Barbara Ntumy and Jack Buckby

In the past week, there was a notorious Channel 4 News debate featuring right wing activist Jack Buckby and Momentum member,Farage confronter and student activist Barbara Ntumy.  It was notorious because Buckby pulled out a sheet of paper and asked Ntumy whether she would fill it in and accept refugees into her home.  He then followed up with the comment 'I hope you don't get raped' which made him come out looking rather bad even though he had a reasoned argument in that piece.  To her credit Ntumy did say that she accept refugees into her home if she had the means.

During the discussion, Ntumy said that Buckby objected to her existence several times and which he denied strenuosly.  What Buckby objected to were those who were a drain on society which in closer analysis is actually a reasonable point.  He also said he hated Ntumy's politics rather than Ntumy personally, in particular her faux outrage when IS are committing atrocities. Ntumy then brings up the British colonialism that happened in her birth country - Ghana.  Its strange Arab colonialism is ignored and black on black colonialism is also ignored.  It is clear that Buckby cannot be defined as a racist in this instance.  Instead he is making very reasonable points about immigration and also cultural differences between the hosts and newcomers.  Time and again the left has failed to deal with this and any discussion of this is set within narrow limits lest one is accused of being a racist.

On a later Youtube video, Ntumy supports the idea of 'no platforming' whereby those whose views are not acceptable to Guardian readers are not allowed to speak in public. In the age of social media, the no platform is being rendered obsolete.

Racism of low expectations

When I was in my final year of my Media and Sociology degree course at what is now Leeds Trinity University, I did a module on contemporary media representation.  It was part debating chamber and part cultural Marxist propaganda.  At the time one of the most contentious issues was Salman Rushdie's Satanic Verses. I remember that time really well and the tutor (Dr John Short, rest  in peace) was putting forward the idea that the book should not be published because Muslims in Bradford would and did protest violently against it.  Hence the 'rightwing' media would portray the protesting muslims as knuckle dragging fascists, who called for the violent death of Rushdie.  The materials we were given all put the muslim side of the story and the tutor gave many reasons why it should not be published.

Even back then I had my doubts about this module and indeed, left ideology as a whole.  First, the media only portrays what is actually happening.  If the muslim protesters, which included the future head of the muslim council of Britain Iqbal Sacranie, did not incite Rushdie's murder then the media would not portray them as savages.

The course's tutors believed that the publishers should have self-censored because of the way muslims would react and the media would portray muslims badly and hence lead them to be stereotyped by society as a whole.  However, not once did the tutors mention that it was up to the protesters and muslims in general on how they should behave.  It is a fact that incitement to violence is a crime but the police did nothing about it.

This leads me to a fascinating term by conservative commentator, Michael Gerson, known as the 'racism of low expectations'. This form of racism is found purely in the cultural Marxist left.  It is the idea that certain groups need to be held to a lower moral standard, which is pure racism.  In the Rushdie case, it was the muslim community or to the precise, the muslim anti-Rushdie protesters.  By holding them to a lower standard, it implies that society in general gives in to their demands, no matter how regressive or reprehensible they are.  Further, it makes those communities act on it, for example, muslim leaders have warned that if the UK government did not change parts of its foreign or domestic policy then there would be 'reprisals' or 'repercussions'.  We also saw this after the Ferguson shooting whereby black community leaders warned the police there would be more riots unless the police reformed its 'racist' actions.