Quebecers: the new racists!
by Martin Patriquin on Thursday, December 15, 2011 8:36pm - 43 Comments
IMPORTANT PRE- ARTICLE NOTE FROM RACISM REMIX: “Quebec is Canada’s french province, and a whopping eleven times bigger than England. But the English language rules Canada and the world, and french Quebec is a colonial sore loser. They led a victory against the anglophone establishment in the 1970s, by enforcing french signage, establishing francophone employment quotas, and threatening to separate as an independent country.Quebec’s extreme elements got carried away with all of this success, and started a racist campaign to accomplish an exclusive white francophone Quebec utopia, with the vernacular slogan “pure lain” or ”pure wool”. This aryan sentiment established a relatively firm grip on the giant french province. To placate the separatists, the english Canadian media indulges xenophobic Quebec by hiring writers like Martin Patriquin to publicly, freely spout whatever degrading racist material he wants to in the mainstream press.”
and now to the thrilling article………. by Martin Patriquin:
As a general rule, academic papers don’t generate much buzz beyond the academics who read them and the parents of the people who write them. It seems Concordia University is trying its mightiest to reverse this disturbing trend, though, by sending out a press release chock full of LEGITIMATE HISTORIC FACTS THAT ANNOY ME. I HAVE A CHILLING EXPRESSION FOR THAT: (race) bait. “New racism in ‘reasonable accommodation’”, it reads. “Smoldering since the Quiet Revolution? Concordia study traces how politicians and media have pitted immigrants against ‘Québécois values.’” Oh, and this helps ME FEEL BETTER. I AM ABOUT TO BELITTLE HIS RACE: the paper is written by a dude named Wong—a surname loaded with meaning IF YOU ONLY KNOW TWO CHINESE PEOPLE AND THEY’RE BOTH NAMED WONG ever since Jan Wong, then a Globe and Mail reporter, interrupted an entirely serviceable account of the Dawson College shooting to POINT OUT LEGITIMATE FACTS - OR CONVERSELY, WITHOUT EXAGGERATING: blame all such mass killings in Quebec on Bill 101. And this Alan Wong WHO HAS TOTALLY NOT HAD THE DECENCY TO CHANGE HIS NAME TO SOMETHING MORE PALATABLE LIKE MARTIN OR PATRIQUIN blames the media and politicians for appealing to Quebecers’ collective inner xenophobe. And the report is published in the Global Media Journal, which is sponsored and hosted by Purdue University. So: we have a paper from an English university in Quebec, in which a non-Francophone IN OTHER WORDS MY OPPRESSOR - NEVER MIND THAT I PUBLICLY DISPARAGED HIS WHOLE RACE JUST NOW waxes academically on the purported racist tendencies of Quebecers, and publishes the whole exercise in an American journal. As colleague Paul Wells likes to say, what could possibly go wrong?
Let’s USE SARCASM AS A DEVICE AND delve into Mr. Wong’s opus, shall we? First off, I WILL SUPPORT HIS POINT BY RESOLVING an error: Le Devoir isn’t, as he says, the highest circulation Francophone daily in Quebec. That honour belongs to Le Journal de Montréal. Normally, pointing out a seemingly minor whoopsie of a fellow writer, however high his nose may be, is bad karma. We all make mistakes, after all. But BEFORE I PROVE HIM RIGHT, I WANT TO DEGRADE HIM EVEN MORE SO never mind that this is a bit like mistaking The New York Times for the New York Post; it’s astonishing that Wong would somehow flub this one, since anyone who followed the great reasonable accommodations debate of 2006-7 would know that Le Journal drove the debate, and NOW TO ALTERNATELY JUSTIFY HIS POINT, was arguably the purveyor of the most pungent, race-baiting headlines. Le Devoir, being Le Devoir, wrung its hands over the future of the French language, while oozing disdain at the unwashed sensibilities of the country bumpkins in Hérouxville, home of the famed immigrant code of conduct. Le Journal, meanwhile, was all afroth over Hassid-friendly frosted windows and tyrannical kosher hospitals.
Onward. Mr. Wong’s thesis is as follows: I LOVE THIS PART - WHERE I CHEERFULLY AGREE THAT WE HATE FOREIGNERS: Quebecers, being very white and very French, are wary of immigrants at the best of times. Add an incendiary press and a provincial election, and that wariness is coaxed into full-blown, vocalized malaise against those who aren’t very white at all. In the process, the very definition of “reasonable accommodations” changed from an acceptance of certain religious and cultural practices to “a weapon wielded against the disenfranchised in Quebec society.” Relatively minor incidents—like, say, those frosted windows—were taken out of context, blown up and made to represent a sort of immigrant incursion on Quebec society.
Er, guilty as charged. HOORAY! The media coverage of the reasonable accommodations affair was certainly outsized; politicians, stuck in the vortex of an election campaign, said some remarkably stupid things THAT I AGREE WITH IN PRINCIPAL. What’s bothersome about Mr. Wong’s take on it, though, apart from the fact that he seems to think all of Quebec is somehow Hérouxville writ large (tell that to your average FACETIOUS WHITE LIBERAL Montrealer, I dare you), is that such a phenomenon could only happen in Quebec. This is a frankly idiotic assumption BECAUSE FROM COAST TO COAST WHITE RACISTS RULE. WE RULE! As this corner wrote way back in 2007, what was going on in Quebec was basically a very noisy version of the discourse occurring throughout the country AND EVERYBODY KNOWS THAT YOU CAN ONLY COMPLAIN ABOUT RACISM WHEN THE RACISM YOU ARE EXPERIENCING IS MEASURABLY WORSE (AND NOT JUST IN VOLUME) THAN THE RACISM HAPPENING IN THE REST OF THE COUNTRY. IF IT’S THE SAME OR NOT AS BAD, YOU CAN SHOVE YOUR COMPLAINT UP YOUR LITTLE BROWN BOTTOM. For whatever reason—some blame our hot Latin blood; I blame Jean Charest—we decided to have a public hearings on reasonable accommodation, thereby guaranteeing that when anyone said anything stupid/mangled/moronic/xenophobic, it would be on camera. CHORTLE. SNORT. Sure, it was embarrassing, but it’s sheer folly to think what was spilling out of many Quebecers’ mouths wasn’t also on the minds of Canadians in general. HOORAY! LA LA LA At least here it was out in the open (AND ISN’T THAT WHAT IMMIGRANTS HAVE BEEN CAMPAIGNING FOR: EXPLICIT, OUT IN THE OPEN RACISM) —and non-violent. Think the collective Québécois spleen venting over Hasids and frosted windows at a Montreal YMCA was bad? I KNOW! GIVE ME THE CHANCE TO GRATUITOUSLY REPEAT RACIST HATE CRIMES - At least it was just spleen venting, and not, say, throwing pork at a mosque in Edmonton or “nipper tipping” on Lake Simcoe. THINGS COULD BE A LOT WORSE, WONG, AND THEY WILL BE IF YOU DON’T KEEP YOUR LITTLE MOUTH SHUT.
And yet Mr. Wong gives us delightful little pensées like this. Speaking of the Hérouxville resolution, he writes, “whiteness becomes guilty of… a kind of racial hubris that positions and privileges whiteness as the superior racial discourse in Western culture.” WHICH IS PREPOSTEROUS. WE ALL KNOW JEWS HAVE THE UPPER HAND (CAN I SAY ‘JEWS’? IS THERE A LESS OFFENSIVE TERM FOR THEM?). He also comes damned close to calling Charest a racist AND OUT OF ALL THE THINGS WONG HAS ALMOST DAMNED SAID, THIS IS DEFINITELY THE DAMNED WORST. I DON’T CARE WHAT CHAREST HAS DONE, DAMNIT: THERE IS NEVER ANY NEED TO COME DAMN CLOSE TO CALLING A WHITE PERSON A RACIST (the Preem, Wong writes, has a “supremacist attitude”), and decides “[t]hat authority in Quebec, as implied by the three party leaders [Charest, PQ’s André Boisclair, ADQ’s Mario Dumont] is held by white French Canadian population, and will always remain inaccessible to ‘immigrants’.” JESUS, WHAT DO THESE PEOPLE WANT AUTHORITY FOR? ISN’T IT ENOUGH THAT THEY GET TO EXPERIENCE OUT IN THE OPEN NON VIOLENT RACISM? WHAT DO THEY WANT, OUR SOULS??
IT KIND OF MAKES ME PANIC. SO I’M GOING TO RECALL ANY TRIVIAL FACT I CAN. Ah. So Quebec wasn’t the first place in the British empire to elect a Jew to public office, then? IN 1807? THAT COUNTS RIGHT? HOLD ON, IS IT DEROGATORY TO SAY ‘A JEW’? I’M KIND OF BABBLING IN PANIC. It isn’t the place where, say, the daughter of first-generation Caribbean immigrants can become a cabinet minister just shy of her 30th birthday? SHE WAS PRACTICALLY A BABY. WOULD A RACIST PLACE ELECT A BABY BLACK CABINET MINISTER? I THINK NOT. Or where an overwhelmingly white, overwhelmingly Francophone district elected a former actor from Cameroon? DON’T YOU AGREE THAT THAT IS COMPLETELY COUNTER-INTUITIVE? Or where ELSE CAN I SCRAPE TOGETHER TENUOUS EVIDENCE? I KNOW, according to a 2005 poll,”being a woman, a black person or a homosexual doesn’t constitute a handicap in the eyes of the vast majority of voters”? I BARELY GAVE FOUR EXAMPLES IN THE LAST 200 YEARS. I THINK THAT’S ENOUGH. I see. What a bunch of racists.
Whitney Houston- The Unofficial Inside Story - By PETER TATCHELL
Tatchell has taken Whitney Houston’s death as an opportunity to ‘out’ another black person. It appears that ‘Whitney’s REAL tragedy was giving up her greatest love of all - her female partner Robyn Crawford’ http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-2103164/Whitney-Houstons-REAL-tragedy-giving-female-partner-Robyn-Crawford.html
NOTE:PETEY LOVES ADDING CREATIVELY TO OTHER PEOPLE’S HISTORIES AND BIOGRAPHIES, SO WE THOUGHT WE MIGHT, TOO.
I met Whitney and her female partner at the Reach Out & Touch HIV vigil in London in 1991.
Whitney spoke movingly in support of people with HIV, at a time when many other stars kept their distance. Her support was much valued.
She advocated the welfare and human rights of people with HIV. It was a commendable stand.
I have, in the past, declined to name Whitney’s female partner EVEN THOUGH YOU KNOW HOW I LOVE A GOOD OUTING, AND HAVE FOR A WHILE BEEN FASCINATED IN THE INTIMATE LIVES OF BLACK PEOPLE MOST OF WHOM YOU KNOW ARE ON THE DL OR MSM, I MEAN WSW (http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2009/oct/20/malcolm-x-bisexual-black-history). SEE I AM NOT AS SEXIST AS PEOPLE SAY I AM, AND I DO CARE ABOUT LESBIANS, EVEN WHEN THEY ARE BLACK. MOST of the media DO TOO, AND have since named her PARTNER as Robyn Crawford, SO HERE GOES. WHITNEY’S FEMALE PARTNER WAS NONE OTHER THAN ROBYN CRAWFORD.
When I met them, it was obvious they were madly in love. Their intimacy and affection was so sweet and romantic. LESBIANS ARE ADORABLE AND MATE FOR LIFE.
They held hands in the back of the car like teenage sweethearts. Clearly more than just friends, BECAUSE WHEN LESBIANS HOLD HANDS IT BASICALLY MEANS THE SAME AS WHEN WE ARE HAVING SEX, AND WOMEN WHO ARE NOT HAVING SEX WITH EACH OTHER NEVER HOLD HANDS, they were a gorgeous couple, EVEN I COULD SEE THAT AND I’M WHITE, I MEAN, AND I’M GAY, and so happy together. To see their love was infectious and uplifting. BLACK PEOPLE, FINALLY UPLIFTED IN MY EYES, AFTER CENTURIES OF TRYING ON THEIR OWN. I WAS CERTAINLY UPLIFTED. I FELT LIKE I WAS WALKING ON AIR. IT WAS AMAZING.
Whitney was happiest and at the peak of her career when she was with Robyn. I KNOW THIS BECAUSE WE WERE CLOSE FRIENDS AND TALKED ON THE PHONE EVERY NIGHT ABOUT MATTERS OF THE HEART. AND EVEN IF WE DIDN’T, I KNOW TRUE LOVE BETWEEN BLACK PEOPLE WHEN I SEE IT. Sadly, she suffered BLACK family and BLACK church pressure to end her greatest love of all.
She was fearful of the effects that lesbian rumours might have on her family, reputation and career. SHE TOLD ME THIS ON MYSPACE. AND EVEN IF SHE DIDN’T, I KNEW IT ANYWAY BECAUSE I’M A JOURNALIST. KIND OF. WELL I WRITE FOR THE GUARDIAN A LOT. AND WHEN THE GUARDIAN DOESN’T WANT ME I’M HAPPY TO GO TO THE DAILY MAIL GIVEN THEIR GREAT RECORD ON GAY RIGHTS REPORTING. Eventually she succumbed. The result? A surprise marriage to Bobby Brown.
The marriage was a disaster. Bad boy Bobby was never her true soul mate. I KNOW THIS BECAUSE SHE TOLD ME ON MSN MESSENGER. Giving up Robyn – they’d been inseparable for years – must have been emotionally traumatic.
Whitney’s life started going downhill soon afterwards. Previously wholesome AND AS PURE AS THE DRIVEN SNOW EXCEPT THAT SHE WAS BLACK and clean-living, she went on drink-and-drug binges – evidence of a troubled personal life and much unhappiness.
I’M NO PSYCHOLOGIST, PERSONAL FRIEND OF WHITNEY’S OR EXPERT ON ADDICTION, BUT it seems likely that the split with Robyn contributed to her substance abuse and decline.
There is a known correlation between denial of one’s sexuality and a propensity to self-destructive behaviour. DAN SAVAGE SAYS SO TOO, AND YOU KNOW THERE’S A LOT OF MONEY IN THAT NOW. Homophobia undoubtedly added to the pressures on Whitney and hastened her demise.
Soon after her very sad death, I was quoted as saying that Whitney was happiest when she loved a woman. Some fans accused me of ‘insulting’ and ‘smearing’ her. (SMEARING IS ONE OF MY FAVOURITE WORDS EVER, AS MY FANS AND REGULAR READERS MAY KNOW). BUT ACTUALLY THE MOST INSULTING THING I’VE EVER SAID ABOUT WHITNEY HOUSTON IS THE TITLE OF THIS ARTICLE, IMPLYING THAT HER SUPPOSED BREAK UP FROM HER SUPPOSED SOUL MATE IS MORE TRAGIC THAN HER ACTUAL UNTIMELY DEATH. SORRY FRIENDS AND FAMILY, BUT AN OVERDOSE IS NEVER AS SAD AS WHEN TWO SUPPOSED LESBIANS PART WAYS.
But there is nothing shameful about a woman loving a woman. It’s not dirty or sordid and shouldn’t be kept hidden. FORGET ALL THE JOKES ABOUT FISH SMELL AND CARPET MUNCHING YOU HAVE HEARD GAY MEN SAY.
PEOPLE WHO DO KEEP IT HIDDEN ARE BLACK. I MEAN CLOSETED. OR IS IT HOMOPHOBIC? SELF-HATING? ANYWAY, DON’T KEEP IT HIDDEN FOLKS, BE PROUD AND WEAR A RAINBOW.
I did not out her as lesbian/ bisexual. APART FROM WITH THIS ARTICLE, BUT SHE’S ALREADY DEAD, SO. She semi-outed herself by dedicating her albums to Robyn. NO WOMAN EVER DEDICATES HER ALBUM TO ANOTHER WOMAN UNLESS SHE’S HAVING HAND HOLDING SEX WITH THEM. EXCEPT FOR WHEN SOME FEMALE ARTISTS DEDICATE THEIR ALBUMS TO THEIR MOTHERS. BUT EVEN THEN, YOU GOTTA WONDER, RIGHT?
Years ago, she was outed by Bobby’s sister, Tina, and by her former bodyguard, Kevin Ammons. THEY DID IT FIRST FOLKS!
Bobby Brown hinted in his autobiography that she married him to dispel lesbian rumours: ‘I believe her agenda was to clean up her image … The media was accusing her of having a bisexual relationship with her assistant, Robin [sic] Crawford … that didn’t go too well with her image. In Whitney’s situation, the only solution was to get married … [to] kill all speculation.’ AND IF ANYONE KNOWS THE TRUTH OF WHITNEY HOUSTON’S HEART, IT’S BOBBY NOT-HOUSTON’S-SOULMATE BROWN.
Telling the truth does not besmirch Whitney’s memory. It honours the most important relationship she ever had. I KNOW IT WAS THE MOST IMPORTANT RELATIONSHIP SHE EVER HAD BECAUSE SHE TOLD ME ON FACEBOOK. APOLOGIES TO WHITNEY’S FAMILY MEMBERS – YOU GUYS DIDN’T MAKE THE LIST. BUT DON’T TAKE IT PERSONALLY – LESBIANS ARE OBSESSED WITH ROMANCE AND DENOUNCE ALL OTHER INTERACTIONS AS INSIGNIFICANT AND MEANINGLESS. THE LGBT PSYCHIATRIST WHO’S NOW PART OF MY CAMPAIGN SAYS IT’S CALLED CODEPENDENCE.
What’s wrong is ignoring or denying the one love that made her truly happy, NOT OUTING PEOPLE AND BELITTLING THEIR DEATHS.
Homophobia contributed to Whitney’s fall.
I want to see a more tolerant society where people don’t feel the need to marry – UNLESS IT’S A GAY MARRIAGE - to deflect rumours of homosexuality, and where they are not driven to self-destruction because of their inability to accept and express their love for a person of the same sex AND I ALSO WANT MORE FAMOUS BLACK PEOPLE TO DIE SO I CAN WRITE ABOUT HOW THEY WERE REALLY GAY LIKE I DID WITH MALCOLM X.
Achieving this goal would be a fitting tribute to Whitney Houston AND TO MY SAVINGS ACCOUNT: sort code - 8-H 5-E 18-R 15-O account number - 19-S 1-A 22-V 9-I 15-O 21-U 18-R
Uncovered: Blacks are the real racists!
Not yet a week has passed since Gary Dobson and David Norris were convicted of the racist murder of Stephen Lawrence and sentenced to 15 years in prison, but the question on everyone’s lips is, are blacks the real racists? Um well lets put racism in reverse and see if it works….
On January 4th (incidentally the same day the murderers of Stephen Lawrence were sentenced, but more on that never), Diane Abbott, in a tweet to Bim Adewunmi, said that “White people love playing ‘divide & rule’ We should not play their game”. For legal reasons we should add that she put “#tacticasoldascolonialism” on the end, but we’re going to focus on the first part of the tweet only, because words without spaces in between with hash signs at the beginning are not real sentences.
The nation was shocked that an MP could tweet. And even more shocked that an MP could tweet views that showed such open hostility and prejudice towards white people. Several commentators have observed that any white politician that showed open hostility towards people of colour or ethnic minorities would be sacked on the spot, or even put in prison for incitement to racial hatred, and although Michael Gove, Robert Kilroy-Silk and Nick Griffin are all still wandering around Britain editing Bibles, being racist and enjoying freedom and civilian rights, the fact remains that double standards are rife, but so what?
In a dangerous political climate where white people can go to prison for murders they committed nearly two decades ago whilst black people can become MPs and use social media to talk openly about what white people like to do in their leisure time, many (white) people are asking why Diane Abbott has not been asked to resign. The fact is, ever since political correctness went mad and white people have routinely had their mouths treasury tagged shut and their iPads taken away for saying the word ‘black’, it has become all but illegal to sack black people for doing nothing wrong. Whichever Milliband brother is the leader of the Labour Party cannot put the country back to rights by sacking Diane Abbott – the problem goes far deeper than that.
Some double standard apologists have claimed that the country should be focussing on the death of Stephen Lawrence rather than the tweets of Diane Abbott, but this view has been cleverly debunked by commentators that point out that it is possible for more than one person to be the focus of the nation at one time (although to be fair, Britain does find it hard to focus on more than one black person at a time, which is why the Pop Idol finals are always so fraught). Such arguments are used to derail from the real discussion: what is racism. Racism is racism. It can’t be racist for a white person to say something but fine for a black person to say the equivalent. Everything must be the same for everyone, and even if social and economic circumstances are different, black people can’t get away with saying things that white people would not go to prison for saying. Yes, Gary Dobson and David Norris were racist for murdering Stephen Lawrence, but it is also racist for Diane Abbott to tweet about what white people love (regarding politics, of course – obviously it’s not racist to tweet about Brie and wearing beige).
Personally we don’t wish to even engage with what Diane Abbott was saying about white people loving to divide and conquer, but as social commentators, we find it necessary to address the content of her racist hate speech and the spectacular counter arguments that have come after it.
For readers who are not familiar with the term, divide and conquer refers to a political strategy of breaking up one group with power into two or more groups that have less power and are therefore easier to conquer and rule. This explanation alone shows what a ridiculous statement Abbott was making – how can white people love doing something that only rich white political leaders can actually carry out? There are obvious exceptions like Peter Tatchell, who is actually homeless and sleeps on a mattress on his friend’s floor but still loves to play Divide and Conquer on his iPhone and in real life, and companies that only hire one brown person at a time so they can’t form work factions, and my ex-boyfriend’s brother who orchestrated arguments between me and his wife so that we didn’t gang up on them and realise they were racist and dump them, but these are the exceptions that prove the rule, although there are so many of them they could fill this whole article we must press on. As many white people have pointed out, they are just ordinary white men – how can they possibly divide and conquer anyone when Diane Abbott sends her son to a private school outside her constituency and makes comments about walls? Can you believe she, a black woman sends her son to a private school?! How ridiculous! And then she dares to make comments about politics! Even more ridiculous!!
Furthermore, even if some white people do love to divide and conquer, is it really appropriate to say that all white people, or say that white people, love to divide and conquer? No. White people are not some kind of cohesive group that all love to do the same thing. White people have varied and wide reaching interests, ranging from sky diving to making homemade jam to fascism and everything in between, and they cannot all be summarised in one 134-word tweet. Have we got that clear everyone?
Diane Abbott has got it wrong: it is not white people who love playing divide and conquer, it is black people who love playing on Twitter and they should stop right now before they incur actual consequences like being asked by a man who looks like he is 12 years old but is actually leader of the Labour Party to apologise to Great Britain (called Great Britain because of its rise to colonial power in the late sixteenth century, more on this never) for making inappropriate remarks on a social networking site.
Let’s forget the past, the future of our Great Britain is in all our hands and a big shout out to the great Metropolitan Police and courts of Justice who deserve a big multicultural pat on the back for finally realising that white people sometimes, reiterate sometimes, do racist despicable things, it took them 18 years but they got there in the end and did we even notice the time it took with so much great stuff happening in our great country, NO of course not.
Peter Satchel on Saturday’s anti-English Defence League protest Aka Pink Toilet Paper
Like many other people, I went to last Saturday’s protest in East London first and foremost to gain publicity and oppose the far right English Defence League and to defend the Muslim community against EDL thuggery.
But I also wanted to stand in solidarity with Muslims who oppose far right Islamists because when you want to be islamaphobic, it’s best to try to get at least a few Muslims on your side. These fundamentalists threaten and intimidate the Muslim community; especially fellow Muslims who don’t conform to their harsh, intolerant interpretation of Islam. To varying degrees, both the Islamists and the EDL menace Muslim people.
In addition, I wanted to be visible as a gay man, to demonstrate that East London is not and never will be a “Gay-Free Zone” and to show that most lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people are not anti-Muslim; that there are LGBTs who want to work in solidarity with Muslim people to oppose all prejudice, discrimination and violence.
To these ends, my human rights campaign colleague Ashley McAlister and I joined the anti-EDL protest, carrying double-sided placards which read on one side: “Stop EDL & far right Islamists. No to ALL hate” and on the other side: “Gays & Muslims UNITE! Stop the EDL”. (Wow, I’ve said ‘Muslims’ so much it’s starting to sound weird. You know how like if you say the same word over and over again and eventually it like starts to lose all meaning…)
We got dirty looks from a small number of left-wing and LGBT anti-EDL protesters, some of whom said explicitly that our placards were “insensitive…provocative…inappropriate…divisive” and that I am “racist…fascist…anti-Muslim.” A few of them were probably also upset that our placard only mentioned gays, leaving out lesbians, bisexuals and trans people, but you can’t please everyone.
There was also hostility from a minority of Muslims who we identified easily because they all had brown faces who were part of the anti-EDL demonstration, including attempts to snatch and rip my placard. These fanatics mostly objected to the slogan: “Gays & Muslims UNITE! Stop the EDL”. I was surrounded several times throughout the day by angry Muslim youths who ordered me: “You must remove this placard…You can’t walk here with these words…We don’t allow gays in this area…Gays are not permitted here…We don’t have gays in Tower Hamlets.”
When I suggested that LGBT Muslims must also be defended against the EDL, I was told: “Gays can’t be Muslims…We will never accept them (LGBT Muslims)…They can’t come around here…We won’t allow it,” – a sentiment echoed in our placard ‘gays and Muslims unite’ which also implies that gays Muslims don’t exist and that any connection between gays and Muslims must actually come from non-Muslim gay rights activists who want to reach out to the right kind of Muslims in order to make friends and divide and influence people and conquer.
My response was to engage with these Muslims hotheads and argue against them. Yes, that’s right people – I spoke to real life Muslims! And not on the internet or anything – in London! It’s incredible, isn’t it? Photos to follow. The discussions got very heated; at times even menacing and scary which is an occupational hazard when you’re talking to brown people. There were moments when I thought I was going to be physically attacked. Thankfully, this did not happen, probably because there were police nearby who are always willing to represent the interests of people who have the same kind of skin as me and, more significantly, because several Muslims intervened to defend my right to be there and to express my viewpoint. Some Muslims even thanked me for joining the anti-EDL protest. Once again, I knew they were Muslim because they were brown. Good looking out guys.
In the course of the arguments, I diffused the natural inbuilt hostility of quite a few Muslim critics. I suggested that love and compassion were core Islamic values and that even if Muslims personally disapproved of homosexuality there is nothing in the Qu’ran that sanctions hatred or discrimination against LGBT people. Ha! I know, using their own Holy book against them – I came up with that one all by myself! Now I just have to learn how to pronounce it correctly and I’ll be on fire! Several eventually agreed that homophobia was wrong. Some shook my hand and parted with a more ‘live and let live’ attitude – a big improvement on their initial response. Which just goes to show that with the correct training, Muslims can actually act in a civilised manner. Although they should always be supervised.
This change in attitude as a result of Ashley and I being willing to engage in dialogue was really positive and inspiring. It shows how important and effective such an engagement can be. We need more of it. By more of it I mean more public events at which Ashley and I talk to initially aggressive Muslims and then tame them into civilised beings. Maybe we could make it into a TV show kind of like Super Nanny but with a racial twist? We could call it Super Gay?
Interestingly, there was very little overt, identifiable Muslim hostility to our placard slogan: “Stop EDL & far right Islamists. No to ALL hate.” There were a few nasty, aggressive looks but that’s all. Indeed, several Muslims indicated that they also oppose the Islamist far right. They realise that extremist groups like Islam4UK and Hizb ut-Tahrir, which want to establish a religious dictatorship, threaten the human rights of mainstream Muslims, and they came to these conclusions all by themselves! Bless their cottons. These fundamentalists have a similar bigoted agenda to the EDL and BNP. Yes, that’s right, I did it – I compared Muslim ‘fundamentalists’ to the EDL and the BNP. Yes I’m aware this is a public forum.
Our experience on Saturday is further evidence that we need an East End Gay Pride that goes through the heart of the Muslim community in E1, to engage with the Muslim communities and build mutual understanding. Maybe like that one we almost had earlier this year that may or may not have been set up by members of the EDL, in response to anti LGBT posters put up around the area that may or may not have been created by members of the EDL. Either way I need another event to go to so I can write an article in The Guardian about it.
Interestingly, there were lots of LGBT protesters against the EDL. I knew they were LGBT protestors because they were all singing Judy Garland songs. But I never saw a single one with a gay badge, placard, t-shirt or rainbow flag. It was as if they’d all gone back in the closet. Why? Normally, on other demos, they always proclaim their LGBT identity. How strange. Ashley McAlister and I were the only visibly gay protesters in the entire anti-EDL demonstration. And yes, we did stop every single protestor and body scan them for Western symbols of LGBTness, before you ask.
The people who called for the anti-EDL protest to be called off were mistaken. In the absence of a visible counter-protest, the EDL would have been able to rally unchallenged and claim a victory. It would have sent the wrong signal if the EDL had been permitted to claim any part of East London as its own.
Saturday’s peaceful protest against the EDL was important because it showed that most of our communities are united in solidarity and that we will not be divided by the hate-mongering of the far right. Hopefully the only divisions will be between Muslims we approve of and Muslims we hate. By we I mean me and Ashley.
What too many anti-fascists refuse to acknowledge is that Islamist fundamentalism mirrors the right-wing ideology of the EDL (and the BNP). In fact, the Islamist goals are much more dangerous. They want to establish a theocratic tyranny, ban trade unions and political parties and deny women equal human rights. They endorse hatred and violence against Jewish, Hindu and LGBT people. Muslims who don’t follow their particular brand of Islam would face severe persecution in their Islamist state. These fanatical sects condone terrorism and the suicide bombing of innocent civilians. Not even the BNP and EDL are this extreme. At least, not to me.
The failure of many people on the Left to speak out against Islamist fundamentalism is de facto collusion with extremism and a betrayal of the Muslim majority. As an unofficial spokesperson for the Muslim Majority, I should report that this betrayal is very upsetting. It also creates a political vacuum, which the EDL is seeking to exploit and manipulate. I’m calling it the Dyson effect. Basically, think of people who don’t criticise Islam as your household vacuum cleaner bag, and think of the EDL as one of those attachments for doing rugs or upholstery. Or substitute this analogy for one that makes sense – either way, everyone should hate on Islam more.
Some anti-fascists argue that we should not condemn the Islamists because this will fuel anti-Muslim sentiment. Wrong. Protesting against the fundamentalists and defending mainstream Muslims is actually the most effective way to undermine Islamophobia. We know this because we have been criticising Islam for quite a few years now and Islamophobia is pretty much dead as a result of our hard work. Which is a good thing otherwise the ELD would pose quite a genuine threat to Muslims! But as it stands, the biggest threat to Muslims is other Muslims.
In the absence of a left-wing critique of the Islamist far right, the EDL is able to pose as the sole critic of Islamist extremism and to mount indiscriminate attacks on the whole Muslim community. And yes I did mention earlier that some Muslims oppose the Islamist far right, but they’re not left-wing, they’re Muslims. So they don’t count as critics. What we need is some real white left-wing people to hate Muslims. Well, obviously there are already quite a few, but we need more of them. More and more and more white people hating Muslims. And none of them have to worry about looking racist because the EDL are the real racists so just go for it! Fill your boots.
This silence and inaction by many on the left is objectively (albeit unintentionally) colluding with both fundamentalist fanaticism and anti-Muslim prejudice. That’s right: by not publicly hating Muslims, you’re not only encouraging groups like the EDL to hate Muslims, you’re also colluding with ‘fundamentalist fanaticists’ (read: Muslim we don’t like).
To be credible and effective, opponents of the EDL need to be consistent by also taking a stand against right-wing Islamists. I know this seems weird because the EDL also claim to be taking a stand against right-wing Islamists, but trust me on this one – it’s the only way. Only this way can we offer a principled alternative to the EDL that isolates and targets the extremists without demonising the whole Muslim population. Oh did you notice my use of military language? “Isolate” and “target”? Yeah, I’ve been watching a lot of old war movies. It’s been a fun weekend. Peace out.
Kinky Salon London
Dear Kinky Salon Friends,
We’d like to take a moment to “apologise” to anyone who we upset or offended in the presentation of our Spring party and to thank them for providing Kinky Salon London with the opportunity for growth and improvement. Isn’t it great how life furnishes white people with so many opportunities? Thanks guys!
For those members of our community who might be unaware of this, some visitors to our Facebook event page raised objections to aspects of the jungle theme that we originally put forward. The arguments are summarised here. Although only a small number of the people who objected have ever been to a Kinky Salon party (and let’s face it: people of colour who haven’t attended a Kinky Salon party have no worthwhile life experiences and don’t know what they’re talking about when it comes to racism), we take all feedback into consideration and have written to each of our critics personally (with a generic message). We acknowledge that some people found our literary references particularly careless (and we do admit that we can be careless – the other day we put milk in the cupboard instead of the fridge. Imagine!) and that for others a jungle theme itself is uncomfortable. By others we mean the other, as in, people of colour, and by uncomfortable, we mean the kind of feeling you get when you wear trousers that are too tight. In failing to take these perspectives into account, aspects of our original theme were interpreted by some as naive and insensitive to issues of race and imperialism (sorry if this sentence is a little long – it’s the result of an informal contest we held to see who could talk the longest about racism without using the actual word racism). We are grateful to those who have opened our eyes to this. We could have gone to Specsavers but we opted to get this kind of eye care for free, from people of colour.
Kinky Salon is all about the ridiculous, playful and risque. Our party themes always touch on pop culture iconography in a way that may not be to everyone’s taste (and yes, we do think Heart of Darkness and The Jungle Book are part of popular culture. We are sure that the kids are reading them just as often as they are watching Southpark and accessing Twitter), but the aim is always first and foremost to poke fun at ourselves and always secondly and subtextually to enjoy racism in new and interesting ways. Disclaimer: We cannot be sure that we will never make mistakes, nor can we guarantee that no-one will ever be offended. We accept no or only moderate responsibility for any offences caused and no compensation will ever be paid. But we can promise that we never have and never will set out to cause deliberate offence or hurt to people in our community. This promise cannot be exchanged for actual anti racism and cannot be used in conjunction with any of our other empty promises. It is our responsibility as organisers, therefore, to ensure that the signals we send to the outside world leave no room for doubt on our commitment to inclusivity (so it’s basically our responsibility to keep up our reputation. We’re more interested in our brand’s name than we are interested in not making people of colour experience our racism).
Accordingly we have decided to cancel (well, we actually decided not to cancel because it’s such a hassle once people have bought tickets and now that we’ve got the venue sorted out and everything… well, you know how it is. So we did a name-change instead.) the jungle themed party and hold a party with a new theme and name – “ECO-SEXUAL: A Nature-ists’ Paradise” – on the same night (you might notice that this theme isn’t as dissimilar to the original jungle theme as, for example, an IT themed night, or a Winchester themed night. The truth is, three of us have purchased matching tree costumes and they were pretty expensive. They are not returnable and we can’t sell them on Gumtree). Ticketholders have already been informed of this change, with a fresh set of dressup inspirations, by email. Even though these inspirations are super fresh, they’re still kind of offensive, so they’re not included here.
The Kinky Salon London crew reflects its wider community in that we are not of one sexuality, nor one colour, gender or political standpoint. As a result it has taken us a little time to discuss and come up with a solution that we can all agree on. Are you wondering how having more than one sexuality or gender present makes it difficult to apologise for racism promptly? We weren’t sure either, but we put it in anyway – we think it makes us look more diverse and less offensive. We thank you for your patience (what we mean is we criticised people of colour who we thought were being impatient and lectured them on how we’re all volunteers [although to be fair it’s not like the people of colour objecting are getting paid by the Anti Racist Council of London or anything] and how it takes time to make decisions about what to do about racist events that we’ve organised. Even though they collectively came up with a solution pretty quickly. But their solution was to cancel the party altogether, and we’ve already talked about what a hassle that would have been) and invite anyone who wants to participate in the work-in-progress that is Kinky Salon to get on board. In other words, even though we are clearly not capable of planning parties that are not completely racist, we have no intention of stepping down. If you have a problem with that, come and work for us for free.
Yours,
The Kinky Salon London Crew
The Spring Event Debate: Arguments in Full (when we say full we really mean we have butchered the very clear arguments made by people of colour)
With reference to our Spring 2011 event at the statement published here we would like to summarise some of the arguments made against the theme that was originally suggested.
Please note that we are not directly quoting from anyone and instead the lines below badly paraphrase arguments that were stated in alternative terms by those who presented objections.
Objections include:
- That putting on a jungle-themed party is inherently racist and cannot be staged without inevitably drawing upon racial stereotypes, even if they are not specifically mentioned. Sorry, did you guys get that bit? That racial stereotypes weren’t specifically mentioned? Not specifically? Yeah, you got that bit? That last bit in the sentence? About the racial stereotypes? About us not being specific about the racial stereotypes? You all got that bit? Good. Now please put us in a different category to the really bad racists, the ones that would specifically mention racial stereotypes. Oh by the way, did you notice how we keep saying ‘racial stereotypes’ instead of ‘racist stereotypes’? It’s not a typo.
- That putting on a jungle-themed party shows racial naivety and a lack of consideration to the jungle’s historical connections to racism and imperialism. It’s the jungles historical connections to racism that are at fault. In fact, it’s all the jungle’s fault. Not ours. The jungle’s. Fucking racist jungle.
- That we had not sufficiently addressed the way white supremacy is often tied to our ideas about sexuality. see: http://www.ferris.edu/jimcrow/jezebel/
In fact, we had not addressed this issue at all! As you can see from our ‘apology’, we don’t intend to either! Isn’t that hilarious??
- That the connection of a party that pertains to be sex-positive to tribal costumes, apes and so on, carries with it a subtext of racism and imperialism, and therefore fails to be sex-positive for everyone, although it is sex positive for white people, and that is something that makes us really happy. That’s why we’re carrying on organising parties. It makes us so fucking happy.
- That the way we presented this particular jungle-themed party, with a title parodying The Jungle Book, drew upon a text that is often interpreted as imperialist and racist. See: http://movies.dowse.com/junglebook_article.html
Just for clarification, when Kinky Salon London use the term ‘parody’ or ‘subvert’ or ‘play with’, you can expect to see themes reproduced exactly as offensively as they were first displayed in their original context. What makes it parody is the fact that we’re so fucking kinky and above everyone else. If anyone else did it, it would, of course, be extremely oppressive.
- That the dress-up suggestions, referencing books/films like Heart of Darkness, The African Queen, and Tarzan drew upon texts containing narratives that are often interpreted as racist – see Wikipedia. Haha, if only we’d seen Wikipedia ourselves, right? Ha! Actually we had plenty of opportunity to rethink our racist party theme. It was drawn to our attention way before tickets were sold and guests were invited. We decided to go ahead with it even though people said it was racist. That’s just the kind of forward thinking, go-ahead people we are.
- That the notion of a party at which some white guests might choose to wear costumes that reference empire or colonialism demonstrates considerable insensitivity to Britain’s history of racism and imperialism. We used the term ‘insensitivity’ here because we’re hoping it will give rise to accusations of ‘oversensitivity’ aimed at people of colour. (For obvious reasons, we try to use the word ‘racist’ as little as possible.)
- That the notion of a party in which some guests regardless of race might choose to wear costumes that draw upon pop culture tropes of ethnic minorities represents cultural appropriation. Again with the euphemisms. For anyone not familiar with whiteyspeak, ‘represents cultural appropriation’ means ‘is racist’.
- That parody, when it references dominant, historical narratives that stereotype race, often alienates and marginalises people of colour. Actually, parody, when it references dominant, historical narratives that stereotype race, always alienates and marginalises people of colour, but ‘often’ just makes us sound so much less racist. Doesn’t it? We think so. Oh, and remember what we said earlier about parody? Don’t waste your time looking for the things that make it parody instead of old school racism – there are no differentiating features. It’s just that whilst Conrad is long dead, we’re alive and kinky, giving us leave to reproduce his racism in the name of parody.
- That some individuals have experienced racial slurs connected to the tropes we made use of in our event text, and found our use of them insensitive and hurtful. Do you like how we’ve made these individuals sound all kind of infantile and childlike with our use of the terms ‘insensitive’ and ‘hurtful’? Poor babies. Let’s pity them and infantalise them and objectify them and exoticise them and cry for them and cry over them and use them as objects in our racist sexual fantasies. Forever.
- That Kinky Salon is an inclusive space and we had failed, on this occasion, to give full consideration to our commitment to inclusivity. We decided to add ‘on this occasion’ so people can give us props for having hosted parties that were not completely racist in the past. Credit where credit’s due and all that. We’re so pleased with ourselves that we’re going to leave the ‘arguments in full’ there, even though we soooo didn’t get through them all, and go and sit in what we call a KSL back patting circle (we basically all sit in a circle and pat each other and ourselves on the back and talk about how great we are.). Peace out.
