A plea for help

Yam Yam

The problem with political correctness is that its adherents seize upon statements that most sensible people would readily concur with - for example, that it is wrong to be beat up immigrants or persecute men who fancy other men - and then use them as a stick to beat anyone who thinks levels of immigration are too high or that society works better when men fancy women, then marry them and stay faithful to them.

Ed West, Her Majesty's Daily Telegraph

Ray Honeyford...

Erica Blair

Nick Cohen neglects to mention that the writer made this statement,'Ironically, Causton [the town in Midsomer Murders] is supposed to be Slough. And if you went to Slough you wouldn't see a white face there.' Classic racism.

ps I live in the countryside, and there are Black and Asian people here - both as residents and visitors.

Fergus Pickering

Erica I live in Canterbury and there are some black and brown people but not very many. If I lived in Deal there would be even fewer. If I lived in the nearby village of Chartham or its neighbour Chilham there would be pretty well none at all. If I went to central London half the people would be non-white as far as I can see. This is just an observation. I expect there are far more gay people in Central London as well. The reasons for these things are not far to seek.

Nick Cohen

Ah yes Ed I forgot all about that

Mancunian

PC in the public sector is more about unacceptable facts. In Manchester City Council (which incidentally is generally very well run) the Crime and Disorder Audit 2002 laid the blame on violent crime in the Gay Village at the door of homophobic thugs attacking the revellers. No evidence was given for this, and far more likely is simply drunken people hitting each other as happens in any city centre entertainment area. Similarly the high level of young BME boys and men appearing as perpetrators is not published for PC sensitivities - that is counter-productive as they would benefit from honest reporting and targeted interventions from agencies. PC is about white embarrassment (with good cause often) but gets in the way of doing the right thing.

Rhoda Klapp

I live in the countryside where Midcomer is filmed. Once the location was fifty yards from my front door. Black faces are few. None are resident. In Oxfordshire the biggest minority is Chinese, at 2%. Oxfordshire as a whole is 94% white. Rural Oxon is far whiter than that. In our village there is an Anglo-Indian chap and a Chinese lady. A black guy stayed at the pub once. He is a member of the Bentley Productions crew. They make Midsomer Murders.

Karen

Midsomer murders isn't a realistic depiction of the English countryside - it's a series about outlandish murders... it would never need to have a token ethnic character - all characters are suspects, everything is about the killing... so this has nothing to do with freedom of speech or tokenism... this is just a racist colour bar on a programme that should be intelligent enough to know better.

Rhoda Klapp

Look. black people don't live in the countryside. No doubt there are exceptions, but that works pretty well as a rule of thumb. Now, why would anybody want to put token blacks into something like Midsomer? Not to make it 'more realistic', as Karen points out it isn't realistic at all. No, only for reasons of PC. Or deception.

John HW

Nick - a couple of points. I too think it has improved manners and it is good that people at least think twice before making derogatory and unpleasant comments about others. Unfortunately, however some on the left (you won't be surprised to learn) have pickled these good intentions into a totalitarian ideology where people are 'not allowed' to say certain things and can suffer horrible consequences if they do. Witness workplace situations where people have been disciplined or sacked for saying inoffensive things that have breached a rigid PC code.

However, equally ridiculous are the right wing types who constantly expostulate that ludicrous phrase 'political correctness gone mad' at every idea that is mildly progressive.

Erica Blair

'Look. black people don't live in the countryside. '

So the ones I see round here are white people blacked up?

I wonder who runs the Indian and Chinese takeaways you see in any medium to large village.

I see Speccie readers believe the sort of racist crap such as 'don't see white faces in Slough' that this martyr for free speech comes out with.

So Nick, have you been to Slough, home of The Office? Seen any white faces there? Or is your proposed chapter on PC going to contain as much fiction as the rest of your output.

ps How about a chapter on your support for confessed liar Hassan Butt and Iranian spy and convicted fraudster Ahmed Chalabi? Now that I'd like to read.

Peter Jackson

It is worth making the distinction between good manners and speaking one's mind and examining how one must inform the other. I think the question of ability to do one's job is a red herring. If for example, an academic was to argue that certain races were genetically less intelligent than others (and this Erica is actually classic racism) it would affect his ability to do his job because his students and fellow academics would shun him. But what he is arguing might be true(personally I would regard it as bilge, but that's beside the point) and the whole point of universities is to allow the airing of views.
If by PC we mean that discourse should be polite, not offensive, deliberately hurtful and so on, then fine. If it means we must suppress views with which we disagree and bully those expressing them into silence, then no.

Rhoda Klapp

Sorry, didn't know Chinese were black. Or Indians.

Mark

Don't know about Midsomer but I did seee the recent TV production of Verdi's Otello from Birmingham in which a (black)Iago spoke - as he does - disdainfully of Otello's "thick black lips" etc. I was confused by this but perhaps I am just irredeemably racist and should be more colour blind in future. Even if it means expecting Iago to be white and Otello black!

Andrew

I think the basic instinct behind Political Correctness was fundamentally well intentioned. Unfortunately it has been siezed upon by poeple who wish to force their views on others, or simply to silence any dissent.

Having said that, I get tired of people who are essentially racist trying to pretend that their wish to use offensive terms for black people is somehow refreshing frankness, rather than gross rudeness.

It is true that there are relatively few black or brown faces in the British countryside; although they are not entirely absent. I know a mixed race afro-carribean family who live in the Galloway Village of Whithorne and we lived for over ten years in a village in Derbyshire (We are 1 Scot and 1 Indian), just down the road from a chinese family and a west Indian man and his English wife. As far as I know,none of us were ever made to feel out of place or at all unwelcome.

Non-whites in the countryside are not the rule but they do exist. There should be no reason why they could not be included in dramas about the countryside - not in a silly clunking way, as has been done on the Archers (but then the Archers is hardly realistic - do yokels like the Grundys really exist?) but in ways that fit in with the storylone.

It would be perfectly possible say to have a credible character who is an Indian doctor, a London celebrity who has bought a country home, perhaps an Arab Sheikh with an English estate, a local lawyer who has moved down from London and so on.

It strikes me that the Midsomer murders director simply doesn't want darkies on his show. The realism argument is in fact pretty thin. How many English villages have dead bodies strewn around them like battlefields? How many old biddies could solve crimes like Miss Marple, without the killer wringing her neck and escaping?

If he wants to be totally realistic perhaps the Director should show South of England villages as they really are ; with merchant bankers and accountants living in all the old workmens cottages, while the original inhabitants have been bundled off onto a crummy coincil estate somwhere.

Rhoda Klapp

OK, here's South Oxfordshire, from wiki

95.2% White
1.7% S.Asian
1.0% Black British
1.0% Chinese or Other
1.1% Chinese or other

No large towns, a couple of small ones. This is all about thirty miles from London. It is where most of Midsomer is filmed. Now given that the murders are little to do with the people who run the takeaways, why must there be a black face in the show, other than to give a false picture of the population?

I'm off to Thame in a minute, I'll count the black, brown and east asian faces and report back. But you can see what happens if you speak the truth and quote stats, if it doesn't suit some people's agenda.

Erica Blair

95% white = 5% non-white

That's one in twenty for the innumerate.

But for Rhoda - they don't exist.

ps The census data is ten years old now, we've become more diverse since then.

Richard Longfield

I wish more people would have the courage to admit that True-May is quite right and that there is nothing wrong with
saying what he did, without peddling, as does Rob Berkeley of the Runnymede Trust, some political agenda of their own.

There are many ‘Englands’ today - some (most) all white, particularly in rural areas; others a bit more mixed and yet
others (towns) very black and all shades in between.

The majority of England’s inhabitants are white - some 90 per cent or more. In tens of thousands of villages throughout rural England, by far the majority, if not all, of the inhabitants are white. Why, therefore, is it surprising that Midsomer Murders should reflect their lifestyle and background? The programmes give pleasure to millions and there is nothing wrong with that.

Racism comes in many forms - that is why I believe True-May’s bosses in ITV and All3Media, in their ghastly ‘Politically Correct’ world, quite parallel to and divorced from the real one, are the true guilty ones in this whole sorry episode. It is their views that are unrepresentative of the reality in our countryside and not the other way round.

Metropolitan liberals, who largely make up the urban, chattering media classes, are not only pursuing their own
multi-racial agenda at the expense of the rest of us, but totally ignore the fact that the ethnic make up of their own
organisations is grossly misbalanced in its racial composition, compared to the national average equivalent.

In that sense, I believe it can be justly claimed that such organisations are institutionally racist - certainly they are too often blind to the reality of life outside their urban environments and perhaps deliberately so.

So it is unsurprising that so much of their programme content is unrepresentative of the lifestyles of the
predominantly white families in rural England, who have frequently to endure a multi-racial TV experience more suited to their urban counterparts.

Midsomer Murders is a classic programme and reflects great credit on Tre-May and his production team - long may it continue!

boulay

nick - i think you are mixing etiquette with manners.

there are certain rules about what is acceptable to say and what is not - etiquette.

there is a certain way of reacting to people who do not know or ignore etiquette - manners.

for example if the person next to you at supper uses the wrong fork it is bad etiquette but to pull them up on the matter would be bad manners.

therefore manners have got worse due to political correctness as those who break the rules of etiquette are loudly, and often violently, told of their error.

Alastair

Casting is excluded from the Race Relations Act, so discriminating on the grounds of race for the purpose of authenticity is not a sackable offence per se. However True-May doesn't do himself any favours. Yes, realism is a valid reason for the lack of black and Asian faces in the show - although a bit of research into village cricket matches or church services across the Home Counties, where the series is set, might be in order. Instead he answers a question that is specifically about race and ethnicity in terms of "multi-culturalism" and "Englishness", the implication being that for him, race and culture are one and the same, and anyone who isn't white must belong to another culture. Now, where have we heard that before?

Naomi Muse

What a storm in a tea cup! If Midsomer were real no-one would buy a house there or want to rent there because of the appalling murder rate.

Good grief! What 'balance' do the namby pambies want? If it were to be properly balanced then there would have only been one murder in the whole series of stories and there would not have been a series at all.

Tell them to get back in their boxes and think again. Perhaps we need another series about black street gangs in an urban conurbation? Would that then need to be balanced and show its fair share of unmarried white mothers and aged grandparents of asian and other origins too?

Daft.

Karen

Rhoda

It's a long-running series, set in the present, with a huge number of one-off roles available - to never allow a non-white actor to be in the show is pure racism.

Erica Blair

Since Brian True-May has arbitrarily decided that there should be no non-White characters in his productions, he is deliberately cutting off employment opportunities for ethnic minority actors.

This is racism.

His remark about not seeing any non-White faces in Slough is classic racism.

This has nothing to do with so-called 'political correctness', if he came out with this sort of racist bilge in any other occupation, he would be sacked. Something I expect to see pretty soon.

Rhoda Klapp

Back from Thame, saw about 100 people, maybe a few more. Three did not appear to be white, two mediterranean-type brown, one black/white mixed race. I do not claim that these are other than my impression of ethnicity, Which was more than I expected to see. Maybe they are there all the time and I do not notice. What a sad excuse for a racist I must be.

Tony

The problem with True-May's comments, as far as I can tell, is that his implication is that Midsomer Murders (which I manage to enjoy while also enjoying The Wire - apparently this shouldn't be possible) provides some sort of sanctuary so that people don't have to see ethnic minorities on their TV screen. If this is the case - and it seems a little unclear - I don't think it's political correctness gone mad to suggest that this is an unfortunate viewpoint.

I think as provocative, however, if in a slightly different fashion, is the assertion by the representative of the Runnymede Trust that the populations of English rural and semi-rural villages are now broadly multi-ethnic and that anyone who suggests otherwise is suspect. This is not a subjective issue, it's a matter of empirical fact and the fact is that England's villages are overwhelmingly populated by white people. I have extensive experience of rural Yorkshire, Derbyshire and the Cotswolds. In large swathes of these parts of the country the non-white population is a statistical rounding error. Leicester is one of the most multi-ethnic cities in England, but go out to rural Leicestershire and Rutland and, by and large, it's white faces. Does that mean that no ethnic minority person should ever be cast in Midsomer Murders? No. But if we are now at the point where it is considered socially imperative for us all to collectively pretend that Uppingham and Helmsley showcase the same demographic make-up as Albert Square (or, alternatively, that they should be excised from our collective consciousness for not doing so), something is going very wrong.

And I'm afraid at some point the reaction to the fact that focus groups show that Midsomer Murders isn't attracting an ethnic minority audience (by its nature predominantly young and urban, which I suspect will skew things. How many 25-35 year old white residents of London or Manchester like it? Not many, I suspect) has to be - so what?

Another point I'd make is that in many other Western countries on both sides of the Atlantic, the fact that a television programme is not appealing evenly across ethnic groups would not be considered a social problem (possibly a commercial problem, but maybe not even that). Perhaps this just shows that we are far more enlightened. Or perhaps it shows that we're rapidly reaching the point of institutionalised neurosis.

Derek Pasquill

Give True-May a medal for saying what many think.

As long as the liberal left continue flogging the dead horse of multiculturalism (a good example is Gary Younge in today's Guardian) then they will be barking up the wrong tree.

dave smith

In this instance Erica Blair clearly has a point. Cohen's account of the Midsomer issue makes it seems less serious than it is - but the comments about Slough are pretty damning. as is his comment that Midsomer is "the last bastion of Englishness and I want to keep it that way". Nick should surely include this - in this context it's hard to read the comments.

But if we do ignore them, a comparison with eastenders might be interesting here; the areas of London where that programme is set are now dominated by ethnic minorities, but the cast are overwhelmingly white, and when thy do have ethnic minority characters they're by and large caricatures. Stepping away from what looks fairly clearly like racism in the Midsomer bloke's case, surely the prevalence of white faces in Eastenders and Midsomer is evidence of something about what viewers want, which might indicate that race relations still have some way to go in this country?

Scarlet Poet

Erica why are you getting so wound up about it? I live in the Rural Somerset/Wilts borders and I can honestly say it is extremly rare I bump into a Black or Asian person. It might not be cool but it is realistic to protary a village being completly white English, Perhaps we should have a progamme set on an estate in Tower Hamlets where everyone talks with a plummy middle class and is white or maybe have a progamme about rural Africa like no1 ladies detecive agecy with a few token white guys.As for the Progamme being unrealistic in the amounts of murders per square mile and the quality of acting that is anotehr matter.

Joe

I have one. Larry Summer was fired as president of Harvard university for suggesting that men and women may have inate differences when it comes to studying science.

It was covered everywhere:

http://www.slate.com/id/2112570/

Yet - to me it seems a reasonable postition to consider. Indeed - you can find similar remarks from a FEMALE philosopher at the following link:

http://www.edge.org/documents/press/publico.html

Just scroll down to the sixth entry by Helena Cronin.

Can't wait for your book!

Joe

Joe

Here is another. Addressing the weakening of our society by encouraging the underclass to 'outbreed' the middle and upper classes.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1333009/Howard-Flight-Welfare-cuts-encourage-poor-breed.html

This also has the consequence of INCREASING the number of children born into poverty.

All the best,

Joe

Joe

Here is something else which is never discussed...

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/health-science/children-safer-with-biological-parent/story-e6frg8y6-1111116267294

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cinderella_effect

It seems in this case. People put the PC values of not wanting to upset people ahead of wanting to protect children.

All the best,

Joe

Edward McLaughlin

I like that Heartbeat me. It's really lovely. The motorbikes is best. And Nick's shiny helmet.

Baron

political correctness, an appendix of a law enforced mutation of hypocrisy, fits the British make-up well. It pleases people like Erica, annoys others because of the compulsion element, it may work for a while, it cannot last. People no longer say nigger, shirtlifter, do they no longer think it, too? Nope, and more to the point, people who may have been quite ambivalent about race, homosexuality now feel their freedom of expression has been circumcised, reduced to criminality on par with GBH and stuff, they turn against both not openly but surreptitiously, outwardly subscribing to the letter of the law, ignoring its spirit by finding different grounds for treating people they are prejudiced against worse than before.

the laws we’ve enacted to enforce political correctness remove public opprobrium as the arbiter of how we treat each other. A big mistake that. The risks we are running may not be obvious, yet they may become real, and soon e.g. the growing acceptance of BNP, EDL.

racial prejudices form a part of morality, legislating morality doesn’t work, if it did we would only love each other by now.

Old Slaughter

@Erica Blair

"His remark about not seeing any non-White faces in Slough is classic racism."

Why? I mean does he not have to suggest something prejorative about this state of affairs. Is the casual use of exaggeration inherently racist?
If he had stuck in the word 'barely' would he have ceased to be racist.

Please explain these terms Erica.

Boxoffrogs

I used to work in Slough until a couple of years ago. Walking around the town centre, you would see lots of white faces. Mostly Poles of course.

Erica Blair

From Wiki for Slough

Ethnicity:
62.1% White British
20.7% South Asian
8.2% Black British
0.5% Chinese
3.5% Mixed Race
4.8% Other.

I'd guess the lack of White faces would only be noticeable to a racist. What do you think?

ps

Nice to see Nick Cohen's hero Derek Pasquill seems to hate Black people as much as he hates Muslims.

Any comment on that Nick?

JohnBUK

Psst, I live in a small village "somewhere in England" and there are no black faces!!! Please don't tell the fuzz or we'll be for it.

Rhoda Klapp

Erica, if True-May is a racist because he sees only non-whites in Slough, and I am a racist because I can't see non-whites in my village twenty miles from Slough, what the bloody hell does one have to do to not be a racist?

I saw a TV report this morning determined to show how multi-cultured the countryside is. They went to Cookham Dean. It's a village well-known for its restaurants. It is hard to believe it was not selected to give an impression which fitted the producer's requirements.

Barry

"In many ways, political correctness has improved British manners. That people no longer screech about the niggers and the pakis and the yids...."

Unfortunately, some members of ethnic minorities are not so reserved. Surely you're not suggesting that they're not "British"?

Mark Sturdy

I don't agree that political correctness has improved manners. Time passing, social and work experience, mixed race families and the successful contribution of new immigrant races to society in the broadest sense (football captains, rugby players, pop musicians, politicians, clerics)naturally create acceptance and lessen abusive comments. At least, to a norm. The chain of causation is the reverse of what you suggest. When pc strains ahead of the natural rate of the integration of mixed races in an open society, it is mocked. The perception of whether pc is ahead or behind will be different according to geography, class,race etc...

Simon Stephenson.

I think the point that Baron (8.53pm) makes is the key one here. Is it really justified to assume that prohibition of behaviour will only have neutral or benign consequences on the holding of attitudes? Baron makes the point:-

"the laws we’ve enacted to enforce political correctness remove public opprobrium as the arbiter of how we treat each other. A big mistake that"

Has this reservation ever been answered satisfactorily? Not to my knowledge.

wrinkled weasel

I shall answer your question directly without reference to a piece of fictional drama.

There is no such thing as conscious scapegoating....

The main purpose of PC thinking, which is a perversion, is not to defend victims but to make victims once again by accusing certain people of being victimizers.
(edited from an interview with Rene Girard, Dept of French, UCLA, 1996)

Because of the vulnerability and uniqueness of the victims, the aggressors (the "majority") more readily perceive them as people who should be victimized, since humans consistently seem to assign guilt to people who are different.
(From Rene Girard's Theory of Violence, Religion and the Scapegoat by Jeramy Townsley,Dec 2003)

Posted by me on my blog in 2006.
http://wrinkledweasel.blogspot.com/2006/05/scapegoat.html

Today I would add that PC has become more dangerous than the mere problem of scapegoating. It is a battle for language and communication.

Please see:

http://wrinkledweasel.blogspot.com/2011/02/please-update-your-newspeak-dictionary.html

Sorry to quote myself, but I have spent a lot of time thinking about it.

Essentially I suggest that PC has succeeded in shutting down dialogue.

Arguments emanating from the Politically Correct are cleverly designed to bypass rationality and go straight to emotion. The liberal elite have no real philosophy to deliver, merely rant and rhetoric and because their arguments are so weak they rely on shutting down debate.

As Paulo Freire says:

Any situation in which some men prevent others from engaging in the process of inquiry is one of violence;… to alienate humans from their own decision making is to change them into objects.

Desultory, but I am writing this in a box that measures 3 inches by one.

Hegemony

The argument "there's only x% of non-white people in the country therefore his practicing of a colour bar is ok" kinda loses out when you realise that the show has been running for 14 years and they have not hired non-white people. How many shows a series? Say there's 6. Times 14 years, that's 84 episodes. Say each episode features a minimum of 50 people, main cast, extras, etc (there's probably more, but still...)

That's 4200 people. By the "only x amount" argument, at 5%, 210 non white people should have appeared. I believe something like 224 people have been "killed" in the show?

Apparently, in rural England, you are more likely to be murdered in an elaborate fashion than to meet a non white person. Hmmmm.

Sorry, that is a colour bar. No other way to say it. And - given his comments about keeping it "the true England" - a colour bar with a specific ideological reason.

Jeremy Poynton

There is an annual contest at the University of Arkansas calling for the most appropriate definition of a contemporary term.

This year's term was: "Political Correctness."

The winner wrote:

"Political correctness is a doctrine, fostered by a delusional, illogical minority, and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a piece of shit by the clean end."

Alan Scott

hegemony: try thinking, it helps those difficult moments in between whatever it is you are taking.

Thomas Paine

Few people are more irritated than political correctness than my Chinese wife, a senior academic. She sees it as little more than a gravy train which gives a free ride to self-appointed vested interests.

We live in a rural village where hers is the only Chinese face (the family who run the nearest takeaway, in the next village, live in a busy town 15 miles away, out of a preference for urban life as they could well afford a very nice place here).

There are no South Asians and you very seldom see a black face (when you do it's always something of a surprise). This is likely to change over time but to insist on artificially manipulating the racial mix - like the ludicrous pressure on the Archers which has led to not a few joke storylines - is nothing but a sick joke, a triumph of the jackbooted, humourless few over the sensibilities of the many.

Hegemony or Bust

Nice argument there Alan. Which part of mine didn't you understand?

Baron Pippin II

Hegemony, that’s a soap we’re talking about, you know, a fiction, not real life, if the author wanted to he could have had garden gnomes jumping on the thatched roofs, aliens fornicating in the rose bushes, would you insist on both or either to reflect the varying ethnicities, skin colours, accents and stuff of such creatures to assuage your race buds?

it’s not “in rural England, you are more likely to be murdered in … ‘it’s in rural, fictional England’, the adjective makes a difference, trust me, I know, I’ve checked.

and another thing: what makes you the judge of what someone’s perception of ‘the true England’ is, ha? You the expected twelfth messiah or what?

Jerry Owen

Mr True-May is a talented writer, he is perfectly entitled to wish to not have ethnics in his dramas just as the writers of Eastenders are entitled to have the programme over represented by ethnics. I have a choice as to what I view and so does everybody else. Morse was very similar, no ethnics, it reminded me of a more cultured genteel and quintessential English period I remember which I prefer to the multicultural era I live in now.
That doesn't make me racist it expresses my preference.

agb

Mr Cohen,

Two questions:
(i) Did the producer break the law - possibly but the evidence, so far, is insufficent to form a judgment and that is a matter for the appropiate court/tribunal.
(ii) Did it cause harm - actual, immediate harm to actual individuals. Given how long the programme has been on, the answer must be, no.
All the rest is media piffle.

Scully

All3Media who has suspended Mr May are linked to the MOBO Awards so should we as white people complain about that being racist, lets not forget the Black Mikado or the Black police organization, shall we also remove The Cosby shows from our screen or Black prince of Bel air etc etc. No of course not there would be an outcry of racism.But for the indigenous white population to hope to keep a fictional program filmed in our Countryside where only white people live, we are being called racist!??? Believe it or not all those townies out there, we rarely see ethnic minorities in many villages in Devon apart from tourists and shame upon shame some villages actually do not have an Indian or Chinese takeaway. Are those who live in these villages racist! I live in a big town in Devon and trust me we only have maybe 30 - 50 coloured people living here if that, so please what is good for the goose is good for the gander.Many things in the media exclude whites because having a white person for something black would just ruin it, we accept that as part of culture, so please respect our culture as well and get off the PC band wagon over this.If Ethnic minorities insist on being part of this then we have every right to insist that we invade their culture too. If they want to disagree with that then they should look closely at just who is being racist if they bring that card up!If anyone need to blame someone blame All3 media they are the Bigots

Erica Blair

The MOBO awards from 2010 include nominee such as Mark Ronson, John McLaughlin and Plan B who won. They are all White.

In your face Scully!

ps Is is true that Mississippi Burning is being remade as Midsomer Burning?

scully

Erica you are one rude person and part of why Britain is in the state its in today get off your high horse , you are so wrong about this and do not know what you are talking about. You pick out only what you want to hear...as the saying goes none so blind etc...have a great day enjoy your bigotry and your whinging life!

gerontius

Erica Blair

"The MOBO awards from 2010 include nominee such as Mark Ronson, John McLaughlin and Plan B who won. They are all White.

In your face Scully!

ps Is is true that Mississippi Burning is being remade as Midsomer Burning?"

My god Erica, you are a boring person.

Hegemony

@Baron Pippin II - aye, fictional is an important word. Well done for spotting it.

And it would be relevant, if both Mr True-May and his defenders did not use the "realism" card as an excuse. However, he did. And people are.

Point being, if it's a fictional representation of englishness, then why precisely would the presence of non-white extras or actors ruin the verite? It's already fictional, you've just made that point. And if it *isn't* a fictional representation of englishness, if it "truth", then surely the amount of time the program has been on, there would have been someone non-white appearing? We know that it's *rare* that people in the countryside are non-white, but the question is, are there never any non-whites?

So, the fictional defence doesn't hold if he claims it is a reflectional of reality because he's shot himself with his own words, and the reflection of reality defence doesn't hold if as - has already been discussed - there is a presence, however small, of non white faces in the countryside.

I'm not advocating tokenism, or quotas, or anything ridiculous like that, but similarly, I am making the point - in 14 years, John Nettles' character has not encountered ANYONE not white, ever? A policeman that doesn't use a chinese takeaway? (Oho, Stereotyping plod, perhaps thats both un-PC and un-PC?)

That's just farcical, and I can imagine, for instance, the (in every sense, justified) furore amongst certain bloggers and commentators on this site if a producer admitted "I don't use jewish actors because jews don't live in the countryside and besides, jewishness doesn't put across the image of TRUE ENGLAND I want to portray".

You'd be up in arms, well, the rational types amongst you. And you'd be right to be up in arms, and I'd be right with you in that anger. So, you know, consistency.

(Also, as an aside, I've been irritated many times by the over-casting of non whites in certain productions by the BBC. Not because I have a racist bone in my body, but because it is, well, a bit silly. Perfect example being "Survivors", the remake, which - afair - had a main cast of
2 white women
1 white man - who happened to be a violent criminal
1 asian man
1 asian boy
1 black man
which was ludicrous. Especially considering - as we've been told repeatedly in this thread, the majority of non white people in the UK live in cities, and any plague like the one portrayed in "Survivors" would wipe out the population of cities disproportionately)

Hegemony

Oh, and, just to round off, "there are no non-whites in my village" kind of ignores that Midsomer is a *county* with many villages and a central town. So, it's not "no non-whites in the village" but "no non-whites in the entire county"

As an aside, I read this story this morning. I'm pretty sure this gentleman would fall under the "effnic" label:-

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/peruvian-war-criminal-found-in-tiverton-2244097.html

Jerry Owen

ERICA BLAIR
You make numerous accusations of racism and 'classic racism' whatever that may be.
You also fail to answer posters questions.
I ask you specifically:-
1.Is Asian TV without any white faces racist?
2. Does noting that Slough has few white faces make you racist or aware of the ethnic makeup of any given area?
3.You accuse people noting the lack of white faces as racist, you have noticed that their are black faces where you live, does that make you racist?.
4. My mother lives in a Dorset village with zero ethnics, if a series was made there would it be right to change the ethnic content of a drama to that of the village by adding ethnics?.
It appears to me that you suffer from the liberal left marxist obsession with race which most people just don't bother with.
You see racism everywhere and obsessively sniff it out anywhere.
Unfortunately your problem is that you are confused between awareness of race and racism itself.
Is your ultimate lefty viewpoint that we are all 'world units' with no racial differences or cultural differences?, if so how do all the various black Asian and Muslim specific groups fit into your non racist / racial culture?.
I await your reply!.

Andy Gill

Political correctness has evolved into an insidious form of mind control.

George Orwell foresaw the danger in his novel 1984 when he described the government's Newspeak project. Thought-crime has become a reality in modern Britain.

Erica Blair

Hi Jerry

just to answer one of your questins, viz

2. Does noting that Slough has few white faces make you racist or aware of the ethnic makeup of any given area?

As I pointed out, Slough is 62% White British so yes that makes you racist as you cannot now use ignorance as an excuse.

Secondly, your use of the term 'ethnics' marks you out as a particularly nasty example of a racist.

Thirdly you mistakenly use 'their' when you should use 'there'. If you are so proud of being English, try to learn it.

Lastly, you say your mother lives in rural Dorset, is she also your sister?

Erica Blair

corr. questions

Jerry Owen

ERICA BLAIR.
One out of four. A start then! Trivia first. I noted the spelling of 'there' when I posted. How that equates to being proud of being English I don't know.
However your last paragraph is quite frankly disgusting and you have proven youself for the coarse, agressive nasty individual you are. I suggest you post no more as you make a mockery of yourself.

Herbert Thornton

What a lot of fuss is being raised by power hungry, politically correct busybodies - using the excuse that they are against "racism".

If a film were being made about notorious English murderers - e.g. Charles Bronson or Peter Sutcliffe (the Yorkshire Ripper) would it make sense to give the role to a man with a black skin, no matter how good an actor he was?

One thing we can be sure of though - if a black man were chosen to play those roles, the outcries of "racism" from the PHPCBs would be even louder.

It's time we all told them to mind their own business.

Erica Blair

I thought so Jerry.

Hegemony

I think you are all,by the way,making a fundamental error in assigning this to pc. Nick did so,but he can hardly be blamed as all the reporting of it also did so. That it did proves the point,made elsewhere, that the baleful power of pc is the modern British condpiracy theory. Let's look at the reality here-no jackbooted enforcers from The Runnymede Trust smashed down the doors at ITV and demanded Mr True-May be brought to them.

Just as Sky did with the Gray affair,ITV made a commercial decision that their Market share may be damaged by the story. End of.

I thought you right wingers loved the Market? :)

Jerry Owen

ERICA BLAIR
I wasn't going to bother with you again as you clearly have no ability to converse, only insult in a vile way which shows you are defensive about your debating (lack of) skills.
However I have decided to keep you on the hook you have caught yourself on.
You have not been able to answer a single ( only a poor part of one insulting of course) question asked of you by me or any other poster. I challenge you again to answer my four questions in a logical and thought out manner without resorting to insults.
Show me your intellect.
I suggest you read an excellent book by Mr. Cohen called 'What's Left'.
It has lots of pages and no pictures unfortunately, but try your best anyway!. You might learn something!.
Incidently I was very much involved on the left of politics but changed my views for the simple reason that lefties cannot tolerate dissent of any kind and their answer to any opposition is aggression and violence, clearly a trait you have in the former....maybe the latter as well!.
Incidently my mother retired to Dorset from Hampshire. You stated 'rural' Dorset but I said village, but of course your made up 'rural' paved the way for your insult which really you should apologise for as my mother is not involved in this.
So Erica an apology, and answers to my questions if you please....I'm still waiting!!.

Hegemony

@jerry Owen-far be it from me to interrupt your little dance with Erica (I hope you invite us all to the wedding) but I find it ironic that you refer to "What's Left?" when your first "question" appears to be a classic example of what Mr Cohen refers to in the book as "whataboutism"-never mind the fact a tv producer has tacitly admitted practicing a colour bar to portray his highly debatable views on "true englishness", WHAT ABOUT ASIAN CHANNELS? Well,what about them? I don't like them. Racial separation is wrong when practiced by White,black or brown. Next?

Baron

Erica, when you have a minute, define a racist for me, please.

Tendryakov

Is the countryside racist? by Sathnam Sanghera explains why asians don't live in the country. It's a cultural thing. They don't do walking in the country. It's not part of their culture.

http://women.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/women/the_way_we_live/article6503294.ece

My home village in Worcestershire is deeply diverse in comparison with other villages in the county. We've got a black woman - out of about 2,000 people. She married a local bloke, who went and died. She enriches the village no end, when she comes out of the house once a week.

Graphite

That political correctness empowers people like "Erica Blair" — even if the empowerment is only a one-part-per-50 million strength — renders it a "bad thing".

Of course, I'm old enough to remember an earlier type of political correctness — the sort that wowsered all enjoyment out of just about every Sunday of my 1950s and early '60s childhood and had as its apogee the Royal Visit of 1953 when every schoolkid in Auckland, New Zealand, was dragged out and made to stand in the boiling sun all day just so the Queen and her dopey sidekick and all the local social-climbing hangers-on could have a huge crowd to drive through and wave to.

That sort of nonsense thankfully disappeared in the 1970s; it's way past time the current version was also dispensed with.

Jerry Owen

HEGEMONY
I think Erica is playing hard to get.
WHAT ABOUT ASIAN TV?. Why have you spelt that out in capitals? And why have you said that?
Actually my question was - Is Asian TV without white faces racist?. A very pertinent question as we are put in the usual leftist position of aren't whites racist diatribe. No mention of black or brown racists is ever spoken about by the left. You need to be more consistant and level headed if you wish to confront and attack racism.
As for Mr. True-May's 'highly debateable' views on Englishness, what is debateable?. We have a distinct culture and as a programme writer he is fully within his rights to portray a culture as he sees fit, it is after all a drama ...perhaps you missed that one!

Nicholas

Erica Blair is a "classic" example of what has gone wrong with Britain. She is a thought nazi.

She chides a commentator for using wiki stats on the grounds that there is more diversity since the census gathered those stats but then sees no issue in quoting stats herself for Slough which are presumably invalid on the same basis. The fact is that we don't know how much difference Labour's plot to Diversify England Without Her Consent 1997-2010 has made to urban populations. But please explain it to us, Erica, why is government enforced diversity a good thing? It was supposedly invoked "to rub the right's face in diversity" (very mature and rational) but was there more? And please try to explain it without hissing and screeching about racism, classic or otherwise - if you can.

And one needs to keep up with lefty coded cant to understand her rants. Why is the use of "ethnics" racist and "ethnic minorities" not? And just what is "classic racism" as opposed to plain old "racism"? Presumably there is a Little Red Book somewhere that ghastly thought nazis like Erica Blair refer to in order to conform to their humourless, predictable, dreary but ever-changing orthodoxies. As these "rules" are not generally known to the majority population it is little wonder that people presuming free speech is alive and well in Britain fall foul of them.

And lest we forget the hypocrisy involved Erica reminds us with those less than funny "quips" about people from Dorsetshire and Mississippi Burning. Is the casting policy of Midsomer Murders, however illogical, really to be compared with racial murder, torture and home burning? Has the Klan ever rode in the streets of Moreton-on-the-Marsh or Little Snoring?

People just like you created these problems, Erica, largely from nothing but the malice in your own minds and the two great chips on your shoulders. But the wind is changing.

LMS

I quite liked it when the word "racism" meant the denigration of a race based on purely spurious racial grounds.

Now it means anything, and this is case because the Establishment didn't have the nuts to stand up to the race industry in the early 1980s, and slowly the race industry became the Establishment. I grew up in Haringay during Bernie Grant's reign, so I have had some experience of this.

Oedipus Rex

Nick:

Glen Hoddle - moderately successful England Manager, lost his job partly in the face of an outcry over his religious views expressed in a Times interview. His stated beliefs on reincarnation (but particularly his rather inarticulate example of someone's medical condition being the result of past lives - bad karma and all that) caused a furore amongst disability groups and various talking heads, although I found them harmless if a little barking. They are shared by the much respected Dalai Lama (who expressed his agreement with Hoddle) and millions of others. And this in a so-called 'multi-cultural' society.

In Robert Hughes' excellent 'The Culture of Complaint' he describes how an American economics academic lost his post on the grounds of a very self-deprecating joke about being 'mobbed by all the female students' (he was old, fat, bald and able to laugh at himself). The predictable 'wimmins groups' were responsible.

I can't remember his name or which university and I don't have Hughes' book to hand - but it's worth a check.

In all honesty, there has never been the NKVD knock on the door in the night or the Gestapo boot in the head with the PC brigade.
Instead it is the 'Sum of Irritations' and the crime is usually more against the English language, its subtleties, nuances, its ability to both 'wind up' and self-deprecate, than against the person.

In the US 'coloureds' is seriously out of bounds, but 'people of colour' is in - strange that.
The 'niggers, the pakis and the yids' comment also shows a problem - how on earth can the word Yid be considered derogatory (as it is described in my dictionary) when the word Yiddish surely isn't? To me yid/yiddish bespeaks of the Shtetl, a whole language and culture particular to East European jews - let alone gentile Spurs fans!
'Paki' is not offensive in itself, merely being an abbreviation just as 'Brit', 'Brummie', Aussie and so on. In fact my Bangi mates often describe themselves as Pakis as a bit of a laugh.

Graeme Thompson

Mr Cohen, diminution of racial epithets has nothing to do with Political Correctness (which came in I would estimate round about the early 90's). Race hate laws outlawed such terms of abuse since the 60's if memory serves correct.

Political Correctness is a Marxist strategy to subvert democracy. It seeks to 'unperson' anyone who does not subscribe to left wing opinions on race, gender, sexuality etc on the pretext of any 'ism' they can throw at them. It's a strategy that Islamists have latched onto as well. Political Correctness is as much a perversion of equal opportunities as fascism is a perversion of patriotism.

This said, while I sympathise with the ITV producer who has been suspended, any fair-minded person could construe his views as 'racist'. Whether or not ITV excercised the best option in suspending him is open to debate, but they had grounds. He brought ITV into disrepute.

RMcK

At a former INGO employee, based in Georgia, USA, I had to attend a compulsory "diversity training" 2 day workshop. Personally, I'd be a defender of "PC" type respect for differences rooted in anything non-belief or non-character related so I was not initially hostile. In fact, give the org’s need to strategically balance social change objectives with access to vulnerable communities in oppressive cultures I figured such a workshop was essential and intriguing as staunch liberal dogmas weren’t going to be sufficient for securing access and achieving practical results, but nor would the org be able to avoid certain “lines in the sand” based on defending individuals’ rights.
The actual thrust of the workshop however was a near-parody and there was little doubt that the subtext was the laying out of a hierarchy of “acceptable views” and even a sense that the white Americans in the room (almost certainly the most ‘bleeding heart’) needed to realize they were culturally oppressive should they insist on things like promptness and other “Western” ideas. (Pretty racist towards non-Westerns was this, I thought, but anyways…)
Modes of expression were identified as acceptable and desirable based not on an opinion’s content or relevance but on vacuous ideas about “the other” that assumed non-While and non-US views were (a) already being oppressed and (b) had much hidden wisdom. This was a shame and a farce. It created an environment, in my view, where challenging some of the most reactionary and chauvinistic cultural practices and norms (abroad) was hindered by the "respect of difference" mantra. It would be an exaggeration, perhaps, to say this prevented one from working but it certainly did create a cold house for candid engagement on matters critical to working towards social change in foreign countries.
(There was also an insufferable smugness about the workshop facilitators where passive aggressive body language and "cut-offs" or "put-downs" were used to close down challenges to the idea that their ideas were neither original, right, helpful or - not least and ironically - tolerant. End result? Anything but an intellectually tolerant workspace. (And 2 full-time salaries for two clowns educated in gobble-de-guk whose job was to reveal the supposedly secret racist and supremacist mindset in the staff.)

Hegemony

@Jerry, you appear to have missed the point where I said I didn't like or approve of colour segregation whether it's practiced by white or black or brown?

One can make an argument that minority interests need to be protected because the mainstream culture ignores them. One could make that argument, but it's pretty much a thing of the past, if you ask me. British culture is, in many senses, multi-cultural (please note, I'm not talking about the ghettoisation and allowing "community leaders" free reign within those ghettos that people claim as multi-cultural. I'm talking about the actual reality of "our culture has within it many smaller cultures, and they are being more adequately represented than they were, therefore 'minority channels' are not needed as they once were, and maybe more than a little self defeating").

So, I've answered your point. Racial exclusion is wrong, whoever practices it. Now, I'm a lefty, as is Mr Cohen, could you please withdraw the canard about the left only caring about white racism?

(I'll make the point that white racism gets more attention because of simple fact - there are more white racists in the UK. That's not proportionately, I'm pretty sure that the idiocy of racism spreads across all cultures and colours in an equal proportion - but just *actually*, ie. the population of the UK is x amount white, and only a small amount, comparitively, non-white, therefore 5% of 1,000 compared to 5% of 100,000 is inevitably going to attract more attention. And, indeed, be more of a problem. This isn't rocket science, is it?)

As for your remarks "why shouldn't Mr True-Love portray whatever he wants as quintessential Englishness?", well, I'd say "because he is denying career opportunities and work based on colour" and that - and I see you use the "fiction" defence as well - that he is claiming this represents "reality".

Well, which is it? It's either fiction or real? If it's fiction, then the numbers of non-white people in the countryside are irrelevant, he could make the entire of Midsomer Chinese should he want. If it's fact, then he's ignoring the 6% non white population of Oxfordshire (which Midsomer is, I believe, based upon) to portray a spurious version of an "idealised" England.

And, again, I make the basic point, this is nothing whatsoever to do with PC, which is to do with language and the use thereof. My objections are about him denying non white actors career opportunities. That is a colour bar. End of.

In addition, his suspension is nothing whatsoever to do with PC. It is, as I said, ITV making a commercial decision based around their perceptions of what damage could be caused to their brand should they insist on keeping him in place. Maybe it's an erroneous commercial decision, I wouldn't argue one way or t'other. But it's not the march of the PC police.

OK?

MaxSceptic

Midsomer Murders should have an episode with the proverbial working-class, black, one-legged, dyslexic, asylum-seeking lesbian.

They'd tick enough PC boxes for a whole season - especially if she was a victim of a white, male, middle-class, tory, paedophile.

MaxSceptic

Damn!

I forgot to mention that my working-class, black, one-legged, dyslexic, asylum-seeking lesbian is a Muslim.

Nicholas

Hegemony - poppycock from beginning to end. Poppycock dressed up as reason but poppycock none the less. The only thing worse than a socialist bigot is a socialist bigot pretending reason.

Not OK. Look at the rise of PC in this country, the forces behind it and the consequences. Not OK.

Hexhamgeezer

I once did a course on post-war African politics at a college in Sarf London. Thirty students, 3 white and 2 of them SWP, which left me a the resident fascist.

Any opinion that deviated from a Marxist analysis of colonialism was heresy and it soon became impossible to continue.

Strangely enough the lecturer, a published author on matters African agreed with many of my points but could only do so privately so as not to risk the sack.

Ian Walker

Can I make a clear definition of my understanding of "political correctness?"

It is a term for a broad class of fallacious arguments, involving attaching a set of emotive labels to either the arguer or the argument, rather than dealing with the substance of the argument.

The first, stronger political correctness is effectively an argumentum ad hominem, where rather than engaging someone on the substance of their argument, instead the arguer is labelled with one of a set of standard demonic phrases.

The softer political correctness is to label the argument rather than the arguer, often with an implied level of pity for the poor unenlightened soul. This is still fallacious - argumentum ad lapidem.

Of course, conducting a proper logical debate in the modern world of rolling news and soundbite politicians is quite difficult, and certainly difficult to get reported.

Hexhamgeezer

Nick,

Why dont you try the Civil Service? I know the FCO in their yearly staff appraisals used to insert a requirement to show what you had done in the last year to demonstrate your commitment to multiculturalism and inclusion.

Hegemony

@Nicholas,

Nice refutation there. I especially liked your detailed rebuttal of my argument.

If there is one thing worse than some lefty pretending reason,it's some right whinger avoiding debate through abuse :)

Nicholas

Hegemony there was no abuse in there - just as there was no argument to rebut. Last time I looked poppycock was not deserving of rebuttal - like debating baby talk. But it is typical of a lefty to construe abuse where there is none. Oh, dear, are you "offended"? Was my disdain for your poppycock "unacceptable"? Perhaps I need to have a "message sent" to me. After all, it would be "the right thing to do", etc., etc.

And, er, anyway, someone else has rather a long track record for avoiding debate by abuse don't they, Mr Socialist?

Baron

MaxSceptic, the double: you asking for it, aren’t you; haven’t laughed so much for some time though.

Hegemony

Nicholas, I wasn't offended-it takes a lot to offend me,Mama Hegemony didn't raise no shrinking violets. I take your "point" that abuse was perhaps the wrong word to use, fine. Now,engage with the argument instead of with the arguee?

Ps: somebody may have this track record of avoiding debate by throwing abuse. I,however,do not and-apart from the occasional playful aside here-have set out a logically consistent argument. You disagree with it? Fine, explain how. Else, baseless remarks about the nature of it,or of the debating style of a particular political persuasion will be met in kind. *shrug* up to you.

Hegemony

By the way Nicholas, whilst "poppycock" is not abuse, "bigot" is. Again,hardly worthy of "offending" me but still,if we are going to be pedantic about words and that.

john steadman

Mr Cohen - can you not conceive of a situation in which, say, your university lecturer makes the occasional so-called sexist joke to a class of women knowing full well that this intelligent audience will see it as humorous and even, if you like, provocative banter that people who claim to have an intellect can well cope with in appreciation of the licence of intelligent ironic humour. And can you not take it a step beyond and contemplate the possibility that - in the present climate - the humourless little Miss PC Priss sat glowering in the corner of the room would have more than an evens chance of getting said alleged offender out of a job.
As you say, it's all a matter of context; and I suggest that context these days is something of a one-way street.
Nah, don't bother with a chapter about political correcteness; I'm doing a book on political oppression but I'm not gonna bother with Stalin.

john steadman

Mr Cohen - can you not conceive of a situation in which, say, your university lecturer makes the occasional so-called sexist joke to a class of women knowing full well that this intelligent audience will see it as humorous and even, if you like, provocative banter that people who claim to have an intellect can well cope with in appreciation of the licence of intelligent ironic humour. And can you not take it a step beyond and contemplate the possibility that - in the present climate - the humourless little Miss PC Priss sat glowering in the corner of the room would have more than an evens chance of getting said alleged offender out of a job.
As you say, it's all a matter of context; and I suggest that context these days is something of a one-way street.
Nah, don't bother with a chapter about political correcteness; I'm doing a book on political oppression but I'm not gonna bother with Stalin.

Hexhamgeezer

Nick,

If you do a section on PC speech you could also look research instances where even rabid ideological loons like the Met have introduced a note of reality to their pronouncements.

I remember a few years ago after a local 'honour killing' the Met going on TV to issue an appeal for information. During the appeal Plod informed us that 'honour killings' were a problem for ALL sections of society and not just those that thought criminals like myself expected.

There were two ways you could take this official statement. You could believe it - in which case one wondered why 'honour killings' in the Geordie and Welsh communities (for e.g) werent deemed worthy of note or TV coverage. Or, you could recognise this as ludicrous PC $#ite.

Eventually those poor buggers, twisting in the PC wind, were allowed to recognise that these crimes were indeed concentrated in particular areas, mainly, I suspect, because lobby groups realised that there's money to be had by recognising this fact publicly.