Dear black people

I rarely use TikTok.  In actual fact, I rarely use any social media platform. But TikTok is the one I rarely use the most. It's one of the platforms I may fire up when I'm sat on the bog. Why?

I don't know, even casually scrolling it's either full of young women showing off their pneumatically enhanced assets or people talking about racism (maybe It suggests more about me than I dare admit). Talking about racism is definitely a hot topic on whatever platform you browse, but it rears it's head mostly there.

So anyway...

I did discover one young black lady (who I sadly scrolled past and instantly forgot her name as I was hit with yet another woman flashing her devastatingly deep cleavage at me. But she did leave a mark on the 2 video's  I did look at. 

The first video was an interesting look at why black people should care about the war between Russia & Ukraine and that was a topic rarely mentioned (probably because it isn't sexy enough) and that was about the problems this war will create regarding the coming wheat & grain shortage. This will have a global effect not least of all felt in African countries.

But the second video was about the way some black people were being treated on the border of Ukraine while trying to flee (It WAS racism) And I was totally on board until she mentioned one of my personal red-flag words and that was "anti-racist"

Language evolves over time, sometimes it just becomes unstoppable. While many are desperately trying to hang on to the original meaning of the word "woke" the war is lost. Today woke has literally evolved into it's own political movement of the far left. Originally, it was just about social injustice, with a nod to being more "racially aware" It no longer holds that meaning. And a similar thing has happened to "anti-racist" no matter how hard people fight to keep it, that is just a fact of life (I'm still annoyed at "sick" evolving to mean something good)

Racism is a serious topic. It needs serious discussion. I've said this time & time again. But you can't just scream "racism" every time there is a miscarriage of justice, you dilute it's meaning and lose so much credibility when racism actually is a factor.

I recently got into a Twitter spat with one of those Antifa/anti-racist types. I knew this instantly because it was all in the bio. If you've ever spent much time on twitter you will know the type, and on this occasion they had latched on to me and were determined to "take me down" What was my horrific tweet? I had said that black people can be racist. So it was game on as this user went into full attack mode.

The problem is however, what I may lack in academic language, I can more than make that up with pith and sarcasm. And above all else, I have time. Our back & forth went on for 4 hours (yes I timed it) and involved just over 50 tweets before they gave up and blocked me. I don't however claim a win. Battling against extremists is never about winning a war with words, It's a case of not backing down. 

Never back down to extremists. If someone's argument comes from the starting position of calling you a racist or a fascist, then you can be pretty sure you've just encountered an extremist. Though our 4 hour battle doesn't quite break my previous record, it is fairly close. In some ways I've even begun to enjoy it, which is why I take regular breaks from all social media (even though my general use is fairly light)

But in light of more current affairs in general...

Does any black person really think no white person was disgusted at the sight of a black woman and her baby waiting to get on a train to take her to Poland or Hungary or even Romania?

Or we aren't disgusted when we see white football fans chanting monkey noises at black players? I spent years travelling to football matches following my beloved Portsmouth, thankfully, I rarely heard such disgraceful comments by either set of fans. But do you think I wasn't angered or embarrassed when I did hear them? Or heard homophobic comments?

Why do you think England fans were booing when the players took a knee for Black Lives Matter? Does anyone really think its because they hate black people? One might think so. But BLM isn't about black lives mattering is it? It's about a Marxist ideology dressed in a racial overcoat. Its an extreme I find as abhorrent as I do the fascist ideology. I would be just as uncomfortable giving a Nazi salute as I would taking a knee for BLM. That may sound ridiculous but this is where current discourse has taken us.

Why am I sure? Well, we do know that there are many, many black people who do not support BLM, and how are they treated? Pretty disgracefully actually. words like "coon" or "uncle tom" and "house n****"

And why do they get called this? Because they are conservatives. So this isn't about race at all, this is about politics.

Convince me otherwise when the statistics tells me that there is far more black on white crime than there is white on black (about 10 times as much) black on black crime is stratospheric in comparison to both former figures.

Brexit voters are considered racist. Square that circle? You can't, many black people voted Brexit.

I keep going over old ground, but if you keep repeating the mantra's "white privilege" "white fragility" "white flight" "institutional racism" and a host of others you are convincing nobody, in fact, the complete opposite is true.

Kemi Badenoch will one day lead this country, I am sure of that. But some of the language used toward her from black people is disgusting. As disgusting as those monkey chants I heard all those years ago during my time watching live football. But why? Because Kemi is a Tory.

The pattern is unavoidable. A more centrist view always comes down on the side of forgiveness and we move on together. Yet at extreme edges is where trouble is always found.

I'm sorry anti-racists and anti-fascists, you are everything you claim to be against and as such, I am against you as much as I am against real fascism.

But what is "real" fascism? What is racism? Who gets to decide?

Well its not me, but do remember this, it's not you either. As individuals we all get to decide for ourselves. There is a legal determination though and although it's not perfect, it does at least try.

But outside of the law. Nobody has the authority to tell you what is or isn't. Never let people tell you any different.