I’ve been pretty silent on the whole issue of #BlackLivesMatter for a while, because I was trying to put my thoughts together in a way that accurately expressed how I feel about what’s happening across the world and the racially charged arguments being had all over social media at the moment. I decided I might as well put it in a video and share my own centrist point of view with … well whoever can be bothered to listen. So while on my daily walk down the canal I decided to have a bit of a chat with my mobile phone…
TRANSCRIPT
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It’s late in the day so I’m going to keep this quick.
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We’ve all heard the phrase “All Lives Matter”
far too much in the last few weeks.
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And usually in response to “Black Lives Matter”.
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On the face of it, it’s an attractive slogan.
But I do have a problem with it.
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I’m not offended by it and people need
to stop pretending they’re offended by it.
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Because it’s not even remotely offensive.
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But I do have a problem with it.
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And the reason I don’t like the phrase “All Lives
Matter” is because, objectively, it’s not true.
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It never has been true.
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All lives SHOULD matter, but they don’t.
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That’s the whole point.
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Let me give you some examples.
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So, the Saudi Arabians killed hundreds
of thousands of Yemenis not too long ago.
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And hardly anyone gave a crap.
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There was no big social media campaign about it.
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Where were the woke poseurs
and hashtaggers for that?
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Nowhere!
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But the Saudis murder one US-based journalist
and suddenly they’re getting all kinds of heat
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from Western politicians, and the media are all over it!
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What does that tell you?
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The lives of all those dead Yemenis didn’t
matter as much as that one journalist!
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So don’t tell me All Lives Matter,
because they don’t. That’s the point!
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Let me give you another example.
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You might have heard of something
called “Male Disposability”.
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You know, there’s a good reason why we say
“women and children first” during disasters.
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Because OBJECTIVELY the lives of
women and children are, on the whole,
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more valuable to our societies.
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It’s got nothing to do with chivalry,
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and everything to do with the basic
mathematics of human survival, okay?
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The fact is that all lives don’t
matter equally. That’s the point.
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I could give you a dozen other examples like that but
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somebody somewhere is going to take it
personally and have a massive ****ing meltdown.
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So I’ll leave it at those two.
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Sure you could make a moral argument that
all lives matter or that all lives should matter.
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But the reality is that objectively, mathematically,
and measurably, in our society today they don’t.
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All lives don’t matter. That’s the point.
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Now, personally, it pisses me off that we still have these
racial debates and conversations in this day and age.
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Because every smart person already
knows that “race” isn’t a real thing.
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It’s about as real as astrology or creationism.
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Ignorant people made this crap up long ago.
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But there’s no actual, measurable, factual
thing called “race” amongst human beings.
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We are all still genetically, scientifically
very, very similar to those Somalis,
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from 150,000 years ago, who decided to leave
Africa looking for better sources of food.
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There are minor physical differences, I know.
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Like… did you know, there are people
who live in the mountains of South America
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whose bodies can filter out arsenic!?
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Because their environment has more arsenic than
the valleys they came from a thousand years ago.
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But, that doesn’t make them different races
to the people living in the valleys below.
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They’re the same people!
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Blood banks don’t store their
stock according to ethnicity.
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They do it according to blood types!
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Medical students don’t have to take special
exams so they can treat different races!
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And most telling of all, you can all
screw each other and breed quite easily!
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And that’s why I really hate identity politics!
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Because it’s a lie. It’s unscientific.
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It tells you people should be classified
in ways that don’t make any sense.
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Of course, it appeals to some people because
dividing into racial groups is comforting to them.
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And the weak people prefer
comforting lies to difficult truths.
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And the same people who perpetuate the lie about
the existence of race, perpetuate many other lies too.
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Please don’t fall for them.
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Oh, and here’s a truth that nobody talks about: America.
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America is one of the least racist societies in the world.
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And the UK is even better than the US.
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I’ve lived and worked on five different continents.
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I can tell you with confidence that
Britain is the least racist place I’ve lived.
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Much less racist than Africa, that’s for sure!
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But here’s another uncomfortable truth…
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The most racist cultures on the planet
exist in Asia, without question.
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But there’s no social media
kudos in going on about that.
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Today there are cultures in Asia that, essentially,
teach the same doctrines of racial purity as the Nazis.
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But there’s no trendy hashtags for it.
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So YOU won’t be angrily talking
about that on social media.
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But just ask any black person who
has lived in those Asian countries,
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especially in the Middle East or East Asia,
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about their experiences and they’ll
tell you what it’s really like out there.
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But let’s face it, most of you don’t actually care.
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90% of you just need a fashionable cause,
so you can join in with some online outrage.
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Reality – the truth – doesn’t matter to you.
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Just being able to join in with some righteous
indignation, that’s what it’s really about for you.
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If you genuinely cared about the injustices
black people face then you’d care about all of it.
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No matter where it’s happening in the world.
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Maybe you should expand your horizons a little further.
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Look outside of your little social media bubble.
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And learn to start thinking for yourself.
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