Starkey inflames the blame game

Whenever trouble brews which involves the youth of the country, it is easy rhetoric to blame it on the violence and gangster lifestyle depicted in rap music.

Historian David Starkey believes this to be the case, even going as far as to say it is a "Black" thing.

He states the language, the culture, and glorifying the life of a gangster are all down to Black culture and it is the reason why the country seems to be going to pot.

In Starkey's eyes, the reason why things are at the stage they are is down to Whites have become Black, buying into a culture which celebrates a disregard for authority, objectifying women and promoting a "get rich or die trying" mantra.

The Black culture, according to the well-known broadcaster, is defined by destructive, nihilistic gangster references.

Starkey, who appeared on the BBC's Newsnight on Friday night, also believes the language of the streets has intruded England.

Starkey said,

“Black and White, boy and girl, operate in this language together, this language which is wholly false, which is this Jamaican patois that’s been intruded in England, and this is why so many of us have this sense of literally a foreign country."

The 66-year-old also seems to champion the infamous "Rivers of Blood" speech by Enoch Powell in 1968, which criticised immigration and the impending anti-discrimination laws.

"I think what this week has shown is that profound changes have happened. There has been a profound cultural change. I have just been re-reading Enoch Powell. His prophecy was absolutely right in one sense: the Tiber didn’t foam with blood, but flames lambent wrapped around Tottenham, wrapped around Clapham. But it wasn’t intercommunal violence; this was where he was completely wrong."

And it didn't stop there, because according to Starkey, while White people are embracing Black culture, then people from the Black community who don't put on low slung jeans and speak in patois are just White in disguise.

"Listen to David Lammy, an archetypal successful Black man. If you turn the screen off, so you were listening to him on radio, you would think he was White."

Is it hard for Starkey to fathom that it is possible for a Black man like Lammy and many others, to not only be educated and hold a position of power, but also be articulate and well versed?

Moreover blaming rap music for creating a materialistic and consumerist society is lazy analysis. The music simply echoes those values, reflecting them as much as mainstream adverts, as much as our celebrity obsessed popular culture - which places a big emphasis on desiring what you don’t have.

There has been condemnation from a number of quarters, with Labour leader Ed Miliband blasting Starkey for his "racist comments" and said "there is no place for them in our society.

Miliband said,

"(It's) absolutely outrageous that someone in the 21st Century could be making that sort of comment. There should be condemnation from every politician, from every political party of those sorts of comments."

Labour MPs Paul Flynn and Jeremy Corbyn also condemned Starkey for his "inflammatory" remarks.

Corbyn added,

“He tapped into racial prejudice at a time of national crisis. At other times, those comments would be inflammatory but they are downright dangerous in the current climate.”

Starkey's comments have come at a very critical stage and further fans the flames of criticism laid at the doors of the Black community.