This Is Not America: A British Conversation On Race with Tomiwa Owolade

- Tomiwa Owolade is a columnist at the Times of London, and we'll be discussing his prize winning and bestselling book. This Is Not America, why We Need a British Conversation About Race. To Me, in 2022, you wrote a really groundbreaking book called This Is Not America, why We Need a British Conversation About Race, which had a huge amount of, of publicity and got a lot of people talking. It was a magnificently controversial argument that were, you were putting essentially. Would you like to sum it up? Thank you very much Andrew, and it's a pleasure to be on this podcast. I decided to write This Is Not America because I felt that the conversation in race in the UK was far too reductive and it was reductive for a simple reason. I think it was reductive because it relied upon generalizations about not only black British people, but about British people from all ethnic minority backgrounds. And these superficial generalizations were all too often predicated on an American way of thinking and looking at race. What I mean by that is that to use the example of black British people, the majority of black British people are either immigrants or the children of immigrants from Africa. Now, about 30 years ago, the majority would've been immigrants or the children of immigrants from the Caribbean. If you contrast that with the experiences of black American people, black American people can trace their ancestry further back than many white American people. The vast majority of black American people are the descendants of enslaved Africans. So the immigrant experience that characterizes the black British population doesn't apply to the experiences of Black American people and the history of slavery and Jim Crow segregation doesn't translate to the black British experience. And I think this manifests itself in various ways. If you consider the fact, for example, that many black African pupils at school do exceedingly well and they also do well in terms of their professional careers as well. If you consider the fact that there is a greater degree of diversity within the black British population. So for example, black Caribbean pupils tend to do less well at school along with white working class pupils. If we consider all these factors, it doesn't make sense to make these generalizations based on race because it doesn't offer an accurate picture of what life is actually like in the UK for not only black people, as I said earlier on, but for ethnic minority people in general. And so when you say to define someone exclusively by their races to acquiesce in the vision of racists, what you are basically arguing is that this the, the way in which the discussion on race has taken place and is more and more taking place in this country is actually basically playing into the hands of racists. Exactly, yes. It's playing directly into the hands of racist because what racists do obviously is that they make generalizations based on race. They don't acknowledge somebody for their individual character. They don't take into account how somebody's character ambitions desires, what constitutes a person can be characterized by other things rather than simply their race. And I think that's the problem with a lots of the progressive discourse around race today, is that, as I said, that reductive mindset. And I think it's especially, I think it's especially damaging because if we want to genuinely try and address any of the inequalities in our society, simply looking at race is a terrible way to grow about it. Because equality can be shaped by class, can be shaped by geography, can be shaped by somebody's particular family background by by kind of the culture that they grew up in. Simply looking at it in terms of race doesn't actually allow us to acknowledge the people that are actually disadvantaged in society. And you've specifically gone for the year 2020. Yes. The Year of Black Lives Matter and a particular letter that was written by the students of your old university, university College, London. Tell us about that. Yes. So around the time of the Black Lives Matter protest in the uk, some students at my old university UCL wrote an open letter to the faculty, the English faculty of the university, accusing the faculty and university more generally of racism. A friend of mine informed me of this letter and I wrote a counter letter in which I basically deconstructed all the pitfalls of the original letter. And what I was struck by was the extent to which this letter encapsulated all of the problems that I see with progressive contemporary discourse around race. And one of the main, one of the main problems was simply saw black people as victims. And I think if I was to boil down my opposition to the progressive conception of anti-racism is that it sees black people and also other ethnic minority people as simply victims in need of a kind of white savior rescue essentially. But there was another reason why I took objection to it, which was that they saw the English cannon as fundamentally racist. And I took objection to that because one of the reasons why I decided to study English, and also one of the reasons why I love history and Western civilization is precisely because it's something that transcends particular categories. It transcends particular racial, ethnic national cultural categories To use the example of the great African novelist, Genoa Chebe Genoa Chebe wrote his famous book, things Fall Apart as a kind of rebuke of Joseph Conrad. But the irony is that things fall apart. The title comes from a poem by William Butler Yates, and the structure of the novel is clearly influenced by Greek tragedy. So I think the problem, one of the problems I had with that initial letter was that it established a kind of antagonism between black and ethnic minority people and the canon of Western civilization, whereas I see that canon as something enriching emancipating, something to be treasured rather than something to be destroyed. And there was something in that letter as well, wasn't there? That's mentioned, B-I-P-O-C. Yes. Which gave the game away completely. Yes. Tell us about that. Yes. So Bipoc, B-I-P-O-C is an acronym that stands for black indigenous people of color. Now, that acronym would obviously make sense in an American context in the sense of progressive anti-racist types would mention not only the marginalization of black people, but also the marginal marginalization of indigenous people, native Americans. What I found striking about it was it was used specifically in a British and using a word like indigenous saying that we must protect indigenous people in Britain makes you sound more like a member of the British National Party than it does a 2020 1-year-old left wing activist at a London University. Yeah. Because we didn't have a black indigenous population in this country. You point out in this book that some 1% of the British population was black in 1980. Yes. It's now now about 4%. Yes. Whereas Asians are 9.3% and Yes, exactly. So it just, it just simply, the, the, the mathematics just don't apply across the, for all sorts of obvious historical and and geographical reasons. They just simply don't apply across the pond. So Yes, Why on earth do we take on why were we taking the knee in 2020 on football pitches? Why were we having these huge marches if it's an entirely different issue from what's going on in, in Milwaukee 3000 miles away? Yeah. I think social media plays a significant role in this. And I felt like the conjunction of, of COVID and like being cooped up inside and relying on social media as a kind of way of being in touch with the world, I think that played a pivotal role. So many people, because they spent so many hours on sweatshirt and Instagram, they completely internalized the American way of thinking and looking at race because as we all know on these social media sites, they are dominated by America. So I, I think the fact that this, this occurred during the COVID lockdown is an important factor in why many people ended up internalizing that American way of they're gonna look at race. And yet, as you say in your book, and I'm gonna equate it now, there was no equivalent in British law of the Jim Crow segregation. Yes. Between the late 19th century and the mid 1960s that was enshrined in America. Lynching has never been practiced in the United Kingdom. Interracial marriage has never been banned in Britain, our schools are not segregated by race, but by class. And we, we've got an ENT entirely. You are in no way, quite rightly and understandably denying that discrimination has taken place in housing and employment and criminal justice and so on in education. Yes, yes. In Britain, but it's just nothing like the American experience. Yes, exactly. And, and I, and I feel like it, I, I feel like it's, it's actually quite disrespectful to the Black American people that experienced segregation, lynching, and the kind of brutalized racism, the particular brutalized racism they experienced to try and conflate those sets of experiences with the experiences of black British people. Because as you rightly say, I don't deny the vicious racism at times that black British people did experience in the past and to some extent today as well. But I, but it's, it's to show like genuine respect to the truth, you need to be attentive to detail. And I feel like it's so, as I said, so disrespectful because it doesn't allow any kind of constructive thing to come out of it. So like if, if we generally want to address inequality, we can't address it if our understanding of it is so skewed. Yeah. I mean, you don't deny the value of solidarity across, across the ocean under some circumstances, you know, it can be a good thing. We all feel, I think, solidarity with Iranian women, for example, what they're undergoing, of course, Afghan women and so on, that's a yes, A perfectly reasonable sense of solidarity with people who are living thousands of, of miles away, you know, hostages in Gaza. Yes. A couple of years ago, one, one felt immense and natural solidarity with them. But where does that sort of, where does that end and where does the kind of solidarity that BLM is trying to foist on us begin? Yes, I think there's a distinction between solidarity based on shared universal values and solidarity based on identity. And I felt like the BLM movement was characterized by solidarity based on a particular set of racial characteristics. So it was based on the idea that black people in London would necessarily fill a sense of kinship in terms of experiences with black people in Milwaukee. And that's clearly like factually nonsense because it implies that those two sets of experiences are the same. And to use another example, what I, what what I've been struck by is the extent to which, so in the book I mentioned that my family come, comes from Nigeria. And a few years ago I went to my, my brother's wedding. My brother actually lives in America and got married to a black American woman. So her family are the descendants of enslaved Africans, and she invited many of her family members and friends to come over to Nigeria for the wedding. But from the points of view of many Nigerians, many native Africans, so to speak, what what was most striking about these black American people was not the fact that they were black. What was most striking from the perspective of the Nigerians was the fact that these black American people were American. That was the most significant factor. And that experience reminded me of a wonderful episode from the TV show, the Sopranos, which which is obviously about Italian American gangsters in New Jersey. There's one particular episode early on in, in the show in one of the early seasons where they go to Italy for some of them, I think it might be for the first time. And there's one particular character, Pauley walnuts, and he's walking around Italy trying to feel a kind of sense of kinship, a sense of belonging. But the native Italian people just think that the guy is just an American, like one of the reasons why they think he's just American is because he can't speak any Italian. So it's, it's, and I think, I think that there were other examples of this as well. I think many, for example, many Irish people think of Irish Americans as mostly Americans rather than Irish. So there are many examples of this kind of tendency. And so I, I think that when we do try and displace solidarity, the best way of expressing solidarity is not by affirming a kind of kinship in terms of identity, but by affirming a set of universal values which apply to any group, any community irrespective of their identity. But America does have this special power, doesn't it, in that when America sneezes the rest of the world does catch a cold. Yes. You say in your book quote, when something significant happens in America, it reverberates across the rest of the world. And many of us interpret what is specific to America as true of our own country. And and that is, that is, that is the case. I mean, the American experience is a, is a sort of universal one in that it's just such an important cultural power in all our lives. So Yes. Is there a sort of, is there is what I'm, I suppose I'm trying to say is that of course BLM was going to wind being a influence on, on British culture and society because it's American. Yes. Not necessarily because of anything. It was particularly going to Yes, yeah. To say Yes. Yes. I think that's a very true point. And I think, of course the title of my book is this is Not America, and it's specifically about the racial dimension, but it can apply to a multitude of other instances in which we see ourselves or at least are influenced or dominated by American culture, American society, American politics, American history. And as I write in the book, for example, this, this isn't, this isn't a kind of anti-American like tracks in it by any means. There are so many aspects of American culture and American society and American literature that I love, But nevertheless, music and clothes. Exactly. You know, I mean, exactly. Yes. It's, it's just, it's just Yeah, exactly. Movies. That's right. Yes. Yeah. Like an infinite like amount of American of Americana that I, that I especially love and admire. But I think I, I would actually argue that being able to see the fact that these things are especially American, particularly American, and to try and situate them in an American context, rather than trying to translate them outta that American context, I think that is actually a way of showing respect to America rather than being anti-American. Because the way I see the world is that the way to like show respect to somebody, the way to show that you love and admire somebody is by seeing that person and all their particularity, rather than trying to generalize about them seeing that person or that individual or that idea in its very specific context. And I think this, this is something not, not just specific to my book, but this is something that's also informed my journalistic career as well. Whenever I try to write, I always try and write in a way that reflects something that I try. I always try and write in a way that is very specific rather than kind of vacuous and airy and, and lacking any kind of particularity. Well, you wouldn't have got to be an opinion editor at the Daily Telegraph if you were vacuous. I, I, yes. I assure you. Yes. Tell us about Robert Hughes, the Australian writer and his theory of the cultural cringe. Yes. So that theory is the, so Robert, who's the Australian critic, used that theory about the relationship between Australia and Britain and cultural cringe is the idea that your, your Euro native land is embarrassing and something that isn't really worthy of any kind of particular attention, therefore, you gravitate to your culture, a society that's more exciting, more interested, more novel, more fascinating. And I felt, and I feel like obviously that was used about the relationship between Australia and Britain, but I also think that that's now the case amongst many British people. When they look at their own society, they, they find it embarrassing, cringe worthy, and they see American society as something that's more exciting, more thrilling. I've got friends, for example, that are completely uninterested in British politics because they find that boring and tedious, but they are completely gripped by American politics, especially with Trump as president. Yes. Well, I think, I think that's pretty, that's a pretty straightforward who, who can't be however you feel about, about America or the world or Trump, the, now that we're looking at the 250th anniversary of the United States, you do point out that actually this constitution of theirs is a very, very old one. We think of America as being a young, sort of thrusting country, but actually the average age of a constitution before it's overthrown by the next constitution in world history is 19 years. Yes. And this has been going 200 plus. And John Gay said American institutions, John Gay, the political philosopher said quote, American institutions have changed less over the past centuries than those have practically any other country. Hmm. Which actually, although what one thinks of America as being a sort of, you know, radical place in so many ways, actually, it's tremendously conservative when it comes to its institutions, isn't it sense? Yes, it is. It is. And and in terms of its traditions, in terms of its values, it's, it's, it's, as you rightly say, it's tremendously both society and, and I, and I feel like that's, that is one of the kind of, that is one of the ironies, which is, as you rightly say, we, we do see America because it, because it's also integral to America's vision of itself as a kind of thrusting vibrant young country. The kind of the youth and the vitality of America is an integral role, especially when it comes to the way that many American presidents have spoken about their country. I'm, I'm thinking of John F. Kennedy, of Ronald Reagan. They often emphasize the kind of the youth and the, the vitality of the country. But it is a country with its own distinct set of traditions and values. And one of the reasons why I think one of the reasons why many people find America so fascinating is precisely because its values and its traditions, and it's, and also it, its its age as well is so clearly delineated. There's a kind of clarity about it, which, which many people find striking and many people find fascinating. And I would include myself in that as well. Critical race theory came from America. How, how do you think it's doing at the moment? Do you think we've, we've reached peak woke, or have we still got some way to go? I don't, I don't think, I don't think that we, so like there's, there's a, there's a a point of view that's been recently banded about that wokeness is on its way out. And I think that is true to some extent. So I think it's true to some extent with regards to say literary culture. So I don't know if you saw that the winner of the Booker Prize in Britain last year was a novel called Flesh about a straight man, a straight white man experience in upper class London society. And I don't think that book, this is just pure speculation, but I don't think that book would've won the book a prize in 2020 or 2021. So I think I'm you're, I'm sure You're right. It wouldn't, Yeah, I think, I think at the kind of superficial level we have passed the kind of worst ex excesses of woke culture. But I think at a deeper structural level, I, I don't think that's the case. I think the kind of culture that characterizes work isn't simply about particular values. I think it's much deeper than that. It's about control. It's about being able to exercise control of over certain institutions. And I do feel like if you are a young person in, in Britain and you are in university or you've just come out of school, there is still a profoundly left-wing bias in many of Britain's cultural institutions, a kind of bias which is still obsessed with identity politics, which still takes identity politics as the kind of norm. And I feel like the, the pushback to it can't just be a pushback at a level of culture. It needs to be a deeper structural institutional pushback. So like one, one of the ironies is that the critical race theory argument is Britain is an institutionally racist country. Now, of course, there is still racism in many areas of British society, and not just racism against black people, but racism against other ethnic minority people. And something which is now relevant now, but in particular racism against Jewish people. So of course there is still racism in British society, but I I I, but one of the ironies is that at an institutional level, many of our cultural institutions, whether it's like HR departments, universities, schools, certain cultural institutions, there is still a kind of bias towards identity politics. That's why I think wokeness hasn't gone away far from it. We are speaking on the day that Britain's going to the polls in the local elections, which is expected widely to confirm the fact that we are a multi-party polity now rather than just the, the two party state that we essentially have been for, for the last century. Do you think that the multi-party system that we seem to be about to embark on will mean more racial splits? I'm thinking in particular of the way in which the Green Party seems to have embraced Islamism? Yeah, I, I think it's, I think we are reaching in Britain a very dangerous turning point because for many people, and I do think that for some people that might vote for the Green Party today, they might vote for the Green Party under the misguided assumption that the Green Party is still a kind of environmental party, a kind of slightly wacky, slightly eccentric environmental party. But that Green Party is dead now and has been replaced by Green Party, which is animated by sectarian, Furies by Islamism, as you say. And by frankly anti-Semitism using the war in Gaza, as as, as a way to denounce and kind of marginalize Jewish people. Because with, with the way that Zach Polanski's been behaving recently, Just to explain to the listeners, that's the leader of the British Green Party, a Jewish politician called Zach Polanski, who's the leader, sorry, carry on to Mewa. Yes, yes, yes. So Zach Polanski, every time Zach Polanski is on, he always emphasizes the fact that he himself is Jewish and uses that as a way to justify accusing Israel of committing genocide. And I feel like Zach Polanski's actions will lead to a situation where any Jewish person will not be admitted into progressive spaces unless they disavowed the state of Israel. And that kind of, that kind of test is, is almost kind of reminiscence of the, the test acts where wherein people, Jewish people needed to disavow their, their background in order for them to enter like parliament or, or, or the law or certain universities. And, and, and, and, and I think that's why it's, it's so, it's so dangerous. And of course, the other irony is that many of these fierce activists within the Green Party proudly consider themselves to be anti-racist. That's the biggest irony of all. They consider themselves to be anti-racist. Where, where, you know, whilst at the same time encouraging a culture that is inflaming hostility to British Jewish people. And even though there are only a quarter of a million British Jewish people in this country, yes. They utterly refuse to see them as a minority as well. Yes, yes, yes. Exactly. That's, that's the other idea. Because there, there is this idea that racism, when when they think of racism, many of these people frankly only think of racism as something that applies to quote unquote people of color. And so under that kind of particular framework, Ashkenazi Jewish people can't be victims of racism because they're white. And it's, it's, it's, it's such a noxious way, such an vow way of, of, of thinking about it because it, it, essentially what it does is it completely marginalizes one of the greatest horrors of the 20th century, which was the genocide of European Jews. The cultural wars seem to be polarizing and balkanizing are society. You write in, in this wonderful book, this Is Not America, a Healthy Civic Society is one in which everyone, irrespective of race, religion, ethnic background or political ideology can speak to one another with a shared sense of identity. Are we moving towards that or away from that in Britain today? I, I think if the Green Party does continue to gain prominence, I think that there is a risk. We're moving away from it. There's a risk, we're moving away from it in terms of the balkanization of society, especially in certain urban areas of the UK where particular Muslim communities, and I I I don't wanna generalize, but all Muslims, but there were some particular Muslim communities in Britain that appear to feel a greater affinity with a kind of transnational Muslim identity than they do to other communities within the uk. And I think that's one of the reasons why this, the, this local, the local, the local elections going on today. So fascinating because in the past, local elections would be dominated by kind of bin collections or, or like, like something, something is wrong with both with the school Potholes in the roads. Exactly. Potholes is a big thing. That's a perfect example, isn't it? Yeah, potholes, that's the perfect example. It'd be dominated by those issues, but the issue of Gaza appears to be a dominant factor in these elections, which, which I find so concerning and so troubling. And I think that reflects the import importation of sectarian politics, of, of Middle, middle East style sectarian politics into the civic life of Britain. Part of the problem is this concept of social justice, isn't it? It, it seems to me that whenever you put the word social in front of something, you wreck the underlying noun. So justice is a wonderful thing. Social justice certainly isn't, the market is a wonderful thing. The social market is, is is appalling. And it's especially true, obviously, of democracy, which is a wonderful thing. Social democracy just simply isn't. We, we still seem to be in this, in, in the grip of this social justice concept. And what can we do to, apart from reading your wonderful book, what can we do to, to escape it? I think one of the striking things about people that embrace the term social justice is that they simply see it as a way of affirming a particular identity. It's a way of feeling, a sense of belonging. And I think this is especially striking now as we now, especially in the UK live in a post religious society, a society where the institutional power of the Church of England is WANs significantly. And people do not feel a sense of belonging to a particular church. Many of them do not feel a sense of belonging to their particular community. So the way that they try and find a sense of belonging is by embracing this set of social justice politics. Now the problem with that is it narrows the way that they see the world, because any kind of curiosity about the world will let you know that issues around justice are complex, they are complicated, they should not be seen in a simplistic way, racial inequality, class inequality. These are not simplistic issues, but many people that embrace the social justice banner do see it in a simplistic way. They do see it in a reductive way. So I, I think a way of trying to address this is by emphasizing the importance of curiosity, the importance of nuance, the importance of sophistication, and also the importance of generosity as well. Because I think another important aspect of many of the people that follow the social justice agenda for want of a better phrase, is their lack of a generosity of spirit. So they would often demonize their intellectual antagonists as racist far right. And use similar language rather than trying to understand where they are genuinely coming from trying to understand a different set of views, a different set of experiences, and trying to build something that is constructive out of that disagreement. What biography or history book are you reading at the moment? Tamira? I'm currently reading a biography of Julius Caesar by Adrie Goldsworthy. Oh, great. Yes. It's a very good book. I absolutely, and he's a, he's a, he's an excellent charming chap and a, and an excellent writer. Yes. Oh, that's very good. Yes, Yes. I, I really enjoyed it. Yes, I have really enjoyed it. And I, and it's funny because I'm turning 30 this year, and a, a friend of mine said something that's, that's always stuck with me a few years ago, which is that for many men, after they turn 30, they either become obsessed with the Second World War or they become obsessed with the Roman Empire. And I'm, I'm still, I'm still unsure which, which, which, which one I'm gonna, which, which route I'm gonna take. It's not either or, it really isn't. And actually, whilst you're there, you could be obsessed with Napoleon as well, who by the age of Yes, of course, of course, of course. He, he took over ultimate power in France as first console. Yes, Yes, of course. Yeah. Well, yeah. The striking thing is, is, is is, you know, Napoleon was obsessed with Julius Caesar and then, and then Churchill was obsessed with Napoleon. So there's a kind of, you know, Yes. My choice kind of. And Caesar and Napoleon were obsessed with Alexander the greats of course, as Well. Yes, of Course. Yes, yes. There's A nice technology there. There is, yes. This is the direct line of descent. And, and actually Margaret Thatcher was obsessed with Churchill and ah, fantastic. And I'm obsessed with Margaret Thatcher, so I think there's a direct apostolic line of succession between me and Alexander the Great. Yes, yes. And Obsessed With you, aren't you? I'm Obsessed with you. Oh, there you go. Well, in that case, in that case, it comes, it comes full circle almost. Tell me the what if, what's your favorite historical, what if, Well, my new favorite one is what if John Smith didn't die in 1994 and became, Tell tell our listeners, many of whom are American, who John Smith is so sorry. John. John Smith became the leader of the Labor Party in I believe, 1992 after Neil Kinnick, but he died in 1994 and was replaced by Tony Blair. So to this, John Smith was Tony Blair's directs predecessor as the leader of the Labor Party. And the reason why I've chosen it as, as a what if is because John Smith greatly disliked Peter Mandelson and would under no condition I can imagine, have brought Peter Mandelson into the labor government that he would've likely formed in 1997. And, and it's a what if because how would, like the kind of turmoil in the Labor Party right now be different if Peter Mandelson didn't enter into the new labor government in 1997? Yes, absolutely would almost certainly wouldn't have become Ambassador to America. And yes, Stan wouldn't be necessarily on this particular issue, be under the kind of pressure that that he is. Yes. That's a good one. That's a good one. We'll let you have that one. Thank you to me. Oh, Wellard, this is the author of, this Is Not America, why We Need a British Conversation About Race and Opinion. Editor of The Daily Telegraph. Thank you so much for coming on. Secrets of Statecraft. Thank you very much, Andrew. Thank you, Towa. My next guest on Secrets of Statecraft is David Yelland, former editor of the Sun Newspaper and co-host of the BBC Radio four podcast series about public relations when it hits the fan. This podcast is a production of the Hoover Institution, where we generate and promote ideas advancing freedom. For more information about our work, to hear more of our podcasts or view our video content, please visit hoover.org.