The Moral Lynching of Lady Hussey

If she is a racist so am I !

Where do you come from?

I do not think that I am exaggerating when I claim that the Anglo-American world has gone mad. The race row at Buckingham Palace indicates that even the traditional British Establishment has become infected with the racial obsessions fuelled by advocates of cancel culture.

Poor old senior royal aide Lady Susan Hussey has been forced to resign from her post after being accused of abuse and racism by charity boss Ngozi Fulani. Apparently, Hussey committed the unpardonable crime of asking Fulani ‘where she was from’ To make matters worse, Hussey than asked ‘where she was really from’, after Fulani stated that she is from Hackney and is British. It appears that the question, ‘where you are really from’ can now be interpreted as an aggravated form of racial crime and there was no question that Hussey had to be punished.

Like a bunch of royal lemmings, the British Monarchy’s family members vied with one other to be the first to denounce the racial crime committed by one of their relatives. .A spokesperson for Prince William, who is Hussey’s godson, condemned her in the strongest possible terms, declaring that ‘racism has no place in our society’.

The mainstream media piled in and in a sanctimonious tone declared that it too believed that ‘racism has no place in our society’. The readiness with which this institution was prepared to align itself with Fulani’s version of events suggests that the media has internalised the dogma of critical race ideology. And if the question of ‘where do you come from’ or ‘where do you really come from’ or ‘where do you really, really come from’ is interpreted as a marker for racist abuse, then society is in big trouble.

The entire British Establishment is complicit in the moral lynching of Lady Hussey!

Because of my natural curiosity about the background and origin of people, I too would be designated as racist.

Why has the posing of the where do you come from become a cultural crime?

I wrote the paragraphs below, a few years ago, when I first became aware that the ‘where do you come from’ question  has become weaponised by activists searching for a grievance that could assist their performance of victimhood.

Since the days that I could afford to ride in a taxi I have always asked cabbies with surnames that I do not recognise ‘where are you from’. I have a fascination with names and people’s origins and enjoy discussing with cab drivers their personal stories. It wasn’t until a few years ago that I learnt that my curiosity regarding people’s origins can now be condemned as an act of micro-aggression. I was in New York and after a 5-minute banter about our mutual origins with an Ethiopian taxi driver my fellow passenger – a Boston based academic – informed me that some would construe my questions as acts of micro-aggression.

Until this encounter, the word micro-aggression had not registered on my radar as a concept worth taking seriously. But matters are very different today. Micro-aggression has become one of those fashionable words that is heard more and more throughout the Anglo- American world. It refers to the allegedly subconscious offence that your words cause to individuals and cultural groups. According to the Orwellian sounding guidance ‘Tool: Recognizing Microaggressions and the Messages They Send’ circulated by the University of California in Los Angeles, I was indeed guilty as charged. According to this guideline, asking ‘Where are you from or where were you born’ conveys the message that ‘you are not a true American’. Presumably if I repeat this question in London than, as Lady Hussey discovered, the true construction that should be put on this statement is that ‘you are not a true Brit’.

What’s fascinating about the UCLA guidelines is that anything that is said to someone from a different cultural group may be a marker for an act of micro-aggression. Declaring that ‘America is a land of opportunity’ constitutes an act of micro-aggression for it implies that ‘race or gender does not play a role in life successes’. There seems to be a veritable industry promoting guidelines, sensitivity seminars and websites on the scourge of micro-aggression. At the same time the number and variety of words and expressions castigated as aggressive, and threatening is constantly expanding. The ‘Inclusive Excellence Center’ of the University of Wisconsin declared that the latest addition to its vocabulary of censored terms is that of ‘politically correct’. Without a hint of irony, it stated that it has become a ‘dismissive term’ that some use to suggest ‘that ‘people are being too “sensitive”, and police language’! By attempting to censor the usage of this term the directive confirmed that that the suggestion that P.C. practitioners were indeed in the business of policing language.

What’s significant about the concept of micro-aggression is that it does not merely target the words but the imputed meaning behind them. The question ‘where are you from’ is denounced not because the words are in-and-of themselves offensive but because of their possible implication. Micro-aggressors are denounced for what they allegedly think and not necessarily for what they say. And not just what they think but what they unwittingly imply. The surveillance of micro-aggression relies not only on zealous censors but also on the thought police.

In the end what matters is not the significance of the words that were exchanged but that an individual claims to be offended. It does not matter what was the content of the statement, nor its intention. If a statement is indicted as offensive because it insulted or disrespected the identity of the complainant than the alleged victim’s verdict stands. It is the person claiming linguistic victimisation who gets to decide the meaning and status of a statement. Regardless of the intent of the speaker if an individual claims to have been victimised that is the end of the discussion. According to the ethos promoted by advocates of  the concept of micro-aggression to ignore or question someone’s claim that they have been offended represents  the unacceptable crime of ‘blaming the victim’. That means that Fulani’s assertion cannot be challenged without courting the charge of victim blaming.

So what does it mean?

The term micro-aggression is associated with the publications of counselling psychologist, Derald Wing Sue, Sue defines micro-aggression as  ‘the brief and commonplace daily verbal, behavioural, and environmental indignities, whether intentional or unintentional that communicate hostile, derogatory, or negative racial, gender, and sexual orientation, and religious slights and insults to the target person or group’. What’s important about this definition is that these indignities need not be the outcome of intentional behaviour. Indeed, Sue argues that ‘perpetrators of micro-aggressions are often unaware’ of the indignities that they inflict on others.

The focus on the unconscious or unwitting dimension of micro-aggression is crucially important. People accused of this misdemeanour are not indicted for what they have done nor for what they said and not even for what they think they think but for their unconscious thoughts!

According to Sue ‘micro-aggressions are often unconsciously delivered in the form of subtle snubs or dismissive looks, gestures, and tones’. But how does one prove an act of micro-aggression? After all if these are acts buried deep in the psyche and are delivered unconsciously how can their existence be verified? As far Sue and his collaborators are concerned there is no need for a complex psycho-analysis of the sub-conscience of the accused perpetrator of micro-aggression. Why? Because according to Sue since ‘nearly all interracial encounters are prone to the manifestation of racial microaggression’ there is little to prove. The same holds for encounters involving women, gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender individuals, and disability groups’.

In all these cases the presumption of guilt precedes the words or gestures of the unconscious aggressor. This is a secular theory of original sin from which no white, heterosexual man can possibly escape. According to Sue, even ‘well-intentioned Whites’ suffer from ‘unconscious racial biases’.

The crusade against micro-aggression plays a central role in the elaboration of western identity politics. The performance of outrage featured on micro-aggression websites plays an important role in transforming the ‘micro’ banal insults and misunderstanding of everyday life faced by an individual into a major injustice facing groups of victims.

The advocacy of the cause of victims of micro-aggression resonates with a wider mood of distrust that surrounds the conduct of human relationships. In recent decades society has felt uncomfortable with leaving the interpretation and management of personal interactions to the people concerned. The proliferation of rules and codes of conduct covering bullying, harassment and conflict mean that interpersonal tensions and misunderstandings are often managed by professionals rather than resolved by the parties affected by it. Now a whole new dimension – unconscious behaviour and its unintended consequences has been brought to the attention of rule-makers and lawyers.

Unconscious Thought?

Human communication has always been a complicated business. The reading of body language and the interpretation of words and gestures have always been subjected to miscommunication. In an enlightened environment it has been recognised that it is difficult if not impossible to hold people responsible for the unintended consequences of their action and words.  If people are held to account not for what they did or said but for their unconscious thoughts than idea of moral responsibility becomes emptied of meaning. What is truly tragic about the myth of micro-aggression is that it makes genuine dialogue impossible. The micro-policing of human relations is the inexorable consequence of the project of criminalising unconscious thought and behaviour.

One of the achievements of modern open societies is that people are free to make choices about how they express themselves, the language they use and the attitudes they exhibit in public. Unlike in pre-modern communities, people do not have to watch their language and they need not conform to the prescribed language of traditional culture. Advocates of micro-aggression loath tolerance and seek to impose a new regime of conformity on contemporary public life.

The policing of statements and words expresses a disturbing attitude of intolerance. The statement ‘watch your words’ which is so casually communicated by the crusade against micro-aggression in fact represents a call for closing-down discussion.  So ignore the language police. Follow your natural curiosity and continue to ask, ‘where do you come from’!