Being offended has become a national sport. It’s time to toughen up
It’s not that I have a soft spot for the rottweiler of radio. I don’t. But the hysterical reaction to John Humphrys’s “grilling” of tennis star Johanna Konta about where she is from was not only incomprehensible, it was chilling.
As the first British woman to reach the Wimbledon semifinals since 1978, Konta has become a national darling (we love anyone who makes us seem a nation of athletes rather than couch potatoes). Yet her path to being British number one is somewhat complex.
Konta was born in Australia, and moved to Britain aged
14, continuing to play for Australia until 2012, the year she became a British citizen. And with Hungarian parents, her name is clearly not British, nor, if there is such a thing, typically Australian either. So there is a story to unpick there.
But as is becoming more and more common these days, that story is immediately assumed by the baying hounds on social media to be racist, sexist or xenophobic. Yes, Humphrys’s style is obnoxious. But at worst his question was rude and annoying: it wasn’t offensive. Offensive would have been to suggest that she was unpatriotic or un-British because of where her parents are from
– I’m thinking here of the suggestions that former Labour leader Ed Miliband’s loyalty to Britain was questionable because his father was a PolishJewish refugee (and a Marxist).
It is annoying to be constantly asked what nationality you are or feel, as I – with my transatlantic accent – know all too well.
Born in England and raised in the US, I returned here aged 16 for school and university. Because I have a difficult-toplace accent and an obscure German-Jewish surname, people want to know where
I “come from”. It’s a little galling, but those who ask it don’t have a xenophobic axe to grind. They’re asking because it’s interesting. Difference is interesting. It’s a shame, then, that this line of questioning has become verboten.
To me, the outraged response to the Konta interview shows how urgently we need to toughen up. So what if someone asks an offensive question? Will the sky fall in? I think not: yet having made the notion of offence so intolerable that anything approaching it, particularly where identity is concerned, has become a giant taboo, we’ve become a nation in thrall to hurt feelings. Constantly looking to call out people for saying the wrong thing has become a national sport, but it’s a limited one.
Let’s find real problems
– and there are many – to worry about.