The delusion of racial tolerance in the UK
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By David Roberts
‘The greatest trick the devil ever played, was making us believe he doesn’t exist
- The Usual Suspect
A very British notion
Britain has long prided itself on being a tolerant society. Far Right rags like The Spectator proudly trumpet Britain’s ‘tolerance’ in the face of a ‘few football racists’ that can be dismissed as rotten apples. Diversity UK pointed out that ‘seventy years ago in Britain, issues of race and identity were unfamiliar to most [if you were White]. However, since then the face of the nation has changed rapidly’. The education group ‘Total People’ claims tolerance is a primary value in the UK.
Britain’s reward for such tolerance is to be perceived as ‘morally praiseworthy’. But what is it being praised for? Polycarp Ikuenobe argues that this reward is in fact about restraint: it is about ‘refraining from mistreating others regarding their racial difference’. It shows that there is a power dynamic at work in the act of tolerating someone else. Th...
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