Racism

Who knew the Royal Mint, of all places, had been captured by the cult of political correctness? According to the Mail, the Mint’s Advisory Committee decided not to put Enid Blyton on a 50p coin to commemorate the 50th anniversary of her death because she is ‘a racist, sexist, homophobe and not a very well-regarded writer’. That’s an odd statement, since it suggests that had she been a better-regarded writer, her racism, sexism and homophobia would have been overlooked. Perhaps that’s the Mint’s rationale for not removing Charles Dickens and William Shakespeare from the £10 note and £20 note respectively, in spite of their liberal use of anti-Semitic caricatures. The

For months I’ve been looking forward to the Guardian’s much-heralded report on racism in Britain, which was unveiled this week. As a nation, we suffer from our fair share of divisions, with new fault lines opening up all the time, but our record when it comes to race relations is pretty good. Surely, a newspaper that prides itself on being guided by the evidence would reflect this? We’re often told by members of the identitarian left that Britain is more racist than most other countries, but I didn’t expect the Guardian to fall for that. When comparing different countries, one way of gauging the level of racism is to ask whether

To mark last weekend’s one-year anniversary of the violent right-wing demonstrations in Charlottesville, Virginia, a meagre two dozen card-carrying white supremacists showed up in the town, vs thousands of anti-racism protesters — proportions that may reflect the nation as a whole. Nevertheless, ever since the 2017 rally, the American left has thrown around the pejorative ‘white supremacist’ with such abandon that you’d think the country was jagged with peaked white hats from sea to shining sea. By fits and starts, the past 50 years have seen equality of opportunity for minorities in the States improve dramatically. Yet racial rhetoric, and the overall touch-and-feel of race relations on the ground, is

 Los Angeles Baseball is the best American sport. It’s great because it’s timeless — it exists in a space beyond time. Unlike other major sports, baseball requires no clock. It’s a ballet of set pieces — at-bats, walks, strikes, balls — and bursts of motion. The grace of a swing, the artistry of a double play — none of these run to the ceaseless demands of a clock. It’s a balance between individual achievement and team play. We know the names of the individual greats, but it requires a team of great individuals to win the World Series. The tension can be incredible. A flamethrowing pitcher facing down a slugger

It was only a matter of time. The headteacher of a primary school in Ilfracombe in Devon has banned ‘Flossing’, the dance craze linked to the video game Fortnite, on the grounds that it’s being used to ‘intimidate’ other children. ‘Fortnite is about mass killing of other human beings and being rewarded by a dance of celebration if you are successful,’ she told the Telegraph. This is the latest example of the moral panic surrounding Fortnite, a video game in which up to 100 players compete against each other, either individually or in ‘squads’, to see who can be the last man standing. So far this year, the National Crime

Our ducks are back. Two wild mallard have spent the last five springs on the brook which gurgles past us in Herefordshire. Each year they produce a paddling of chicks; each year most of the ducklings are killed by predators. Our friend Becky thinks she spotted an otter, more likely stoat or mink, in the brook. The fluffy ducklings have little chance of survival. We wish the mother duck would nest somewhere safer but there is no telling her or her green-headed drake. If I have felt kinship with the ducks lately it was because I was being pursued by sharp-fanged ferrets from the anti-meritocratic, politically unrepresentative, over-indulged arts establishment.

After an essay in this month’s Prospect about literature and freedom of speech, it seems I was cited on Twitter as a ‘racist provocateur’. Now, I rather fancy being a ‘provocateur’. But as for the adjective… Someone can call you ‘stupid’, and that’s just one person’s opinion. It doesn’t seem true because a single childish naysayer has impugned your intellectual prowess. Yet hitherto, the tag ‘racist’ has tended to stick. And it’s self-verifying. Why ever would anyone call you a racist if you weren’t one? In our current climate of sensitivity about race (and everything else), finger-pointers wield enormous power. A sole review of my last novel — amid perhaps

On Friday the Guardian columnist and Corbyn-supporter Owen Jones sent out this Tweet to his followers: Palestinians urgently need our solidarity. Join me protesting Trump’s Jerusalem speech outside London’s US Embassy *tonight* >> https://t.co/JfGW6sTqjJ pic.twitter.com/2VPeqf21og — Owen Jones (@OwenJones84) December 8, 2017 As a video of the resulting demonstration shows, the crowd outside the embassy loudly chanted (among other things) ‘Khaybar Khaybar, ya yahud, Jaish Muhammad, sa yahud’. This is a famous Islamic battle-cry which might be translated, ‘Jews, remember Khaybar, the army of Muhammad is returning.’ https://twitter.com/hurryupharry/status/939253702497628161 The battle of Khaybar relates to a 7th century attack on a Jewish community by the armies of Mohammed. Now two obvious