A perfectly sensible observation from Matthew Parris has incurred the wrath of his colleagues on the Times. Speaking of Trump’s “racist” comments, Parris writes:
“I don’t like his attacks but I think they will strike a chord among millions who should not be called racists. It’s just futile to suppose that arrivals from another country, and their children, immediately and automatically assume an identity as citizens that is indistinguishable from that of the population already there. They have all the same rights but will be seen, for a generation or two, as neither better nor worse but different.”
That seems to me precisely the case. And I suspect the majority of Americans think the same, not to mention British people.
Yet you would have thought he had donned a pointy white hood to listen to the wailing from Caitlin Moran and Sathnam Sanghera who said:
‘I’m forever being told, as a second generation immigrant, that I should be “more grateful”, when I’m just doing the same job as him, being critical of aspects of Britain. That is racism.’
Followed up with:
‘I’ve left a comment on the website, Matthew often responds, so hopefully he will reflect.’
Me sticking up for Parris will simply confirm to people of such Manichean, absolutist beliefs, that Matthew is a raaaccissst. They are impervious to everything else. There is nothing else but racism. No nuance, no context, no truth.
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