“Just because he said something racist, doesn’t mean he is a racist,” explained a cabinet minister this morning.
He was talking about a party donor who had allegedly said seeing a female black MP made him ‘want to hate all black women’ and that ‘she should be shot’.
The argument on the airwaves is that every penny he’s ever donated should be returned to him, and that he should be castigated. As a racist.
I don’t often promulgate strong opinions but honestly. You can’t say someone’s behaviour’s alright just because they’re ‘definitely not’ a racist. It’s the same, I mean exactly the same as people saying, “Well, I’m not a racist, but…”
Which means in other words, don’t label me with the thing I’m trying to get away with. If I tell you I’m not a postman, that should be enough! What do you mean you saw me delivering letters from a little red van with a cat in it? Shut up.
I think it’s time we dissociate racist identity from racist behaviour, and start calling out the behaviour where we see it, and I mean from everyone. What that donor said was unquestionably racist! Horrible, brutal, ugly, disgusting and racist. People in radio interviews can argue whether it fits a pattern that proves the man is a racist, but the words, the thought, the racist thing said and done is surely beyond debate. And I think that’s what matters.
What’s more it’s frankly insulting for a political defender of this wealthy donor to hush hush us all with the equivalent of ‘Look, uncle Pat is not a racist, he just said a racist thing like we all sometimes do.’
No, uncle Pat. What you said was really offensive. You might need to do something about it, because if we let you get away with it, not only will you do it again, but all the kids will think it’s okay to say that stuff too, and by golly, that’s how this whole ugly story goes on and on and on with blood trampled into the concrete, generation after generation.
Give the money back, minister. And stop defending something terrible.
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