Final days…

And he came forth from behind the shattered door, a man, stepping out onto the pavement. He dragged his lame withered limbs along the ground, through the broken glass, past the blown-out shop fronts. He stood, below a heavy dying sun and drew a breath, his final breath. He knew at that moment it was the end, the end of species, the end of Homo Cosmicos.

No I haven’t become a cringe-worthy fantasy writer and you haven’t clicked on the wrong link. I’m here to discuss the Liberal. As I do not wish to offend by continuing to classify the Liberal as only male and after some deliberation and a little help, I have settled on the term Homo Cosmicos (the Cosmopolitan). 

Thursday 8th December 2016, the date the Giraffe was included onto the official list of endangered species. This date could also have seen the addition, on that very same list of The Liberal – Homo Cosmico, for they have faltered but unlike the Giraffe this is due its own paralysis and apathy. 

But where did it all go wrong, when did the Liberal become complacent? From Peterloo to Mark Duggan, the crowd have always been subdued and taught to obey, betrayed by their leaders and Liberals alike, their anger and frustration has been bottled up, stowed away. Real change and real improvement is not on their horizon. The wasted years not only created gleaming city scapes and sparkling toys but also a swell of disenfranchised, under educated, underfunded, debt-ridden slaves. 

Or am I wrong? Was is in fact 1969, the moment when Rupert Murdoch and shock-jockey media firmly planted its jack boot onto these shores that the Liberal started its retreated into well upholstered bubbles. The downtrodden masses now given their unfaithful mouthpieces, have been castrated, exploited for easy votes and landslide majorities. They have been fattened-up on a diet of lies, red-tape, migrants, bureaucrats, anti-experts and untruths. 

Oh what a glorious culmination, 2016, when left and right united around pundits to free themselves from their serfdom.

The 83rd US Attorney General

Since then a vacuum, a void, a vail has fallen across nations and the spores of ignorance and hatred have bloomed. Like all hatred, there needs to be a target. The people have been beguiled and see that target as Homo Cosmicos, otherwise known as Snowflake, Libtard, Crybaby and Bremoaner. Labelled as the enemy of the fourth estate, the killing field of values. Homo Cosmicos has become the sponge absorbing the anger of the people, too abstract to be understood, too moralistic to fight back.

Yet six months have passed since the revolution, our independence day and the UK has not even taken up its place on the starting blocks. With no plan to fire the gun until mythical March. So why are we not rioting, why are we not calling for reform? Because 2016 will be but a footnote of history, we have been manipulated, divided and quelled. We won’t get what we want, we never get what we want. Our masters have found new weapons of suppression, not the sword or the cannon but confusion, division, misinformation and hate.

So, when Homo Cosmicos has drawn its last breath, what next, who next for the tinder box? I fear that due to the demise of Homo Cosmicos we are blindly, ignorantly laying the foundations of our own destruction and unlike the London riots of 2011 there will be no-one left to sweep up the broken glass. 

A response to Racism

The other day, I had a discussion about Racism and its meaning, very prolonged and limited to 140 characters a point. The only good that came from it was it cemented my understanding, my beliefs and gave me the impetus to start this blog.

Be it right or wrong, I have always understood Racism to be racial prejudice combined with the belief in one’s superiority ‘power’ over others. So, in theory, anyone could be racially prejudiced; make assumptions that all people of a certain race behave in a certain way. It is only when prejudice is combined with ‘power’ and a desire, be it conscious or unconscious, to oppress another socially, culturally and/or economically that it becomes Racism.

I am by no means an expert and from my ivory tower, I do not profess to have ever suffered from Racism or even racial prejudice. So why then do I feel the need and think I have the right to talk about Racism? When I don’t talk about the Han’isation of Western China or the ongoing extermination of the Amazonian tribal communities. Because, even though it isn’t directed at me, it doesn’t mean I don’t see it. It doesn’t mean I don’t hear people happily banding around assumptions about North Africans, Black and Asian people. I imagine this won’t shock but covert middle class racial prejudice is alive a well.

So here’s my question, when this prejudice is only expressed amongst white people, is it still Racism?

The short answer is yes. As we have all seen in 2016, if someone shouts the loudest and the longest eventually, like lambs to the slaughter, passively observing this hate, we appropriate their language and follow their, now detoxified, ideologies. By using this language, by viewing the world through their goggles of racial judgement, we then make judgements based upon another’s skin tone.

I was challenged about my belief that a Black person cannot be racist to a White person. After, what is it 50 years since Martin Luther King? White people still hold all the cards, there might be a Black president in the US but that is just sugar-coating, it hasn’t changed any covert/hidden prejudice. In my opinion, life is still harder for a person of colour than it is for a White person, fewer opportunities are at hand, fewer doors are opened. So, if this is the case and White people still have ‘power’, then surely White ‘power’ in-conjunction with racial prejudice equals Racism and if people of colour don’t have ‘power’ then their racial prejudice can never be racist to White people.

Angela Davis: an American activist, academic and author.

All prejudice has to be challenged, people have to be called out for their actions. I would certainly not criticise a person who is under attack from throwing a punch in self-defence. So why do we, as a culture, point and shout racist at person of colour who comments upon the actions of White people, when we ignore the everyday racism hidden from view.

I know some will say, this is all just semantic word play but it is important for us as a society to clarify and educate each and every person of the definition of Racism and racial prejudice. I feel it is only then that we can start to truly challenge it and, just like Rumpelstiltskin, if we can name it, we can stop it.