The irony of the white middle-class leftists’ obsession with ‘white privilege’ is that they cannot see that it is most clearly expressed in their self-appointed role as definers of what constitutes racism, who should be offended, and by what. Furthermore, whilst constantly reminding us of the need for “diversity”, they ignore the inherent diversity of those who are not white. This has led to the ridiculous term: “BAME”. If non-white people are BAME, then they are surely WALE: White and Liberal Entitled. The WALE community’s view of non-white people as a homogenous group leads to their assumed right to decide what political views are legitimate for them to hold. 

The racism of the white liberal manifests itself in their inability to distinguish between respect and pity. Their need to ‘help’ people who are not white is dependent on those people needing their help. Therefore, while I accept that many mean well (if mistakenly), the diversity industry cannot afford for non-white people to do too well in a society that the WALE community are determined to characterise as inherently racist. Migrant communities (and their descendants) of whatever skin colour who have done well in Britain have done so independently. They have never regarded themselves as ‘BAME’, but rather have carried with them the class, tribal, cultural and other distinctions, from their countries of origin. They have navigated around the absurd hatreds of the overt racists, whilst protecting their children from the pitying white leftists who try to infect them with a culture of victimhood. 

The true agenda of white liberals is not the progress and prosperity of non-white people, but instead their attack on white, heterosexual males. Non-white people are simply the vehicle that they are using for that attack. 

The Left in Britain have never quite recovered from the rejection that they suffered from the ‘traditional’ white working-class during the 1980s, which left them looking for somewhere else to direct their condescension, they found ‘non-whites’. Added to this was the rejection of left-wing economics on a global scale. Identity politics grew out of the fact that explaining and defending left-wing command economics is a lot harder than simply saying ‘White = bad, BAME = good’. The intellectual rigour for which the Left was known (regardless of whether one agreed with them or not) has been replaced by a superficial conflict politics, based entirely on the accidents of birth of the participants.  

The guilt that white liberals express about slavery and colonialism is at best misplaced and at worst insincere. Leaving aside the simple fact that most of the white people living during those historical periods did not have significant power over their rulers’ foreign policies, white people living today cannot feel genuine guilt for things that they did not do. How many of those who claim to feel such guilt would think it legitimate for a child to be held responsible for the actions of their parents or grandparents, let alone those of their ancestors? The argument that white people continue to benefit from this history is a point that can be made about anyone’s history. All people benefit from, and suffer because of, their ancestors’/grandparents’/parents’ actions. Should Italians today refuse the millions of tourist Euros spent by countless people visiting Rome to see the colosseum, built on violence, conquest, slavery and subjugation? 

Should the pyramids at Giza be dismantled?  

White liberals are determined to keep attention focused on slavery and colonisation as this keeps them at the centre of the debate. The history of non-white peoples around the world go back far further than that which involves interaction with European peoples. It is a history, like all history, that involves achievements, failures, conflicts, harmony, and the kinds of power politics seen in all cultures. Examination of these histories endangers the white liberals’ infantilisation of non-white people, as being inherently peaceful and free of the ‘evils’ of sophisticated white societies. 

Modern race politics has created concepts, and a vocabulary, that are designed to force people into a position that renders them unable to not be racist. The concept of ‘whiteness’ in particular is one of the most insulting of the new terms, used by the new lightweight Left to intellectualise race politics. ‘Whiteness’, as a state of being that makes those who are white unable to behave justly, totally ignores how and why non-white peoples throughout history engaged in political, social and economic subjugation against others of the same colour.  

Concepts of ‘microaggression’ and ‘unconscious bias’ allow the white race warriors to define any behaviour as racist at will. Added to these is the dangerous idea of ‘cancelling’. This is the kind of totalitarian policy that should not need to be argued against. The danger of such an idea is quite obvious to anyone with a basic understanding of history. 

Those of us who remember the 1970s and 1980s regarded the dissolving of racial prejudice as the desired goal. The new Left, it would seem, are not against such prejudice in principle, but simply want an alternative victim.

Ajantha Ratnayaka