Sunday, August 14, 2011

David Starkey and black culture

James Delingpole on Starkey's views of the British riots:
The part of the programme which seems to have most got the Left’s goat is the one where David Starkey says that “the whites have become black.” But again, 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? Or does anyone, perhaps, want to persuade me that this is but one tiny and much-exaggerated facet of a broader black culture dominated by opera and madrigal singing and crochet and sonnet-construction and lawn bowls and Shakespeare and new translations of Ovid? If they are capable of doing so then maybe, just maybe, I might accept that there was something demeaning or reductive in Starkey’s comments on black culture. Problem is, I don’t think anyone can. (And I speak, by the way, as someone who quite likes his hop hop and who is very much into the new Kanye West/Jay Z album. But who, listening to it, can’t help noticing that it’s rather more a celebration of gats, hos, casual sex and easy money, than it is an invocation for study, hard work and social conformity.)

To pillory a man for pointing out such a glaringly obvious cultural fact just because he’s white and Right-wing would have been quite wrong even before the riots. Post riots it is positively obscene.

Not just obscene, in fact, but dangerous. Of course, we expect the BBC not to get it. Like the Guardian – and the Labour party – the BBC created the culture that led to these riots, so it’s hardly surprising if it carries on playing the old PC game like the 80s and 90s never went away. But if an up and coming member of Cameron’s Tories hasn’t got the message then we seriously need to worry. The riots were a game changer. The decent majority of this country has moved on. If what David Starkey said was racist, then so are we all.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Great page. But I lost some faith when I read that you like rap ("hip-hop" always sounds so presumptious; I'm sorry -- can't help it.) Kanyz and Jay-Z? I wish it bothered more males that they are encouraging everyone to think of young females as gold-diggers, hookers, and sex toys, while encouraging young guys to see pimping as their highest goal. And as for older people - well, they may as well be thrown out with the trash now, since they're no good for any of the above occupations.

They also encourage extreme racism and train kids against any kind of authority who might be white (as a former inner-city teacher, I can tell ya, they hate us on sight and so do their parents.)

Ir disgusts me no end that the People's House (or "my house", as barry likes to call it) is a common (no pun intended) hang-out for rappers these days.

And I hate to see a site that makees so much damn sense as yours does and that absolutely nails disfunctional black (etc) behavior, then turn around and you say you like (and buy? help support? help make rich? encourage more from?) these rappers who daily show their contempt for conservatives and people like you and me.

Give it a second thought, would ya? You're supporting the very worst characteristics of racism and the ol' "white privilege" guilt trip that gave us this insane marxist muslim as president...plus, it makes others wonder -- what are the qualifications for quality these days, if this is not stigmatized, but celebrated?

It's okay to make mass appeal commercial product based on themes that are destroying not just the U.S., but Western civilization??

It's a lot more than just "enjoying (your) hip-hop." when you look at it in anything but a shallow way.

This is a very serious topic for me. I've been pointing these facts out for decades and am not surprised to see the result of the first generation raised from
infancy on rap.

Why not brawl and beat up white people when you've been told to since toddlerhood? And it hurts blacks, too -- at least, whites see it as a stage for a couple of immature, jr high years, while blacks live the life till they're 40 or 50.

Thanks for listening to the rant. And give it some thought, huh?

Average Joe said...

Actually the excerpt above is from a piece written by James Delingpole in the British newspaper the Daily Telegraph. I myself do not like rap music. I think the reason Delingpole says he likes rap is an attempt to head off the "you just hate black people" line of defense that liberals use whenever conservatives make valid criticisms of blacks and their "culture".