Goodhart. Bad Blood

I wonder if he is talking about people such as my family who came here from Barbados, spoke the same language, worshipped the same God, worked like Trojans, admired the history of the 'Mother country' much more than Britons themselves and were still treated no better than dogs. Or maybe he's referring to Latin Americans or Africans, who have little choice but to clean the capital's offices and toilets before they go off to college to finish a Masters degree or PhD. Or, if none of the above have eroded the British value system, it must therefore be the East Europeans who cheaply build our extensions or clean our cars on a Sunday morning for a fiver.

It is bad enough that Goodhart's essay is desperately flawed at every juncture and, in many ways a racist discourse, but the biggest crime is not Goodhart who is what he is, but rather the didactic edifice of the liberal elite that has elevated Goodhart to a position of great importance. The Guardian newspaper published the piece and argued that although it disagreed with Goodhart it was an area that needed to be discussed. But why did it need to be so prominently discussed? Why did the Guardian feel that they needed to put an intellectual spin on a tabloid gutter agenda? In the spirit of liberal fair play the Guardian invited an eclectic group of writers and opinion formers to critique the essay. But therein lies a further problem. The terms of reference for the debate are already set. Skewed to the point of perversity.

It's like arguing, 'Why do you beat your wife?' when the person in question neither has a wife or girlfriend. The flawed premise of the debate suggests that the accused might be immoral, a bully and a mysgonist. Although it's true that the accused would be absolved of all wrongdoing, the dye is cast and the damage is already done.

I guarantee in a year's time people will not readily remember the clarity of Gary Younge or A Sivanandan's condemnation of Goodhart's essay. Thanks to its disproportionate elevation, it will be Goodhart's piece that will remain centre stage, and the rest, such as, consigned to bit part players.

This phenomenon is nothing new. In the early nineties, two academics Richard J. Herrnstein and Charles Murray produced a book called 'The Bell Curve'. In essence, it claimed that African Americans and Black people in general were genetically inferior to whites. The fact that the book's argument was a moribund, cul de sac, racist rant was not the point. Like Goodhart, it was seen as a seminal work worthy of in depth discussion.

Truth is, Britain will never be truly diverse whilst a liberal elite dictate what is and isn't important, via our democratic institutions and the media. The real debate should consist of how society wrenches power away from the nation's liberal elite, which persists in force-feeding us a narrow self-interested view of the world.

Either Jordan's latest date or the imminent deluge to our shores of 'sponging, disease ridden foreigners' is the diet fed to us by senior politicians or media editors.

Bit players such as myself are brought into fray only if we subscribe to their two dimensional view of how we -Black people- should behave, which is usually threatening and angry, or compliant chump. Anything else just doesn't fit into their simplistic view of the world.

The importance of a having a debate that questions who forms part of the liberal elite and how much power and influence they wield would bring to the open their legitimacy or lack of it. What we are told is too important to come from such a narrow source. If greater diversity of thought has an outlet it will be less likely to find oxygen within the extreme margins where some truth and much hatred make perfect bedfellows. I despair not because I read the narrow world of Goodhart, but rather because where I read it.