During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act. Why are some viewpoints simply unsayable?\u00a0<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n David Starkey, arguably the most respected historian in Britain, went on television last week and committed what The Guardian has called in a live blog \u201ccareer suicide\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n Being interviewed on the BBC\u2019s flagship current affairs programme, Newsnight, Starkey committed the ultimate crime: he dared to suggest that race, and specifically black culture, may have played a part in the London riots of the previous week \u2013 riots started by the police shooting of a black gang member.<\/span><\/p>\n In this article I am not concerned with whether or not Starkey\u2019s analysis is correct, or stands up to scrutiny: readers can use their own experiences, and the video and images of the events, to draw their own conclusions one way or the other.<\/span><\/p>\n What I am <\/em>concerned with is something far deeper: it seems that in modern Britain there are some things that cannot be said; some observations that cannot be seen; some thoughts that cannot be thought.<\/span><\/p>\n George Orwell, whose classic novel Nineteen Eighty-Four deals with the manipulation of thought, once wrote:<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cDuring times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n For readers who are not familiar with David Starkey, he studied at the University of Cambridge, lectured at the London School of Economics, has been a regular guest on BBC Radio 4 and has had several highly successful television series. In short, he has serious credentials as a respected thinker.<\/span><\/p>\n As an open\u00a0Homosexual man, he is surely no stranger to prejudice.<\/span><\/p>\n So when he chooses to speak, in a manner that suggests prior thought and consideration, he has earned the right to at least be heard. Yet the worrying nature of today\u2019s political discourse is that as soon as his thoughts turn to race, he is drowned out. Other contributors on Newsnight began to shout him down, and would not let him finish his point, with no real attempt from the presenter to allow him space to reach a conclusion.<\/span><\/p>\n The BBC itself, after the broadcast, was falling over itself to defend the presenter. A spokesman for Newsnight said, \u201cI think that Emily Maitlis very robustly challenged David Starkey.\u201d This language is highly revealing. Were any other points of view \u201crobustly challenged\u201d? Would an interviewee suggesting that the riots were down to poverty be \u201crobustly challenged\u201d?<\/span><\/p>\n Let us not forget that these views were not those of an ignorant, uninformed man, but a learned academic with knowledge of this subject (which is presumably why he was being interviewed in the first place). When confronted with a fellow interviewee saying that black people were more likely to be stopped and searched by police, Starkey countered with facts, saying that 80% of gun crime in London is carried out by blacks. Again, this is not casual racism, but a fact-based intellectual approach.<\/span><\/p>\n George Orwell again:<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cThe most grossly obvious facts can be ignored when they are unwelcome.\u201d So why this industrial-scale denial of discussion, this suppression of thought, this selective presentation? Who is scared? And what are they scared of?<\/span><\/p>\n When it comes to issues of race, it seems that the elephant must stay in the room \u2013 and David Starkey, who saw the elephant, must leave.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Regardless of whether one agrees with David Starkey’s on the recent riots or not, the furore over his comments is proof that in modern Britain some things simply cannot be said <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39262,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[38,25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-32576","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-Race","category-The_Media"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32576","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/39262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=32576"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32576\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32773,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32576\/revisions\/32773"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=32576"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=32576"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=32576"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nThe wider media is also complicit in this air-brushing of history. The Guardian, like the BBC, has chosen to show mainly white rioters in its coverage of the disturbances. It seems that only the Daily Mail \u2013 a newspaper believed by some to be racist, despite its strong fight against the alleged murders of black teenager Stephen Lawrence \u2013 has taken a more mixed approach to its coverage.<\/span><\/p>\n