Breaking news: newspapers aren't racist (Photo by Richard Baker / In Pictures via Getty Images Images)
The Duke and Duchess of Sussexâs interview with Oprah Winfrey has, so far, claimed two scalps. One has been splashed across news websites and newspapers; the other has not.
The first belonged, to Piers Morgan, who was forced to quit Good Morning Britain after six successful if noisy years for daring to express disbelief at a number of the Duchessâs claims. The claiming of the second scalp, however, has attracted far less attention â even though it serves as an equally, if not more, damning parable for our timesâŠ
Do facts still matter? On the face of it, that question appears to have a straightforward answer: of course facts matter; fact-checking is a divine skill and the best defence we have against so-called âfake newsâ. But in todayâs troubled climate, youâre increasingly likely to be given an altogether different response: âFacts? Why are you demanding facts. Donât be racist.â
Just ask Ian Murray, who until this week was the executive director of the Society of Editors, but now finds himself jobless. The Society attempts, in its own words, to âfight for media freedomâ. But as Mr Murray (no relation) has discovered, media freedom is just as elastic as almost every other freedom in this freedom-less age.
In this regard, the Duke and Duchess of Sussexâs interview with Oprah Winfrey was something of a litmus test. In a free society, people would be able to watch it and draw a number different, but acceptable, conclusions. In an unfree society, however, only one permissible opinion would be allowed. If the past days have taught us anything, then surely it is clear that we have failed this test. The second reality has been borne out, and, as a result, Mr Murray has been forced to end his career.
One of the most disturbing accusations levelled by both Harry and Meghan during their interview concerned the toxicity of the British press, in particular the British tabloids. But a claim does not become true simply because a Duke or Duchess says it. Indeed, it is striking that while the comments made by the Sussexes on the Royal Family have been heavily scrutinised in recent days, their accusations against the British press have managed to slide by, accepted as though they were simply fact.
It didnât matter that their claims â presented, it should be noted, more as assertions â were particularly egregious: that the reason why Meghan and Harry had come in for criticism from the British press was because Meghan identifies as black, thus implying that the British media is racist.
In the face of such damning charges, it is striking that much of the media has chosen to keep its head down; the Guardian proved a notable exception, predictably endorsing the Sussexesâs worldview. As for the others, I suspect their silence come from a simple and understandable desire not to get in the line of fire.
In the end, the only person brave enough to stand up for Britainâs newspapers turned out to be the since-departed executive director of the Society of Editors. In a statement issued after the Sussexesâs interview, he rightly pointed out that the British press âis not bigoted and will not be swayed from its vital role holding the rich and powerful to accountâ. It continued: âIt is not acceptable for the Duke and Duchess to make such claims without providing any supporting evidence.â
In itself, such a statement should have been unremarkable. But as the fall-out from the past few days has shown, demanding âsupporting evidenceâ can you turn you into a pariah.
In this instance, I suspect thatâs probably because when the Sussexes and their supporters talk about racism towards Meghan, genuine examples are never forthcoming. For example, at one point during the interview, Oprah launched into a monologue detailing how Meghan âbecame the target of unrelenting, pervasive attacksâ when she joined the royal family.
To illustrate her point, a selection of allegedly racist headlines from British newspapers appeared on screen. Pretty damning stuff, you might think. Except for the fact that a significant proportion of the headlines were taken completely out of context. More than a third of the articles shown during the interview were from American and Australian publications. And in the case one of the most egregious headlines â âMeghan’s seed will taint our Royal Familyâ â Oprah failed to mention that the purpose of the news story was actually to expose racist comments made by a model.
Point this out to the Sussexes, though, and no doubt theyâll respond that their treatment has still been particularly unpleasant. But such a claim wrongly assumes that other members of the Royal Family have managed to avoid intrusive or negative coverage from the media; or that, when they have, it hasnât amounted to much. When Meghan, in her Oprah interview, acknowledged that the Duchess of Cambridge had been branded âWaity Katieâ by the media for waiting so long for Prince William to propose to her, it was telling that she went on to conclude, with Oprahâs encouragement, that Kateâs unpleasant experience didnât compare to her own.
As it happens, I find it rather telling that Meghan chose this particular example to illustrate media intrusion into Kateâs life. For when it comes to intrusion, is there anything more intrusive than the publication of photos, in the French press, of the Duchess of Cambridge topless? Unpleasant as it may be, itâs the simple truth that the worldâs press is intensely interested in every aspect of the Royal family, and that they are interested in it because their readers â the public â want them to be.
Thatâs why Ian Murray was entirely right, as the head of a body representing editors, to push back against the unsubstantiated claims made by the Sussexes; to say that if high-profile figures such as Harry and Meghan are going to accuse the press of singling them out, let alone being racist in the process, then they should show proof.
In a reasonable age that would be a reasonable demand. And that was the only mistake Murray made: forgetting that this age is far from reasonable. The Society of Editors was soon targeted by the usual online activists and Murray was forced to resign, announcing that he had to âtake the blameâ for his initial statement. âWhile I do not agree the societyâs statement was in any way intended to defend racism, I accept it could have been much clearer in its condemnation of bigotry and has clearly caused upset,â he said.
A new statement from the Murray-less board made the necessary confession, acknowledging that there is âa lot of work to be done in the media to improve diversity and inclusionâ. The society went on to promise that it âwill reflect on the reaction our statement prompted and work towards being part of the solution.â
So another person finds themselves without a job and another institution bends towards the dogmatic orthodoxies of the time. There are ugly winds in the air. And with evidence and facts unable to save us, I fear Mr Murrayâs scalp will not be the last.
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SubscribeWhat would we do without Douglas Murray – He may be the last man (person) standing.
And Lord Jonathan Sumption.
One begines to wonder for how much longer Douglas will continue standing…
Without Douglas Murray, we’d have to do without this sort of inflamatory guff:
What’s the context that makes it reasonable to attack Meghan for the things for which you praise Kate? Douglas Murray declined to explain.
Does that mean that almost two thirds were from the British press whose toxicity he is trying to deny? Or maybe it was those snarky Canadians? Or the Kiwis?
And Douglas Murray glosses over that fact that the Mail headline started with the offensive quote. They could perfectly well have led with “UKIP leader’s girlfriend slammed for racist outburst”, but decided to echo the racist slur first – you have to get past that bit to learn that the Mail were not endorsing the racism.
But since the Duchess of Cambridge had at one time been called âWaity Katieâ by the media for waiting so long for Prince William to propose, Meghan is “clearly” being treated perfectly fairly – or so Douglas Murray affects to believe.
It really is the most transparent bilge – unless, perhaps, an extreme dislike of Meghan and Harry and a fixated agreement with Douglas Murray’s conclusions distract the reader from the glaring holes in his argument.
Avocado and wedding bouquet is all I have to offer…
Quoting out of context is bogus and everyone knows it. I guess being photographed topless wasnât upsetting to Kate Middleton. Iâm betting that Kate would have been criticized had she flown off by private jet to a $500,000 baby shower after pontificating about climate change. Meghan is not immune to criticism regardless of however much she would like to be.
You’re clearly capable of making a better case than Douglas Murray did – which is my point – his was a bit poor, and not particularly honestly made. Uncharitable bile is bad enough, and our tabloids are… full of it. But badly argued bile is somehow more annoying. UnHerd is supposed to do better than that.
I’m not telling everyone to like Harry and Megan. People will make up their own minds.
The meaning of Murrayâs article seems to have been perfectly clear to everyone else.
Most people made up their mind when first hearing the ludicrous accusations e.g. She was not allowed out of the palace for four months and her passport, driving licence and keys were taken away from her.
Douglas Murrays main point was the ending of the Editors career at the hands of cowards.
We have, stop boring us with you stupidity!
I have to agree that headlining a story with the “seed will taint” quote is just a cunning, obvious and disingenous way to use someone else’s racism problem as newspaper clickbait. You can test this out yourself very simply by taking any obnoxious racist statement of choice by a historical figure, putting it on an imaginary front page as a headline with the source and story in smaller print below and see if it doesn’t make you feel queasy.
But then that is the tabloid press…I can do without them personally. Also Meghan and Harry!
Thank you Paul for these counter points; its the kind of informed questioning that should characterise Unherd – but often doesn’t in the comments section. I want to be made to think – who needs another echo chamber.
Not one that, for instance, puts Murray and Sumption in the same ball park. One makes you think – and good for him; the other does the same with a truck load of humility and therefore respect added.
MeAgain got treated mildly compared with Camilla & Sarah Ferguson. However given they had no ‘oppressed’ cards to play, no one comes to their defence
Is this just clickbait? Congratulations you’ve succeeded
You attack Murray for what you wanted him to say, not what he was saying.
One of the British examples was the Daily Telegraph, and for an explanation of the context, read what its writer has to say on the subject:
Oprah thinks that I âattackedâ Meghan? Itâs time for me to speak my truth (telegraph.co.uk)
Seems you were already salivating with hatred of the Mail when you decided NOT to “get past” their headline..
It is particularly frightening when a man doing the job he is paid to do is sacked for doing the job he is paid to do.
And that it is seen as brave and/or foolish to do so
Moral of the story: Never, never, never give in to, or apologise to, the woke mob. Stick to your guns.
Or don’t go so far as an apologist that you lose credibility?
You have already gone far enough to be uncredible,the apologists apologist.
He wasnât sacked though. Why are you agreeing with the author by saying he was? Why do 68 people agree with you?
Did Meghan always identify as black? Or was it just when it became useful to do so?
This identifies as stuff is a joke. As readers may have noticed, the divine and very white Anya Taylor-Joy was recently described as being of colour by Variety magazine who then backtracked because she identifies as a white Latina. Not the simple is – identifies as.
Having said that, I have been guilty of using a different my identity myself. In the past when travelling on the continent, I always said I was Scottish (which I am) because it was clear that people from small countries – Scotland, Sweden, Holland say – were in general more welcome than British/English, Germans or French, who always have enemies somewhere.
On the other hand, these days I find it simpler to be British in most of the situations I am in in life.
So presumably the correct answer to the question who do you identify as? is who is asking and why? From there you work out what you it is most advantageous to say this time.
If you were born in the US itâs best to apply to college as a Native American. Better chance of getting in and getting money segregated for native Americans.
On the other hand if you said you were Native British, rather than a place at Oxford or Cambridge, you`d be getting a visit from the police for Thoughtcrime, because as we all know nobody is indigenous to Britain, except maybe descendants of African legionaries who came in Roman times.
Possibly claiming to be “native british” is pointless because nobody imagines that the UK has been invaded by another country who take most of the resources, control the government, and oppress the rest of the population – as happened to the “native americans” a couple of centuries ago.
Unless of course you’re thinking of multinationals and billionaires, who arguably have done just that in the UK (and, ironically, in the USA among other places).
And we would like to keep it that way
You forgot those darn Normans.
And the Irish slavers.
I thought of them, but I did say UK. The Norman invasion predates the Acts of Union by a number of centuries.
Is there a statute of limitations on invasions? If it matters that there was no âcountryâ when the Normans invaded, why doesnât it matter that there was no country when England and assorted Europeans invaded the new world prior to 1776?
No statute of limitations, but a key difference may be that we don’t have ethnic “saxons” living in reservations and suffering discrimination in 21st century Britain.
You surely have people whose ancestry goes back to the Saxons living in squalor. And you mostly definitely have native peoples of countries colonized by the British living in Britain. In fact, you owe all Americans reparations for what you did prior to 1776. They are owed all the same if thatâs the game. I see youâve dropped the claim that it had to be a country invaded. Thatâs progress.
This is still about George’s attempt to draw an equivalence between special treatment for Native Americans in the USA, and “native” Britons in the UK?
I mean we could have a whole debate about when reparations or quotas or affirmative actions are needed, when they are at least defensible, and when they clearly aren’t. But this probably isn’t it.
My point remains that George’s case is significantly less defensible than the case you highlighted (disapprovingly, I reckoned) in the US. One may or may not be misguided. The other is plain daft.
But feel free to continue to discuss the general principle of affirmative action and reverse discrimination if you like.
We do though. See my answer above.
Yes we do us oop north are discriminated against by white Southerners and all their pet much favored foreigners.
William the Conqueror, great-great-great-grandson of Viking Rollo, invaded the territory of the late Edward the Confessor at Hastings.
The Act of Union 1707 created Great Britain. The United Kingdom was created by the Act of Union 1800, which United Great Britain with Ireland.
So the UK hasn’t experienced an invasion, although Hitler came pretty close.
âActsâ of union!
But their descendants are still the ruling class. You could say they are responsible for the British Empire. The Anglo Saxons were just the foot soldiers!
Actually, the Normans were Vikings , as were the Irish Slavers.
Not only the Romans and Normans but what about the Anglo-Saxons and the Vikings?
We must be one of the most invaded places going. Mind you we did remove the welcome mat for a while, and have done so again.
Erm what do you think the Romans and Normans did?
And indeed the particular native Americans who happened to be there when Europeans arrived. The earliest humans in the Americas were there over 30,000 years ago. They were wiped out by later waves of migration. Latter-day native Americans’ territorial claim to America is based on no better grounds than European settlers’, i.e. it’s theirs by right of conquest, nor is it of especial antiquity.
Thank you for pointing that out – and the same is true for Central and South America, where what the “first peoples” did to each other over centuries was exponentially worse than what Europeans did. Or, has it not been taught in all schools that one reason why the Spanish were successful in Mexico was because tribes viciously oppressed by the Aztecs joined the forces against them?
Same here in Australia bud.
We’ve very limited ways of knowing if the genetic changes in population in pre-historical societies were due to conquest, integration or collaboration.
To follow the logic of your argument if anyone successfully conquers anywhere it’s their’s by right. And that the terrorism used, for example, by Irish Republicans in the Troubles was justified as part of the ongoing and regular battle between different people for the right to ownership of the land? Islamist Terrorism must be pretty well justified too, in that context, if it’s all about raw power? Russia has the right to Ukraine and, while they were there, Germany had the right to France in 1944.
So would you agree that Israel has the right to its land even without millennia of Jewish history?
I donât agree with the idea that successful conquest gives anyone the right to oppress the people who were there before the conquest. That was my point.
Talking of conquests ..
Blacks were not enslaved because they were black but because they were available. Slavery has existed in the world for thousands of years. Whites enslaved other whites in Europe for centuries before the first black was brought to the Western hemisphere. Asians enslaved Europeans. Asians enslaved other Asians. Africans enslaved other Africans, and indeed even today in North Africa, blacks continue to enslave blacks.
Slavery was an ugly, dirty business but people of virtually every race, color, and creed engaged in it on every inhabited continent. And the people they enslaved were also of virtually every race, color, and creed… a million Europeans were enslaved by North Africans between 1500 and 1800. Europeans enslaved other Europeans for centuries before the drying up of that supply led them to turn to Africa as a source of slaves for the Western Hemisphere. Nor were they the only Europeans enslaved. No race, country, or civilization had clean hands.
Thomas Sowell
Love Thomas Sowell!
“a million Europeans were enslaved by North Africans between 1500 and 1800.”
> I’d like to see the sources that substantiates that one million figure.
You can, read the relevant papers, check their sources. Itâs a standard method of checking the veracity of historical facts. Basically the 1st thing you are taught to do. It is lazy to shout âthatâs not trueâ if you havenât bothered to do some work, and check..
Bravo, excellent point, rarely noted!
Perhaps the Roms and Norms were non-white and so they cannot be accused of invasion, Imperialism, pillaging and all of the other nasty stuff that white nations exclusively did? I mean, if Queen Charlotte was black, who’s to say the rest of Europe wasn’t black as well? So those “invasions” of which you speak couldn’t have been invasions after all. If they were carried out by the true non-white progenitors of Britain, they were more likely just “insistent cultural enrichment activities.” Excuse my cynicism.
We are talking about the present day… Are you identifying as a victim of Roman oppression? And what are you suffering from – is it the sanitation, the medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, the fresh water system, or the public health? đ
Who is identifying as a victim of European arrival in what was to become the US? And who are you to question someone elseâs victim hood? Why do only some invasions matter and others are conveniently forgotten? As an American, Iâd like some reparations, not only for your invasion of our lands but also your military effort to keep them. You can pay using PayPal.
Saxon lives matter?
Bless.
All lives matter. Imagine that. But I do agree with you that any Native American who was displaced through a European arrival should immediately apply for reparations from those Europeans, regardless of which European country.
Help me here. Which native American peoples were the Kralendijk tribe part of?
What am I suffering from? It’s the grammar.
Yeah but what have they ever done for us…?
What are you? The People’s Front of Judea, or the Judean People’s Front?
You have just listed much of what the British took to India, except the âwineâ was a brewery in Murree now in Pakistan.
There had been running water and cooling systems 5000 years previously in Mohenjo Daro but it had been forgotten by the time the Brits arrived.
Simplistic tripe, the first Europeans to arrive in N. America didn’t “invade” it, nor was it a “country” in the accepted sense of the word. It was a continent, vast and without boundaries, ungoverned and sparsely inhabited by peoples living in what was essentially the Stone-age, many of them being nomads or hunter-gatherers. The only resource they were aware of interested in was the Buffalo. or other smaller game, and there was no government, just tribal leadership. It’s hardly surprising that in time they were supplanted by more advanced incomers, that’s the nature of human progress.
I thought that was exactly what was happening
Are you feeling oppressed by Priti Patel and Rishi Sunak? Did they replace you or something?
Patel and Sunak were both born in the UK.
Take no notice of the romantic lie that the Native Americans lived in a happy harmony with the environment and their prey. Close examination reveals a massive extinction of American Megafauna which coincides with the arrival of people with what are described as Clovis Points, 13000 years ago. People inevitably require food. It must come from somewhere.
The mass extinction was more likely to have been caused by a massive flood
What! Did they have man made global warming?
Didn’t the Indians herd buffalo and drive them off cliffs, thus killing way more than they could possibly eat? That wouldn’t help the numbers, I’d say.
I think this is a fact, it was even chronicled on the sleeve of U2’s single “One” (their one truly decent song). I hope that doesn’t mean we have to cancel Bono now, that would be dreadful.
Cancel bono? Yes I’ve finally found what I’m looking for. Thanks.
It’s a beautiful day.
Huh same in Australia!!
as happened to the ânative americansâ a couple of centuries ago.
No, it didn’t. Exploration and some amount of violence has gone on for as long as man has existed, and the Indians were not exempt from it. The romanticized version put forth is wildly at odds with the savagery that tribes often displayed against each other, let alone English or Spanish explorers and people. The Indians have no country to take; they were disparate tribes contained inside a common border, very much like Afghanistan’s warlords.
Exactly. The outmanned and outgunned rarely prevail. Just ask the Confederates.
Just hasn’t happened to us here for 955 years.
America is started happening 429 years ago.
What is your point?
Perhaps if we still had disadvantaged “Saxon” communities in the present-day UK there might be some comparison.
But the Saxons (Germanic tribes) disadvantged (colonised) the British tribes first. Though the Germanic tribes are now referred to as the English by the … English; those Saxons who morphed into the English are still called Saxons (‘Saeson’ to be precise) by the British – those who speak the British tongue, as Shakespeare put it. Where the British tongue is now commonly known as Welsh. So, first the Romans, then the Saxons, then the Danes (Vikings), then the Normans (who were hitherto Danes). The British have been colonised over and over again.
The British seemed ambivalent about the Romans in the end – they kept one of their flags with the red dragon on it.
I was tempted to ask about the celts who had been displaced by the saxons, and muse on whether the Welsh and Scots were due compensation. But that would be silly.
Listen to Sturgeon&SNP demanding more and more money from Westminster..err yesterday!
IOW, only some groups matter.
Some might argue with your definition of “developed”. Yes I do think the USA would be a better place with fewer people and less concrete.
Same as the UK.
I wonder who we could get to volunteer to leave?
Yes, and would the world be in a better place if you were one of the ‘fewer people’? Have you ever found yourself walking on a concrete pavement and feeling guilty about legitimising it?
Just consider how your consumption of oxygen, use of plastic packaging, heating your house, driving your car, taking the bus is making matters worse. I mean, don’t consider it too much.
Just look at how the wheel has been used to industrialise! The North American Indians were far more virtuous, they obviously shunned using the wheel knowing where it would nefariously lead, evidenced by them not using them when the Europeans arrived.
I’m not making any such claim, THopp. Nor do I know exactly what concessions or advantages are available in the US to Native Americans (or in Australia to Aboriginal people, or to the Maori in NZ). But it seems likely that it’s based on compensating to some degree for the effects of invasion and ongoing discrimination since then. But I wasn’t debating the concessions, or whether they are justified.
What I was pointing out is that (Romans, Normans, Vikings and marauding slavers notwithstanding), there has been no comparable recent invasion of the UK that might be used to justify special compensatory measures for “Native Britons” due to how they are oppressed by the invaders and their descendants.
Ethniciodo Rodenydo possibly imagines that the level of immigration we have in the UK nowadays has a similar effect on us that the white settlers had on Native Americans in the USA, or the Normans had on Saxons in England after AD 1066. He would be wrong.
We can’t pick a “year zero” and roll back history and migration to that one perfectly correct allocation of people to land. But there may be a case for compensating the dispossessed from Turkish Cyprus, Crimea, Palestine, etc. It gets harder, amd more debatable the further back you go, though.
No, if the people disturbed by one invasion, who are all long since died, get to claim special benefits then you canât deny them to those disturbed by other invasions of long since died people. You canât pick and choose. Why is anyone being âcompensatedâ for things that did not happen to them? But if thatâs to be the way of things, then we should not exclude some from compensation for things that did not happen to them either. That simply is not equitable.
Whats stopping people in this woke world fraudulently identifying themselves as a victims of an oppressed group with the largest compensation ?
America wasnât a country when the Europeans invaded. It wasnât a country when the ânative Americansâ arrived even earlier.
It was England doing the invading and resources taking in what was to become America, of course. Along with other assorted Europeans. Shouldnât you be paying us reparations?
Leaving aside the fact that the UK didn’t come into existence until 1801 Annette, you are presumably referring to the French, the Spanish and the Russians, who all held territory in what is now the USA.
England was indeed a country before 1776 but as I noted it was not the only country to have arrived in what was then known as the new world prior to 1776.
Iâve made the point elsewhere that there was no UK when many of its invaders arrived when Paul tried to use the non existence of the US as a country when the Europeans invaded. He has since dropped that line of reasoning. Likely because it made no sense.
Oh no I didn’t… đ
Nope
Have you ever read any history Paul? I suggest you try reading The Norman Conquest by Marc Morris and learn how the English suffered and how the ruling elite was replaced by French speaking Normans. Any uprisings were ruthlessly suppressed – read about the Harrrying of the North.
Where did I claim the Norman conquest of England was all sweetness and light? As I mentioned elsewhere, the conversation was about oppressed groups in the present day, not injustices from previous millennia. (This isn’t theology, where you really do have to mention everything all of the time, to avoid people thinking you’ve left something out to make a point).
It’s telling that Saxon words for animals survive in English as the names for the creatures tended by farmworkers (Cow, Swine, Sheep), and the words derived from Norman French describe what the invaders ate in their castles (Beef, Pork, Mutton).
Who do you consider oppressed groups today. And specifically how are they oppressed?
Maybe it’s a bit like art – you know it when you see it?
Would you say that white people in the UK and the USA, and white males in particular, are as a group oppressed? Clearly individuals may be. But as a whole, or in general?
In what way are non whites oppressed in the UK & US but not in black/brown majority countries ?
Well, there would be the descendants of the people living there tens of thousands of years ago…but, to be perfectly accurate, the only people who can claim to be indigenous to any place are the first African hominids. Wait, since we ALL descend from them, I guess we can ALL claim to be indigenous Africans. Right?
Or, as shown in the Netflix series Bridgerton, the Duke of Hastings and Queen Charlotte herself no less, both non-white and both doyens of Britain in the Regency era, apparently. The fetishism of a majority non-white Britain doesn’t only apply to its future but also, apparently, to its past.
You do know it wasnât a documentary?
Like the American presidents who say they are Irish when their God knows how many back grandads were the last relative to have actually set foot in the ‘old country’. It seems everyone wants to be someone else these days and everyone seems to want to encourage them too. Must be something wrong with me; though I do confess to wishing I was someone who was marginally richer than I am would be jolly nice. (Unfortunately: I am just a poor boy and my story’s seldom told)
When I was at uni in the 90s (totally ensconced in the world of Marxist-feminist theory and using the word patriarchy 50 times a day) I remember our American Studies lecturer gave a talk on an emerging phenomenon, about no longer being just ‘American’, that melting pot was ‘allowing people to reclaim their heritage’ and so we get African-American, Italian-American etc. At the time I did not dare contradict the glee with which this was celebrated as a push back on evil American hegemony – but my actual thoughts were that this would atomise society and America would find itself in trouble. I hate to say I was right.
Teddy Roosevelt was right:
âThere is no room in this country for hyphenated Americanism. When I refer to hyphenated Americans, I do not refer to naturalized Americans. Some of the very best Americans I have ever known were naturalized Americans, Americans born abroad. But a hyphenated American is not an American at all. This is just as true of the man who puts ânativeâ before the hyphen as of the man who puts German or Irish or English or French before the hyphen. Americanism is a matter of the spirit and of the soul. Our allegiance must be purely to the United States. We must unsparingly condemn any man who holds any other allegiance. But if he is heartily and singly loyal to this Republic, then no matter where he was born, he is just as good an American as any one else. The one absolutely certain way of bringing this nation to ruin, of preventing all possibility of its continuing to be a nation at all, would be to permit it to become a tangle of squabbling nationalities, an intricate knot of German-Americans, Irish-Americans, English- Americans, French-Americans, Scandinavian- Americans, or Italian-Americans, each preserving its separate nationality, each at heart feeling more sympathy with Europeans of that nationality than with the other citizens of the American Republic. The men who do not become Americans and nothing else are hyphenated Americans; and there ought to be no room for them in this country. The man who calls himself an American citizen and who yet shows by his actions that he is primarily the citizen of a foreign land, plays a thoroughly mischievous part in the life of our body politic. He has no place here; and the sooner he returns to the land to which he feels his real heart-allegiance, the better it will be for every good American.â
Theodore Roosevelt
Address to the Knights of Columbus
New York City- October 12th, 1915
Wow ol Teddy nailed it!
Very well said.
Btw me too was of that religion..now happily de-programmed.
Yes, we seem to have lost the ability to separate ancestry from citizenship.
But you stand as a boxer and fighter by trade..
Do they do Zoom interviews to make sure you look like Geronimo or Pocahontas?
No, you cannot be asked to prove your race. Nor could most of us anyway.
I believe Cherokee works especially well.
Yes it would but thereâs no tribal designation required. You can just say Native American. This is how Elizabeth Warren got in trouble, she specified a tribe of which she notably was NOT a member. Of course then it got even worse when she did an ancestry test and came out whiter than milk and inexplicably decided to wave the results around in public.
Everyone born in the US is a native American – it’s what the word ‘native’ means – that you reside in the same country in which you were born.
Yes and you get money for claiming Native America!
Yes there is a very white looking Democrat senator who did just that. It seems too that boasting mental health problems is another way of getting ahead.
Like Americans who called themselves Canadians and had maple leaf flags on their backpacks to prove it, during the Vietnam War.
Fun fact, around 30,000 Americans fled to Canada to avoid the Draft during the Vietnam War. In return, around 30.000 Canadians headed south and joined the US forces specifically to served in Vietnam.
Interesting reversal, though the figure I have is c12,000 Canadians.
Probably not when she had her nose done. Or her hair straightened. Skin bleached. So, most likely not always, only when expedient.
She reads as white, I’d assume she was Spanish or Italian if I didn’t know otherwise. She’s married two white men, her best friends are all white, her aesthetic is entirely white, as is her hair and her speech.
I’d give her claims way more mental space if she registered as a ‘black’ person on anyone’s radar.
She looks Thai.
Sorry – not good looking enough.
She’s Greek, and lovely looking, a total Siren.
Do we know for a fact the she has had all that nose/hair/bleaching done? Because that would be interesting.
Do a forensic photo-search and all will be revealed.
She certainly looks whiter now than she did a few years ago.
Yeah I remember going to Scotland ( from London) to cover a story fir the institute of civil engineers MAG back in 1990 and on the ferry I was treated pretty piss poorly by the Scots working on the boat..I let it hang for a bit then told them I was Australian they completely changed their tune with me..wankas.
No, Meghan hasn’t always identified as black. In an interview for Elle magazine in 2015 (still linked from her Wikipedia page – though maybe not for long), she says among other things: “While my mixed heritage may have created a grey area surrounding my self-identification, keeping me with a foot on both sides of the fence, I have come to embrace that. To say who I am, to share where I’m from, to voice my pride in being a strong, confident mixed-race woman.”
There’s a lot in the article about what it means to her to be mixed race, but that’s clearly all gone out the window now, which strengthens the case for believing that she will say whatever she perceives to be the most expedient at any given moment.
But still me me me..
I was once at a wedding in Germany where I happened to mention to the woman sitting next to me that I am 1/10 Ashkenazi Jewish (I âidentifyâ as British, U.K., whatever, but had recently done something called 23andMe where you send in some of your spit and they sequence your genome for you). From that moment on she went out of her way to bond with me; told me how much she enjoyed Unorthodox (the book, not the Netflix show) and how I simply must read it; started touching my arm a lot… Very strange experience. I felt I was in a false position, but there was something undeniably *relaxing* about the unearned status that my DNA was all of a sudden conferring…
The Markles are so obviously mentally and emotionally damaged they will never be able to think or behave rationally. They’ll never stop seeking out someone to blame for their misery and eventually they’ll blame each other. I doubt that marriage will last ten years.
If Meghan Markle is black,then I’m Chinese,seriously my little sister and eldest daughter are darker than her,that’s from Irish,Scot’s,English,German,French and Native American ancestry.
I have thought about this for at least 20 seconds……
From now on I will self identify as Klingon.
Why not?
While I personally can’t stand Meghan Markle, and don’t believe she has been treated any worse than any other celebrity, I had to chime in on that statement.
Regardless of their skin colour (or any other personal trait) your family are absolutly entitled to claim that they are descended from any of the nationalities (and ethinic groups) you mention – just as you have done in your comment.
Therefore if Meghan wants to identify with her black heritage she is perfectly entitled to! Your denial of that right, based on her not being ‘dark enough’, is racist.
No one is saying she canât claim to be descended from black people. In reality, of course, she is of mixed race. If it is true that she has had cosmetic surgery etc to make herself look whiter (is this true?) then her actions are at odds with her identification. Not surprising if people feel she identifies in the way which is most useful to her at the time.
Bertie B – yes and no.
I agree that Meghan is entitled to make the claim, but aren`t we also entitled to say the claim is flimsy and/or even wrong, or doubt her sincerity? Free speech and differences of opinion and all that stuff – old-fashioned, I know!
If I am entitled self identify my sex regardless of birth then I can self identify my race regardless of racial origin. What’s the problem
You are being logical. This doesn’t work in the world these days. Indeed, I know of a woman who is currently having a hellish problem with this. 24 years ago, her Black American parents went to the adoption agency and found a healthy dark-skinned girl whom they took home, loved, and raised. She grew up loving them and was and is the apple of their eye. She grew up as a Black middlle class kid in a Black middle class family, and in due course went to university claiming certain benefits due to her Blackness. And all would be fine except that she got interested in genetic testing both to locate blood relatives and susceptibility to certain diseases and the like.
Lo and behold, she tested out to be Spanish-from-Spain + Dominican. There may be some African genes in her, but they do not appear to be particularly recent. Now from my point of view — so what? She’s culturally a Black American. But apparantly the university grant givers feel differently. They are talking about needing to decide whether what she did was a crime.
Really!?!?! Wow! The depth of the irony there is staggering! Blood libels, genetic determinism, anti-identitariainism. Good grief!
It may be wrong – or right. It certainly is not racist. Please don’t devalue the word racist. It needs to be kept to describe real dangerous racism.
I think you are confusing culture and genetics. Culturally, she is in the White camp, and using current White wokeness to promote her name, Genetically, she appears to be 50 per cent White, 50 per cent Black. She identifies with whatever is going to feed her mania for publicity – and the consequent $$$ which the publicity machine generates. Let’s just recognise her for the lying minx she is. You think she recognises & understands Black heritage?,
Therefore if Meghan wants to identify with her black heritage she is perfectly entitled to! Your denial of that right, based on her not being âdark enoughâ, is racist.
Where is this “right” found exactly? Never mind that no one has denied it. People have simply noticed how opportunistic it is to claim racism at every turn, and that people like her seldom have an interest in claiming their white heritage. Tiger Woods is among the rare exceptions to this, refusing to be labeled as a black man.
I would be an idiot to identify as anything listed.Certainly if I chose to wear a kilt or a medieval tunic no on would care but a war bonnet? I would be crucified.
Says BertieB, the arbiter of all things ethnic..
You can’t have English ancestry – English isn’t a thing. So we’re told.
Who told you that? Or are you just playing the English Victim card?
I have English ancestry…
It is indeed frightening how easy nowadays is to ruin the reputation, standing or career of a person by uttering a bunch of unsubstantiated allegations of racism on air. Facts, corroboration, listening to the other sideâs view- none of that. You just need to allege that somebody has been racist towards you, the mob takes it up and that is the end of the targeted person.
And mark you- it does not even have to be an outright allegation of racism. You just need to imply and suggest- the mob will do the rest. Someone said something about the colour of Meghanâs baby and suddenly Prince William is asked if he and his family are racists and Prince Charles is the unnamed but widely suspected villain.
It does not matter that there may be a number of different takes on the alleged âArchieâs colourâ comment- from âWith Harry being the palest ginger and Meghan having a nice tan to her I wonder who Archie will look like more?â to âUncle Harry, will auntie Meg-Megâs baby look like her or like you?â. All it matters is that a âwoman of colourâ has felt racially insulted and as we have been told you never question that. The papers stay silent, commentators keep their heads down and hope that the eye of Sauron passes them over and finds somebody else for the monster to devour. These are indeed troubling times and I fear worse is yet to come.
Did Murray have to resign? The fact that he did so due to pressure from blacks and Asians at mostly recent publications makes me suspicious. The fact that they called his remarks ridiculous and so he stepped down seems fishy. Why would someone who truly believes that factual reporting is necessary quietly give up their job because a bunch of ethnic minority new comers working for minor publications makes the opposite claim?
The whole thing is set up. The establishment do not want a free press, they have fought tooth and nail against the fourth estate for decades. The establishment have taken away all our civil liberties, and giggle about it when confronted by the one or two remaining journalists who challenge them, they are erasing our history, what do they care for facts and free speech and reporting. The internet is controlled by the left wing, ordinary peopleâs views are not to count for anything. This is a Communist revolution presided over by a âConservativeâ government.
I must confess, it feels increasingly as if something very like that is indeed unfolding. Murray allows that we are “freedom-less”; he acknowledges that we are only allowed one opinion about a range of matters; he points out that this one opinion where Markle is concerned is in conflict with the facts; and another prominent journalist has confessed, in the Telegraph, that writing against certain dogmas is now too costly in terms of complaint and “regulation”. So what is happening? And if it is a form of communist takeover – the word “revolution” is and always has been a lie – what is the hold that keeps so many MPs silent?
As I have said a few times, MPs work with upticks and downticks. Everything they say is tailored to prevent downticks. So, they can’t actually do anything but go along with the crowd.
Sounds a bit like the post-Disqus comment threads on unHerd.
Food for thought. The revolution has been under way for many years, however, the silent majority woke (excuse me) up about two years ago (my estimation) and the fightback started then. The left is beginning to understand there is resistance and is increasing its efforts. The conservative – small ‘c’ intended – silent majority is working out how to reverse the advances made over the last thirty or so years and, though it will take time, this response will be successful. I suggest this will be the case as history shows it to be so when the leaners go too far, the lifters recover the moral and ethical high ground because of the reality of natural social survival. Plato was wrong and each disciple since has also been wrong. The siren songs of equality and fairness are superficial and are defeated as soon as objections are raised.
I hope this is true. But there have been occasions when the insane have taken over. 20th century history is littered and marked with such disasters: 1917, 1933, 1949 and so on.
Hi Chris in what respect was Plato wrong here? Just looking to learn more, thanks.
I really hope so
I agree Chris, there are hopeful signs. Something like this happened in medicine, around 15 years ago. For a while we got a raft of articles in the BMJ on how their higher rates of various diseases were all due to the nasty racist British doctors.- usually by minor academics of all kinds.We also got lectured by nice young girls in saris about how horrible we were. At first the medical profession was stunned and kept quiet. Gradually, however, they found their voice and pointed out that there could be other reasons for poorer outcomes. At first the attackers simply shouted louder – and I suggest that’s what we are seeing here with the Left’s defence of wokery- but gradually, as we got braver and defended ourselves, they realised they were making total asses of themselves and shut up. It was easier in medicine, as things are easier to prove in a narrow field, but in time, after a lot of collateral damage, I predict that will happen over the broader issues.
People are easily bought.
Even that very modest little man, the âsaintedâ Clem Attlee saw fit to âwalk offâ with an Earldom! Then there are Knighthoods for those journalistic titans such as Simon Jenkins (of Childers notoriety) and Max (Hitler)*Hastings of Falkland fame.
No doubt a juicy bauble awaits a compliant Mr Murray when the time comes, but most of us are not fooled.
* As you will note I have mentioned the dreaded âHâ word by way on a empirical experiment to see if the ânew lookâ UnHerd Censor will, to lapse into the vernacular, âthrow a hissy fit!â
People are easily bought.
Even that very modest little man, the âsaintedâ Clem Attlee saw fit to âwalk offâ with an Earldom! Then there are Knighthoods for those journalistic titans such as Simon Jenkins (of Childers notoriety) and Max Hastings of Falkland fame.
No doubt a juicy bauble awaits a compliant Mr Murray when the time comes, but most of us are not fooled.
It was money pressure. The SOE had a fundraising gala dinner or somesuch event and cancellations started coming in.
Thing is, by capitulating so readily they will not win those people back and have forfeited the moral high ground that might win them new supporters. Never apologise to the woke mob! Something Piers, bless him, seems to understand.
I agree that there is an agenda is in play to change our whole way of life and powerful causes such as racism, sexual equality and fairness, healthcare and the whole climate, and ecology spectrum provide great cover for whatever needs to be done to bring down the old institutions (Who may be bulwarks). None of these issues can be argued against and are ostensibly for the good of everyone but the evil is in how they are being used as “Human shields” to force change on a global scale and how democracy is being replaced by a management control which has no scruples. The lack of transparency and accountability is very disturbing.
Why would someone who truly believes that factual reporting is necessary quietly give up their job because a bunch of ethnic minority new comers working for minor publications makes the opposite claim?
Because this type of mob makes up in volume what it lacks in reason and numbers. Because the demand for racist or offensive incidents far surpasses the supply, and so cases have to be manufactured in order to feed the beast. Because these people think nothing of hounding Murray and probably his associates at their homes, in their private time, extending that to their families. It’s a version of terrorism with a bit less violence, though that’s not entirely off the table as a tactic.
Every time I read a piece by Douglas Murray I want to cry. Am I just another victim, cornered by his unforgivable lack of a progressive agenda and utter failure to notice the compassion at the heart of Sussex brand, set up for the purpose of world betterment? Mr Murray, in the unlikely event that you ever read this, please, please, donât stop. My suicidal tendencies are only kept from fulfilment by what you write for you convince me that there really are people in the world of journalism who are neither congenital morons nor cowards.
I’m white British with a 25% dash of Italian from my great grandparents who came from southern Italy in 1895. THE DUCHESS OF SUSSEX IS IN EVERY WAY PALER SKINNED THAN ME. I never get any racism from anybody, but then, I don’t spend my time whining about my blackness and I also try to avoid narcissistic self publicity.
I think that’s 12.5 per cent Italian unless some more Italians married into the family subsequently.
No, it is at least 25%. Each of us has at most four distinct sets of great grandparents, so two great grandparents make up at least two out of eight. If there is any cousin marriage the denominator will be less than eight, making the fraction greater than a quarter.
2005: Policy guide to ACPO (Association of Chief Police Officers)
A hate incident is defined as any incident, which may or may not be a criminal offence, which is perceived by the victim or any other person, as being motivated by hostility or prejudice. (modified 2014 version).
UnHerd contributors are 16 years behind the times. The police must list and investigate every hate incident and decide whether it is a crime or not. At the very least, they have to council the perpetrators to be more careful in the future. This is why the newspapers are gagged.
Note that the incident is nothing to do with fairness or reality; it is merely a perception on behalf of the so-called victim.
No, the times are two hundred years behind freedom.
If it is found that no crime took place, a NCHI (non criminal hate incident) is recorded against the ‘perpetrator’. This is defined as taking place whenever anyone perceives there to have been an offence, i.e. there is no defence.
These incidents do show up whenever a disclosure and barring check (usually referred to as a criminal record check) is done.
In other words the accusation leads automatically to guilt, even when it is determined that no offence took place.
What a lovely world we live in.
Quite, not only guilty until proved innocent, but never proved innocent at all – and all arising from a malicious accusation; and an accusation of what? Of having an opinion. The left has built yet another prison house – this time by stealth – and still it imagines that coercion will change us or do us good. They’re no better than the quacks who tried to twist Lord Byron’s club foot into shape.
..
Why does it not surprise me that Blair was in power.
Grrrr why canât I uptick anything anymore? Itâs all so annoyingly random.
This is the bit that has always strongly bothered me about so-called hate speech legislation. It is entirely subjective and takes no notice of the fact that the ‘wounded party’ can themselves be motivated by spite, revenge, delusion, self-promotion, or just having a delicate constitution. I always thought the law was meant to be neutral, objective and based on evidence. Someone’s hurt feefees does not, in my view, constitute evidence or objectivity.
Why then, with a majority of 80, wonât this Conservative government stand up for free speech and repeal hate crime laws? How many more lives and careers must be sacrificed?
This should be their priority given their strong electoral mandate.
Everything else is of little value in the scheme of things.
Some of us would also like Covid-19 and post-Brexit trade and the Northern Ireland Protocol to be addressed. Culture wars are hardly the only pressing issue.
Dan, I think it’s because even this Conservative government realises even if they don’t think hate crime is real, or that widespread racism is real, there are 8 million UK citizens who are eligible to vote or will be soon who directly have skin in the game and millions of others who believe it is real.
The Conservative popular vote was less than 4 million higher (half the BME population) than the Labour party popular vote in 2019. And, as many right wing commentators point out, the BME population is younger than the white population, already more inclined not to vote Conservative and growing at a proportionately faster rate than the white population.
Unless the Conservative party can come up with a way of persuading all those people who think they experience racism that they are imagining it (or refuse them the vote) then the Conservative party will lose elections. Unless, of course, they also persuade all those people the Conservative party is serious about addressing racism.
In my view, the problem the Conservative party has is that they don’t really have any core beliefs. They aren’t really that bothered by racism, it’s just one of those things that happens and shouldn’t be allowed to get in the way of business, but they feel they have to make the right noises to get votes from those people who do care about it.
But if they do that too loudly then they’ll lose the votes of those who really are racist or who think every person with a different ethnic background from them is taking a job that could go to their family.
Brexit gave the Conservative party a short term solution to their dilemma – they could be anti-foreigner and so maintain the support of those inclined that way while not being explicitly racist. (Although they kept up enough ‘hostile environment’ and anti asylum policies going to provide reassurance to the real racists that they were still on their side).
Hope that helps.
Fair enough analysis, and it probably partially explains voter ID legislation. Though itâs a problem thatâs been a long time coming for them.
Subjective definitions for incidents that get recorded are problematic. Is the definition for hate *crime* also subjective? That would be more serious.
No. The police will only investigate the right kind of hate incident. Twitter about knee capping white men or abolishing whiteness is only apparently ground for promotion.
So if someone perceives that you have committed a hate crime against them, you could perceive their perception as a hate crime as well?
Too many people are accepting the noise generated by activists and woke celebrities as being representative of a wider attitude and absolute truth. And too many are bending before it begging for forgiveness, truth be damned. Any student of medieval history will recognise this.
I’m no royalist but confess to being aghast that Markle could choose International Women’s Day to effectively trash the career and legacy of a 94 year old woman who has given over 70 years’ loyal service to her country and the Commonwealth, at a time when that woman’s husband is struggling to stay alive until his 100th birthday. Irrespective of royal status, it seems particularly cruel to treat one’s elderly grandparents-in-law this way, adding to their anxieties at a difficult time when one of them must be worried that she is about to be widowed. The fact this treatment has arisen at the hands of someone who claims to be compassionate, and who once complained “Not many people have asked me if I’m ok” is quite simply breathtaking. It is incumbent on a free press to challenge this narrative.
It would be even more shocking if she actually had trashed either the career or the legacy of the Queen – something she studiously avoided during the interview. In fact Meghan spoke of the Queen only in very positive terms, and she did not criticise any family members by name. The household, she was not so positive about, but then her mother in law had a similar impression of that crowd.
Are you kidding? She implied that the Queen is the matriarch of a racist institution and that is the message that has gone around the world. Far from studiously avoiding criticising individuals she tried to distance herself – but only just enough – from the clear implications of what she was saying while still allowing the criticism to hang over the Queen, Katherine and Prince Charles to name just three. For example whilst saying that Katherine apologised for upsetting her before her wedding MM let it be known that in her opinion Katherine was responsible for the spat. What kind of person does this to their family in public, in front of an audience of millions?
‘The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing’, so the saying goes.
‘Evil’ might arguably be stretching it a bit, but certainly removing the good men who try to do something like the hapless Mr Murray mentioned ‘pour encourager les autres’ and who might bravely fancy their chances sticking their heads above the parapet in future certainly can’t hurt ‘evil’s’ chances none too much can it?
“Evil” is not stretching it, it is exactly what it is, lies based on lies, in the full knowledge that they are lying, that is evil.
I agree with you Claire, it is evil – and knowingly so. It’s like the kind of glee taken by a psychopath in pulling the wings off a helpless fly.
No one, who is not either illiterate or half-witted, could misconstrue Murray’s comments, except wilfully.
The so-called ‘truth’ mentioned in the interview have been taken as gospel but they are just ALLEGATIONS. This should be stated whenever they are repeated by the media and the public.
Yes, they are just allegations and, to quote a trades union leader from many years ago, we know who the alligator is!
Look at who is often likely to make such demands or issue such pabulum statements – white people. The white left treats minorities as little more than pets or mascots, never as individuals with agency. These are the people who don’t black people are capable of getting IDs, despite the fact that the majority has state-issued identification already.
Do facts still matter?
Only if they support the preferred narrative. That is the only explanation for Big Tech’s serial silencing of medical professionals who deviate from Faucian dogma, including the takedown of a video involving a US Senate committee. Let that sink in – private business essentially censoring govt.
Facts about police and civilians yield malicious truths, so they have to be quashed. As it is, potential jurors in the George Floyd case are petrified that their identities will be released, and those people have good reason for their fear.
Why has Ian Murray “resigned”? This suggests he has done something wrong. A better description would be “sacked”. However, no doubt by resigning, he has kept his pension or taken some redundancy or something. Either way, all the management of the Society of Editors had to do, was keep their heads down for a week and the whole storm-in-a-teacup would have blown over. But no doubt they stood by when all this kicked off with Dankula … and now it’s their turn.
Well done Douglas. As always spot on! Hopefully a balance is coming with GB news and Andrew Neil
Black fragility was explained over two decades ago by the Conservative critic Joseph Sobran, writing in Sobrans, April 1997:
“Western man towers over the rest of the world in ways so large as to be almost inexpressible. It’s Western exploration, science, and conquest that have revealed the world to itself.
“Other races feel like subjects of Western power long after colonialism, imperialism, and slavery have disappeared. The charge of racism puzzles whites who feel not hostility, but only baffled good will, because they don’t grasp what it really means: humiliation. The white man presents an image of superiority even when he isn’t conscious of it. And, superiority excites envy. Destroying white civilization is the inmost desire of the league of designated victims we call minorities.”
I like reading DM and find him and others like a little candle in a very dark room. There are so many articles that accurately depict the errors and issues that the woke left are inflicting upon us using the might of like minded social media. Yet….where are our heroes, defenders of free speech, opinion formers that can see the troubles brewing. DM, Lord S, Toby Young, Andrew Neil are too few to fight all the battles on their own and our formerly stoic institutions are falling without throwing a punch. I cant help feeling that we are heading to a tipping point.
âa lot of work to be done in the media to improve diversity and inclusionâ.
Which is code for, “We must make sure that only the point of view held by twitter-mobs is published. Any opinion that diverges from that is to be excluded.”
Thus does “diversity and inclusion,” come to mean the precise opposite.
Fact!
We are clearly living in a society which lacks integrity and has lost it’s moral compass, without stating the bleeding obvious! Those in positions of leadership both political and moral are not prepared to stand up and be counte. The consequences of this will only increase the decline of our over indulged society and permanently destroy it’s guiding structures.
I couldn’t agree more with Douglas!
The post modernists have determined the best way to kill debate, a different opinion and an immediate intellectual threat, is to close the taxi doors, make loud incoherent and often baseless noises, and always include the word racism and in doing so, believe themselves to be righteous, virtuous and most importantly, always on the correct and just side of any argument. This is a hideous, ideological cancer that needs shackling at its roots. It is doing nothing but divide, destabilise and force people into positions of perceived guilt for having done absolutely nothing wrong other than contest another’s opinion. The irony is, these very same people that profess an enlightened view of the world are far more likely to be protagonists of hate, bullying and ultimately death, than the people that directly question and debate the absurdity of their intellectual position.
And for the love of the world will people stop apologising in the hope to be liked or left alone when they have done absolutely nothing wrong. Apologising is only making the simpletons worse and justified in their appalling behaviour.
People need to grow a spine and stand up for themselves. What Murray said was not only not wrong, it was very much right. If you are going to accuse someone or some institution of something horrible, you should immediately expect a sane person to ask you for proof. All because you are female, or black or gay or any other protected group at the moment should not absolve you of that responsibility. People are so easily cowed. Murray and the Society of Editors caved to mob pressure and apologized. For what? Being fair? Telling the truth? We need to STOP APOLOGIZING, Stand by your words and be ready to defend them. Push back against the terror or we will soon see figurative guillotines the public square again. Or maybe not so figurative.
The tabloids can be dangerous – as when they publish the names and photographs of senior judges under the headline âEnemies of the Peopleâ
Racist? I donât doubt it. Still I am concerned when a chat show host on another continent can point a finger, say âJâaccuseâ and destroy peopleâs lives and career here in Britain.
Just wonder if MeGain has discussed Harry’s little incident 12 or so years ago when he was training as a Sandhurst Officer as reported in the liberal Guardian newspaper- as a 21-year-old officer cadet during a military exercise in Cyprus. In one extract his camera pans round his colleagues, sleeping in the RAF departure lounge while waiting for their flight. Homing in on one fellow cadet, the prince is heard to say, quietly: “Ah, our little Paki friend Ahmed.”
This turned out to be Ahmed Raza Khan, now a captain in the Pakistani army, who was awarded the best overseas cadet prize at Sandhurst. If he heard the remark at the time, he did not react to it.
Another sequence, taken at night, has him filming a fellow cadet wearing a camouflage hood with the remark: “It’s Dan the Man. F**k me, you look like a raghead. Look at me, look at me … look away,” with which his colleague complied. “Raghead” is army slang for Taliban and al-Qaida fighters.
“As soon as the disagreement was publicised, the online mob did what it always does and swiftly became an expert on a person previously unknown to them. ” LOL Yes, that is exactly what they do.
Even the terms of these apologies are now becoming standardised – “We must reflect…” “We will do better…” “Part of the solution…”. They are exactly like the public confessions extracted during the Cultural Revolution, and just as sinister.
….not forgetting the dread phrase, squeezed out at the tip of sword fallen upon ………’clearly caused offence ….’
Megan and Harry have every right to say whatever they wish, even if this causes upset or offence to others. However, it is cowardly to say things things without proffering any evidence, knowing that those they attack are unlikely to be in a position to argue back. They are the worst of the woke pervading our society. The best approach is to ignore them and let them fade into obscurity. The Americans will soon tire of them.
I donât think Piers Morgan was forced to leave was he? He left of his own accord. He has even been quoted as saying that he hasnât been cancelled. I expect he was leaving anyway and this gives maximum publicity to his next venture.
I was hoping Douglas Murray would provide us with a solid argument as to why the âavocadoâ and âwedding bouquetâ coverage were not evidence of what my be considered different treatment by the press of Kate and Meghan. They seem the two most sensible examples I have seen so far.
Would someone kindly show me where the exit to reality is?
Also: can Oprah please invite Douglas Murray on her show? And can we have the delight of seeing Meghan properly interviewed, by – say – Paxman?
Get me a seat on the train please.
An ‘artist’ was left out of the Grammy Awards because his contribution didn’t meet the deadline. He screamed, “Racism” and the tabloids gave him all the publicity he could ever have hoped for. Easy.
The woke will not inherit the earth, we all need to push back and save our society and democracy from their bigoted thuggish behaviour.
Once upon a time Democracy was based on one person one vote. Now it is based on one person one tweet.
It is about time someone within a public institution ignored the Woke outrage just to see what happens next.
I donât believe a word the gold digger Markle comes out with, once they are stripped of their titles (hopefully very soon) then she will ditch Harry (and probably strip most of his fortune in the process) moral of the story is never ever marry a left winger, nothing but trouble
The British media are paying the price for having covered up Meghan’s abuse of her staff. Had they told British taxpayers that they were paying for a Royal Family that allows its members to traumatise their employees, then Meghan would have no credibility. The British media did this because they wanted to maintain their symbiotic relationship with the Royal Family and ensure the flow of photo opportunities, stories and features that sold papers. It was for this reason that Andrew’s ties to Epstein were covered up for so long.
I share Douglas Murray’s alarm. It was difficult to believe that there could be more unpleasant people than the likes of Kelvin McKenzie and Paul Dacre determining what is published in the press. However it seems that is now the case.
How I wish Auberon Waugh was still alive and writing.
Douglas needs to read The Metro. It is a hotbed of racism towards white people. Last year it ran a series called, ‘The State of Racism’. It was basically a way to be racist to white people and then redefine the word racism, so by their definition it was impossible to be racist to white people. Vile racist scum.
Neo-racists is the best term I’ve heard re those who have uncritically or maliciously swallowed Critical Race Theory.
The background to Meghan’s interview is simple.
So she spitefully, misguidedly, inaccurately and without justification implicated the Royal Family in the stress she caused herself by being wilfully obdurate and arrogant. Her attack is without justification and says more about her than it does about either the Royal Family or the monarchy.
That’s it. She is a ghastly spiteful woman. Full stop.
Let’s hope the UK never has to put up with her ever again.
Folk choose how to interpret words that they hear or read.
I have chosen to regard Meghan and Harry to be lying in their video – which I do not believe Harry’s mother would have done.
And for Ian Murray to be perfectly correct.
Is Murray (either of them, in fact) seriously claiming that the UK tabloids are not toxic?
Our press – the tabloids in particular – have a long established and well documented pattern of building up celebrities, only to gleefully tear them down. Whether you think that racism did or did not play a part in any particular mauling, you can hardly be denying how the press behave.
Of course the tabloid press are toxic. However, in a free society people will say unpleasant and upsetting things. The alternative is to have an appointed body which would decide whether or not we have a right to say anything at all.
If you don’t like what somebody writes, don’t read it. Celebrities make money from column inches, good or bad so lets ease off on the sympathy somewhat.
Does anyone seriously believe that the Sussexes could have been paid millions for their Netflix role or an TV interview if the UK tabloids had completely ignored them?
No I didn’t watch it and haven’t read a tabloid for many years. My only concern with this story is how it relates to freedom of expression and a free press.
So, you are agreeing with Paul and disagreeing with Douglas Murray.
Probably both, I was just saying that it doesn’t matter. The point is that yes the tabloid press are dreadful, but in a free society we have to allow people to say things which offend us.
We just don’t have to read them.
To paraphrase Voltaire ‘I defend your right to say things, even when I disagree with them’.
This is irrelevant, an attempt to broaden the charge to the point of general prejudice, in a muffled recognition that the actual accusation won’t stick. So you think tabloids are ghastly. Is this enough? Are they to be silenced, closed down, impoverished, shackled? And what then? The broadsheets? Nice consciences like yours are the short way to the Gulag; and it always starts with shutting people up. Among the first actions of the Bolshevik dictatorship was the destruction of all Conservative and Liberal newspapers by force. As for the slebs, if they live by publicity they die by the same means – their choice; and this is certainly the case where that coat-trailing, insincere, gold digging minx Markle is concerned.
Actually no. There is lots that gets published in the tabloids and trashy womenâs mags that is, at the very least, tasteless. And there are people who read it.
What Murray is saying is that they are not racist. Put bluntly: they would be just as interested in Kates cellulite as Meghans.
What the Sussexes are claiming is that in her case it was motivated by racism. But as you point out, these papers and magazines are nasty, intrusive and âtoxicâ in relation to anyone famous – regardless of skin colour. Indeed, they might hold back in the case of a POC, precisely because they fear the accusation of racism.
Agreed. Good points. Thank you for putting “toxic” in inverted commas because, in this context, that is where it belongs. It isn’t as if we are talking/writing about literally toxic chemical substances.
The toxicity is literally metaphorical.
It was Murray, Douglas who claimed this was about press “toxicity” and who seemed to be defending the press from that slam dunk of a charge on the grounds that it ain’t necessarily so if a duchess says it.
Muddled thinking at best.
Whether racist or not, at least some of the media seem to have picked a side re the Duchess pretty early on.
Many of the issues and headlines referred to, rightly, by Douglas are from the foreign media not the British media. The British media made a pact after Diana’s death to leave the princes alone. It was not them who hounded Diana in the Paris tunnel and it was not them responsible for most of the headlines used by Oprah to make the case that the British press, the British people and the British monarchy are all irredeemably racist. I am not saying the British tabloids are perfect, far from it, but they should not be held up as the whipping boys for the world’s media – especially when one of the reasons the rich and famous don’t like them is because they find out some unseemly truths behind carefully managed PR.
Our press â the tabloids in particular â have a long established and well documented pattern of building up celebrities, only to gleefully tear them down
In other words, there is nothing unique or special about any criticism of this pair. Yet, the impression given is that they are facing something unprecedented. It makes the claim of racism ring especially hollow and way too predictable.
In the context of coverage of the Royal Family in recent years*, the treatment of the Duchess of Sussex is pretty unusual. Even Prince Andrew (whose alleged offences don’t compare with Meghan’s shocking tendency to eat the bad sort of avocado or hold her bump the wrong way) does not inspire so much foaming vitriol below the line on unHerd.
(* recent years = this century, as opposed to back in the days of Princess Diana and Sarah Ferguson).
If he was sacked he is in for a huge win in a tribunal.
I suspect that the recently departed former Society of Editors chief exec and champion of press freedom, Bob Satchwell, would have been horrified by this turn of events.
We had a very CAMP neighbour in Gaucin, Andalucia. She was a SCRIPT EDITOR on AB FAB and a great friend of Jennifer Saunders. I’ll never forget her comment re: the NANNY STATE: “Darling, it all went horribly wrong when they FORCED us to wear seat belts…”
Kate had a far harder time from the press than Meghan ever did. She was criticised for not weighting her skirt hems, allowing them to waft up in a breeze, wearing skirts too long or too short, wearing her hair down, over applying eye make up etc., the comments below the line were pretty well always critical.
Meghan had an easy ride by comparison (with the exception of the BTL comments which were indeed v negative, usually calling her a trouble maker). I canât help but wonder if her colour wasnât a factor in the editorâs decisions here.
I think the Sussexes should not read the British press in case they find anything not nice said about them. This would make their lives happier. But better still, and this might make us all happier, the British Press should stop writing about them altogether.
When for the Love of Life and Reason, will those with adult brains, slap down this post-covid revolution of emotional blackmai and preserve our intrinsic fredom?
Perfectly reasonable, except this bit, and I quote:
And in the case one of the most egregious headlines â âMeghanâs seed will taint our Royal Familyâ â Oprah failed to mention that the purpose of the news story was actually to expose racist comments made by a model.
According to the woman in question, whose name escapes me, her remark was taken out of context.
Things must change so that there is no possibility, however remote, of Meghan ever becoming the Queen Consort of the King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
What if Harry and Meghanâs offspring has red hair, is a girl, has a serious congenital condition or looks black? All are obvious questions. Why is the only forbidden question to wonder whether the child will be black rather than Chinese, Slavic or Mongol?
The shock and horror is all about being black.
As civilised, educated beings with access to world wide media, we are pretty much colour blind and judge others by their character.
The silent majority do think this way and colour is irrelevant.
Oh, and don’t mention a possible demise of Douglas Murray: There are many YouTube podcasters, publishers and media outlets that acknowledge he is one of the most important, unbiased intellectuals alive.
jjj
I wondered whether he really should not have resigned, but toughed it out.
Piers Morgan is an a**hole of the first water – he has been living on borrowed time for a while now. Gotta laugh at the man who abuses celebrities being run offstage by another presenter – what a coward – can dish it out but not take it. None of us know the truth of what happened between Meghan, Harry and the rest of the royal family and we should not purport to do so. Those of you who thinks Meghan should not identify as a BAME person need to take a long hard look at yourselves. Whilst I do not purport to know the truth of the Sussex’s allegations – I most certainly believe the account of Meghan about Kate making HER cry rather than the other way around. She clearly did not understand that the royal family do not debunk inaccuate press reports – they just ignore them. I truly believe she had no idea,as an American, what she was getting into with marrying into the British royal family. I wish her and Harry well with their new life in the US – I have seen the amount of vitriole she has been subjected to at the hands of the UK press since she got engaged to Harry (the disgusting Morgan has had it in for her ever since then) – avacadogate anyone???
If the British press isn’t racist it is certainly xenophobic. It doesn’t like the French “We’ve never liked the French”, the Germans “We’ve fought wars against them”, the Portuguese “Their incompetent police force failed to find Madeleine McCann” etc etc
Thank you for that thorough analysis, Chris.
Well, I don’t think the British press is afraid of the French, the Germans or the Portuguese, if thats what you mean. Otherwise great stuff, Chris, where can we see more of your work?
Anyone who can claim that the British press âis not bigoted and will not be swayed from its vital role holding the rich and powerful to accountâ. is clearly off their head. Murrayâs increasingly bizarre state of the nation âcommentariesâ are fast resembling satirical pieces designed to promote the âwokeryâ he affects to despise but relies on for a living.