act badly, blacks should criticize and demand reform. And that coin has two sides: if blacks screw up, whites should have the right to criticize and demand a change---without being called “racists”. It is too easy a cop-out on the part of whites to call disadvantaged blacks shiftless and lazy. It is equally too easy for blacks to play the race card when it is unjustified. Fairness is a standard for both sides.
If we set and live by such a standard, then we won’t have to worry about black and white. Let’s chase the elephant out of the room.
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