Why Lee Jasper is wrong: White people don't have a monopoly on racism

By Lindsay Johns for the Daily Mail

Published: 10:42 GMT, 1 May 2012 | Updated: 10:42 GMT, 1 May 2012

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A brave man? On a radio show, Lee Jasper re-stated his belief that black people cannot be racist

Lee Jasper, Ken Livingstone’s former policy advisor on race and equalities, is a very brave man. I say brave because he recently propounded a thesis which, on the face of it, many people will think so unbelievably asinine, so ridiculously risible and so phenomenally facile, that only an exceedingly brave man could ever possibly hope to defend it successfully without losing all vestige of intellectual credibility.

On Sunday night in a BBC London radio show Jasper again articulated his conviction that black people cannot be racist. Re-iterating his blanket assertion, Jasper conceded that, in regards to a specifically British context (since, according to him, racism equals prejudice plus power), since no black people in this country are in any positions of power, therefore black people cannot be racist.

He was quick, it must be said, to clarify his proposition and concede that black people can in theory, if not in practice, be as racially offensive or prejudiced as any other group, but stressed that, in the UK, being devoid of real power (i.e. institutional power) for him meant that racism on the part of black people is technically impossible.

I do not know Mr. Jasper. As it happens, I do not particularly care for any brand of consciously inflammatory politics and I have written before here of my wariness to embrace self-appointed “community leaders”, since there is a hubris about their posturing which is unsightly. But on one level, I admire his passionate desire to extirpate racial prejudice and uplift a historically disadvantaged segment of the population. In the broader historical scheme of things, such demotic firebrands are both valuable and necessary to progress, even if some of the things they say may be unpalatable, ill-conceived or just plain stupid.

Semantic nuance aside, it should be clear to any sane individual that Jasper’s reasoning is wrong. My rudimentary command of logic and syllogisms notwithstanding, his starting definition is clearly faulty. Racism is not merely about possessing the power to implement one’s prejudices. Racism, by common definition and understanding, is making a pejorative judgement about someone based on their race. Black people are human beings. All human beings have the ability to be racist. Ergo black people can be racist too.

Disbelief: It should be clear to most that Jasper's reasoning is wrong

It would also be disingenuous to deny that much racial tension can and does exist between various peoples of colour. For example, many African nations do not like each other very much, as is sadly the case with many African and Caribbean people. Likewise, many Asians are very prejudiced against black people, and vice versa. Many of these attitudes have come about as a result of European “divide and rule” colonial politics. Many of them, equally, have not. But it suffices to say that racism is nowadays not just the white man’s malaise. As hard as it is for those accustomed to the old binary to accept, white people in 2012 do not have the monopoly on racism. That in itself is a sign of social and racial progress, of which Jasper should be proud.

Of course black British people, like people anywhere, can be racist. Yet “Can black British people be racist?” and “Do black British people in the main have jobs which give them the power to implement their prejudices?” are two very different questions, which Jasper should not have confused. In fairness to Jasper, it is probably true that many black British people, in the course of their everyday lives, do not have much opportunity to put a (hypothetical) racial prejudice into serious practice, in a way that they have often been on the receiving end of for several decades, if not centuries. The majority of the positions of tangible power are still occupied (rather unsurprisingly, given the country’s overwhelming population demographic) by white people. Yet there are others who do now have that power.

On further consideration, this is ultimately, as with most debates which purport to be about race, far more about class. The slow, but now very welcome emergence of the still painfully nascent black British middle class has finally begun to bring with it the occupation of positions of power and responsibility. Not many, admittedly and certainly not as many as there should be, but nonetheless some. For example, there are now more than a handful of people of colour who are commissioning editors in TV and radio, columnists in national newspapers, together with MPs, bankers, barristers and museum curators. As our numbers continue to improve over time, this will doubtless prove Jasper’s assertion wrong.

Bigger problem: As with most debates about racism, the issue inevitably comes down to class

Moreover, what Jasper sadly fails to acknowledge in his blanket assertion - and what makes it so contentious and thus inflammatory - is that British society has, thankfully and undeniably, changed for the better since the 70s and 80s – the heady days of the struggle for racial equality, of which Jasper was, undoubtedly, a crucial and valuable part. Being stuck in a prism of overtly racialized rhetoric in 2012 which harks back thirty or forty years is at best unhelpful to present day race relations and at worst downright dangerous.

At best, Jasper’s argument is, although well-intentioned, fallacious, as it is overly simplistic, spectacularly Manichean in its polarity and manifests a paucity of intellectual subtlety. At worst, his assertion divests black people of being the agents of their own destiny and reduces them yet again to the status of perennial victims needing special treatment.

For all the very real woes and horrendous evils done to black people over the centuries - evils which must never be forgotten or downplayed, and from which many people are still suffering the consequences - going to the other extreme and wallowing in a state of perpetually racialized victimhood and seeking special dispensations is counter-productive, as the historical inequality and disadvantage such a position purports to correct, in the overwhelming majority of cases, has the reverse consequence and actually engenders more, not less resentment and prejudice in the white population of this country. Not only that, but “special dispensation status” feeds into a notion of passivity, of being solely acted upon and of not being positive agents of change in one's own destiny, thus contributing to the notion that we are not masters of our own fate. Hence we persist in acting out the role of mere victims and pawns. That is something I will never advocate to the young people I mentor.

Sadly, racism does still exist in Britain today, some of it pernicious, yet it is often in more subtle forms than its more naked antecedents of thirty years ago. But equally, it is foolish to overlook the fact that much invaluable and meaningful progress when it comes to race relations has been achieved. Many viscerally racist attitudes have thankfully been eradicated from the white British psyche as a result of education and British society has witnessed a subsequent amelioration. Speaking as a person of mixed-race, I passionately believe that when it comes to attitudes towards race, our nation is not perfect, but is far more tolerant, far more forward-thinking and, even by a cursory glance around town, far more mixed than pretty much any other nation in the world.

Those of a cynical disposition (of which I am not one) may well say that, as professional naysayers employed in the (lucrative) “race grievance” industry, certain “community leaders” nowadays have a vested interest in espousing such facile, divisive notions, since by doing so they are stoking the flames of the industry which feeds them and are thus preserving their own careers. Even if things have got much better when it comes to race in Britain, they will be doing themselves out of a job (and summer holidays in Tuscany) if they admit it. I sincerely hope that those who have the ear of politicians when it comes to matters of race would never do such a thing.

By effectively tarring all people of colour with the same uniform “can’t be racist” brush, Jasper is ironically belittling, demeaning and effectively dehumanizing the very tranche of the population he believes himself to be helping. Although he ardently believes such an assertion is fighting the black British corner, it isn’t. Jasper’s erroneous assertion is the first step on a slippery slope towards kids gloves treatment and speciesism, which is in itself far more harmful than saying that black, white and brown people are all intrinsically intellectually, emotionally and socially equal and are thus equally capable of thinking, doing, and, God forbid, being racist towards each other.

Where Jasper is correct, and where I unreservedly applaud his stance, is in wanting to rid our land of the blight of racial prejudice and discrimination based on skin colour or other vagaries of chance. But a balance clearly needs to be struck between righting past historical wrongs, levelling the racial playfield and wiping the slate clean and moving on in an intelligent and progressive manner. What is clear, when comments like these pepper the discourse, is that we are sadly still a long way off from achieving that balance. And what is equally clear is that such well-intentioned but overly simplistic remarks do not aid us in finding that much sought-after balance which will lead to genuine racial harmony and equality for all – surely the aim of any truly civilized society, or for that matter, of any “community leader.”

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