Since the latest so-called ‘royal race row’, the seemingly innocuous question, ‘where are you from?’, has been the subject of much debate.
I’ve heard so many stories these past few days – one about a British man with a French name who isn’t offended when asked where he is from, one about a woman who was born in Hong Kong but now has British citizenship and is never offended when someone asks where she is from, etc. And it’s as if these stories should be taken to mean that anyone who is offended by that question is over-sensitive or likes to play the race card. And no doubt those on the other side of the culture war are sharing stories of victimhood and offence, and concluding that anyone who asks, ‘where are you from?’, is racist, and this is of course just evidence that the U.K. is racist.
I find the question irritating and sometimes offensive (regardless of the colour of the person asking it), and dare I say sometimes I do suspect racism depending on how it is asked. In my opinion, there are better ways of asking someone where their parents or grandparents are from. Like that – for example. After all, if you are from the U.K. (even if you do have brown skin), and you are a more literally-minded person, then ‘where are you from?’ simply doesn’t make sense to you. It might even be reminiscent of ‘get back to your own country’. But let’s not go there.
Surely it only takes a bit of perspective to understand that some people may find something offensive (or irritating at best) and others may not?
Do I advocate speech codes and ideological training? No. I think we have the right to offend and to be offended (and to offend without realising it and not to be offended when others think we should be… the list goes on). Aren’t we able to navigate our own interpersonal interactions, rather than having an imposed political and ideological framework guide and constrain them?
This is the real issue here, in my opinion. The apparent implication of this incident is that ideological ‘diversity training’ is needed anywhere and everywhere that has so far escaped its grasp. Every person needs it. Schools need it. Care homes need it (after all, 83-year-old ladies need it). The Royal Family and all its people most definitely need it.
Are we all signed up to these ideological beliefs? What if we are not – can we opt out or openly disagree without fear of losing our jobs? Should ideological training be compulsory? Should it be legal? Is it legal? Does ‘diversity training’ encourage interracial interactions or hinder them?
Which is more preferable – some missteps, some misunderstandings, and even some racism now and then, or a set of ideologically infused rules to regulate all our interactions, in the hope that one day maybe no one will be offended and there will be no more racism? Never mind that there’ll be no more genuine conversation in such a world.
‘Diversity training’ is the Trojan horse being pulled into every institution. And ‘where are you from?’ – whatever you may think about that question – is just a distraction.
This article first appeared on Amber Muhinyi’s Substack. Subscribe here.
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There is so, so much to be concerned about here. Riot police bussed in from other areas – who ordered that and why? What information or directives were they given and by whom? The policeman recorded as saying “arrest anyone” – well, was he acting under orders (if so, from whom?) or is he a renegade clearly unfit to be a police officer? I think there clearly needs to be a full public enquiry here – and senior police and politicians brought to account if they sought to pre-influence or prejudice what happened here.
But it’s not going to happen. If the government can’t be bothered to investigate why hundreds of children were repeatedly raped and abused by “men of a certain religion” while police, teachers and social workers stood by and did nothing then what hope has the average white person?
What sort of a hell-hole of a country have we suddenly decended into while the Prime Minister is more concerned about who pays for his suits, how he can get free tickets to Taylor Swift concerts and how he can jump the queue at tourist events? Have we truly become North Korea? That is a rhetorical question – we have.
There is no hope. Get out now while you can.
My sincere apologies to these “men of a certain religion” who were clearly “engaged in a bit of innocent fun” if I inadvertently misgendered them. I was taught at school that only men had beards, but clearly I was misinformed and am stupid as everybody know that a man with a beard may choose to self identify as a woman or any of another 100 or so genders at a time of their choosing. Anyone who disagrees is a far-right extremist.
I just don’t want to be thrown in the gulag for such a heinous crime as this.
But then again, we don’t need to be thrown in the gulag as the gulag is coming to us.
Join the FSU. As you haven’t mentioned the religion, but presumably not Christianity, they would have a definition problem if they came after you. It has recently been revealed that a large number of “allegedly Christian Priests” are also involved in such goings on. These have NOT been ignored, all very strange.
Another excellent edition. The treachery that affects many of our institutions is a malignancy that is proving, and will prove to be, very difficult to excise. Thank god for people like your guest, who have the wherewithal to challenge this iniquity.
The rest of us must support such people. We must also support those institutions, and media outlets, who on a daily basis, refuse to accept what is happening to this country.
There should be no conditions on peaceful protest.
I attended the farmers protest and noted the ridiculous number of vans full of police. There was noi need for them at all and they must have ben paid overtime for sleeping. Farmers, rural people and sympathisers cannot be put into any demographic associated with rioting or violence.
It was nothing more than state intimidation.
I hope he wins his damages claim. Remember to add the value of lost time and lost opportunities. Demand to see the evidence the officers relied upon when arresting and when threatening to charge with a further offence.
If he needs help with legal fees please start a fund raiser.
Sue the Independent as well as their report was insulting and offensive and likely libellous.
Go against the individual officers as well as the force itself.
The husband should make a complaint of GBH – actual bodily harm.
Even if the arresting officers had been wrongly informed about the circumstances they were not entitled to arrest without making enquiries. One question to this mn would have made it clear the warnings and rules had not been comunicated.
Good idea
I really do notthink living and working in harmony is compatible with multi-culturalism which the elites still embrace.
The unity seen in the USA cannot happen here because the elites and all their many agents regard diversity (which is a lack of harmony by definition) as a good thing, almost an essential aspect of Britain in the future.
On sentencing, I note that a Pakistani Muslim rapist of multiple offences was released after two and a half years whereas social media posts resulted in a similar sentence. Two tier or what!
And the rapist then costtax payers £lots appealing against deportation and he is still here.