"Whites behaving like blacks"

Quick, what's the most politically incorrect thing you could say about last week's riots in the UK? Looking at the video clips, you could say that you saw blacks behaving like blacks -- burning, looting, trashing everything in sight. And you could say that you also saw whites behaving like blacks.

So said London historian David Starkey, during a debate on the origins and causes of the riots which rocked London and other English -- not Scottish or Welsh, just English -- cities. Predictably, Mr. Starkey's extremely politically incorrect remarks have caused cries of outrage from the usual progressive right-thinking liberals throughout Britain and around the world.

The row erupted after Dr. Starkey spoke on BBC's Newsnight on Friday, opposite leftie author Owen Jones, who wrote Chavs: The Demonisation of the Working Class. You may remember seeing Walt's note on chavs, referencing this book, on July 18th.

Here's what Dr. Starkey had the courage to say: "I think what this week has shown is that profound changes have happened. There has been a profound cultural change. I have just been re-reading Enoch Powell. [The reference is to Mr. Powell's 1968 "Rivers of Blood Speech", quotes by Walt on August 10th.]

"[Powell's] prophecy was absolutely right in one sense: the Tiber didn’t foam with blood, but flames lambent wrapped around Tottenham, wrapped around Clapham. But it wasn’t intercommunal violence; this was where he was completely wrong.

"What has happened is that the 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.

"Black and white, boy and girl operate in this language together. This language, which is wholly false, which is this Jamaican patois that has intruded in England. This is why so many of us have this sense of [living in] a foreign country."

Dr. Starkey said there had been "a profound cultural change" and added that the disturbances and accompanying looting were not riots in the traditional sense, but simply "shopping with violence".

Strong stuff, and of course reaction from the usual suspects has been equally strong. Dr. Starkey has been called a "classist" (by Mr. Jones, of course) for looking down his educated patrician nose at the scum ["chavs", surely! Ed.] doing the rioting.

Others, such as David Lammy, Labour MP for Tottenham (where the rioting began) and, errr, a gentleman of the coloured persuasion, had to admit that, yes, the rioters and looters were chavs, but "those who engaged in criminal behaviour came from all races".

Mr. Lammy, called Dr. Starkey's comments were "misleading" as well as "dangerous and divisive". Ah yes..."divisive". That and "unhelpful" are this year's code words for "You may be right but you're not allowed to say these things because our disadvantaged minorities might be offended."

However, Dr. Starkey has his defenders. Author and commentator Toby Young told the Daily Mail that Dr Starkey was not criticising black culture in general but a "particular form of black culture, the violent, destructive, nihilistic, gangster culture associated with Jamaican gangs and American rap music". [My emphasis. Walt.]

Young added: "Had he been talking about these qualities as if they were synonymous with African-Caribbean culture per se, or condemning that culture in its totality, then he would have been guilty of racism. But he wasn’t. He was quite specifically condemning a sub-culture associated with a small minority of people of African-Caribbean heritage.

"Rather than being racist, he was merely trotting out the conventional wisdom of the hour, namely, that gang culture is to blame for the riots. In addition, Starkey wasn’t linking this sub-culture to people of just one skin colour, but condemning working-class white people – chavs, as he put it – who embraced it as well."

In his blog "If David Starkey is racist then so is everybody", the Telegraph's James Delingpole said: "The cultural point he is making is indisputable. Listen to how many white kids (and Asian kids) choose to speak in black street patois; note the extent to which hip-hop and grime garage and their offshoots have penetrated the white mainstream; check out how many white kids like to roll like pimps or perps with their Calvins pulled up to their midriffs and their jean waistbands sagging below their buttocks. Is anyone seriously going to try to make the case that this isn’t black culture in excelsis?"

Walt's answer to Mr. Delingpole is no. Of course no observant person will try to shift the blame from where it obviously belongs. We have eyes and ears. We can see and hear. We know who the perps are and what they represent. The only reason we can't say so plainly -- and take the appropriate corrective action -- is that people like Mr. Jones and Mr. Lammy find telling the truth "divisive" and "unhelpful".

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2026043/UK-RIOTS-David-Starkey-backed-furore-whites-black-culture-claim.html#ixzz1V6YYc35I