A LITTLE MATTER OF BLACK LIVES MATTERING
Black lives matter enormously, though for some reason white lives do not appear to matter quite so much. Certainly, you'd think that way by watching the BBC. I smiled wryly when hearing Harry Kane, the Spurs and England footballer, extolling the need to continue going down on one knee at the start of every football match in support of a perceived black awareness and needs. Well, you are certainly aware both of them and their needs. It would be bad enough and pointless enough if footballers knelt on the basis that "all lives matter", but they don't. It's divisive, singular and it dismisses an awful lot of the world's population. It certainly doesn't engender good race relations, what it does do is hack white people off! (Oxbridge dons, teachers, Guardian readers and other like-minded misguided fools apart - obviously!)
And, oh ... oh how they go on about slavery. As if it was banned only last month. It wasn't, it was before any of us were born, it was before our parents were born and thinking about it, our grandparents. We weren't involved. I know of nobody in my family who bought or sold slaves and if I did and they had, it wouldn't matter. I would feel no more guilt on a personal level than I do on a national level. I watched with gob aghast at the scenes in Bristol earlier this year, when the statue of that very generous Mr. Colston was brought down by a baying mob of black and white anarchists, hell bent on having a good day out and destroying our history to boot. Who the hell do these oiks think they are? What gives them the right to destroy, vandalise, and create mayhem whist attempting to re-write history, a very dangerous game... And where were the police when this act of vandalism took place? Well, they stood by, of course, as no-one wants to stand up to organised thuggery at the best of times, let alone when there are racial overtones and undertones involving those who are... well.... well toned!
Why do black people have such a chip on their shoulders. You would think they were the only slaves on earth. There is no exclusivity to slavery. From the 16th to the 19th century Barbary pirates or Corsairs played havoc along the south-west coasts of England and Ireland. Thousands of locals, from gentry to yokels, (rhyming unintentional) were forcibly taken from their villages and loaded into ships bound for modern day Turkey, Morocco, Tunisia, Libya and Algeria. The perpetrators were African Arabs residing within the Ottoman Empire. They were not concerned with race or religion. The slaves they captured were a commodity - white, brown, black, Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox, Jewish and Muslim. Wealth ruled - so no change from today, huh! Out of interest, the closest my family history runs to this subject, is the purchase in 1971, not of a slave but a Ford Corsair. It was two-tone green and cream. Bloody thing was a bugger to start! Too much choke, the carburettor flooded and the car stayed on the drive all day, only fired up when you didn't want to go anywhere.
Thought - Should protestors be flocking to the gates of the Ford Motor Company and commence protestations over the decision taken over fifty years ago to name one of their cars 'Corsair'?
Meanwhile, all these years later do you hear or read of white people demonstrating in any of the aforementioned countries, complaining of bygone atrocities? Of course you don't. Mind you, can you imagine demonstrating in Libya? The others, of course, are now regular tourist destinations. I doubt if many holiday makers in Morocco or Tunisia are even aware of the white slave trade. It certainly won't be taught in schools in this country, as all victims in schools and universities are black and all aggressors are white. On the Barbary Coast women ended up as sex slaves at worst and domestic servants at best. Men were put to hard labour, beatings, starvation and death were rife. There were prisons known as bagnios which were hot and overcrowded during the day, a bit like a modern northern nightclub, and cold and overcrowded at night - a bit like the northern tenement the clubbers returned home to!
Not only are these black chaps and chapesses needy and spiky, they are also very prissy. Black is the new "coloured". I remember not that long ago when we whites were encouraged, nay re-educated, to refer to them as coloured instead of black. Well, fair enough the word "coloured" encompasses varying hues. What happens? Well, only a couple of weeks ago some poor cove in the football racket - sorry, game - had to resign after he used the word "coloured" during a meeting where race was on the agenda, and when isn't it!. And he's had to resign for that? Well, it's sackcloth and ashes time for him.. But what was so unacceptable? Black is not a good word. It is not all embracing. In fact, it is very selective. In short, it refers to those who are genuinely black. We whites come in varying shades of white, but it is still white, or white-ish. Anything darker than white becomes half-caste - mixed race or heritage as is - you then move on to slightly swarthy (Latin), swarthy (Middle Eastern), then varying depths of darkness dependent on the country of origin. Oh, how disappointed one is, how guilty one feels to be white, with the BBC showing ever more trailers and fillers with hardly a white face in sight, their promotion of black actors, black films, black music and Black Friday. Is there anything of white origin left to be proud of. if there is you won't hear the BBC crowing about it! MOBO - Music of Black Origin awards but no MOWO's!
I think we'll finish on a appropriately skewed joke. I well remember the morning I arose from my slumber not quite feeling myself. Making my way down to the kitchen I looked in the cupboard under the sink and extracted the black shoe polish before applying it all over my face and neck. I then proceeded to the front room where I took hold of the Tippex and applied it as a female would a lipstick. I felt really strange, luckily a quick chat with the doctor and my relief was palpable. He diagnosed my suffering as 'Pre-Minstrel Tension'.....I know, I know...
No comments:
Post a Comment