Thursday 27 October 2022

Britain’s Prime Minister Is India’s Pride || The Wall Street Journal.

"The best way to fight racism is not to be racist". 

So an American judge is said to have said. 

I believe it.

When you think about it, it really doesn't matter what's deep in your heart. Other people can't know. Sometimes you don't know yourself. But if you act towards others — no matter their faith or ethnicity, gender or nationality— if you treat all with respect, with care, with concern and with empathy, then society will be well served.

Act and you will be.

On the anti-racist side of the fence, however, in the land of Robin Di  Angelo and Ibram X Kendi, everyone, everywhere, at all times must be talking race, thinking race and examining their hearts for racism. By all measures, that approach, the CRT approach, has made matters worse. 

There is now a widespread belief that racism has got worse. At least in the United States. 

It's refreshing to have watched the process of selecting Rishi Sunak as the new British PM, during which. his race was barely mentioned (at least compared with the US). 

And refreshing to find that fact acknowledged and welcomed by the following article in todays Wall Street Journal. It notes the only people mentioning his race are the Left, claiming that he's not a "legitimate" person of colour because he is Tory. That he's a "face of colour, but not a voice of colour", a horrid meme, wicked, bigoted and …yes… racist.

Rishi Sunak is prime min­is­ter.And not of In­dia but of Britain. The most strik­ing as­pect of his as­cent to his country’s high­est po­lit­i­cal of­fice is that his race—eth­nic In­dian—is hardly mentioned by Brits. When it is, it is mostly by British In­di­ans of the left who claim that he isn’t au­then­ti­cally “brown.” This is the clas­sic ca­nard with which pro­gres­sives dis­miss peo­ple from eth­nic mi­nori­ties who haven’t sur­ren­dered to the nar­ra­tive of racial griev­ance. 

Most Brits, it seems, care more about the content of his character than the colour of his skin. As Martin Luther King famously said. Let's get back to that. Treat everyone with courtesy, kindness and consideration. Cure racism by not being racist. And by not banging on forever about it.

ADDED (i): What on earth is India doing being "proud" of Sunak? What part did they play in his success? It makes about as much sense as me being proud of Isaac Newton, because he's Caucasian.

ADDED (ii): I watched Rishi's first PMQs last night. I thought he did very well. So did almost all commentators. Even the BBC! He was confident, assured, gracious, combative when needed, facts at his fingertips.