To:    Thinkingallowed@bbc.co.uk
Re:    The BBC, the ideology of the "melting pot" and why we are so afraid of our own xenophobia
Date:  Tuesday 15 August 06

Dear Laurie et al. at Thinking Allowed,

I happened to catch a bit of BBC Radio London's Vanessa Felz Show on Monday morning (with Julia Botfield standing in for Ms Felz), where one of the topics being discussed was ethnic minority representation on British TV. In formulating an email response, I was reminded of a Thinking Allowed broadcast (29 March 06) in which you discussed with Dr Bridget Byrne of Manchester University her book, "White Lives",  and she referred to "a time beyond race", which I picked up on in an email to you (sent 30/03/06).

The following week, you read out a part of my email, but didn't answer my question about the meaning of "a time beyond race".

As my email to the Vanessa Felz Show (below) indicates, I think I have worked out the answer for myself:

 
Dear Julia (Ms Botfield),

 It is refreshing to hear people finally talking (on the BBC of all places!) about the disproportionate number of ethnic minority (especially black and mixed-race) people appearing on our TV screens, especially on the BBC and even more especially on its children's programmes.

The ideology behind this, of course, although no one dares mention it, is that of the "melting pot" (the blurring and erasure of racial distinctions as a means of eradicating racism and advancing globalization). Britain's "hideously white" and still dominant native European population is to be increasingly replaced by people of mixed-race and by non-European immigrants (most of whom it is assumed will in time become mixed-race as well). According to this ideology, race doesn't matter (even its existence is questioned), and anyone (or rather, any white person) who thinks or feels otherwise is a "racist".

Far from increasing racial and cultural diversity, as claimed (except temporarily at the beginning of the process, which is where we are at the moment), the melting pot will greatly reduce and ultimately destroy them, all human diversity being the result of populations having been isolated in the past.

At the moment, all discussion of this vitally important subject is suppressed as "racist"

This will (has to) change. And the sooner the better.

Best regards etc.

The End

So, Laurie, what do you think? Is this not an important and interesting enough topic for Thinking Allowed?
 
If anyone thinks (aloud or to themselves) that a lid can be kept on this subject until the melting is done and potential conflicts dissolved (which, consciously or otherwise, is the attitude taken at the BBC), they are very much mistaken. There are too many good arguments against the melting pot, the loss of human diversity being the most important. Besides which, human nature will not allow it to happen. If we go on suppressing our feelings of racial identity they will eventually express themselves violently and irrationally, with a very real danger of very real and nasty racism taking hold.
 
Instead of suppressing it, we need to discuss this subject openly and work out how to deal with it consciously, in a humane and civilized fashion.

There are a number of reasons, I would like to suggest, why we are so afraid of doing this. Firstly, because it would undermine the nation states (i.e. the principal power structures) which comprise multi-ethnic societies (especially America, but increasingly Britain and other West European states as well). Secondly, because we (ethnic Europeans) are still under shock from what the insane racial doctrines of the Nazis led to and are thus terrified of attributing any significance to race whatsoever (the fear of xenophobia has led, perversely, to the self-imposed insistence that we embrace it and learn to love it). Thirdly, everything revolves around and is subordinated to an economy, rooted in our primitive animal nature, which only cares about the "colour of your money" (see The root causes of non-sustainability). Fourthly, suppressing (i.e. claiming not to have) a sense of racial identity and condemning those who do as "racist" is a very effective way, in current circumstances, at least, for white people, especially so-called "progressives", to acquire and defend the "moral high ground" against other white people (their main rivals), with the social status and advantages which go with it.

 
BBC Radio 4 - Thinking Allowed
 



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