The slave thing is probably the bit that irritates the most. Prior to about 1750 slaves were a thing everywhere. Every culture beyond hunter-gathers (and some of them too) had slaves, serfs or similar to do the shit jobs without pay or much food. Then British (including American, because in ~1750 they were the same) Christians developed the concept that slavery was actually bad and needed to be stopped and the Royal Navy eventually spent most of the 19th century stopping the slave trade where ever they sailed, which was everywhere. No other country did as much to stop the slave trade and hence slavery as a whole. None.
Thanks Francis. Yes. They only teach kids the version which fits with their own anti white, anti western ideology. I can never understand why these people hate their own culture so. It seems unique to the West.
Yep, here in Japan the problematic issue with the teaching of history is the glossing over the nasty bits (i.e. most of 1905-1945 more or less). And in geography there’s none of this “must give island back” thing, instead it is “must get islands back from nasty Korea and Russia and keep island from nasty China”. They even have a museum about them - https://substack.com/@camcayer/p-165518974?utm_source=profile&utm_medium=reader2
There is a memorial to The Royal Navy West Africa Squadron funded completely with public donations which should by rights be mounted somewhere in Portsmouth from where they operated. Sadly Portsmouth Council insist there is no room for it. There are sufficient funds to cover installation and maintenance but the Council is too woke (or scared) to agree to the installation. I am thoroughly ashamed of them particularly as our schools are happy to teach our kids how wicked our ancestors were but refuse to acknowledge what we did to stop the trade.
It’s mad. The blackwashing of British history is getting ridiculous. The new TV drama, Sheldrake, set in the 16th century, feels authentic in so many ways: the settings, costumes, language, storyline, etc,. It transports you back in time. Until the Abbott Fabian appears, played by Babou Ceesay, a black man. He acts well, but he might as well have rocked up in a Tesla wearing Levi’s and chugging a Pepsi, it just kills the historical vibe stone dead. Would the same producers make a historical drama set in Africa where the tribal chief is played by a white bloke? I doubt it. It would look just as (in)credible.
It’s not racist to say this. I like and value my black and brown friends and acquaintances, and I do support the imperative to have us all integrate well. But this sort of propaganda is quite counterproductive, because it causes you to doubt the integrity of its proponents and to question the truth of their argument. Just give it a rest, please. I just don’t need your gaslighting to behave with civility.
It’s so jarring Richard. And yet these scolds, somehow the new gatekeepers, insist on ‘authenticity’ when it comes to other roles. Especially gay and disabled. Do you remember the ‘controversy’ around Brendan Fraser playing The Whale (great film btw), a morbidly obese man who is dying of heart failure because Brendan Fraser is not thankfully, actually a morbidly obese man who is dying of heart failure?
I couldn’t agree more. I’m slightly over the throat clearing thing too now. I’m not a racist. I hate racism. That’s it. The people who want to judge me by the colour of my skin, tell me Jews don’t count, want to keep high achieving Asians out of top universities and think black people need their special benign help and guidance to achieve something in their lives seem to be the racists, not me because I’ve read a history book.
Amongst many favourite articles....this might be a new favourite.
These couple of paragraphs are perhaps the greatest summaries of the destruction brought by radical progressives, authoritarian liberals, with their "enlightenened", "universalist", "citizens of nowhere" values.
"And yet despite creating nothing but division, rancour, racism, and misery, these joyless progressives, these know nothing scolds, these pinch faced authoritarians, seem totally convinced that they are themselves somehow the pinnacle of humanity.
Smug in their own supremacy. Unwavering in the certainty of their own absolute goodness. Convinced that there is nothing in the world that cannot be improved by their intervention, meddling, guidance, and instruction. These cocksure narcissists consider themselves morally and ethically perfect. Civilisation’s Final Boss."
Brilliant, yet thoroughly depressing. What a waste. How do we fix what broke these people and rebuild our societies? Their confirmation bias doesn't allow them to see the damage they have caused.
The damage of woke / socialism / marxism.
Divide people into groups.
Label each group oppressor or oppressed.
Rank them based on your own subjective interpretation of their advantage/disadvantage.
Obtain status by demonstrating you are 'woke' to their struggle.
Virtue signal.
Show you are an ally.
Boost your own position.
Who decides the rankings? Who keeps score? It requires a powerful, informed elite to manage to such a complex, ever changing system. Central planning. That's what it needs. With privileges and pay and pensions for those at the top.
Thank you so much David. Your own take is very much spot on too.
And yet people genuinely can’t seem to see it. When you even dip your toe into the shallowest pool of this stuff they look at you blankly, or like you’re mad. Can our media really be that powerful? Is it social norms? Or, is it really us who are nuts? 🤣
The scales have fallen from our eyes, we have swallowed all the red pills, we have removed our filtering spectacles, we have thrown off our mind forged manacles.
As for Mr 'smug in his own supremacy'. James O'Brien is surely the epitome of such a character.
Ha ha all the pills. 🤣 I’ll take your word for it David. Maybe I’m in danger of becoming lost in my own echo chamber but I have never listened to the man. Not Maitlis et al. Better for my blood pressure!
So right about training people to spot the victim narrative allegory, even when it isn't there. When I read *Black Beauty* to my daughter, my American wife was convinced it must be some allegory for the salve trade. "No, it's about horses" says I.
Pointing out that Britain had given the boot to slavery long before the 'land of the free', so why would it be an issue? She wouldn't accept it until she exhausted Google trying to find sinister allegorical interpretations, only to find that, nope...Legitimately, the book is entirely about transport and animal welfare. 😁
Ha ha it’s almost as if people find it hard to fathom a time before time when the word ‘black’ was used for descriptive purposes, not ideological ones, by people who had probably never met a black person.
There is a pub near me called, 'The Black Bitch', in Linlithgow. They had to change the name briefly, but won their law suits by proving that the pub had been named after a black labrador, so long ago that nobody around could possibly have known of or met an African person. Let alone harbour 20th century ideas of scientific racism towards them. They do nice steak pies.
That Will Shakespeare was a woman explains so much. Clearly he never haditaway with Anne Hathaway who herself must have been trans. After all this was clearly what influenced WS in Macbeth to have Lady Macbeth exclaim "....unsex me here..." Obviously she had been a man who had transgendered already. No wonder her husband was so mixed up. I so wish I had known all that back in 1961 when I did English Literature 'O' level. I would surely have achieved a distinction!
The way they demonstrate their wilful ignorance of this use of language never fails to amaze me. Yes it meant something different back then, because it was the olden days. 🤦♂️
Oh I am getting my moneys worth being a paid subscriber! So many savage one liners which I will re-read and treasure until I can unleash them on wokists. Now I have to change my pants because I haven't laughed so much in a very, very long time. You, Sir are a wordsmith!
What a wonderful message Patrick. Thank you. And thanks so much for being a paid subscriber. If you don’t mind, and if I can work out how to do it, I’ll share your kind words to Notes in the hope of ensnaring new subscribers. ATB.
I visited Shakespeare's grave a couple of weeks ago. I can tell you he was white and male because he is buried in front of the altar. That's white privilege right there!
Some time ago, after my second watch through of MASH I learned that David Ogden Stiers was a gay man. Didn't bother me. I was born in the 70s. My formative years were the 80's and 90's.
Why I remember is because Mr Stiers had disguised and hidden his sexuality from almost everyone and had died alone. Why? Because being gay was frowned upon for much of his life.
Now we have much the same environment of suppression and dissent where racism - and race changing an historical figure is plain racism - denigration and insult of straight folk to re-write them as gay (either alive or dead) to suit the Left narrative (see Orwell's iconic 'every book rewritten, every painting repainted, every record falsified').
How normal and irrelevant it seemed when someone said 'I'm gay'. How irrelevant it was to have black friends. How far we have been pushed by those abusive, cruel, Left wingers so full of spite, envy and intolerance that they seek to denigrate one side to well, it's not about the 'other', is it? It's about making themselves feel better.
I wonder to myself if, were he alive today, Mr Stiers would feel able to say he was gay and find that acceptance he lacked. More likely, I think he would keep quiet, afraid that his own, very private life would be weaponised by cruel, egotistical, uncaring, thoroughly nasty Left wing bigots.
I am reminded of Orwell again: "Always, Winston, at every moment, there will be the thrill of victory, the sensation of trampling on an enemy who is helpless. If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face—forever." This is the Left wing state at work, destroying what they hate.
For all the David Ogden Stiers out there, I raise a glass. One day the tyranny of the 'woke', the Lefty will end and who you are simply won't matter. No more labels. No more colouring in or re-writing. All that will matter - from another speech I was at as a toddler, sat on my Dad's very white shoulders - is the content of your character.
Dear life. How far back we have been held by self righteous, debased, evil people.
Brilliant, as ever. I'd like to add to the list of GB's achievements one of the most significant social movements that has helped to promote world peace and international harmony:
Inventing and codifying sport.
Football, cricket, rugby, golf, tennis..... each and all of these bring people, nations and continents together in a common theatre of enjoyment and (usually) well behaved harmony.
We did that. Not the French (especially not them), not the Germans, not the Italians, not the Chinese, not the Russians and not the Americans ( and did I mention the French?). It was us. We did that.
When Puritans sought to find and capture Charles II, they described him as 'a black man, more than two yards tall'. They didn't need to say 'black-haired' - because back then, black hair was pretty much the only 'black' there was. So it is with Shakespeare's 'dark lady', I would suggest.
Another terrific piece LSO, especially the hard hitting final few paragraphs about the total lack of any achievements of the so-called progressives (except DEI!). I do hope that your prediction that it will all be over in fifty years time (except, sadly, for the damage caused) will prove to come true, maybe I will not be there to see the end of the present day madness but my children and grandchildren hopefully will.
Exactly Bill. My grandparents, the Second World War generation sacrificed so much for me and this country.
There’s an incredible arrogance in Starmer and his ilk, that they believe, genuinely believe, they have the right to rip it all up. All of it. From top to bottom. From our museums to tv. From our streets to our history. From James Bond to Anne Boleyn. It’s a breathtaking level of entitlement. Like turning up at someone’s mums house and chucking out all the furniture and knocking the walls down. These people make me shudder.
Cracking piece that helped me calm down after the rape gang enquiry announcement, I don't think anything has got to me so much as the rank hypocrisy of so many of the supposedly educated and kind grown ups in the room, of every political hue . I really try to not give in to hate so as not become like them but............ The sarcasm you deploy helps me to take (another!) deep breath and carry on caring about this country.
All part of the service Nick. Thank you for coming. It’s obviously galling, especially now that to a man, and woman, they are lining up to claim, ‘well of course I always wanted an inquiry actually.’ They are shameless. Anyway I’ll leave it there -don’t want to set you off again!
"No shit Shylock."
ROFL.
The slave thing is probably the bit that irritates the most. Prior to about 1750 slaves were a thing everywhere. Every culture beyond hunter-gathers (and some of them too) had slaves, serfs or similar to do the shit jobs without pay or much food. Then British (including American, because in ~1750 they were the same) Christians developed the concept that slavery was actually bad and needed to be stopped and the Royal Navy eventually spent most of the 19th century stopping the slave trade where ever they sailed, which was everywhere. No other country did as much to stop the slave trade and hence slavery as a whole. None.
Thanks Francis. Yes. They only teach kids the version which fits with their own anti white, anti western ideology. I can never understand why these people hate their own culture so. It seems unique to the West.
Yep, here in Japan the problematic issue with the teaching of history is the glossing over the nasty bits (i.e. most of 1905-1945 more or less). And in geography there’s none of this “must give island back” thing, instead it is “must get islands back from nasty Korea and Russia and keep island from nasty China”. They even have a museum about them - https://substack.com/@camcayer/p-165518974?utm_source=profile&utm_medium=reader2
A world away Francis.
There is a memorial to The Royal Navy West Africa Squadron funded completely with public donations which should by rights be mounted somewhere in Portsmouth from where they operated. Sadly Portsmouth Council insist there is no room for it. There are sufficient funds to cover installation and maintenance but the Council is too woke (or scared) to agree to the installation. I am thoroughly ashamed of them particularly as our schools are happy to teach our kids how wicked our ancestors were but refuse to acknowledge what we did to stop the trade.
It’s mad. The blackwashing of British history is getting ridiculous. The new TV drama, Sheldrake, set in the 16th century, feels authentic in so many ways: the settings, costumes, language, storyline, etc,. It transports you back in time. Until the Abbott Fabian appears, played by Babou Ceesay, a black man. He acts well, but he might as well have rocked up in a Tesla wearing Levi’s and chugging a Pepsi, it just kills the historical vibe stone dead. Would the same producers make a historical drama set in Africa where the tribal chief is played by a white bloke? I doubt it. It would look just as (in)credible.
It’s not racist to say this. I like and value my black and brown friends and acquaintances, and I do support the imperative to have us all integrate well. But this sort of propaganda is quite counterproductive, because it causes you to doubt the integrity of its proponents and to question the truth of their argument. Just give it a rest, please. I just don’t need your gaslighting to behave with civility.
It’s so jarring Richard. And yet these scolds, somehow the new gatekeepers, insist on ‘authenticity’ when it comes to other roles. Especially gay and disabled. Do you remember the ‘controversy’ around Brendan Fraser playing The Whale (great film btw), a morbidly obese man who is dying of heart failure because Brendan Fraser is not thankfully, actually a morbidly obese man who is dying of heart failure?
I couldn’t agree more. I’m slightly over the throat clearing thing too now. I’m not a racist. I hate racism. That’s it. The people who want to judge me by the colour of my skin, tell me Jews don’t count, want to keep high achieving Asians out of top universities and think black people need their special benign help and guidance to achieve something in their lives seem to be the racists, not me because I’ve read a history book.
Amen. Nothing to add to that.
Same as Vikings Valhalla had a black woman take the place of a known to be white Viking lord.
It's all about re-writing history to suit the demento 'progressive' - yet seems to force us backward - mind.
Amongst many favourite articles....this might be a new favourite.
These couple of paragraphs are perhaps the greatest summaries of the destruction brought by radical progressives, authoritarian liberals, with their "enlightenened", "universalist", "citizens of nowhere" values.
"And yet despite creating nothing but division, rancour, racism, and misery, these joyless progressives, these know nothing scolds, these pinch faced authoritarians, seem totally convinced that they are themselves somehow the pinnacle of humanity.
Smug in their own supremacy. Unwavering in the certainty of their own absolute goodness. Convinced that there is nothing in the world that cannot be improved by their intervention, meddling, guidance, and instruction. These cocksure narcissists consider themselves morally and ethically perfect. Civilisation’s Final Boss."
Brilliant, yet thoroughly depressing. What a waste. How do we fix what broke these people and rebuild our societies? Their confirmation bias doesn't allow them to see the damage they have caused.
The damage of woke / socialism / marxism.
Divide people into groups.
Label each group oppressor or oppressed.
Rank them based on your own subjective interpretation of their advantage/disadvantage.
Obtain status by demonstrating you are 'woke' to their struggle.
Virtue signal.
Show you are an ally.
Boost your own position.
Who decides the rankings? Who keeps score? It requires a powerful, informed elite to manage to such a complex, ever changing system. Central planning. That's what it needs. With privileges and pay and pensions for those at the top.
What kind of system does that remind us of?
Thank you so much David. Your own take is very much spot on too.
And yet people genuinely can’t seem to see it. When you even dip your toe into the shallowest pool of this stuff they look at you blankly, or like you’re mad. Can our media really be that powerful? Is it social norms? Or, is it really us who are nuts? 🤣
We, the nutters shall inherit the earth!
The scales have fallen from our eyes, we have swallowed all the red pills, we have removed our filtering spectacles, we have thrown off our mind forged manacles.
As for Mr 'smug in his own supremacy'. James O'Brien is surely the epitome of such a character.
Ha ha all the pills. 🤣 I’ll take your word for it David. Maybe I’m in danger of becoming lost in my own echo chamber but I have never listened to the man. Not Maitlis et al. Better for my blood pressure!
It was a very good article.
It's the labelling that gets me most. It's desperately insulting.
Spot on, again, LSO.
So right about training people to spot the victim narrative allegory, even when it isn't there. When I read *Black Beauty* to my daughter, my American wife was convinced it must be some allegory for the salve trade. "No, it's about horses" says I.
Pointing out that Britain had given the boot to slavery long before the 'land of the free', so why would it be an issue? She wouldn't accept it until she exhausted Google trying to find sinister allegorical interpretations, only to find that, nope...Legitimately, the book is entirely about transport and animal welfare. 😁
Ha ha it’s almost as if people find it hard to fathom a time before time when the word ‘black’ was used for descriptive purposes, not ideological ones, by people who had probably never met a black person.
There is a pub near me called, 'The Black Bitch', in Linlithgow. They had to change the name briefly, but won their law suits by proving that the pub had been named after a black labrador, so long ago that nobody around could possibly have known of or met an African person. Let alone harbour 20th century ideas of scientific racism towards them. They do nice steak pies.
Ha ha! That’s hilarious.
That Will Shakespeare was a woman explains so much. Clearly he never haditaway with Anne Hathaway who herself must have been trans. After all this was clearly what influenced WS in Macbeth to have Lady Macbeth exclaim "....unsex me here..." Obviously she had been a man who had transgendered already. No wonder her husband was so mixed up. I so wish I had known all that back in 1961 when I did English Literature 'O' level. I would surely have achieved a distinction!
The way they demonstrate their wilful ignorance of this use of language never fails to amaze me. Yes it meant something different back then, because it was the olden days. 🤦♂️
Oh I am getting my moneys worth being a paid subscriber! So many savage one liners which I will re-read and treasure until I can unleash them on wokists. Now I have to change my pants because I haven't laughed so much in a very, very long time. You, Sir are a wordsmith!
What a wonderful message Patrick. Thank you. And thanks so much for being a paid subscriber. If you don’t mind, and if I can work out how to do it, I’ll share your kind words to Notes in the hope of ensnaring new subscribers. ATB.
Shared to notes
I visited Shakespeare's grave a couple of weeks ago. I can tell you he was white and male because he is buried in front of the altar. That's white privilege right there!
Ha! Was he spinning in it?
Presumably. Using the skipping rope they bizarrely use to outline his grave.
Shakespeare is quite himself; it is only some of his critics who have discovered that he was somebody else.
G. K. Chesterton
Some time ago, after my second watch through of MASH I learned that David Ogden Stiers was a gay man. Didn't bother me. I was born in the 70s. My formative years were the 80's and 90's.
Why I remember is because Mr Stiers had disguised and hidden his sexuality from almost everyone and had died alone. Why? Because being gay was frowned upon for much of his life.
Now we have much the same environment of suppression and dissent where racism - and race changing an historical figure is plain racism - denigration and insult of straight folk to re-write them as gay (either alive or dead) to suit the Left narrative (see Orwell's iconic 'every book rewritten, every painting repainted, every record falsified').
How normal and irrelevant it seemed when someone said 'I'm gay'. How irrelevant it was to have black friends. How far we have been pushed by those abusive, cruel, Left wingers so full of spite, envy and intolerance that they seek to denigrate one side to well, it's not about the 'other', is it? It's about making themselves feel better.
I wonder to myself if, were he alive today, Mr Stiers would feel able to say he was gay and find that acceptance he lacked. More likely, I think he would keep quiet, afraid that his own, very private life would be weaponised by cruel, egotistical, uncaring, thoroughly nasty Left wing bigots.
I am reminded of Orwell again: "Always, Winston, at every moment, there will be the thrill of victory, the sensation of trampling on an enemy who is helpless. If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face—forever." This is the Left wing state at work, destroying what they hate.
For all the David Ogden Stiers out there, I raise a glass. One day the tyranny of the 'woke', the Lefty will end and who you are simply won't matter. No more labels. No more colouring in or re-writing. All that will matter - from another speech I was at as a toddler, sat on my Dad's very white shoulders - is the content of your character.
Dear life. How far back we have been held by self righteous, debased, evil people.
Beautifully put Wibbling. Thanks for sharing.
Brilliant, as ever. I'd like to add to the list of GB's achievements one of the most significant social movements that has helped to promote world peace and international harmony:
Inventing and codifying sport.
Football, cricket, rugby, golf, tennis..... each and all of these bring people, nations and continents together in a common theatre of enjoyment and (usually) well behaved harmony.
We did that. Not the French (especially not them), not the Germans, not the Italians, not the Chinese, not the Russians and not the Americans ( and did I mention the French?). It was us. We did that.
Another win Zeb. Thanks for pointing it out. 👍
When Puritans sought to find and capture Charles II, they described him as 'a black man, more than two yards tall'. They didn't need to say 'black-haired' - because back then, black hair was pretty much the only 'black' there was. So it is with Shakespeare's 'dark lady', I would suggest.
I would suggest you are obviously correct Mark. 👍
Great piece🔥
Thanks Julie!
Ouch LSO, who rattled your cage?! Well actually you make that pretty clear.
Katharine Birbalsingh, btw, says there’s a school that has dumped Shakespeare for the timeless oeuvre of Irish drag queen Panti Bliss.
I expect there’s more than one Jim. And more to follow…..
Another terrific piece LSO, especially the hard hitting final few paragraphs about the total lack of any achievements of the so-called progressives (except DEI!). I do hope that your prediction that it will all be over in fifty years time (except, sadly, for the damage caused) will prove to come true, maybe I will not be there to see the end of the present day madness but my children and grandchildren hopefully will.
Exactly Bill. My grandparents, the Second World War generation sacrificed so much for me and this country.
There’s an incredible arrogance in Starmer and his ilk, that they believe, genuinely believe, they have the right to rip it all up. All of it. From top to bottom. From our museums to tv. From our streets to our history. From James Bond to Anne Boleyn. It’s a breathtaking level of entitlement. Like turning up at someone’s mums house and chucking out all the furniture and knocking the walls down. These people make me shudder.
Hello low
Cracking piece that helped me calm down after the rape gang enquiry announcement, I don't think anything has got to me so much as the rank hypocrisy of so many of the supposedly educated and kind grown ups in the room, of every political hue . I really try to not give in to hate so as not become like them but............ The sarcasm you deploy helps me to take (another!) deep breath and carry on caring about this country.
Sorry I went off topic mate.
All part of the service Nick. Thank you for coming. It’s obviously galling, especially now that to a man, and woman, they are lining up to claim, ‘well of course I always wanted an inquiry actually.’ They are shameless. Anyway I’ll leave it there -don’t want to set you off again!
Very entertaining and perspicacious piece. Living inside a North Korean version of Eurovision is spot on.