From the evolutionary/Humanist perspective of what it means to be a human being – the perspective I support – people belong to just one species of sentient animal. Differences between beings that share the capacity for love, empathy, pain, humour, distress and compassion are much less important than what divides them. And the evidence is strong that our closest evolutionary cousins, like the great apes, experience these feelings in the same way we do. Indeed, with the possible exception of guilt, they experience all the emotions that used to be thought of as uniquely human. Racial difference within one species is therefore negligible, insignificant and unworthy of comment. Naïve as it may seem to say it: even to say that someone is black, or that someone is white, is in this view racist, because race, to the extent it exists at all, is irrelevant. So to be clear, in this view, every reference to black or white is racist.
It is in this context that I am saying that the post you are reading is racist because the case I want to argue demands that I falsely have to accept that there are different kinds of human being: and that there is such a thing as black, white or mixed race.
Unfortunately, it seems, our species is infected with a genetic curse that predisposes us to define ourselves as one tribe or another, and flags of perceived racial characteristics are often waved enthusiastically by those who inappropriately express these genetic influences more strongly than others. And it is for this reason that the “black lives matter” campaign is necessary, even though, in the terms of the case I’m making here the very fact that they are claiming there is a difference between black and white people is itself racist. But in the world in which we live, this kind of racism is necessary and benign.
Watching last week’s interview with the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, I was utterly shocked and appalled by the racism in the programme; racism that had nothing to do with the benign racism I have just considered. Here are a few examples:
“BBC’s Danny Baker on comparing royal baby Archie to a chimp”
“Petitioners Demand that “Monkey Faced **** Whore” Meghan Markle Not be Given a Royal Title”
“rich and exotic DNA. Miss Markle’s mother is a dreadlocked African-American lady from the wrong side of the trac ks…”
“BBC comedy portrays Meghan Markle as ‘trailer trash’ American who threatens to knife Kate Middleton”
‘Meghan’s seed will taint our Royal Family’
Recognise them? They were not the words of members of the royal family, of course, but instead were headlines reprinted on the programme from the British tabloids. It is, wise, of course to be cautious about drawing conclusions from headlines without reading the articles attached to them, and for reasons which I have elaborated in earlier posts on this blog, I do not read newspapers. However, the tone of the newspaper articles seems to be clear enough. Why are we not disgusted and ashamed of the people who write and promote such appalling statements. Perhaps the answer is that people start to buy newspapers when they are young, and before they develop critical acumen, and then soon become inured to think that the cruelty the editors espouse is acceptable.
The fact that Archie’s skin colour seems to have been discussed within the Royal Family sounds like it was insensitive and inappropriate, but without knowing the context it is hard to judge quite what was meant and just how egregious an offence it was. Yet it was this event, rather than the cruel and monstrous tabloid headlines, that get all the attention.
Any tabloid editor knows, as do all writers, that conflict sells. If you can set a goody against a baddy, so much the better. So who to choose… Hmm! We have the white, home-grown, future queen, Kate, or the American, mixed-race, divorcee Meghan? The choice for the media seems obvious. Unfortunately for them, when a minor quibble about flower-girl dresses between leaves the wrong duchess in tears, what should they do? The press must have known that it was Kate that made Meghan cry, but it would have been so easy to swap names, wouldn’t it? I mean it wouldn’t really matter: in the editor’s minds they were only women after all. And as members of the Royal Family, they were rich and privileged and other, not real people with real feelings and the very real capacity for distress and the possibility for damage to their mental health. In fact would it be right to think that this brand of journalists view members of the Royal Family in the way we used to think of chimpanzees?
Playing the race card, as the press seems to do, is not just irresponsible. In a world where racism kills people, it is downright dangerous. I can’t wait to hear what Diana will say…! Oh, wait a minute, she’s dead isn’t she? Ermm, just remind me, how did she die again?
Why is it that the unelected, unrepresentative bigots that run the British press are able to get away with it? This is the easiest question of all to answer: the politicians, and the Royal establishment are frightened of them. The government had the chance to put proper regulation in place by approving the second stage of the Leveson Inquiry, that was started after the phone hacking scandal but they chose to abandon it. And it is obvious that other, more respectable, branches of the media are not going to turn on their own, so editors can act with impunity, and the antiquated, misogynistic, white British establishment imperialists have won again – as they were always going to do.
So here I am waiting with baited breath for the latest developments in the Meghan/Harry saga. Sorry but I’ll have to stop here: I need to go out and buy a newspaper to find out what happens next!
Peter D Fisher 