It seems such a trivial story. The type of story that only essentially the most vacuous gossip tabloids can be desirous about. A famous footballer allegedly gets drunk, throws up at the back of a cab, the police are called, and the footballer allegedly abuses an officer. Now the Chelsea footballer has been charged with ‘racially aggravated harassment’ of a police officer in London. What’s the large deal? And why should we care about any of it?
The footballer in query is the Australian women’s captain, Sam Kerr. She is a little bit of a hero in her own country and one of the crucial famous female footballers on the planet. The alleged incident occurred in January 2023 but has only come to light up to now week, attributable to the Sun newspaper reporting it.
At first some people here in Australia were horrified – could our superstar be racist? That have to be inconceivable – she is a lady! She is gay! She is a lady of color! And she has impeccable progressive views – a minimum of in public! But has she turned out to be a closet racist?
Then got here the news about what it’s she is purported to have said to the officer – allegedly “silly white b******”. It wasn’t just a way of relief, it was almost hysterical joy that erupted on social media. Suddenly the phrase was getting used far and wide with pictures of white male politicians being attached to it.
And therein lies the seriousness of what’s an otherwise silly and trivial story. It demonstrates the contradictions, inconsistencies and confusion inside our culture attributable to identity politics – especially identity politics fuelled by critical race theory. Because in critical race theory, white individuals are at all times racist and might never be the victims of racism. Those of us simpletons who just understood racism as discriminating against someone due to their race or skin color are way behind the curve on this.
As the Guardian, the Sydney Morning Herald, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and various online commentators told us, “to call someone ‘white’ can’t be racist” because you can not be racist against white people. Apparently to accuse someone of racism who attacks one other due to their white skin color is to ‘gaslight’ the actual victims of racism. The Guardian is nervous that our doctrine of racism just isn’t pure enough: “Racism is not any longer the ideology that accompanies racial capitalist systems of colonialism, slavery and imperialism; it becomes a matter of individual morality.”
So, there you’ve gotten it. Racism wasn’t really about individual morality. It all has to do with capitalism, colonialism, slavery and imperialism, which clearly are things that white people alone do. The progressives have drunk so deep on the well of critical race ideology that they appear unaware of the history of the human race. Red and yellow, black and white, may all be precious in Jesus’ sight, but we even have all at a while or other engaged in slavery, imperialism and colonialism. I’ve even met some Chinese, African and Arab capitalists!
The term slave comes from the white Slavs because so a lot of them were taken into slavery by Arab and African traders. No race or nation could be free from the charge of slavery. But there is barely one Empire which removed it at great cost and that was the British Empire whose conscience had been stirred by Christianity.
The transatlantic slave trade was horrific – and is rightly to be repented of – but equally we must note the role that the British played in eliminating slavery in lots of countries of the world. Kerr’s own country, Australia, has never had slavery – despite it being one among those capitalist, imperialist colonies. Dare I suggest that this was since it was one among those capitalist imperialist colonies?
Nonetheless, in line with the crypto-Marxist critical race theory which has infected the upper echelons of our society, successful people of color like Prime Minister Rishi Sunak or Business and Trade Secretary Kemi Badenoch are only disregarded as ‘Uncle Toms’ and tools within the hands of the white oppressors.
Another example of this ‘doublethink’ comes from a case in south Australia a couple of woman accused of verbally attacking someone because they were white. The judge ruled that being white per se was not descriptive of any particular ethnic, national or racial group and was not a term of abuse because white individuals are the dominant people historically and culturally inside Australia and were subsequently not in any sense an oppressed group.
Just think how inane that remark is and what it could mean if taken to its logical conclusion (although logic does appear to have disappeared from much of recent society – probably since it is seen as a tool of Western colonialism!). Black, brown and yellow skin colors are all indicative of race but white, it seems, is not – although there is outwardly still a white race which oppresses people. Go figure.
Although white individuals are apparently not an ethnic, national or racial group, they’re still the dominant culture in Australia where 90.2 per cent of the population are white so in line with this logic they can not be oppressed. Try telling that to the white working class poor. And does this mean that if I’m going to a rustic like Nigeria or China that it can’t be racist if I exploit racial slurs against the bulk black or Chinese population because they’re dominant?
Despite all the speculation and the jargon there’s a double standard at play here. Let’s return to Kerr’s alleged abuse and just substitute the word ‘white’ in “silly white b******” to ‘black’ after which imagine how the Guardian, Chelsea and the BBC would have handled it. This suggests there’s someway a ‘right’ type of racism.
Another recent incident in London is further evidence of just how far down the rabbit hole our society has gone on this craziness when a West End theatre decided to host black-only nights. Black American playwright Jeremy O’Harris told the BBC this was in order that black people could “feel protected” within the theatre.
Imagine if I were a playwright and advocated that only white people can be allowed into my theatre on certain nights! The Prime Minister’s office was right to say that “clearly restricting audiences on the premise of race can be improper and divisive”.
In this brave latest world, where skin color trumps every thing, we’re simply magnifying racism, increasing division by race, and reinventing apartheid once we adopt this insane ideology.
The Church should have the ability to supply the reply for this but, sadly, much of the Church has also swallowed wholesale the critical race theory doctrines. The Church of England for instance is barely speeding its inevitable oblivion by spending plenty of money on hiring ‘deconstructing whiteness’ staff!
There is a biblical answer to all this and it’s easy.There is barely one race – the human race. To discriminate on the premise of color is clearly a sin. To divide the body of Christ on that basis is worse since it negates the witness of the Church. It is within the true church that you just see the true unity of humanity – where all of the barriers are broken down and we’re all ‘one in Christ Jesus’ (Galatians 3:28).
I once stood at my church door and noted that we had an African, Chinese, Indian and a European on door duty. It wasn’t planned or rostered that way, it just happened and I used to be so thankful because while the world talks about who is de facto black, an individual of color, or a racist, the Church of Jesus Christ in lots of parts of the world just gets on with creating that multitude that nobody can count – from every nation, tribe, people and language (Revelation 7:9).
David Robertson is the minister of Scots Kirk Presbyterian Church in Newcastle, New South Wales. He blogs at The Wee Flea.
