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June 3, 2019 - Sargon of Akkad - Carl Benjamin
25:13
#GMB Insanity： The Racist English in London
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I've been relatively addicted to the Good Morning Britain YouTube channel recently because they put up clips that are just absolutely wild.
They are the most insane things I've ever seen in my life.
Let's have a look at this video clip, because it is just, it's mind-boggling.
What was your objection to it, Shola?
Obviously.
Okay, so let's just pause there and just look at what we're being presented with.
Developing story.
John Cleese, racist tweet.
Faulty Tower Star tweeted London is not an English city anymore.
As if this is important to the country.
As if this is something that's on most people's minds.
That's something that they encounter in their daily lives and they really give a damn about.
But then if we just look at the people who are debating this, I don't see any white British.
Isn't that interesting?
Isn't that interesting?
So in London, when John Cleese says London is not an English city anymore, no English or ethnically English people are there to discuss the issue.
But we do have a black racial activist, a Jewish Russian immigrant, and then a Sikh man.
And the question is, did John Cleese, an Englishman, tweet something racist?
Just, who gives a shit, dude?
Who gives a shit if he did?
lots of people saying you know it was it was racist even though he didn't say London is no longer white when he said London is okay so not only have we agreed he didn't say something racist he's not speaking to the supremacy of one race over another He's just making a salient observation.
But look how happy she looks with this situation.
This is exactly where she wants to be, because she is a racial activist, a professional racial activist.
This is playing exactly into the framing she's been looking for, and she's going to run with it.
Watch.
No longer English.
People are reading into that that he meant it's not white enough.
All right, let me first of all start by saying that with age you come wisdom, but clearly with John Cleese it passed him by.
Oh snap.
What a great dunk on John Clees.
That's such a relevant thing to say.
The bottom line is this.
I mean referring to UK cities or London as non-English is a key point here.
Britishness is not determined by the colour of our skin.
And she is already right out of the gate misrepresenting what he said.
He didn't say that being British wasn't about being white or was about being white.
He was saying that most people in London do not identify as English and it seems to be the case.
I am British.
I'm not less British than John Cleese because I'm black.
Okay, but are you English?
That's what he said.
The Britishness that we experience is...
Why is he blurred?
This is just a picture of his face.
What on earth is this?
What is wrong with Good Morning Britain?
It's not segregation.
It's all about integration.
It's not segregation.
It's all about integration.
Okay, but the English have to be a part of that integration, do they not?
And so when John Cleese says London is not an English city because the character of the city is not English, how is he wrong?
It's not exclusion.
It's about inclusion.
Yes, we have heard the mantra, but that doesn't really speak to what John Cleese has said.
He said that London is no longer an English city because the English are now a minority in London.
London has a character that is no longer English and his foreign friends are commenting on that to him.
What are you saying that refutes this?
And what is it about Britishness that is not represented in any of our UK cities?
Is it our government institutions?
Is it our values?
Is it our love of football?
Is it the food of the royal family?
All of that is celebrated.
So, how are we not English?
British is not the same as English.
He is talking about ethnically and culturally English people.
And if you walk around London anytime soon, you'll see what he means.
There is a remarkable amount of Arabic spoken and displayed in London on shop signs.
There are a remarkable number of Burkhas, but even then, it's not just people from outside of Europe.
There are something like 400,000 French people in London.
We're not going to start calling them English, are we?
So, by referring to it as not English, you have to ask him, what do you mean by not English?
He means English as an ethnic and cultural identity, a certain thing that can be defined, that has borders and boundaries, and can be defined against other things.
For example, an Englishman and a Frenchman.
Two categories that you are trying to erase.
Well, he does go on to clarify, and just to say, at the end of it, he was making a point about Brexit, wasn't he?
Because he's a Brexiteer.
At the end of it, he said it's also worth noting that London was one of the most remaining places, i.e.
But what is suggesting it's not a very English thing to do?
Well, he went on to say that he went against some of the criticism and he said actually it's it's not about racism, it's about culturalism.
And he said that it's not as polite as it was, humorous, it's not as friendly as it was, those sorts of things.
And I think that's totally fair.
I think that as the cultural makeup of London changes, it will lose its English character.
And part of English character is a kind of genteel, polite, good-humoured, and self-confidence about oneself and the situation around one.
John Cleese is making a very salient point, but our racial activist says this is a man who left the UK because it's full of foreigners and moved to a foreign country.
Not according to John Cleese, who left because of the ridiculous tax rate.
But no, that doesn't change anything about what he said.
Even if he is some giant hypocrite here, the fact is that London is less culturally English than it used to be.
How is that hard to understand?
To become an immigrant, please, let's not take him seriously.
But you are taking him seriously because he's making a good point.
Even though he is a comedian, this is how bad it has become, where we now have to rely on our comedians to actually make serious observations about the changing world around us because of far-left ideology, multicultural ideology, and open borders.
You have come to the point where you're saying, well, what is English anyway?
So how is John Cleese wrong if he says it's less English?
If you can't even define it.
Finally, though, the racial activist stops talking and we move to the next guest, who is actually a friend of mine called Konstantin Kissin.
He is an immigrant from Russia.
He's Jewish and he's come here because he thinks this is a good country.
And it is an immigrant that is going to now defend being English and the lack of Englishness about London.
That's the clown world position that we've come to.
An Englishman can't do that himself.
Oh no.
He gets roundly attacked on Twitter and other and in the news on daytime TV.
If an Englishman does it, it has to come from someone who is not native to this country.
Well, that particular point is a bit difficult to defend, I agree.
But I think in terms of the racism issue, I don't see how this has anything to do with race.
Look at the England football team, full of black players.
No one would question the Englishness, right?
They're English.
It's not about race.
What he's talking about, I think, is that look at London.
42% of people who live in London are like me, foreign-born, right?
So there's a very significant immigrant population in London.
Obviously, if you have half of a city, essentially, that are people who are first-generation immigrants, that is going to make it less of the local culture.
No, that's just the fact of life.
You can't argue with that point.
At the end of that clip, the host is like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
What do you mean, no?
That's the most obvious and like, this is not groundbreaking revelation from Constantine.
You can tell that he's presenting this, like, why do I even have to say this?
What he's saying is not controversial in the slightest, and yet the host is already jumping down his throat over this basic observation.
Fact of that is you're absolutely right.
But the fact of that is that the city has changed.
That's fine.
It's changed.
But to say it's become less English is ridiculous.
And now we hit the double thing.
Yes, it's changed, as he concedes, but you can't say that it's less English, even though it's changed.
If it's not changed to become less English, in which way has it changed?
The host can't even articulate this point correctly, because you can't say, well, obviously it's changed, but no, it's still the same.
It doesn't make sense that he would adopt this as a position to defend.
It's a stupid question.
Let's assume it was a racist comment.
It's still a true statement of affairs, isn't it?
Even if you think it's racist, that's your opinion of it.
But that doesn't change the fact that you also agree with it.
You agree that London has changed.
You agree that if something is not the same as it was before, it must be something different.
And if it's the fact that 42% of London is born overseas, it's fair to say that 42% of London is not culturally English at the very least.
First of all, it's nothing to do with race.
But look at it like this.
If 50% of the people who lived in London were Scottish, would we be okay to say that it's less English than it was when it was 10%?
Constantine absolutely bear traps them with this question.
And it's amazing.
The reaction is ridiculous.
And the question itself, again, like, it's such a basic thing.
It's like he's talking to children.
I love the way that he's trying to formulate this as simply as possible so that they will understand it.
And this is the response.
We would say it is.
Didn't even think about that, love, did you?
Yes, we know that the English and the Scottish are both British, but would the city be more English or more Scottish if more Scottish people arrived?
Question, would it be okay or not?
Would it be okay?
I'm trying to hang on.
If 50% of the people who lived in London were Scottish, would it be okay to say that London has become less English than it was when 10% of the people who lived in London were Scottish?
This is as clear as he can make it.
It's a child could understand this.
And the host is like, well, let me try and get my head around this.
What kind of cult are they in where they can't even conceive of this kind of basic formulation?
And again, it's Constantine's doing his best.
You can tell he's doing his damn best to make this as simple and basic as possible.
So not even they can misunderstand it.
Well, if they were Scottish, so what's the difference?
But there's no difference.
He's talking about immigrants.
But they're not talking about immigrants.
But it's nothing to do with race.
Absolutely rolled the lot of them.
Just stumbling, stuttering, unable to get their response out.
It's different.
No, it's not different.
We're talking about ethnic groups and the ethnic character of a city, in this case, London.
And when the white English, or just probably not even just the white English, just the English in London are the ethnic minority in London, then it loses its English ethnic character.
That's what we're talking about.
And you can actually demonstrate this really nicely using the example of another ethnic group that are not non-white, because then you don't have questions about racism.
Because it is the question of racism that seems to dominate their thoughts in every way.
Everything is filtered through this prism of race and how that relates to racism.
And as soon as Constantine just reframes it slightly using two white races, the guy's like, well, that's not the same as what I was talking about.
Do you not consider yourself as English?
No.
Why is that?
Why is that?
Because he's an immigrant mate.
He wasn't born and raised in England, as he will now tell you.
British.
I'm a British.
So when you go to Scotland, if you go to Scotland, so where have you come from?
What do you say?
Well, I'd say I live in London.
I'm originally from Russia.
Why can't you say it's not?
Because I'm not from England.
No, I'm not.
I wasn't born here.
I didn't grow up here.
I came here when I was.
When you're in Scotland, you're on the road and there's an arrow pointed towards England.
Do you not go that direction?
Because that's where you're from, England.
So why can't you just...
I'm not from England.
I wasn't born here.
I didn't grow.
But you just said you're from London.
Are you from London?
No.
I'm just in stitches watching this.
I'm just, it's Constantine's face.
Like, who am I talking to?
What kind of lunatic am I talking to?
Are you not from England?
No, I'm from Russia.
Are you not from London?
No, I'm from Russia.
Are you not from there, though?
No, I wasn't born and raised there.
I moved there when I was an adult.
That doesn't make me from that place.
Right.
So the host is talking about literally the place you were and having traveled from there.
When you go to Scotland, do you not say you are from London?
And he says, no, I live in London.
But that's not where he's from.
Because he's talking about an ethnic and cultural identity.
For him, that wasn't English because he wasn't born here.
He wasn't raised here.
He wasn't inducted into the sort of mannerisms and customs and accents and the cultural environment that is England.
That's what he's saying.
And that's okay.
It's okay to not be from England.
And it's okay to not be from England and then move to England, especially when you actually like the place and are prepared to go on TV and defend the place in the face of people who think that literally anyone from anywhere in the world is just English if they live in London.
And I know I'm going to have to say this, but obviously that's not how culture works.
If you are not born and bred in a culture, you are not culturally that thing.
And people outside that culture will know it.
And people inside that culture will know it.
You won't have all the sort of like the shibboleths of that culture.
You won't have the cultural references.
You won't have the right accent.
It's just the way that culture works.
And I don't know why that's so difficult to understand.
Like if I go to Yorkshire, every Yorkshire knows I'm not from Yorkshire.
That's okay.
Even if I live in Yorkshire, they will know that I'm not from that place originally.
I was not raised there culturally.
But where are you?
But where are you?
So, no, dude, he said he's from Russia.
He has moved to London.
So I live in London.
I live just outside of London, in fact.
Right.
But I'm originally.
It's complicated.
Right.
People can have.
You're making a complicated.
You're making a complicated.
Let me just say, let me just make this one point.
Let me make this one point.
I am British.
I was born here.
Okay, if you were born in Britain, which, and I'm sure you mean England when you say that, why do you not identify as English?
What's your reason for not identifying as English?
So if he does not self-identify as British, you're not.
No, I'm British, but I'm not English.
He is not bringing him on fly here.
They are just not listening to Constantine as he corrects them on the fly.
He says, no, I'm not English, but I am British because I've moved here to become British.
But I was not raised in England.
What do you make of it?
Because you've got an interesting view on, this is a nostalgic tweet from John Cleese and not an inherently racist one.
Yeah, I don't think it's a racist tweet.
I think he's talking about his childhood days, you know, in the 40s, 30s, 40s, 60s, you know.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, when he was younger, yeah.
Yeah, younger days, how England was and how England has changed.
Back to the blurry photo of John Cleese, apparent alleged racist, even though it doesn't look like what he said was racist.
But I think we can all agree that England has changed, can't we?
I mean, you can't have nearly like 10 million new immigrants come into a country and then say that things haven't changed.
Of course they've changed.
We can accept that things are different to the way they were in John Cleese's younger days, can we not?
To now.
But he doesn't like the change.
But hang on, he hasn't said changed.
It's implied in the way that he formulated what he said.
If London is no longer an English city, it is directly implied that it was an English city and that some change has occurred.
Honestly, man.
It hasn't become the less English.
Okay, no one is talking to the racial activist and the two guys are trying to talk over her.
So I'm going to go, I'm going to play that again with the subtitles to address because she's being very impolite and I would say that that's not very English.
That is a faith.
I'm sorry.
It hasn't become the less English.
Demonstrably true.
But now she says, can we go back a number of years to slave trade?
What are you doing?
You're just throwing things out there.
Well, let's go back to the Vikings.
Yeah, they weren't English either.
Let's go back to the slave trade.
What?
The one that the English ended.
I mean, what are you throwing this out here for?
He's not even English.
Constantine isn't going to be like, oh, yeah, well, I mean, the cultural guilt of England's involvement in the slave trade, is he?
I don't know.
During the British Empire, people colonize other countries.
The British Empire colonised other countries.
Therefore, we are not allowed to say that London is no longer an English city.
Why?
Both of those statements are true.
One does not negate the other.
So why bring it up?
It has not been pure English white skin.
Who said that it was?
No one said that.
We're just saying the English are a minority in London now, which is what the statistics say.
What's the problem with that?
We're not talking about being white.
You've made it about race.
No, no, no.
He didn't say anything.
Can I just say what he's saying?
He didn't say anything about race.
He did not say English.
Let me say exactly what he says.
And again, Constantine nails it.
He's talking about a cultural and ethnic identity that is English.
People who say, I am English.
Those people are now the minority in London.
He's not wrong on anything that he's saying.
Nothing that Constantine is saying is bigoted.
Nothing that John Cleese is saying is bigoted.
Nothing about this is even inaccurate in any way, shape or form.
And yet the racial activist has a problem with the way they're framing this.
His second tweet, so he made this first one and then lots and lots and lots of people went against it.
And then he said, I suspect I should apologize for my affection for the Englishness of my upbringing.
But in some ways, in some ways, I found it calmer, more polite, more humorous, less tabloid and less money oriented than the one that is replacing it.
Look at how agitated she's getting as he says that.
Because John Cleese is making a value judgment.
He is saying that the English culture that was created in this country was genteel and respectable.
And he found it better than multiculturalism that has replaced it in London.
The sort of thing that Siddiq Khan would call being a European, being an open world city.
He finds that to be less preferable than to it being an English city.
And she's freaking out.
Well, the thing is, if you're not a Londoner, I'm not going to argue with that.
I love that little exchange as well.
Constantine's just like, well, yeah, I, as a foreigner, recognise John Cleese's description of English culture from a few decades ago.
I recognize that as being a true statement and a well-informed value judgment.
And he says, well, you can't argue with that.
And she's like, of course I can.
Because, again, she hasn't even considered the truth of John Cleese's statement.
She's just going to reflexively argue, which is what we would call a reactionary.
She's worried about going off narrative.
And so no matter what is said that goes off narrative, regardless of the truth content of what is said, she's going to argue against it in principle.
People will say, you know, all the money that has driven up prices in London that means people can't live in London anymore, even if they want to, it's because there's Russian money here, there's Arab money here.
It's the foreign investment in London.
On behalf of all Russians, I'm deeply offended.
Deeply offended.
No, no, no, no, no.
I'm trying to.
He's targeting the immigrants.
Even with his explanation, he's targeting people.
He's saying that you are not English.
Yeah, but you're sat next to one who's saying, I'm not English.
Constantine is aware that he's one of the 42% of Londoners who are not born in London or England or Britain at all.
He's aware of this.
He's not saying that that's not true.
He knows that's true.
And he's there to defend that is a truth about the city.
And the fact that there are more people there that don't identify as English than not means that it's not an English city.
That's not in any way controversial.
But look at what she defaults to next.
This is where she goes with this.
All of us have been here way longer before John specifically.
All of us have been here before John Clees.
So what?
I mean, so what if black people have been in Britain longer than John Cleese has been alive?
That doesn't change the fact that when London becomes minority English, it ceases to be an English city.
He's not framing it in terms necessarily of competition either.
He's not even saying that it's bad that black people have been in Britain.
He's not saying anything of the sort, but that's what she's taking from it.
He's saying demographics have changed, which they have.
And it's changed because of mass immigration, which it has.
This is something that is noticeable, which an immigrant to London is telling you is noticeable.
There is nothing against which to argue here.
Of course, he's talking about people.
He's not talking about values.
He's not talking about culture.
He's talking about people.
Yeah, but people hold values and that's expressed in culture.
Each different culture has a different set of values.
When he says English, that's what he's talking about.
That's why he called himself a culturalist.
A culture is an expression of values.
So you can go, well, he's talking about people.
Well, obviously he's talking about people.
Anytime we talk about culture, we're talking about people.
That's such a redundant statement.
And that means it's got racist connotations saying it's bigoted.
Does it?
Does it?
You can't even now talk about the existence of people, values, and culture.
That's racist and bigoted.
To make a comment about that, an accurate comment that the people around you are saying is accurate.
Have you considered that maybe it is your definition of what racism and bigotry is that has become the problem if we can't even accurately talk about the things that are occurring?
Of course you didn't.
You said that the city has become lazy.
It's not as polite.
I'm sorry, so immigrants are not polite?
What the heck?
Every culture has different standards about what being polite means.
To an English person, not gibbering over them because they're saying something you don't like is polite.
Holding your position until it is time for you to talk, until the other person has finished speaking, is the polite thing to do, but you can't do that.
And you're not even an immigrant.
Unbelievably, the immigrant sat next to you is the polite one.
So maybe John Cleese is wrong there, eh?
I think you could probably say it's about lots of cosmopolitan cities in Britain and across the world.
That's the only thing I don't know why.
So you're making my point for me is we have lots of immersive.
So he's not racist, just a very naughty boy.
Absolutely nailed him at the end there.
He's absolutely got him.
You're right.
Yes, cosmopolitan cities.
Cosmopolitan cities do not have a sort of homogeneous culture.
They are multicultural, which is what we hear all the time from the progressive globalist left.
To say that means it's not an X city, a Scottish, an Irish, a Welsh, or an English city, or a German or a French or a Dutch or a Spanish or whatever.
It means it's something different.
So it is not an English city.
And they all agree.
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