To: Thinkingallowed@bbc.co.uk |
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Dear Laurie et al. at Thinking Allowed,
I happened to catch a bit of BBC Radio London's Vanessa Felz Show on Monday morning (with Julia Botfield standing in for Ms Felz), where one of the topics being discussed was ethnic minority representation on British TV. In formulating an email response, I was reminded of a Thinking Allowed broadcast (29 March 06) in which you discussed with Dr Bridget Byrne of Manchester University her book, "White Lives", and she referred to "a time beyond race", which I picked up on in an email to you (sent 30/03/06). The following week, you read out a part of my email, but didn't answer my question about the meaning of "a time beyond race". As my email to the Vanessa Felz Show (below) indicates, I think I have worked out the answer for myself:
The End
So, Laurie, what do you think? Is this not an important and
interesting enough topic for Thinking Allowed?
If anyone thinks (aloud or
to themselves) that a lid can be kept
on this subject until the melting is done and potential
conflicts dissolved (which, consciously or otherwise, is the
attitude taken at the BBC), they are very much mistaken. There
are too many good arguments against the melting pot, the loss
of human diversity being the most important. Besides which,
human nature will not allow it to happen. If we go on
suppressing our feelings of racial identity they
will eventually express themselves violently and irrationally,
with a very real danger of very real and nasty racism taking
hold.
Instead of suppressing it, we need to discuss this subject
openly and work out how to deal with it consciously, in a
humane and civilized fashion.
There are a number of reasons, I would like to suggest, why we are so afraid of doing this. Firstly, because it would undermine the nation states (i.e. the principal power structures) which comprise multi-ethnic societies (especially America, but increasingly Britain and other West European states as well). Secondly, because we (ethnic Europeans) are still under shock from what the insane racial doctrines of the Nazis led to and are thus terrified of attributing any significance to race whatsoever (the fear of xenophobia has led, perversely, to the self-imposed insistence that we embrace it and learn to love it). Thirdly, everything revolves around and is subordinated to an economy, rooted in our primitive animal nature, which only cares about the "colour of your money" (see The root causes of non-sustainability). Fourthly, suppressing (i.e. claiming not to have) a sense of racial identity and condemning those who do as "racist" is a very effective way, in current circumstances, at least, for white people, especially so-called "progressives", to acquire and defend the "moral high ground" against other white people (their main rivals), with the social status and advantages which go with it. |
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