Gary Cartwright

Trevor Phillips, chairman of Britain’s Equality and Human Rights Commission, has stated that “institutional resistance” to selecting black and Asian candidates would prevent someone like Barack Obama acheiving success in British politics.

One of the most important aspects of Obama’s election is the fact that this culture of victimisation has been proven to be outdated.

No sensible voter will ever care again what colour a man’s skin is, or what continent his father was born on. Of course, this is bad news indeed for those who make a good living out of the race relations industry, but the simple fact is that people of all backgrounds have shown that they are quite capable acheiving success on their own merits, and many of us will find Phillip’s words insulting. Does it help black people to be told that they are being held back? Of course not. How dispiriting must it be to an aspirational boy or girl to be told by Phillip’s that they are going nowhere because they are black?

Americans are proud of Obama, Africans are proud of Obama, and considering his father was partly a product of a British colonial system (speaking with an educated English accent, we are told), I think we Brits can claim just a snippet of the glory ourselves.

You’re running with the dinosaurs Trevor, time to find a new soapbox.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 11th, 2008 at 4:10 pm and is filed under Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.