I commented in my review of Hilary Mantel’s A Memoir of My Former Self, A Life in Writing, John Murray, 2023, Long Live Dame Hilary Mantel – Animal Wild, that she uses capital case for the words Black and White when they are describing people, which I had not seen before. Then I noticed that Roma Agrawal was doing it too in Nuts & Bolts; Seven Small Inventions That Changed the World (in a Big Way), Hodder & Stoughton, 2023, Nuts & Bolts – Animal Wild. I am a White male (a little bit Italian as it happens), my wife’s parents were Jamaican, part of the Windrush generation, and so our children are mixed race. For that reason I adopted the zebra as a sort of family totem.
I wanted to learn more about the capitalisation (which I will probably now start seeing everywhere) and so on the recommendation of a friend I decided to try ChatGPT from Open AI or the first time. I was extremely wary and was horrified by the idea of AI writing for me (or anyone really – there will be little left for us to do), but I have to admit it is brilliant at answering questions. It is precise and succinct – and extremely polite! It also welcomes further questions if you want to probe more deeply. I asked a few about itself which were answered with, dare I say it, candour and good humour. I tried a few none too easy questions about something I really know about too – reggae music, and these were dealt with with aplomb.
On the subject of Black and White, the explanation was given that it is done to “acknowledge and respect the racial and cultural identities of these groups” and that in the case of the former it recognises “the shared identity and experiences of people of African descent” and “is a broader movement towards linguistic equity and inclusivity in discussing race”. By capitalising White there is a challenge to the assumption that White is the default or norm rather than a racial identity of its own with its concomitant privileges. I found it both instructive and amusing that having known my parents-in-law for so long, when we visited Belmont, Jamaica, last year, birthplace of Peter Tosh and a wonderful place for a holiday, I had no trouble whatsoever understanding the heavy patois but that as often as not the locals had a great deal of trouble understanding me. For the record, in spite of dire warnings on the government’s woefully outdated website (yes marijuana remains illegal in Jamaica but it was decriminalised as long ago as 2015 and it is openly smoked pretty much everywhere), I have felt completely safe at all times during our visits – more than that, it was made clear, in the friendliest way, that that would be the case. Of course you have to be a little bit sensible but doesn’t that apply everywhere? Likewise behave respectfully and mindfully. It isn’t hard. Coming off the beach in Belmont, a couple of guys asked me where I was going in what I misinterpreted as a perhaps slightly hostile way. I shrugged and said that I was just going for a walk. “Ok, don’t worry, you will be safe here, no one will bother you.”
As the comedian Stewart Lee and of course many others have pointed out, political correctness, being ‘woke’, can hardly be a bad thing unless taken to extremes. It is simply a matter of consideration and respect for others. So I will certainly be capitalising myself from now on. I asked ChatGPT for other words to which this might apply. The suggestions were Indigenous, Queer, Gender, Disability and Person of Colour.
This seems especially important given Sunday’s headline news. A man was asked to move on by police from a public highway on which there happened to be a pro-Palestinian demonstration taking place, for being “openly Jewish” and thereby antagonistic. We are talking about a police force, lest we forget, which not so very long ago it was revealed, at the time of the Stephen Lawrence murder and scandal, had in place a policy (presumably unwritten?) of reacting to racial attacks by investigating and attempting to smear the victims and their families.
I am not at all a religious person, in fact the unabashed atheist Richard Dawkins is a hero of mine, but I do respect the rights of others to follow whatever faith they may choose and to practice it however they wish as long as it does not impinge on others. I use the words “may choose” carefully, since most religious people, as Dawkins often points out, have no choice at all but follow their parents and their education, which often seems more like indoctrination. One of my absolute favourite “Top Tips” from Viz magazine encourages religious people to annoy Richard Dawkins by worshipping him. There was also once a whole mock article suggesting that someone had scored one over the achievable maximum in a snooker tournament, 148. Richard Dawkins was quoted as saying that that certainly did seem like a genuine miracle and that he would now have to reconsider the whole atheism thing.
The man in the street, Gideon Falter, chief executive of the Campaign Against Antisemitism, was wearing a kippah, or skullcap. This excellent website, IHome – Best Mitzvahs, explains that a yarmulke is not quite the same thing. In short it is worn at various or all times by many more traditional or Orthodox male adherents to the Jewish faith to demonstrate respect for God. Gideon Falter was not just asked to move on, he was threatened with arrest. issued an appalling apology. Assistant Commissioner Matt Twist accepted that the incident was “hugely regrettable” but continued to insist that Mr Falter was being “provocative”. Then there was an apology for the apology, which was deleted: “Being Jewish is not a provocation. Jewish Londoners must be able to feel safe in this city.”
I don’t think, now that a longer version of the video has emerged, that the police officers in question were being anti-Semitic, I think they were trying to avoid an incident which they did not feel they would be able to contain.
I am reminded of the arrests during the coronation for expressing anti-royalist sentiments and the fact that it is becoming nigh on impossible to protest climate change in any way at all. Some entirely innocent members of our badger group found themselves boxed in by gamekeepers and interrogated by police a few years ago, also on a public highway, which happened to be near where one of the gamekeepers lived. Mr Falter claimed though, that he was simply crossing the road.
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