The Petty Successes of Multiculturalism

I very much enjoyed Tobias Langdon’s thoughts on “The Leftist War on Identity, Nationality and Biology.” Of particular interest were Langdon’s comments on Emma Raducanu, a mixed-race (Chinese-Romanian) tennis player who won the US Open and who has been lauded and celebrated, in Britain and elsewhere, as the best of British multiculturalism, if not the best of a new, superior kind of mixed-race human. Tobias rightly pointed out that the basic problem is that Raducanu isn’t British, and “it’s precisely because she isn’t British that lots of other people who aren’t British either have been eager to pretend that she is British and to celebrate her victory.” In the following essay, I want to adopt a slightly different approach to the celebration of Raducanu, exploring not only the hypocrisy and blindspots of multiculturalists, which are only too well known, but also the tensions within liberalism on this very subject. One of the most sober and sensible comments on the Raducanu episode, for example, was made by multiculturalist Sunder Katwala, of British Future, a “thinktank that promotes debate about immigration and integration.” Katwala “warned people with liberal views on immigration against using her as a “gotcha” argument,” and stressed that cases like Raducanu are “exceptional stories.” I’d argue that they are also, in the final analysis, petty successes trotted out in carefully styled propaganda to mask a multitude of multicultural sins.

Bread and Circuses

As explored in a fascinating book by Patrick Brantlinger, the phrase ‘Bread and Circuses’ has long been associated with theories that have treated mass culture as either a symptom or a cause of social decadence. It’s also true, however, that ‘Bread and Circuses’ is perhaps the finest phrase for encapsulating the marketed appeal of multiculturalism. What better way to describe the fixation on cuisine and sports that sum up in toto the alleged “contributions” of ethnic diversity to European society? Exotic food and sporting spectacles are societal luxuries whose importance is directly correlated to the development of what Spengler called “the world-city,” in which men live in nothing but an “artificial footing.”^[1] And the celebrations accompanying Emma Raducanu, insofar as they moved beyond her victory in a tennis match and suggested broader social importance, are nothing if not artificial. It’s perfectly clear that Raducanu’s win at the US Open will have no impact on the lives of average Britons, except perhaps to further brainwash them into believing that this tennis player, by some form of socio-political alchemy, embodies all that they should aspire to. Meridian Magazine, for example, argues that:

[Raducanu’s] victory and meteoric rise into superstardom cannot, or rather should not, be viewed in isolation, as a sole, personal success but as a symbolic victory for British diversity in the face of the xenophobia that remains rooted in shadowy sections of British society. In fact, Raducanu’s victory may help transform British society for the better, in a way far beyond the control of her racket. Raducanu is emblematic of a global citizen.

Although Tobias Langdon has rightly pointed out that much of the celebration around Raducanu has come from ethnic minorities, it’s also very clear that many younger Whites, groomed from birth to be “global citizens” and now coming of age, are some of the most active and prominent purveyors of this garbage. The Meridian Magazine piece, for example, was written by a young English female college student, who further displays her thorough indoctrination by suggesting that

given both the cultural richness of Raducanu’s roots and her expertise on the court, we are fortunate to hail her victory as a British one. Not unlike 2021’s esteemed England football squad, which also champions British diversity with just three players from the squad (Pickford, Shaw, and Stones) having exclusively English roots, Raducanu’s case is serving as a reminder that our diversity and multiculturalism is what strengthens us. It allows us to take centre stage—or court—and draw upon a multitude of experiences that ultimately place us, both as individuals and as a society, in an advantageous position. And this, therefore, is a beacon of positivity against the darkness of xenophobia. [emphasis added]

Contradictions

This is a very short paragraph that manages to include a wealth of puzzling contradictions. The first sentence suggests that a nation should be proud of winners it merely adopts. Raducanu arrived in Britain aged two, which is very young and confirms a British contribution to her training [we also know, however, that Raducanu received training at the sports academy in Shenyang, her mother’s home town], but claiming her success as a British one is not fundamentally different in a biological sense from the Arab oil states and their practice of hiring what have been termed “sports mercenaries.” Kenyan runners and Bulgarian weightlifters, for example, have been granted citizenship in countries like Qatar to compete internationally in pursuit of medals and international victories that would otherwise elude these nations. While portrayed as cynical and crass, these Arab states are arguably more authentic in protecting their citizenship laws, given that these laws are incredibly rigid and are based on the concern “that foreigners might have an adverse influence on [the region’s] dynastic political system and conservative culture based on deep-rooted tribal values that are already considered under threat.” These states are happy to hand a passport to a handful of elite athletes, and for a specific purpose, but not to masses of “enriching” migrants. In other words, the oil states are happy to exploit the multicultural nationality game insofar as it relates to sports alone. They are not foolish enough to believe that a victory on a sports field will enrich their society or culture.

The West, on the other hand, celebrates its sporting mercenaries while indulging the idea that sports victories or exotic recipes are genuine reflections of a functioning and enriched society. This jarring contradiction is best exemplified in reactions to Nigel Farage’s offer of congratulations to Raducanu. Farage was heavily criticized as a hypocrite because of past statements he had made to the effect that Romanian crime statistics in Britain were “eye-watering,” and had added: “I was asked a question if a group of Romanian men moved in next to you, would you be concerned. If you lived in London, I think you would be.”

For liberals and offended ethnic minorities Farage’s two actions are contradictory, and yet they shouldn’t be. It’s perfectly possible to offer congratulations on an individual sporting victory without accepting that it dramatically alters known social conditions. The website Police Professional, for example, reports that

The lifting of employment restrictions by the European Union (EU) has seen a massive spike in crime statistics in the UK. Arrests of suspected Romanian criminals more than doubled when the eastern European nationals were first allowed to work in Britain. Transitional controls were imposed by member states on Romania and its neighbour Bulgaria, considered the poor relations of the bloc, when they joined the EU in 2007. Their rights to work and claim benefits were restricted for their first seven years of membership until January 1, 2014. At the end of 2013, the number of Romanians arrested stood at 7,383. That figure rocketed to 17,398 in 2014 with 18,127 Romanians arrested in England and Wales last year — a rise of 145 per cent in just two years.

I’d say this is eye-watering and, as Farage argued, a cause for concern. The added elephant in the room is of course the difference between more economically successful and capable ethnic Romanian nationals and masses of more socially problematic Roma gypsies, who are responsible for most of the “Romanian” crime statistics. I’ve seen no evidence that Emma Raducanu’s father is of Roma gypsy descent, and in fact she seems to have enjoyed an upper middle-class upbringing filled with a “hectic lifestyle of ballet, horse riding, swimming and go-karting.” In short, Nigel Farage is not a hypocrite, and his two actions are not contradictory.

Georgina Lawton, writing for the Guardian, has argued that “Raducanu is living proof of the way a country that celebrates cultural difference can succeed.” No, she isn’t. She’s living proof that a young woman of Euro-Asian parentage can do well academically and become extremely proficient at tennis. This wouldn’t surprise even the most hardened racialist. The fact of the matter is that, in the context of “good news,” Liberals and their allies want us to take an individual story and expand it to group level (“successful ethnic athlete = successful multiethnic culture”), while in the context of bad news they want us to take a group story and reduce it to individuals (“negative group crime statistics shouldn’t be acknowledged because we’re all individuals”). In other words, ethnicity can only be considered at group level if it leads to praise. This is the fundamental contradiction of multiculturalism, and it stands in stark contrast to the position of so-called “racists” who adopt a truly holistic view of race and the individual that is without any such contradictions — I can praise a Ugandan sprinter without believing 200,000 Ugandans will make life in my home nation considerably better.

The Discomfort of Success and the Question of “Contributions”

Another uncomfortable question raised by the Raducanu episode is the issue of immigrant “contributions” to the host society. Sunder Katwala, of British Future, worries that stories like that of Raducanu “give a popular image of the positive contribution of migration and integration, and that has a positive element, as long as it’s not overplayed.” Another representative of a British multiculturalist group is concerned that “valuing immigrants and refugees in the UK is sort of predicated on being successful and giving back a contribution rather than just being human.” Both comments reveal a further contradiction of multiculturalism; that despite talk of oppression and discrimination, some ethnic minorities are significantly and stubbornly more successful than others. The school grades of Asians, for example, remain light years ahead of those of Africans, and the gap in statistics for expulsions and suspensions from schools is equally cavernous. These facts are a brutal rejoinder to claims of oppressive Whiteness, and they are the reason why all celebrations of successful immigrants occur against a much greater shadow of failure, welfare dependance, social degradation, and crime. Success it seems, can be a burden too much to bear for the unsuccessful. In this context, it is hardly surprising to find a quote like that above, where a shamed and uneasy multiculturalist appeals for immigrants to be celebrated simply, and ridiculously, for “being human.”

Further, some immigrant “contributions” are questionable even on their own terms. Take, for example, Derek Taylor’s 2013 “Thank you for your business”: The Jewish Contribution to the British Economy, a quite shameless panegyric to the Jewish penchant for wealth accumulation. Tucked in among ridiculous tales of Jews inventing jigsaw puzzles [they didn’t; the first jigsaw puzzle was invented by London mapmaker John Spilsbury in the 1760s], and postcards [they didn’t; the first picture postcard is credited to Theodore Hook, an English Man of Letters], are very light references to their more solidly documented role in the development of British pornography and gambling. It was Richard ‘Dirty Des’ Desmond, the son of Latvian and Ukrainian Jews, who first introduced mass-produced pornography into Britain, and who ‘pioneered’ “the first pornographic channel available on satellite television in the UK.” He also “ran a premium rate phone sex company until 1988 when he sold the business after British Telecom raised concerns about the content.” That’s quite a contribution. Equally impressive is the Jewish contribution to gambling everywhere, not least Britain and the United States. I was amused recently to read an essay on Jews and gambling that admitted that Jews were pre-eminent in the development of American gambling. The piece claimed “the Jewish appetite for [sports gambling] (and probably for wagering of all kinds) remains mysterious.”^[2] I’ve approached this sentence from multiple angles, but can’t find the mystery in Jews engaging in risk to find profit without labor. Nothing, in fact, would seem more matter of fact. It’s certainly matter of fact in Britain, where Liam O’Brien has pointed out that

all of the ‘Big Three’ bookmakers have had a significant Jewish input. Coral was founded by Joe Coral from a Polish-Jewish background while Ladbrokes, originally a company catering for the upper classes only became a major company under the stewardship of Max Parker and his nephew Cyril Stein whose family were of Russian-Jewish origin. Stein was a major philanthropist for numerous Jewish and Israeli causes throughout his career. [This is a good example of using vice to facilitate large-scale transfer of wealth from Gentile to Jewish communities.] William Hill acquired a significant Jewish connection when it bought the more than 600 shops of Stanley Racing owned by Lord Steinburg.^[3]

The tension at the heart of such immigrant “contributions” is explored admirably by the website jewishcontributions.com, which appears to have adopted, and I must say perfected, an approach I employed back in 2015-16 through a subtle and satirical Twitter account named “Skype Directory.” At the heart of the approach is the contradiction of multiculturalism — that multiculturalism will celebrate the “contributions” it feels are worthy of celebration while hiding “contributions” it feels might be regarded negatively. What Skype Directory did, and what Jewish Contributions do, is to highlight the shadow behind the fanfare, or to do a kind of double-take at the other side of those things claimed as Jewish successes or achievements. When Jewish magazines, for example, claim that Jews brought America to the tipping point on gay marriage, the approach dictates that such a claim be highlighted and presented in its own right. The same can be said for the Jewish “contribution” to transgenderism, feminism, abortion, etc. While these may be celebrated liberal values, you can be sure that Jews would only welcome a spotlight on their role in certain very limited circumstances. If the “celebration” of their role became a little too loud, you can be sure that such applause would not be welcome. Joe Biden learned this back in 2013 when Jewish activists were offended when he praised Jewish power and influence:

Joe Biden should  know the ground rules by now. You can praise the contributions of individual Jews. It’s totally permissible to wax eloquent on the accomplishments of  Sigmund Freud, Jonas Salk, or Albert  Einstein—perhaps even implying that humanity would never have come on these ideas and thus be infinitely poorer for it. … You  can even  praise the Jewish community’s role in enacting public policy on which there is a broad consensus, such as the Civil Rights movement.

But you can’t imply that Jews have real power and have used it to push America in directions most Americans don’t want to go or obviously conflict with the legitimate interests of other  groups—particularly Whites. … [Biden]: “I bet you 85 percent of those changes, whether it’s in Hollywood or social media are a consequence of Jewish leaders in the industry. The influence is immense, the influence is immense. And, I might add, it is all to the good.”

And if Jews are in some way shamed or fearful regarding wider awareness of their “contribution,” what is the true nature of that contribution after all?

The Success of Multiculturalism?

It’s really quite strange that a tennis match has been used to demonstrate that diversity is our strength rather than, say, government data on crime and social cohesion. It’s in the latter that we find a true, broad, and far-reaching multicultural contribution. In Britain, Black men are apparently 5.4 times more likely than White men to be arrested for drug offences, and young Black men were 10.5 times more likely than young White men to be arrested for robbery. That’s quite a contribution. There’s also a contribution to weapons-based violent crime:

When compared to 2014, an increase in prosecutions was seen across all ethnic groups, apart from those categorised as White, which saw a decrease of 2% in prosecutions. In 2018, ethnic minority groups were overrepresented for prosecutions of possession of weapons offences, accounting for 30% of all prosecutions in this category. Of all prosecutions for possession of weapons offences, “possession of an article with a blade or point” made up 59% of prosecutions. The Metropolitan police force (London) area accounted for 66% of all Black defendants prosecuted for this offence, compared with 14% for White defendants.

Blacks, Pakistanis, Bangladeshis, and those of mixed-race have also been found to consume welfare payments in astonishing numbers relative to their share of the population. Another contribution! This is to say nothing of the growing agitation for the removal of historical monuments said to offend the sensibilities of these people. Ethnically motivated iconoclasm is unquestionably a contribution.

These things, we should remember, like Raducanu’s tennis victory, “allow us to take centre stage—or court—and draw upon a multitude of experiences that ultimately place us, both as individuals and as a society, in an advantageous position.” I don’t know about you, but I’m having trouble seeing just how advantageous my position is. Maybe I just need to celebrate these people for being “simply human.” Maybe I need to live in one of Spengler’s “World-cities.” Maybe I need to throw myself into being a “global citizen.” Or maybe, just maybe, these multicultural “successes” are nothing but bread and circuses for the ignorant and the willfully corrupt.

^[1] O. Spengler, The Decline of the West: Volume II: Perspectives of World History (London: Arktos, 2021), 125-6.

^[2] E. Mendelsohn (ed), Jews and the Sporting Life: Studies in Contemporary Jewry Vol. XXIII (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), 64.

^[3] L. O’Brien, What’s the SP? (eBook Partnership, 2014).