Is the Holocaust really unique among genocides?
This morning, I heard a discussion on the Vanessa Feltz show (which I don’t listen to much now, except when I’m in the shower — that’s what comes of being out of work!) about...
Category: Racism
Jack Straw wields the wooden spoon again
So, the vicious old creep Jack Straw has yet again stirred up trouble for Muslims in the UK, this time with comments on the recent “Asian grooming scandal” involving groups of men of Pakistani...
Yes, the law DOES apply to middle-class White people
This past week or so, there have been two major news stories in the UK about men arrested for saying things on the Internet that made a strong suggestion of violence that may not...
Will we ever punish cops who kill?
Last night I saw a Crimewatch appeal for information regarding the murder of PC Keith Blakelock, a policeman who was murdered during riots on the Broadwater Farm estate in north London in 1985. Blakelock...
Juneteenth and Helen Keller: fabricating a controversy
Just over a week ago, the team behind the blog FWD/Forward decided to hold a "blogswarm" dedicated to busting myths about Helen Keller and demonstrating that there was more to her than the "water...
When your cosmetics make others ill
Student kicked out of class because of her hair product? This article got flagged up on Facebook: an African-American schoolgirl was kicked out of class by a white teacher in Seattle because her hair...
What part of this is a privilege?
Black Women are Perceived as a Threat (from Womanist Musings) I wrote about the relationship of Muslims to "white privilege" here last May as part of a carnival organised by Brooke of Rolling Ruminations,...
Israel and old South Africa made ready allies
Today's Guardian had an exclusive story on how South Africa negotiated the purchase of nuclear weapons from Israel in the 1970s, and that there are documents that prove that Israel in fact had the...
Defamation: perception and reality of anti-Semitism
Defamation, a documentary researched and presented by the Israeli journalist Yoav Shamir, was part of More4’s True Stories slot and was on Tuesday night. The idea that anti-Semitism was somewhat overhyped and used to...
Supreme Court bans JFS racial discrimination
Today, the British Supreme Court ruled that the policy of the Jews’ Free School (or JFS) of taking converts to Judaism only when they had been through one denomination’s conversion ritual rather than another...
The Spectator: where arrogant privilege meets bigotry
Rod Liddle has managed to outdo himself this past week, with two shockingly bigoted and ignorant articles on the Spectator's website the same day. One of them is in support of the ban on...
The Swiss minaret law and its implications
I've been asked to offer my opinion on the result of yesterday's referendum on minarets in Switzerland, perhaps inevitably. I had expected such a law to be passed, contrary to the opinion polls which...
No point debating racists
New Statesman – There’s nothing to debate about racism Mehdi Hasan, the NS’s senior politics editor, on why racism should be condemned and fought, not indulged and appeased: I recently sat in a radio...
Panorama: hate on the estate (updated)
There is a Panorama programme on tonight (BBC1, 8:30pm BST) about two Asian Muslim journalists who spent two months undercover in a Bristol housing estate, and encountered overt racist hostility, including both name-calling (Paki,...
He didn’t just call her a Paki
So, I’m sure everyone in the UK has heard that Anton du Beke (a BBC presenter and Strictly Come Dancing contestant) told his partner Laila Rouass, after she had applied a fake tan, “you...
File on 4 investigates football racists
BBC – BBC Radio 4 Programmes – File on 4, 22/09/2009 File on 4 investigates the football hooligan racists who have been going around causing trouble in various British cities. They claim to be...
If it looks like a bloke …
Last week, a South African female runner who won the gold medal by a very clear margin (albeit because of a surge in the last minute or so) in the World Athletics Championships in...
Sterilisation: it wasn’t just the Nazis
Recently the papers and talk shows have been abuzz about a woman in her thirties who has had thirteen babies, all of whom have been taken away from her — most of them at...
Further evidence of Human Rights Commission incompetence
Moi Ali on the incompetence of the Equality and Human Rights Commission | Society | The Guardian This appeared on the front page of the Guardian Society supplement today, and was flagged up on...
Big Trev’s leadership pushes out equality staff
Perhaps to my discredit, I have not taken a great interest in the workings of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, the successor to several official equality commissions set up to monitor various anti-discrimination...