2020: Never in the history of human stupidity was so much done by so few to annoy so many
Language is the device with which we communicate. To examine the culture wars, we must look specifically at the words we use in day-to-day conversation. A plethora of new words have entered our lexicon in recent years such as “toxic masculinity”, “cisgender” and “mansplaining”. Amongst the 47 “words of 2020” are “black lives matter” (BLM), “systemic racism”, “cancel culture”, “decolonize”, “virtue-signalling” and “wokeness”.
2020 was the year the culture war brought out the heavy artillery. One only had to open a magazine or switch on a television, and we were assailed with articles and stories telling us that everything was racist: free speech, the countryside, yoga, beer, mushrooms, tipping, toothpaste and even the entire canon of western philosophy. There was a time when the term “woke” meant being “alert to injustice in society, especially racism” – a noble and honest idea. But over the last few years the term has been co-opted by the social justice movement, irrevocably intertwined with illiberal left-wing activists obsessed with identity politics.
It is this pervasive and almost neurotic obsession with racism that is the hallmark of the woke. Where no actual evidence of racism exists, they create it using pseudo-scientific and methodologically flawed “unconscious bias” tests, which apparently prove we all have inbuilt racial prejudice. Deny this and you are either racist or, at the very least, you have “white privilege”. This is logically akin to a circular firing squad. The blame in part lays with academia and our educational institutions where critical race theory and postcolonial studies push grievance narratives and perpetuate the idea that slavery was Britain’s original sin. The conservative philosopher Roger Scruton – someone else we sadly lost this year – would’ve labelled these disciplines as part of the “nonsense machine”.
Whilst on the subject of nonsense, in May Tatler magazine reported that the Duke and Duchess of Sussex had moved into an $18 million Tuscan-modelled mansion. Hello Magazine later informed us their vegetable patch is similar to Prince Charles’; it’s good to see they’ve taken to a private life far away from the press.
Funnily enough, vegetables continued to feature in American headlines when they suddenly became the latest social justice issue (no, not because they are racist). In June we saw the birth of a new country when the Republic of CHAZ (Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone) seceded from the United States. Anarchists took over a six-area block of Seattle after a BLM protest. The group’s attempt at self-sufficiency was widely ridiculed when they tried to grow their own food. Turns out plants aren’t social constructs. The republic didn’t last long. After four shootings, two deaths, countless robberies and a sexual assault, the police moved in. They re-joined the union in July.
Meanwhile, back on this side of the pond, protests dominated the summer. Many of which were organised by everyone’s favourite middle class eco warriors Extinction Rebellion (XR). The group brought their distinctive Dad’s Army style of activism to the capital no fewer than three times. They blocked the free press – effectively shutting down the delivery of over one million newspapers, they harassed beloved veteran broadcaster David Attenborough, but most disrespectful of all, they targeted the cenotaph on Remembrance Day. Where were the police? Turns out they were busy issuing fines for illegal gatherings and arresting anti-lockdown protestors. Good luck getting help if you experienced a break in this year too; 97 per cent of burglaries in England and Wales went unsolved.
Have our police become too politicised to enforce the law? The code of ethics issued by the College of policing reminds us that; “Police officers must not take any active part in politics. This is intended to prevent you from placing yourself in a position where your impartiality may be questioned.” So, when the Avon and Somerset police stood back and let BLM protestors tear down the statue of Edward Colston and dump him in Bristol Harbour, I was a bit taken aback. Superintendent Andrew Bennet told the BBC that once it was down, “we made the right decision which was just to allow it to happen because what we did not want is tension.” Fair enough, the last thing we would want the police to sort out is tension.
The Telegraph revealed that in the last five years, 120,000 “non-crime hate incidents” were recorded and investigated by the police in England and Wales. This equates to over 65 people a day being interviewed for trivial things such as posting a limerick on social media mocking transgenderism. As the ex-police officer Harry Miller found out in February when the police arrived at his workplace to investigate a tweet, telling him “we need to check your thinking.” It would appear the police have become the latest institution to have fallen under the spell of social justice ideology.
Another phrase that’s become common parlance amongst the politically correct is BAME.
BAME – which stands for black, Asian and minority ethnic – is a very broad, ambiguous term which conflates a number of different non-white people into a single homogenous entity. People of Bangladeshi origin are put together with black-African, black-Caribbean, Pakistani and Indian descent. These are people of distinct, separate cultures and beliefs. The mass categorisation of different ethnicities under one catch-all term would’ve been described as bigoted and offensive a decade ago. Now it has become a salient part of the woke worldview.
It came as no surprise then, when Cressida Dick proudly announced that there was a BAME representative in every role and rank of the metropolitan police. In an interview with The Sunday Times, the Met Commissioner said they have the most BAME officers of any force: 5,008 out of 32,619. To better reflect the demographic representation of London, Mayor Sadiq Khan wishes to see this reach 40 per cent by 2022. Does placing such emphasis on ethnicity not merely create more and more division?
The obsession with BAME is not a position shared by most ethnic minorities. New research from YouGov has revealed ethnic minorities place less importance on race. 73 per cent feel a politician’s race is either “not very” or “not at all ” important. In contrast, 75 per cent value qualifications and experience as more important. Identity politics appears to be falling out of touch with the very people it claims to represent.
With police stats showing a 51 per cent increase in knife offences since 2010 and murder at a ten year high, surely it would be better for the police to be less concerned with skin colour and more concerned with stopping the knife crime epidemic destroying London. By October this year, the capital had seen over 100 people killed for the sixth consecutive year.
The other institution obsessed with diversity targets is the ever-woker BBC. Earlier this year the corporation announced a £100 million diversity and inclusion plan. They gave us a radio show in November called Bameshow where only BAME comedians were allowed to apply to be part of the show. It looks like the BBChave discovered the panacea to fix systemic racism: it appears to be racial segregation. If you are a non-BAME comedian then you’re best-off ditching that CV in the bin.
Staying with the world of entertainment, the Oscars decided it had had enough of being a haven for white supremacy and announced new rules for its Best Picture nomination. From 2025, if you wish to win an Oscar you must now include more ethnic minorities in either the main or supporting role categories and women, LGBT and disabled people must make up at least thirty percent of smaller roles. I for one am delighted with the news. I cannot wait to see directors finally set free from the shackles of the creativity straight-jacket and witness their artistic vision finally come to fruition. Think of the limitless possibilities. Imagine the remake of The Great Escape, jumping that barbed-wire fence in a wheelchair will be a piece of cake.
In showbiz news, Bill Bailey wowed the audience with his Paso Doble on Strictly Come Dancing. As the talented musician and comedian was strutting his stuff, the inquiry into the alleged anti-Semitism of the Labour Party was wrapping up. The Party now had the dubious honour of being the only political party – with the exception of the British National Party – to be investigated by the human rights watchdog for racial and ethnic discrimination. Jeremy Corbyn had the whip removed. Who knows if he is free next year maybe he could appear on Strictly? Perhaps he could dance on the grave of the Labour Party?
When sport finally came back after a mysterious hiatus it appeared as if sportsmen had been hit by a severe case of arthritis. Watching football, formula one and my beloved cricket I could not help but notice people dropping to one knee. Either King Richard I had emerged after years of fighting in France or Black Lives Matter were back. Turns out it was the latter. By the end of the year when football fans were allowed back into stadiums, they had enough of their beautiful game being politicised and decided to voice their frustration by booing. Many in the media were quick to denounce the supporters. None more so than Dion Dublin – he of Homes Under the Hammer fame – who labelled the fans racist. The fans were not racist, many simply had legitimate concerns that their sport was being used to push divisive identity politics.
Public resistance to identity politics was starting to grow, especially among those it was supposed to support. Data from a recent poll showed that almost half (44 per cent) of ethnic minorities thought BLM increased racial tensions with their frequently vaunted protests.
Multinational corporations were quick to cash in on the woke train. In the wake of the Black Lives Matter protests, companies were falling over themselves to align with the progressive movement. Lego pulled advertising for all its police-themed toys, whilst Apple – one of the wealthiest tech companies in the world – streamed NWA’s F**k The Police on repeat in solidarity with the BLM protestors. Around the same time, Nike agreed to donate $40 million to support social justice and fight systemic racism. It would appear that woke capitalism is good for the profit motive. But that’s all it is. It is nothing but a cynical marketing strategy. Revolution as a commodity? This is what the “new left” were critiquing in the 1960s! We’ve arrived at Guy Debord!
We couldn’t even escape woke-capitalism in our supermarkets. Sainsbury’s became the latest businesses to lecture customers on the importance of social justice. The company proclaimed it would “proudly represent and serve [their] diverse society”. One way was by offering “safe-spaces” for its black staff. The plan to charge white customers 20 per cent gratuity for slavery reparations must’ve fallen through at the last PR meeting. And don’t worry they removed the face off Uncle Ben’s rice. It’s racist.
Instead of challenging bad ideas through nuanced debate and discussion, throughout the year the woke have used the authoritarian arm of the state to shut down free speech and “cancel” people who deviate from their politically correct worldview.
But 2020 also saw the start of a fightback. A victory for free speech has been won. This was the year that Cambridge academics rejected plans to change the debating rules at the university. The vote was over proposed changes that would insist students and staff must “respect” a different opinion. It was decided instead that students must “tolerate” opposing viewpoints. The result was almost unanimous: 1316 voted for toleration.
We can only hope and pray that the fightback continues, and we see wokeness and its natural concomitants (cancel culture, toxic masculinity etc.) die a quick death in 2021. Maybe we should adopt Ned Stark’s rule -whoever passes the sentence, should swing the sword.
I will go and fetch my katana.