Why I, a White Man, Am Bored of Talking About Race

Lozza, bash this into the CMS and hit publish whenever the next culture war thing happens – that should tide us over while I'm on holiday. Cheers.

Here's a tip for BAME [grime artists/ rappers/ politicians/ footballers/ children’s TV presenters]. If you're being praised by [John McDonnell/ Baroness Sayeeda Warsi/ Adrian Chiles] on [Twitter/the Guardian/ the north London dinner party circuit I’m not longer part of], you're doing something wrong. Yes, [insert name here], I’m talking about you.

I can’t be the only person who’s getting a bit sick of woke talking points like [the Windrush scandal/ media racism/ the environment/ Universal Credit/ child poverty/ rural broadband provision] being cheaply parroted by Guardianista celebrities whenever they want to be stroked to the point of juddering, frothing orgasm by other liberal snowflakes. It’s enough to make you sick.

[Art/ music/ culture/ sport/ kids’ TV] has a duty to be controversial, but there’s nothing controversial about saying things that I personally deem objectionable. To glibly take a serious issue and use it to make a tawdry virtue-signalling point should invite the derision of all right thinking people. Have they even noticed the knife crime epidemic from their Islington mansions?

Do you seriously think that anybody except Guardian journalists at chattering-class dinner parties that I definitely had no interest in attending take this stuff seriously? As for this latest little performance, let’s not beat about the bush: It was the most depressing thing I’ve ever had the misfortune of bearing witness to in my entire life. It left me utterly terrified at the future we’re leaving our children.

Apart from anything else it’s just so b-o-o-o-o-oring. Cultural icons used to push boundaries and fight the power. Now the only “power” they seem to want to fight is that of this so-called Conservative government. “The Tories are doing bad things,” they wail. How dreadfully original.

The only point of anything these days seems to be to signal to the other elite liberal onanists that you’re part of their pious little club. Remember Scouting for Girls, remember The Wombats, remember Athlete? Of course you don’t. They’ve all been erased in the SJW Stasi’s cultural revolution.

There’s a distasteful, racialised dynamic here as well. If [Polly Toynbee/ Owen Jones/ Sue from Bake Off] is virtually scripting their output, then it’s clear to me that BAME cultural figures do not have the ability to form opinions on their own. I simply cannot credit them with any intellectual or creative agency – how depressing is that? That doesn't make me racist – just look at how much I tweeted about Labour's antisemitism scandal.

Someone has to be brave enough to say it: The media is saturated by censorious groupthink. You only have to look at the reaction on woke Twitter to my recent appearance on [Question Time/ the Today programme/ Sky News/ Good Morning Britain/ Newsnight/ Any Questions/ the Daily Politics/ LBC/ Talk Radio/ my podcast/ my book launch] to know that.

And as for this latest cultural low? I'm begging can we please change the record – preferably before I yawn myself into a coma?

As told to Simon Childs

Next week: How the reaction to my previous article shows that this woke conversation has gone too far