You Know It Makes Sense

YouCannotBeSerious!

The fact that you have expressed more outrage about the description of the Roma as Romanians, than about the trauma that they went through speaks volumes about you, Mr Delingpole.

But then again, to you, I guess I'm just another member of the cultural mainstream without a sense of humour or logic, while you're an original, convention-defying thinker (blaming the victims of attacks for their predicament makes you so cool and counter-intuitive).

Another p*ss-poor article, following on the back of the dirge you wrote about Obama the other week.

Dan

Disgraceful. The vilest, sickest article I’ve ever read.

Only joking - thanks again for an interesting, thought provoking article James.

Manuel

I am a member of a "racial minority" but I wasn't brought up and I haven't brought my own children up to look for 'opportunities' to scream "racist" at anyone that inflicts a perceived slight or wrong upon me or mine. I fully understand only too well the full trauma of a persecuted group, unlike most of the pseudo-liberal whites who cannot even begin to imagine what such events can be like.Maybe that's their problem, guilt!
Watching "Question Time" last night on the question of whether burkas should be banned, the first words of condemnation of the thought were accompanied by that 'r' word.
Discussions on the issues of immigration, islamic extremism, assylum seeking, EU migrant workers etc are always preferaced with the cry of 'racist'; see or hear any BBC programme on the topic, news or other, and anyone who questions the above is labelled a racist by the presenter.
How can we therefore have a meaningful dialogue on these very pressing matters when advocators of limits etc will be castigated as extremist or racist?
The consquence of this media frenzy, which stokes up the same responces in the pseudo-liberal community,is that our main parties will not touch them out of fear of false labelling.The result has spawned the rise of the racist BNP. Was not the BBC being somewhat racist by omitting the fact that the attacked Belfast people were Roma? It saw 'racism' but was inhibitted in not revealing all the salient facts? It was however, very quick to label the attacks, as deplorable as they were, as 'racist'
Our main party politicians need to feel free from the all too easy name calling, if we are to have worthwhile consideration of these very burning problems. In order these matters may be talked about in a reasonable manner it is imperative our politicians refrain from calling opponents bythe 'r' words and that discussion programme hosts (Paxman et al) also grow up & stop the name calling.
Only then will we have the long overdue debate the country needs on these very issues.

Bob of Bucks

I worked in the Czech Republic for two years and was shocked by the open anti gypsy stance of middle class professional Czechs. Yes it is all a vicious circle of years of discrimination and deprivation. But the gypsies do behave badly. I got to recognise the gypsy pickpockets on the late night trams and learnt to avoid them. The Belfast police recognise the Romanian gypsies have been responsible for petty crimes. On the BBC Question Time all three politicians were in denial about the issue, simply being PC refering to them as Romanians, none recognised it might not be very nice living next to them . Do we really want immigrants who engage in petty crimes. We need honest debates about these issues.

James Delingpole

@YouCannotBeSerious. Yep, you are the living embodiment of the problem I describe. Beats me why you bothered to post and expose yourself as such.

Sanguinebandit

There is no such thing as race, there is merely ethnicity. If there was such a thing as race I would have to write "Mongrel" in the appropriate box due to a complicated ancestry. To any left leaning professional apologist for Multi-Culturalism however, I would be a lily white member of the oppressor clique, (or whatever). The point is, if you are a member of an ethnic group and that ethnic group behaves anti-socially to such an extent that all its members are suspected of being anti-social then you have two choices.
1) Whine like a sad puppy and blame those old ladies for flaunting their pension cheques in public.
2) Stand up and make it clear that there is no genetic reason or excuse and no social reason or excuse for anti-social behaviour.
If people of any ethnic background are unhappy about how they are portrayed they should certainly expose unfairness, but they should also expose any section of their community that is in fact guilty. Community leaders should have a dash more Churchill, (blood, sweat and tears) and a dash less Brown, (lies, threats and Peers). The truth will set us free.

Kev

"This is what so puts me off the BNP (apart from their disgusting left-wingness) — the idea that, if you’re black, they actually bar you from membership. How crazy is that?"

True but no more crazy and racist than the whole range of clubs, associations and charities aimed exclusively for the 'B.M.E. community'; all of which get local and national government (taxpayer) funding. In my town (South coast) the local government fund free sports and swimming sessions for B.M.E. people and they even get their own exclusive magazine too. Conversely there is nothing exclusively for, dare I say (and for want of a better term) 'white' people. In fact at all levels white British (and especially the English) have to be 'inclusive', an obvious set of double standards that gets people's backs up; mine included. Perhaps members of the so called B.M.E. 'community' (who are so ready to go cap-in-hand to the bleeding heart white liberals in order to fund their own brand of racism, cultural and religious intolerance), should consider this the next time the BNP make significant gains in an election. All the while such double standards are in operation I see no credible argument for not allowing the BNP to operate the membership policy that it does.

Rory Sutherland

Delighted to see mention of Thomas Sowell who is scarcely even known in Britain.

YouCannotBeSerious!

As unimpressive a response as the original article. At least we have it confirmed now - in your curious mindset (to put it mildly) the crime of using inaccurate terminology is worse than carrying out violent crime. An oddly relativist position for a right-wing writer.

James Delingpole

@youcannotbeserious Yawn.

P.M.M.

Brilliant insightful article as usual Mr Delingpole. I especially liked the touch in the comments section where you created an absurd and ridiculous alter-ego "youcantbeserious" who personifies all the worst aspects of the supercilious and patronising chattering classes. Hilarious!

maverick

@youcannotbeserious. It seems that your indignation rests soley on the fact that the article concentrated on the current shying away from all things racist, and not on the nature of the attacks themselves. Different topics, to be discussed separately. Grow up.