Some of my best friends are……..

All the media focus on Black militancy and publicity about BAME deaths due to coronavirus is turning my natural liberal, anti-racist core from Zero towards Six towards the Right-Wing/Conservative scale. Given that broadcasters suppress comment that they deem “racist” I believe there is a significant population who are being turned off by the message who won’t get through or resist calling because they will just get a “racist” rant at them.

I have never shouted-out against radio callers as much as over the last week and those callers have been BLM and “take-the-knee” advocates. They are turning me off to their message and I suspect its turning you off too. (“See, whitey refuses to listen”)

Throughout my life I have been anti-racist. Since I have suffered racism I am qualified to write about it from a victim perspective.  It started in the 1950’s when at age five I was kicked on the ground by kids in my street who were chanting “Jew Boy” at me. I know what it’s like to be treated as an “outsider”. The kids had no natural hate because I looked or dressed no different to any of them in Stoke Newington, London N16. I was a short trouser scruff like the rest of them. It was something their parents taught them. Our slum dwelling was worse than the houses that many of them lived in. I know because I also had friends in the street and visited their houses. At age seven I threw a teaspoon at a boy from close range, just missing blinding him, for racially abusing me (something I don’t regret). Given my NLP articles about learnt and programmed behaviours maybe you might understand some of my responses when it happens all over again for me.

I grew up in Stoke Newington which was an area settled by the Windrush generation. I walked amongst Black people (or Coloured People as they were called then) without any apprehension and I remember being taken to Ridley Road market to stop Mosely marching against the Black and Jewish traders. Stoke Newington was an interesting Jewish/Black meld. I guess it was two minorities who appreciated each other’s racial dilemmas.

In the 1970’s a work colleague married his Black wife and we were friends for many years. A second Black colleague of mine became close friends and we started writing TV Comedy scripts. I lost touch with him and wish I could find him to say hello.

My longest standing customer is Black. A well respected consultant in Orthotics. Even though I don’t do work for him now (retired) we still phone each other and put the World to rights. He calls me to find out about my health and slag off Spurs. I join in with him slagging-off West Ham.

None of the constant beat-down from the BLM movement and media will ever change my affection and regard for my friends.

OK, so “Some of my best friends are…..” We all have similar anecdotes and most have grown up with no real anti-Black prejudice. We generalise in order to understand the World and we learn rapid visceral responses to protect ourselves from danger. Trigger words are anchors for a whole macro load of feelings.

I have never had a Muslim friend or colleagues. I have the same visceral responses when I hear Islam issues being asserted in the media. I’m all “Eided-out”. I don’t give a Ramadamn if Muslims have a religious event because, to me, a religion is a private affair. Celebrate and be well but we don’t need you to share.  I (we) are tired of being told Islam is “A Peaceful Religion” when Islam went through two phases. The original “Hey guys, let’s have a new religion based on Judaism and Christianity” to “Hey guys, you had better accept it, or else!”

Asserting Islam is stimulus/response cycle. Say “Islam” and many people will respond “terrorism”. It is a natural, learnt belief and it isn’t going to be changed easily.

Take Black-on-Black stabbings and drug-related crime. The phenomena of absent fathers. All races stab, murder and distribute drugs. BUT, when you start to tell us how badly you are treated we have to play that against our Beliefs and see how it stacks up. If we have beliefs that “Black people are responsible for crime” and “Muslims kill and rape our kids” you will have to present a massive reversal in attitude and response if you are ever to scale that belief to generate the new visceral response that you want to be positive towards you.

The harder you push the more you will trigger the negative responses rather than the positive one’s you seek.

I subscribe to the NLP models that to get to a Buy (-in) feeling you have to overcome the level of resistance to the Buy that you have stacked-up by learning and belief support. The older you are the more those beliefs are stuck. That is why it is young people who buy into something like BLM because they have little learnt resistance to the message. They also tend to be anti-establishment so they have open minds to the BLM message. I also think they are more multi-racial and multi-cultural in their social lives and so something like BLM is an easy sell.

When I hear a Black or Muslim activist tell us how racist we are, how we have “white privilege” and how we need to do more to help the lives of the BAME community I have my firewall of resistance  raised. It is a hill-climb they won’t have enough momentum to progress.  I also think “BAME? That means me too”. Where can I whinge? I know. First find something that means something to ME but sod-all to everyone else. Let me find some young radicals who support my cause who are prepared to carry banners and march. “Get Piers on the phone. I blame Trump”. It won’t happen.

They call for “justice” but the police officer and his colleagues have been charged. That IS called “Justice”. I wonder if their trial may turn out to be a farce. They want him charged with murder; However, I think I have found a mistake in the charging logic of Second Degree Murder. Here is its definition:-

Second-degree murder

Any intentional murder with malice aforethought, but is not premeditated or planned in advance

This means that the officer didn’t say to himself “Where is Floyd, I’m going to kill him”. Instead the logic is that he decided to kill Floyd one he had arrested him and had him on the floor. Why?

Whereas:-

Involuntary manslaughter

A killing that stems from a lack of intention to cause death but involving an intentional or negligent act leading to death.

A decent defence lawyer should be able to defeat Second-degree murder. It is plausible he arrested Floyd and decided to get extra tough with him. Unfortunately, that proved fatal. With underlying health issues a lawyer will argue that the knee grip is often used to subdue a powerful felon and that it wasn’t an intention to kill him.

They have to prove that once Floyd was arrested the officer decided “I’m going to kill this SOB”. That will be very difficult to prove.

If he gets off where will that leave the state of violent protest and sense of injustice?

I won’t tell these complainers, whingers, professional activists to “Shut Up” because they have a right to express their opinions. I don’t feel that the majority get the opportunity to express their opinions. Everyone condemns this heinous act. But, where are BLM concerning the daily killing of Blacks by Blacks in Chicago? Is it just “Part and Parcel” of living in Chicago? What of their chants about killing the police? “Pigs in Blankets – Fry them like bacon”

The UK is stupid. It gets Trump wrong and it broadcasts the plight of Black people in the USA without recognising the many Black mayors, Black police commissioners, Black members of Congress, Black Media personalities, Black actors, Black musicians and Black Athletes.

Why “Black”? Why not “BAME Lives Matter?” because anyone who looks at USA society can see it’s a melting pot of races. In Florida I would say that 90% of airport staff, including customs officers are Hispanic/South American.

In Democrat run states and cities there is Black poverty. When has the UK media ever asked why?

Many of those Minority Ethnics have made lives for themselves in the UK without ramming their plight down our throats and without insulting the country where their family once emigrated to and in which they have now become valued citizens. Chinese, Italian, Sikh, Hindu, Jew. All will have faced prejudice but rose above it and out of it.

Why not the Black and Muslim population? All Lives Matter.
 

© Lugosi 2020
 

The Goodnight Vienna Audio file