Why I'm No Longer Talking to White People About Race

Chapter 4 focuses on the anxieties white people have of being displaced by Black people. Conservative politicians have long railed about white people losing their place in society to the alienated “other.” In 1968, for example, Enoch Powell declared to a rapt audience that “In fifteen or twenty years’ time, the black man will have the whip hand over the white man” (117). By drawing on the imagery of slavery, Powell’s racist speech not only tapped into white fears of subjugation but also tacitly acknowledged that power historically resided in the hands of those who could physically subjugate others. Contemporary politicians play into similar fears when they express concerns about the disappearance of the British way of life and clamor to curb immigration. For them, multiculturalism threatens British national identity. The 2016 Vote to Leave campaign, a referendum on the UK’s membership to the European Union, was fueled by these kinds of sentiments.

In 2009, Nick Griffin, the leader of the far-right British National Party, gave a speech about Britain’s embattled white minority on a television show called Question Time. This speech is significant because of the broad influence Griffin has in Britain. Eddo-Lodge reached out to Griffin and proposed a meeting at her publisher’s office in London. Griffin declined the invitation, claiming that London is “largely a foreign country” (122), but he agreed to speak over the phone. Eddo-Lodge reproduces this conversation in its entirety. Griffin began by citing the work of Britain’s leading demographer, who concluded that white people would be an ethnic minority in Britain by the end of the 21st century (122). He then explained his stance opposing interracial relationships, stressing the racial segregation benefits all races: “I think that either nature or God made people separate, unique and wonderful, all of them, then it’s a shame if we’re all simply obliterated into one indistinguishable mass all over the world” (125). Griffin expressed fears not just for Brits but for all Europeans, who are “under threat from mass immigration, integration, and multiracial relationships” (125). According to Griffin, racial integration is not “a natural thing” (126) but rather something the broadcast media promotes “as a good thing” (126). For Griffin, this is nothing short of social engineering by “an elite who want to use immigration to obliterate the nations of Europe” (126). Griffin did not blame immigrants for coming to the UK. Instead, he blamed the liberal media for promoting immigration and big corporations for wanting to exploit cheap immigrant labor. He used inflammatory language to describe immigration, calling it “genocidal” (127) and referred to developing countries as “the Third World” (128). At the end of the conversation, Griffin suggested that Eddo-Lodge move to a different country, preferably one connected to her heritage (129).

Griffin’s extreme views resonate with large segments of the British population. The far-right yearn for an idyllic white Britain that never existed. They fear being displaced and having to compete with immigrants for precious and scarce resources. As Eddo-Lodge points out, “fear of a black planet is a fear of loss” (129). The fear is completely unfounded. Power and wealth in Britain reside in the hands of a small white elite. By contrast, people of color’s life chances are hindered by structural racism. Demographics are changing far more quickly than the country’s power structures.

Eddo-Lodge presents the Rhodes Must Fall protest as a microcosm of how racial injustice operates in contemporary Britain. In 2015, students at Oxford University lobbied to remove a statue of Cecil Rhodes from campus. (Rhodes founded De Beers Consolidated Mines, displaced Africans from their lands, and is known as the father of apartheid in South Africa). Many critics, including the chancellor of the university, claimed student protesters were impinging on freedom of speech and accused them of trying to “expunge [Rhodes] from history” (131). As Eddo-Lodge observes, however, the student protesters were not restricting discussion. On the contrary, they sparked discussions and brought important issues to national attention. For many on the far right, being accused of racism is worse than racism itself. This speaks to the disparities that exist between anti-racists and racist apologists: The former are fighting to end oppression while the latter are so comfortable in their lives they are fighting to end offense because they have nothing offensive in their lives to oppose. The implications are significant:

When they make it about offence rather than their own complicity in a drastically unjust system, they successfully transfer the responsibility of fixing the system from the benefactors of it to those who are likely to lose out because of it (133).

As Eddo-Lodge observes, freedom of speech does not give people the right to say things without rebuttal. Racists should expect push-back on their views but instead try to stop conversations from happening altogether.