Several British and international media outlets and pundits have commented recently on how the ongoing Tory leadership race was “surprisingly” diverse as the party fielded a number of candidates of colour who hail from minority backgrounds.
Indeed, in the final leg of the race stands Rishi Sunak, the Indian origin former chancellor who, since betraying his old boss Boris Johnson, now seeks to take the top seat at Downing Street.
These pundits are perhaps only surprised by Tory diversity because of a history of racism that has tainted the party to the extent that it has merited the authoring of several books.
Johnson himself is no stranger to allegations of racism, particularly the racialised abuse he heaped on Muslim women who cover themselves - he compared them to bank robbers and letterboxes. That outburst led to a 375 percent spike in anti-Muslim incidences in the week after he made those hateful remarks.
In a party such as this, how is it that it is fielding contenders from diverse ethnic backgrounds for the post of prime minister? Are the Tories simply misunderstood? Or is there something else at play?
Pandering to the base
The answer, of course, is whiteness. Before we press on, it is important to caveat that I am not blaming white people writ large for all the ills of the world. Rather, I am talking about a concept, one that thrives on the insecurities of those seeking a greater station in their adoptive home - the UK - far from their brown or black origins.
Take the former home secretary and chancellor, Sajid Javid, for instance. As a Tory politician from a Pakistani Muslim background, Javid has reached well beyond what many British Muslims can hope to achieve. He rose the social ladder despite job discrimination against Muslim men and women and anti-Muslim attitudes reaching unprecedented levels in recent years. He has held several senior offices of state, and has even vied for the government’s top job.
Yet there is a reason why many British Pakistanis speak of him in unflattering terms, referring to him as a “coconut”, “Uncle Tom”, and a “House Muslim” – leading the politician to rant that he was being subjected to racist abuse through the use of these terms, likely in order to silence criticism and debate from the community he has repeatedly claimed he is representative of.
Javid has long been known to downplay his Pakistani identity, and especially his Muslimness. He has gone out of his way to talk about how his family tradition is to “snog” under mistletoe every Christmas and to say that he practises no religion, which is of course entirely his right. However, if he chooses to abandon his Muslim identity and heritage, he is then similarly disqualified from commenting on anti-Muslim hatred as a “native” in order to provide cover to his Tory colleagues, including Johnson.
Yet Javid did so, once more donning the Muslim cloak during an interview with Andrew Marr in 2019 in order to contradict another British Muslim Tory politician, Baroness Sayeeda Warsi, who has repeatedly gone on the record criticising her own party for having an anti-Muslim sentiment.
Returning to prime ministerial frontrunner Rishi Sunak, again we find many examples of how this son of African Hindu migrants of Indian origin has done his level best to pander to the baser instincts of the Little Englanders that he thinks his future prospects rely on, all while playing up his East African and Indian roots in campaign videos.
Despite Sunak and his family being obvious beneficiaries of immigration that gave him so many opportunities in the United Kingdom and elsewhere, Sunak was not only avidly pro-Brexit – with all the tropes that campaign relied on by portraying Britain being at breaking point – but has since doubled down with anti-migrant rhetoric, pledging to crackdown on migration while doubling the number of foreigners deported over minor crimes. While getting rid of a criminal element is never a bad thing, there are distasteful undertones here, especially as the UK migration system is already infamous for its lack of fairness and its discriminatory policies.
Sunak has also gone a step further, targeting Muslims in yet more dogwhistle anti-Muslim hatred by vowing to widen the definition of “Islamist terrorism” and would add “vilification” of the UK to the definition of extremism if elected by the party membership. In other words, and if Sunak had his way, many of us who have actively criticised British foreign policy and military adventurism in Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere could find ourselves being accused of vilifying our country and being branded as extremists, deserving of punishment.
Diversity as a masquerade
There are obviously a number of reasons why people like Sunak and Javid behave the way they do, but primary among them is the quest for acceptance in a society where they have frequently been exposed to racist abuse, with both having described the pain it causes.
Rather than stand up to that racism, taking advantage of their positions of power and influence to ensure it not only does not happen to them again, but is stamped out wherever it is found across society, these politicians have instead decided that racism is part and parcel of the system they have aligned themselves with and continue to seek to serve.
They have internalised these racist attitudes that have stung them personally so deeply, and normalised it to such a degree that they not only cover up for them, but they also engender them by proposing new policies, each more radical than the next, in a desperate attempt to prove that they are not as brown – in the cases of the two men mentioned above – as their chosen audience thinks they are. They are malleable. They know how to “get with the programme”. They will desperately try to prove that, even as prime minister, they will know their place and will not rock the boat.
Far from the Tories being diverse, they have in fact only shown that there truly is a glass ceiling in British politics for people of colour and different cultural and religious beliefs that do not align with the white establishment. Their most diverse candidates are positively falling over themselves to prove how assimilated rather than integrated they are, simply showing that, after all, you really can have different shades of white.
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Source: TRT World
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The White House said Friday that it finds the stabbing of author Salman Rushdie "reprehensible" and Biden administration officials are praying for his recovery.
Rushdie was stabbed multiple times before a speech at the Chautauqua Institution in Chautauqua, New York, on Friday. The attacker allegedly rushed onto the stage and stabbed him in the neck. Rushdie is undergoing surgery at a local hospital.
"Today, the country and the world witnessed a reprehensible attack against the writer Salman Rushdie," White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said in a statement. "This act of violence is appalling. All of us in the Biden-Harris Administration are praying for his speedy recovery."
NEW YORK POLICE IDENTIFY MAN WHO ALLEGEDLY STABBED SALMAN RUSHDIE
Salman Rushdie was stabbed multiple times before a speech at the Chautauqua Institution in Chautauqua, New York, on Friday. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis, File)
"We are thankful to good citizens and first responders for helping Mr. Rushdie so quickly after the attack and to law enforcement for its swift and effective work, which is ongoing," he continued.
A State Trooper assigned to the event at the Chautauqua Institution took the suspect, identified as 24-year-old Hadi Matar, into custody immediately after the attack, New York State Police said. The event moderator also suffered a minor head injury.
Andrew Wylie, an agent for Rushdie, told The New York Times that the writer is on a ventilator and is unable to speak.
STABBING OF SALMAN RUSHDIE COMES 33 YEARS AFTER FATWA ISSUED ON HIS LIFE BY IRAN
The attacker allegedly rushed onto the stage and stabbed Rushdie in the neck. (Photo by Evan Agostini/Invision/AP, File)
"The news is not good," Wylie said. "Salman will likely lose one eye; the nerves in his arm were severed; and his liver was stabbed and damaged."
Rushdie has lived under the threat of a fatwa on his life after Iran's Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini condemned his book, "The Satanic Verses," as blasphemy in 1989 and called for the author's death. The book was also banned in Iran. A fatwa is a decree from an Islamic religious leader.
Iran has offered more than $3 million for anyone who kills Rushdie.
Rushdie has lived under the threat of a fatwa on his life after Iran's Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini condemned his book, "The Satanic Verses," as blasphemy in 1989 and called for the author's death. ((Photo by Jerod Harris/Getty Images))
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Iran's government has since distanced itself from Khomeini’s decree, but Rushdie still faced opposition. A semi-official Iranian religious foundation raised a bounty for Rushdie in 2012 from $2.8 million to $3.3 million.
Fox News' Adam Sabes and Andrew Mark Miller contributed to this report.
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"The Next Revolution" host Steve Hilton examined the record of California Gov. Gavin Newsom in his opening monologue on Sunday, warning viewers about the policies of the California Democrat who is now being viewed as a potential Biden successor.
NEWSOM SIGNS GUN CONTROL BILL MODELED AFTER TEXAS ABORTION LAW
STEVE HILTON: Everyone knows Biden can't possibly run in 2024…but according to all the reports from Washington insiders, Democrats absolutely don't want the obvious choice, Vice President Kamala Harris to be their candidate instead. So amazingly, almost overnight… California Gov. Gavin Newsom has become the favorite to be the next Democratic presidential nominee.
But what could we expect from him?… He closed California public schools earlier and before anyone else… just under half the kids in California meet the state's standards for English. With math, a third of the kids are proficient in math… and that is great because as California Democrats have established, math is ‘racist.’ Now, We say that all this woke madness actually hurts Black kids the most. But that's just the narrative. Gavin has the facts. There is definitely one area where California is leading the nation: illiteracy. California has the lowest literacy rate of any state… isn't that the kind of transformative leadership America needs?
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Look, I love California. I am not leaving, I'm staying to fight for change. But take it from someone who lives here. These policies, these far-left extremist policies pushed by Gavin Newsom and the California Democrats, that is the last thing America needs.
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WATCH STEVE HILTON'S FULL MONOLOGUE FROM ‘THE NEXT REVOLUTION’ BELOW:
