Kelly’s Eye

THE 14th century, at the time of the Black Death, saw the rise of the flagellants – fervently religious people who went round whipping themselves in public to atone for their sins.Today we have the spectacle of white people literally flinging themselves on their knees in front of any black people they can find to beg forgiveness.

This is not a phenomenon caused only by the grotesque killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis.Ten months ago in this column I highlighted Hollywood actress Rosanna Arquette’s fatuous comment: “I’m sorry I was born white and privileged. It disgusts me.And I feel so much shame.”

Last week James Corden blubbed on screen while telling us: “White people cannot just say anymore ‘yeah I am not racist’ and think that that’s enough, because it’s not.”

Phillip Schofield declared that he and everyone on ITV’s This Morning “are pledging to support, reflect and re-educate ourselves because this is such an important issue” which sounded like one of those robotic recantations made by doomed defendants in a totalitarian show trial (the Chinese, for instance, prefer to call the prison camps in which they seek to indoctrinate at least one million Muslims from their faith “re-education centres”).

Wasn’t coronavirus enough of a collective nervous breakdown for 2020? Apparently not. Now we’re assailed again by the endless identity politics saga which only emphasises racial division: in which black people are cast as perpetual victims and whites as endless oppressors, providing the most attention-seeking of the latter group the perfect stage for cost-free posturing and theatrical prostrating.

The best way of minimising our differences remains through the plod of debate and everyday interaction with one another in precisely the sort of free societies currently most wracked by protest. Unfortunately that doesn’t match the self-righteous thrill of chucking a statue in a river or weeping on cue for the cameras.