howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
from the telegraph.
Twitter erupted last night after David Starkey's appearance on Newsnight. The general consensus was that he was guilty of racism. Among those objecting on Twitter was the Labour MP Jeremy Corbyn, who addressed the following question to Newsnight: "Why was racist analysis of Starkey unchallenged? What exactly are you trying to prove?"
But was Starkey being racist?
He appeared alongside Owen Jones, the author of Chavs: the Demonisation of the Working Class, and Dreda Say Mitchell, an author and broadcaster, to discuss the broader cultural significance of the riots.
Starkey opened the batting by making two points. His first was that these weren't riots in the traditional sense of the word, i.e. civil disorder prompted by a political grievance. Rather, they were much less significant than that. They were simply "shopping with violence".
Nothing particularly controversial there. It was his second point that set the Twittersphere ablaze.
"I've just been re-reading Enoch Powell," he said. "His prophesy was absolutely right in one sense. The Tiber didn't foam with blood, but flames lambent wrapped round Tottenham and wrapped round Clapham."
Now, that statement is vintage Starkey. He almost says something inflammatory - "Enoch Powell was absolutely right" - but, after pausing for a nano-second, pulls back from the brink - "in one sense". He then went on to say what he thought Powell had got wrong - "But it wasn't inter-communal violence. This is where he was completely wrong" - without saying what he'd got right (apart from the lambent flames). So it's difficult to say which parts of the Rivers of Blood speech he was agreeing with.
In any event, that wasn't the particularly controversial bit. It was the next thing he said that set the cat amongst the pigeons:
What's happened is that a substantial section of the Chavs that you wrote about have become black. The whites have become black. A particular sort of violent, destructive, nihilistic, gangster culture has become the fashion. And black and white, boy and girl, operate in this language together, this language which is wholly false, which is this Jamaican patois that's been intruded in England, and this is why so many of us have this sense of literally a foreign country.
Guest 675- Registered: 30 Jun 2008
- Posts: 1,610
It may well be controversial but I would say that it was more observational than racist and just being controversial does not necessarily make it wrong.
Politics, it seems to me, for years, or all too long, has been concerned with right or left instead of right or wrong.
Richard Armour
Totally agree Chris - and controversial statements can provoke useful discussion (unlesss people block that by simply taking offence and closing it down.)
Guest 645- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 4,463
Have to agree with Chris and Bern but it doesn't help that Starkey is a self opinionated little *hit.
Marek
I think therefore I am (not a Tory supporter)
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
i saw the programme and was not surprised that the crowd who see racism everywhere would start a choir afterwards.
mr starkey likes to provoke outrage but there was nothing untrue in what he said.
pity he had to bring up powell though.
Brian Dixon
- Location: Dover
- Registered: 23 Sep 2008
- Posts: 23,940
i dunno howard it was a good point of referance.
And a nice provocation! Not unintended, I should think.......nicely done!
Jan Higgins
- Location: Dover
- Registered: 5 Jul 2010
- Posts: 13,883
Marek.
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I try to be neutral and polite but it is hard and getting even more difficult at times.
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Guest 640- Registered: 21 Apr 2007
- Posts: 7,819
Yes I too saw Starkey on Newsnight. Sadly it was almost impossible to hear his theory because everytime he opened his gob two ready made talking heads of the nondescript variety feigned horror and continually interrupted.
One of the points he was trying to make is that a whole 'lost' generation of white youngsters in the inner cities are adopting black culture, posing as their black opposites, shunning their own heritage in the process
... and both sets of youths, black and white, talk in this weird language that nobody older, of either race understands.
They talk a street unintelligible gobbledook ..known or understood only by each other. Starkey pulled a note from his pocket and read out a passage of this kind of dialect talking...finishing with "innit!". I think most of us know the style of talking referred to.
I think the point he was trying to make is that they are alienating themselves. Nobody would give them a job talking in this fashion..innit! And it is a fashion. This according to Starkey.
He was very frustrated in the programme because he couldnt get his point across. It is a least a theory as to why we are in this state. Its cool to riot, its cool not to have a job, its cool to talk in this slang way...so there we are.
Guest 675- Registered: 30 Jun 2008
- Posts: 1,610
There are always those ready to shout down a speaker at the first sign of it being something they don't like. When will they learn that you can make a more intelligent answer if you actually listen to the point being made?
Politics, it seems to me, for years, or all too long, has been concerned with right or left instead of right or wrong.
Richard Armour
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
sadly moderately red ed has slated starkey as racist, a chance to have a reasoned debate on the issue has been kicked into touch.
Guest 655- Registered: 13 Mar 2008
- Posts: 10,247
I like Starkey, we need more of his outspoken ways in the media.
The outcry and RedEd have shown part of what is wrong today with knee jerk reactions trying to close down discussion as a way to bully people into not speaking the truth about uncomfortable subjects.
Guest 641- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 2,335
Unfortunately I missed Starkey on Newsnight, but have come across this strange phenomena of a lost inner city tribe of young flat dwellers with their intelligible language whilst working in Manchester last year. As PaulB says 'innit' comes to mind, I've heard it used not only at the end of a sentence but also at the beginning and the end, it threw me completely for a few secs, then I fort dat da hole fing is just bein stretched aht of proportion, innit! lol!
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
love the jive talk barry, used to amuse me when i lived in london to hear white and asian kids talking in this jamaican patois.
then a kid from west indian parentage speaking in perfect english.
we all know this problem is happening and that society is getting fragmented because of it but politicians and decision makers just pretend it is not happening.
Guest 696- Registered: 31 Mar 2010
- Posts: 8,115
My view is, that the riots were not sparked off by Anglo-Saxons, Celts, Muslims or Sikhs, even though some Anglo-Saxons later joined in.
Muslims do not tend to loot shops, as it is against their religion, and they are strict and self-conscious about this.
If we go by exclusion of ethnic origins as to who went on the rampage first, and consult the documentary evidence as proof, this leaves the finger pointing in a direction.
My view is, that unemployed people with little or no chance of a future, will get frustrated, some react in one way, others in another.
Most important is that the overwhelmingly vast majority of rioters did not physically harm other people.
But, if the Government just allows 700,000 more people to immigrate here every year, taking the jobs from the unemployed people in Britain, there is not much of a future for unemployed people here no matter what their ethnic origin is!
What I find offensive is that someone can be defined as racist for stating that our Country should not import hundreds of thousands more people every year, people who are not British, have no British parents, and currently live anywhere from Eastern Europe to African and Asia.
Eastern Europeans come racing to Britain whenever jobs are going!
OK, now it will sound off... Alexander...!
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
alex
your comments are totally unrelated to the topic under discussion.
the riots are covered on a few other threads on here.
Guest 664- Registered: 23 Mar 2008
- Posts: 1,039
It is true to say that the English have always rioted. Perhaps the rioters from ethnic minorities are more assimilated than is imagined ;)
Guest 696- Registered: 31 Mar 2010
- Posts: 8,115
Not at all so, Howard!
"He appeared alongside Owen Jones, the author of Chavs: the Demonisation of the Working Class, and Dreda Say Mitchell, an author and broadcaster, to discuss the broader cultural significance of the riots.
Starkey opened the batting by making two points. His first was that these weren't riots in the traditional sense of the word, i.e. civil disorder prompted by a political grievance. Rather, they were much less significant than that. They were simply "shopping with violence".
These are the words you printed in post 1.
Can you please explain this in relation to your last post?
Guest 655- Registered: 13 Mar 2008
- Posts: 10,247
The point is that no employer in his right mind would employ someone who talks that way. About the only job they may be taken on for would be sweeping up but even then well away from customers.
Its not only that they speak in such a idiotic way and the way they dress its how it makes them unemployable. Perhaps tha'ts what they want.
Guest 640- Registered: 21 Apr 2007
- Posts: 7,819
Well thats right, a whole section of society is unemployable not probably because of schooling but because of attitude. The want to be the way they want to be and its not attractive to anyone other than themselves.
But yes its a pity ED Milliband condemned Starkey's comments as racist out of hand, but I guess there is a wave of much the same condemnation swirling around the electronic media and Ed is tapping into public opinion. Not wisely so in my view.
Because I think Starkey was trying to make a real point. He condemned all races with equanimity, if thats the right word, so if you are condeming all at the same time how can it be racist. He was delivering the "there all as bad as each other "shool of thought...as I understood it.
The section of his diatribe which seems to have got everyones hackles up is the fact that he said the young white males where trying to be black...the way they talk, the way they walk, the way they dress..and dont resemble anyone with an English background whatsoever. And even the black ones dont speak or act anything like their hardworking immigrant parents either. This is the point he was getting at. I dont see racism there...possibly more an uncomfortable level of accuracy.
This ghetto-isation of young people no matter what colour they are is a move downwards, and offers them little hope for the future.