Lawrence Fox: A Comment

I watched Lawrence Fox on question time, and found myself largely in agreement with two of his comments, while differing markedly on one.

The stream of media vilification, mostly in the gutter press, which has been directed at Meghan Markle is not, as far as I can see, racist in nature, but forms part of a broader tabloid culture which as in the past denigrated Princess Diana, and then later Sarah Ferguson (can there be "gingerism"?). 

Now there are probably some matters which may be capable of criticism, especially with Sarah Ferguson, but it is the delight in doing so by the media which has its own particularly cruelty, and reminds me of nothing so much as blood sports. The media take against public figures, but that rarely has to do with race, as can be seen by the kind of criticism. A simple test is to take the adjectives and criticism, often ad hominem, levied at Meghan Merkle and other members of the Royal family, and see, with any naming indications removed, whether Meghan stands out.

Which news report said, for instance:

What was Meghan doing there in the first place if she didn't want to be seen?
What was Diana doing there in the first place if she didn't want to be seen?
What was Sarah doing there in the first place if she didn't want to be seen?

This is the kind of press reporting which has been faced by Meghan. But to which Royal was it actually addressed? It is clearly not a racist remark, but it is the kind of special pleading by the media which is all too common.

In those circumstances, given the media attacks on his wife, Prince Harry's decision to withdraw from public life wrong footed everyone. Now Lawrence Fox thought there was an element of having a cake and eating it, in that the Royal aspects could be used as a brand, but it is clear that the final agreement with the Palace, leading to the loss of the use of the "HRH" significantly seeks to ensure that is not the case.

Indeed the Palace statement pretty well says that Harry and Meghan can belong to one world or the other, but not both. There is an element of disappointment, although also acceptance, in Harry's own statement on the matter. That none of this came up for discussion, either from Lawrence Fox or others, is a tribute to the lack of depth shown by the panel in reading up on the subject. Everyone seemed to have focused on Harry's initial statement, and ignored the final settlement agreed upon.

The other area was the leadership of the Labour party. When asked who he though would be best, Lawrence Fox said "Sir Keir Starmer", on the basis that he would be the one most likely to succeed with Labour against Boris Johnson. He was then quite absurdly accused of sexism because he had not chosen one of the four female candidates. Now if leadership was simply a matter of rolling dice, and if all candidates were considered of equal merit it should be, then it would seem unfair to have chosen a man - but that's not the case. Leadership of the Labour party is not decided by drawing lots.

But where he was I think wrong was in saying that as a white male, with a public school background, who he was had nothing to do with assessing racism in society.

A notable experiment was that of John Howard Griffin (June 16, 1920 – September 9, 1980) who was an American journalist and author from Texas who wrote about racial equality. He is best known for his project to temporarily pass as a black man and journey through the Deep South of 1959 to see life and segregation from the other side of the colour line.

As Wikipedia notes:

"Griffin consulted a New Orleans dermatologist for aid in darkening his skin, being treated with a course of drugs, sunlamp treatments, and skin creams. Griffin shaved his head in order to hide his straight hair. He spent weeks travelling as a black man in New Orleans and parts of Mississippi (with side trips to South Carolina and Georgia), getting around mainly by bus and by hitchhiking. He was later accompanied by a photographer who documented the trip, and the project was underwritten by Sepia magazine, in exchange for first publication rights for the articles he planned to write. These were published under the title Journey into Shame."

"Griffin published an expanded version of his project as Black Like Me (1961), which became a best seller in 1961. He described in detail the problems an African American encountered in the segregated Deep South meeting the needs for food, shelter, and toilet and other sanitary facilities. Griffin also described the hatred he often felt from white Southerners he encountered in his daily life—shop clerks, ticket sellers, bus drivers, and others. He was particularly shocked by the curiosity white men displayed about his sexual life. He also included anecdotes about white Southerners who were friendly and helpful."

The results of this experiment showed that attitude does depend on skin colour, and how we may perceive racism in society depends on where we are. So Lawrence Fox cannot help being white, as he says, but his perception of racism in society will differ markedly from someone who is black.

Nowhere can this be seen better than in the the result of the referendum was to legitimised people's race hatred. The reactions experienced by people with darker or black skin tones showed a rise in hostility, and some second or third generation of immigrants were told "to go home", while those who spoke good English and were white, whatever their nationality, received no racial abuse, even if they had only been living in the UK for a short while.

While this abusive behaviour may still have been a statistical minority of the population, this minority became more vocal post-Brexit. The discussion of control of immigration need not necessarily be racist, and it can have more to do with sustainability and limits to growth, but it can often become conflated with racism, and hijacked, especially with slogans such as "take back control of borders", and the fear of untrammelled immigration fuelled by the Referendum campaign which often fed this xenophobia.

Even the recent Extinction Rebellion protests in London highlighted the fact that black people are often dealt with more severely than middle-class posh white people. The level of racism in society depends on where you fit into that society. As Athian Akec noted:

One friend of mine was stop-and-searched by the police 12 times last year. When I told him that the Extinction Rebellion protesters were purposefully getting themselves arrested, he rolled his eyes in sheer irritation. “That’s not an option for black people,” he said, adding that if he was arrested, the police would undoubtedly treat him differently, and his future career prospects might also be destroyed. The tactic of deliberately seeking arrest has further alienated disenfranchised communities like mine who, across generations, have had bad experiences with the police.

But as an audience member did, just saying you think this or that because you are posh middle-class is an ad hominem argument which only muddles the water. It's what C.S. Lewis called "Bulverism"[See https://uncommondescent.com/culture/c-s-lewis-on-bulverism/].

The idea that someone's opinions can be discounted simply on the grounds that, as an audience member said, they are a "white privileged male" is not an argument, it is just name calling, and needs to be followed up, by, for instance, pointing out, as Beth Johnson did, that "while Fox can’t control what he referred to on Question Time as his 'immutable characteristics', he can, if he’s willing, recognise his significant advantages."

There are certainly limitations to perspective wherever one fits into society, especially where race and white people are concerned, but we can overcome our own limitations - yet only if we are prepared to listen and understand other viewpoints, and I'm not convinced that Lawrence Fox made that clear or did so sufficiently. We must be aware of our own perceived limitations in the first place.

C.S Lewis was well aware of that we have limitations, and he recommended on way was to read old books. What he said is worth pondering.

Every age has its own outlook. It is specially good at seeing certain truths and specially liable to make certain mistakes. We all, therefore, need the books that will correct the characteristic mistakes of our own period. And that means the old books.

All contemporary writers share to some extent the contemporary outlook—even those, like myself, who seem most opposed to it. Nothing strikes me more when I read the controversies of past ages than the fact that both sides were usually assuming without question a good deal which we should now absolutely deny. They thought that they were as completely opposed as two sides could be, but in fact they were all the time secretly united—united with each other and against earlier and later ages—by a great mass of common assumptions."

We may be sure that the characteristic blindness of the twentieth century—the blindness about which posterity will ask, “But how could they have thought that?”—lies where we have never suspected it, and concerns something about which there is untroubled agreement between Hitler and President Roosevelt or between Mr. H. G. Wells and Karl Barth. None of us can fully escape this blindness, but we shall certainly increase it, and weaken our guard against it, if we read only modern books. Where they are true they will give us truths which we half knew already. Where they are false they will aggravate the error with which we are already dangerously ill.

The only palliative is to keep the clean sea breeze of the centuries blowing through our minds, and this can be done only by reading old books. Not, of course, that there is any magic about the past. People were no cleverer then than they are now; they made as many mistakes as we. But not the same mistakes. They will not flatter us in the errors we are already committing; and their own errors, being now open and palpable, will not endanger us. Two heads are better than one, not because either is infallible, but because they are unlikely to go wrong in the same direction. To be sure, the books of the future would be just as good a corrective as the books of the past, but unfortunately we cannot get at them.