I was branded racist just for asking a question. This hysteria has to stop

LAST week – just like Laurence Fox on Question Time – I was branded a racist. The catalyst, of course, was a tweet I’d sent about Meghan Markle. Actually, a question. Politics is my obsession and I’m not the greatest Royal watcher. The ongoing psychodrama of Meghan and Harry and Kate and William had largely passed me by.

So I went on to Twitter and wrote: ‘On the Meghan racism debate – I’ve got to be honest, I haven’t followed the coverage about her until this week. Genuine question, are there any glaring examples of specifically racist articles (as opposed to a simple aggregation of broadly negative coverage).’ And that was it. I’d exposed my own racism.

One follower responded: ‘Mail on Sunday commentator Dan Hodges says it’s OK and not racist to say awful things about black people, provided you don’t actually say they are black, or say that you are criticising them because they are black.’

Another wrote: ‘If you’re a white male, I’m not sure you can begin to assess this situation but so many of you seem to be experts and are clearly confident in expressing how a black American woman should be feeling and acting.’

A third asked: ‘Why do you think it is the role of People of Colour to teach you about racism? There are books out there. Stop wasting people’s time and energy.’

There was a time when to be a racist you had to target someone based on their ethnicity. But that has changed. We now have ‘institutional racism’ – where a corporate view can inculcate racist attitudes. And there is ‘subconscious racism’, in which the individual may not intentionally be trying to target anyone, but does so out of habit or established cultural practice.

In the past I’ve had some sympathy with those trying to expand these definitions. Racism is a complex issue and needs to be challenged in a thoughtful way.

But last week with the Meghan furore, we finally crossed a line and moved beyond institutional and subconscious racism to ‘ducking-stool racism’.

IT OPERATES in this simple, catch-all way. If you are presented with an allegation of racism – and agree with the allegation – that is evidence of the presence of racism. But if you disagree with the allegation of racism, then that is of itself evidence of your own bigotry, or myopic ‘white privilege’. And so again the racism is proved. Just as in the days when if the witch floated she was guilty, but had to drown to prove her innocence.

On Thursday it was the turn of actor Laurence Fox to be lashed to the chair and submerged. Confronted on Question Time by a lecturer from my alma mater, Edge Hill University, he was condemned as a ‘white privileged male’ for daring to argue that Meghan was not a victim of racism.

‘I can’t help what I am,’ he responded, and in doing so brought a social media avalanche down upon himself.

I don’t know why some people don’t like Meghan. I have no strong views on her one way or another. But in answer to a question I was asked repeatedly last week – ‘Can there be any explanation for the negative treatment of her and positive treatment of Kate, other than racism?’ – the answer is yes.

In the same way, people used to prefer Diana over fat, common Fergie. Or arrogant, horsey Princess Anne (until she teamed up with Emlyn Hughes on A Question of Sport).

My personal hunch is that what we’ve seen is simply a repeat of the classic narrative arc of the 21st Century celebrity couple. They embrace fame. They get frustrated with the inconveniences of fame. They try to have their fame and eat it. They fail. They cry foul. But frankly, I don’t care about them. What I do care about is their appropriation by the woke, liberal Left, and the instruction that anyone who doesn’t start to treat Meghan as a heroine, like the US civil rights activist Rosa Parks, must be branded a bigot.

I’ve looked through the coverage. And with the exception of that single infamous tweet from Danny Baker – for which he rightly got fired – none of it is racist. ‘That doesn’t matter,’ the argument goes, ‘the racism is still there, it’s just subliminal.’

No, it does matter. If you’re going to take a smouldering culture war, then fan it into a full-scale race war, you have to come armed with more than intellectual abstraction and psychoanalytic doublespeak. In a poll last week, 73 per cent of those questioned said they preferred Kate to Meghan.

That’s 73 per cent of the British public who are now being effectively branded as racist, or enablers of racism. What do the woke pseudo-progressives think they are actually going to achieve with the racist criminalisation of three-quarters of Britain?

When they’ve successfully rounded up all of us who don’t blindly accept Meghan is a victim of racism, or who voted for Brexit, or committed any of the other numerous crimes against liberalism, then forcibly shunted us to the same side of the political divide as the BNP or EDL, what do they expect to happen? We can’t keep doing this. We can’t keep saying to people: ‘You’re either on Team Meghan or you’re on Team Nick Griffin [ex BNP].’ And we have to start having an honest and open dialogue about issues of race that don’t involve abuse on either side.

When Meghan joined the Royal Family, it was held up as a symbol of the diversity of modern Britain. And it’s clear that many people in the British black community are angered and upset by her decision to move to Canada. They must be listened to.

But that has to be as part of a two-way conversation. And it cannot start with the demand to ‘check your white privilege’. Not least when Meghan is enjoying a life of privilege beyond most people’s wildest dreams – black or white. If we can’t have that conversation then we will all suffer.

I grew up in a part of South London close to where Stephen Lawrence was murdered. I used to work for the anti-fascist organisation Hope Not Hate. I know what happens when we let genuine racism fester unchecked.

But last week we also had a graphic example of what happens when we cry ‘Racism!’ where none exists. An independent review into the Greater Manchester grooming scandal found dozens of white girls were being abused by gangs of Asian men. Almost 60 victims – some as young as 12 – had been systematically assaulted. Nearly 100 assailants were identified. The police had been aware of the assaults all along but they failed to act for fear of being called racist.

SO PLEASE, stop telling me that I have to view the Duchess of Sussex as a victim, that I should be working myself into a paroxysm of rage because of the way the media has chosen to portray her love of avocados or compared her wedding bouquet to Kate’s wedding bouquet.

One of the responses to my initial tweet said: ‘Black Britons are 40 times more likely to be stopped and searched by police. Dan Hodges: hmmm, that’s just an aggregation of harassment, not explicit racism.’

Meghan isn’t getting hassled on the streets by the police. She’s being escorted by them to Royal galas, where her husband taps up film executives for voiceover work. And there were no police on hand to hear the screams of victims of the Greater Manchester rape gangs.

If writing that automatically excludes me from the ranks of those challenging actual racism, so be it. It can be safely left to the liberals and the woke Left, those people who currently demand we listen to the ‘lived experience’ of black Britons, but last month were telling us all to ignore the pleas of the Jewish community and elect Jeremy Corbyn as Prime Minister.

I’m sure they’ll be there taking a stand the next time the EDL are marching through the streets of Luton. Meghan may well even send a message of solidarity.

But I won’t. I can’t. Because last week I became a racist.

If you’re going to take a smouldering culture war, then fan it into a full-scale race war, you have to come armed with more than intellectual abstraction and psychoanalytic double-speak