Natalie Solent and Peter Cuthbertson mark the 40th anniversary of MLK's great 'I have a dream' speech by mourning the inverted racism of 'affirmative action' and white liberal guilt, and contrasting this with the vision of a society where people are judged not 'by the color of their skin but by the content of their character'.
Of course great strides have been made since then. Segregation, a real example of 'institutionalised racism' has been abolished. Black people can vote wherever they live in the US - even Florida. (And nobody seems too fussed about the absence of democracy in most of Africa).
But there's one area in which open racism flourishes, and is widely accepted - the area of personal, or more precisely sexual, relationships. But this tells us more about the change in attitudes to sexuality than it does about racism.
In Victorian times a person could dispose of property more or less as he wished, whereas sexuality was subject to many legal and social restrictions. Now the situation's been more or less reversed.
Back before the sexual revolution of the 1960s, sexuality was a public, not a private affair. Marriage was a public ceremony, the only socially approved expression of sexual desire was within marriage, and married couples held a privileged position in law, some vestiges of which still remain. It was also a time when employers could operate a colour bar, hotels or guest houses could display 'no coloureds' notices, and a private citizen was free to discriminate or not as he chose on any grounds in any area of life.
The Old Labour sociologist Norman Dennis, in his 'Families Without Fatherhood', commented on the cultural change which elevated the freedom to have relationships as and when you chose, regardless of the damage to third parties (for example children or an abandoned spouse) to an absolute right. Already, he wrote, the the classic phrases of rampant capitalism come to mind as the number of fatherless families mount - "Cannot a man do what he likes with his own ? As for the other party, caveat emptor - let her take the consequences of her bad bargain !"
The only difference, he continued, was that now the State, through taxation, would take the consequences of a wrong choice of partner - ' ...in sexual conduct the cast of mind is that I please myself, but if anything goes wrong, you must be responsible that my children come to no harm. In effect such a biological father is saying, "You must be a socialist so that I can be an egoist. My baby is the hostage through which I, who will not do my duty, will hold you to your duty."
In 1976 a Mr Robert Relf was jailed for displaying a 'for sale' sign outside his Leamington Spa home which stated that the purchaser must be white. (Mr Relf was recently jailed again for refusing to fill in the census as there was no ethnicity box for 'English'.)
Yet if you're looking for a partner you can specify their race with no problems. Try ukmatch.com, where you can choose from 10 different preferred 'ethnicities'. Lonelyhearts classifieds in every local freesheet specify the race of the potential partner. You can also discriminate on grounds of religion, disability, age, gender and sexual orientation. Not to mention grey hair, height (from 3 feet 1 inch to 8 feet 11 inches), occupation, income and body type (I liked 'other', also 'a few extra pounds').
Sex is the last area where discrimination is not only allowed but is almost mandatory.
Solstice
8 hours ago
