June 8, 2021 - 11:14am
Some years ago the politician Nick Griffin caused controversy — as the British National Party leader was prone to do — when he began referring to “the indigenous British”.
There was a logic to the rebranding, since “white” now has such overwhelming pejorative undertones, and “white British” is an ugly phrase.
Strictly speaking he was correct, but “indigenous” has strong verbal associations with people who are displaced by others, most of the time by whitey, and so it never really caught on.
The memetic power of small neo-fascist parties based in Welling is rather small, while the memetic power of hysterical, over-indulged students in the Great Satan is enormous, so the phrase “indigenous” is now back. Its latest appearance comes in the NHS’s diversity A to Z, which states at one point:
BIPOC stands for “Black, Indigenous and People of Color”, so in the context of the NHS, I’m not entirely sure what “indigenous” means. The Beaker People? The Welsh?
Similarly last month there appeared an open letter in The Bookseller which was aimed at condemning transphobia in British publishing. It warned that: “We’ve walked down the segregation route before – was it really so long ago that we have forgotten notices above restrooms and public spaces that read: ‘No Blacks, No Irish’ or drinking fountains labelled ‘Whites Only’?”
The letter writers referred to themselves as “Those of us who have studied history” and warned “Let’s not make this a time when we repeat our history.”
They had studied history but presumably not our history, seemingly unaware that Britain has never had segregation or indeed separate drinking fountains. (I wonder what percentage of British adolescents now believe we used to have segregation? 10%? 20%?)
Similarly, last June when Londoners took to the streets to protest the police killing of an American man, I read about a woman interviewed by Esquire saying she was there because “there’s still racism going on, not just for black people but Hispanic people, Jewish, Muslims. It just needs to stop.”
What is a “Hispanic” person in England exactly? There is a South American community in South London, there used to be lots of Spaniards in Ladbroke Grove when I was growing up. There’s Michael Portillo, I suppose.
Five years ago, for better or ill, the British people voted to cut their political ties with mainland Europe; is there some way we can vote to cut our cultural ties with the US?
Join the discussion
Join like minded readers that support our journalism by becoming a paid subscriber
To join the discussion in the comments, become a paid subscriber.
Join like minded readers that support our journalism, read unlimited articles and enjoy other subscriber-only benefits.
SubscribeIf only an African leader of an African country could run that country so well that other Africans could raise their tired, oppressed eyes, leave their homes, walk thousands of miles and risk their lives to enter that shining country. But millions of Africans do leave their homes, do walk thousands of miles, and do risk their lives to enter countries run by nasty, racist, fascist white people who will oppress them with their white superiority.
Why can’t Africans run their own countries as well as Europeans do? They aren’t subject to oppression by white superiority? If there was just one country in Africa inhabited solely by Europeans, would that country need foreign aid?
Well, in theory, they are. The African countries are supposed to be victims of capitalist imperialism and their political and business leadership corrupted by European and American money. Could be — why not?
Republic of South Africa used to be OK and economicaly sound.
Ok for whom?
Grievance is an industry and in the absence of real issues, substitutes will be invented. This madness will never ever go away. Because too many people make a living or derive notoriety and power from perpetuating the grift.
It’s not at all surprising that people there might believe Britain had separate drinking fountains. The US hasn’t had them in 60 years, but people act as if Jim Crow is still alive.
As a young man from Ireland I worked in London on construction sites in the 1970’s . I remember asking older Irish guys, who had been in England since the 1950’s. about these “No Blacks No Irish “signs . Not one of them ever saw such a sign or knew of anyone who saw those signs.
No some of my father’s family came from Ireland & did some rough old jobs & nobody mentioned these signs. I have seen ‘no bedrollers’ on the door of a pub.
The only signs I ever saw in a pub were “No credit”
There used to be a lot of shops had this notice Do not ask for credit as refusal often offends.
Back then I lived in Hampstead for a number of years, latterly
Back then I lived in Hampstead for a number of years, latterly in NW3, but before that in NW6 which was jokingly known as British West Hampstead. This was because of the number of Irish and other immigrants who lived there, mainly in the ‘borderlands’ with Kilburn. Nowhere did I ever see any of the supposedly ubiquitous “No Irish, No Coloured, No Dogs” signs.
https://www.theguardian.com/money/2015/oct/21/no-irish-no-blacks-no-dogs-no-proof
I clicked through to the Speccy article which prints in full this A to Z lexicon. It’s a quite astonishing piece of work and appears to have Stonewall’s mucky handprints all over it. Amongst many comical nuggets (micro-aggressions, lived experience) it talks openly about intersectionality as if that concept was anything other than ludicrous nonsense that nobody normal believes. And just in case you didn’t get where they’re coming from . . . apparently “Othering” is something that only white people do :
“In this way white people Other BIPOC, heterosexuals , LGBT+ and so on. Othering comes from a form of power over the Other.”
Again and again it pushes the narrative that oppressive acts can only be committed by white people, since by definition they are the oppressors. So this rather short lexicon has sub-sections for each of the following : White Centering, White Exceptionalism, White Fragility, White Privilege, White Saviourism, White Supremacy or White Supremacism…..
How the hell did we get to this?
In the canon of the left and progressive classes there are no indigenous peoples of these islands, when by any reasonable metric there are, indeed studies suggest that the DNA stamp of most white people of these islands goes back some 12,000 years. So my question is why would the left and progressive classes seek to deny these people their ancestral homelands?
Because the Liberal Left have so perverted the education system that White people have come to loath their history, culture, people, and Nation. This is all planned by the ‘Frankfurt School’ of Wiemar Republic times where Marxists Intellectuals set a plan to destroy Capitalist Societies from within.
The 11 Points have been ;listed, (by suspect people perhaps), but still, one can see them and recognize a pattern: (I c/p this from a site ‘debunking the 11 points’ as there are many of those.
Why? Because the “left” and the “progressive classes” are besotted with critical race theory, which upon closer examination turns out to be the “the-Jews-run-the-world” version of anti-Semitism repurposed to attack a larger target (all white Europeans). The target group doesn’t get to have an ancestral homeland because they are regarded as parasites.
Was there ever a time when there were not some tribe that had never been in that place before? There must have been such a time and back then they fought their neighbors over various things like who gets to hunt where. The loser then left to start afresh somewhere else. Soon there were many tribes invading each other worldwide with the scenario played again and again. Entire societies were created and died away, many for no apparent reason. that’s humanity. There are no indigenous peoples only those who await the next set of stronger tribes.
Can we all just admit that the cultural exportation and importation of these terms is a sign of serious schizophrenia from our elite?
Because that is just NOT TRUE. The Global Elite are out to destroy the Middle Classes as they are educated, moral, well off, and for their Nation. This means they are a Huge power base in keeping Nations unified and independent of the Globalism by electing leaders who will produce laws which improve the nation, freedom, and well being – and then hold them to account.
This is absolutely against what the Elites want. They wish to destroy the Capitalist system from within so all the world may fall under their direct control. Like Sauron in Lord of the Rings, say.
This is why mass migration from people who are not going to assimilate and become part of the greater nation is encouraged. This is why Middle Class have been taxed till they can not have enough children to replace themselves wile the ones who can not support themselves are paid to have excess children.
This is why racism and gender is being used to divide the West so it may be conquered as the people are all in separate camps and divided. This means minorities in fact elect the national leaders as the majority is split. And minorities can be bought cheaply by the political elites by catering to their particular wishes. (free money for the poor is the biggest)
We are in WWIII, but it is fought bloodlessly on the MSM, Social Media, the streets, and the government and the education system. It is a war of greater effect than any before as it is an existential threat against all Western values of freedom and democracy.
Remember the Roman, Marcus Cicero
““A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their arguments, he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to fear. The traitor is the plague.”“
Rise up MULTIPOCS you have nothing to lose but your acronyms.
Brilliant , I’m stealing this comment!
When I was v. young 1950s landladies would post notices “No coloureds, no Irish, no dogs”. At least I think they did – though I never saw one except on TV dramas (BBC, but not as we know it)
The famous photograph of a sign saying “No blacks, no Irish, no dogs” was in fact fabricated by an art student for an exhibition in London circa 1965. If you look at the photo briefly (just Google the phrase to see it) it’s obvious that the words have been crudely drawn on the negative after the image was taken.
The whole claim that landlords used to display such signs rests purely on that one single photo – there are no other photos of any similar signs, and no contemporary accounts from anyone claiming to have seen such a thing in the UK at any point in the 20th century.
…wow,its fabricated?
YES
So does the fact that “BIPOC” are distinguished from “BIWOC” (women, presumably) mean that women don’t count as people?
It means that wymmyn score higher on the oppresshun pyramid.
I’d be curious to see tripoc, octopoc, monopoc, apoc etc. specimens though. Millipoc, even. Why stick with bipoc, sooo binary.
This is just unbelievably insane.
You would say that, you are white.
You’re resoundingly missing the point about indigeneity as it applies to these islands. The thing to remember is that a majority of the population predates the Romans in its genetic heritage. ‘Celts’ is what some label them (us), but it is really the ancient British going back to the original population of the isles in Mesolithic, and Neolithic times. Then the Roman came, and as far as we can tell didn’t contribute much genetically. Then the “Anglo-Saxons” came, and contributed some small percentage, but claimed lordship over the land. Then the Normans came, maintained a strict segregation from the plebs, and expropriated all the land and means of production.
That segregation was maintained for about 600 years, and was evidenced in the legal system (“One law for the Rich (ie Normans), one law for the Poor (Us))”, in the entitlement to (our) land, and latterly in the school system, and in what jobs were theirs that we were excluded from. They talked differently from Us as well, right through to the late 60s, when accents were demoticised. ‘Cept for the Battenbergs and Saxe Coburg-Gothas that is.
It wasn’t, and isn’t anything so crude as melanin. But for 900 year you could tell the difference as soon as we opened our mouths.
Well those Roman, Saxons and Normans raised a bunch of blue painted. squabbling tribes, to become the greatest nation the world has ever seen. Your lament for the loss of being out on your hillside in the rain grubbing up turnips with a digging stick, wile watching out for your neighbors coming to steal your cattle, does not impress me.
That the new invasions have been the opposite is the issue.
You seem to be saying that brutal, segregationist authoritarianism is creditable, if it yields better economic outcomes for the masses after some 900 years. Notwithstanding the fact that the list of names who contributed to our scientific and technological greatness includes whole phalanxes of Us and very very few of Them.
Do you really think that around 25% Anglo-Saxon is a “small percentage “? As for the people here in Neolithic times, the coming of Indo-Europeans at the beginning of the Bronze Age appears to have effected a 90% population change.
As a Jewish Mulatto, I find the entire (BIPOC) term disgusting. If you need to segregate the races, just use the term POC for those of us who aren’t perfectly reflective.
Most people’s have some blend of colors. I suspect people that are 100% genetically pure of any melanin will not be offended in any way.
Oh dear Ed. There’s folk in Somerset with the same DNA as that found in Neanderthals in Somerset caves.
THAT is what is meant by ‘indigenous’ British people.
Cheddar Man wasn’t Neanderthal. Except insofar as we are all 2% Neanderthal due to the well known rutting habits of the desperate adolescent male.
Nice to see the NHS promoting Critical Race Theory (sarcasm).
NHS is a Social Engineering Organization which does health on the side to justify its self.
Well said,
The use of “Hispanic ” and “Latinos ” in the European context is particularly grating.
I find Black Africans typically do this.its nonsensical.
Its clear that a lot of people really do think we live in the 51st state.
As i said earlier, the cause of most trouble now in this World, is the Americas, particularly the Democrat party ones.
Err, I thought we did???
…is there some way we can vote to cut our cultural ties with the US?
I’m afraid not. We’re two peoples united by the Atlantic Ocean and divided by a common language.
Without cutting those ties, I trust mockery will suffice to keep Americanisms that become absurd when transported across the pond from taking hold.
On a more serious note when the woke brigades attack the history of the British Empire, could a lot of you over in the UK loudly and repeatedly respond by pointing out that the global slave trade was suppressed by the Royal Navy, and in doing so reminding them that most of the opposition to this move came from black sub-Saharan Africans who took other black sub-Saharan Africans as slaves and objected to the loss of profits from their trade in said slaves with the rest of the world.
Maybe they can make a Biopic about Bipoc?
Love it.
Highland crofters have been trying unsuccessfully to get recognised as indigenous by the UN – maybe it’s that?
They obviously have not read Boswell’s tour of the place, where he finds a community of black people in the Orkney abd Shetlands. Clearly the originals SIPOC. T’others must be beastly invaders.
In Boswell’s day, if you said a man was black, you meant his hair was black.
The dark-haired Irish are, AIUI, descended from shipwrecked survivors of the series of Spanish armadas that got chased off and headed home around the top of the British Isles. I should not be surprised if the “black” indigenes of the Orkneys weren’t more descendants of the same.
Similarly Mr. Ecevit, PM of Turkey (and translator of TS Eliot) was known as the Black Lad – because he had very black hair.
If you cut those cultural ties, take back Harry and Meghan.
H I + P O C?
I am a retired white Anglo Saxon male and heavily discriminated against. Who speaks out for me?
David, I will back you. I am a WASP
Your money. The good thing of being an older W Male is a lot of us have worked hard, saved and invested, and so have money, and thus power of a sort. Poor old White men are just scum in popular thinking, though.
Hm , “Whites Only” drinking fountains. Can’t remember them. Or any “drinking fountains” of any description come to that.
Maybe we should encourage the use of ‘BIPOC’ – black, indigenous (in this country, white), people-of-colour. In other words, everyone.
Ed wonders who are the Indigenous people that BIPOC refers to in the context of the NHS. It’s obviously not Beaker people or the Welsh. It’s just a stupid imported term that sort of made sense in the North American context but doesn’t in the British context. If you think about it, even in North America, it should really be BIOPOC, Black, Indigenous and Other People of Colour.
Return Of The Bipocs – The Sequel. Only on Netflix!
Sounds like a lot of old MULTIPÖCS to me.
I am about 67% sure there was a Doctor Who monster in the 1970s called the Bipocs.
If I recall correctly, they were humanoids who wore rubber suits and masks and spoke English. They invaded the Earth and attempted to take it over, but the Doctor thwarted them by cunningly reversing the polarity of the neutron flow.
Don’t forget, every body and every thing from the whole universe spoke “American” English, and they still do. (if anyone can understand it)
Bame, bames, bamery, baming, poc, pox, poccing, bipoc – nothing wrong with adding a neologism or two to the language every now & then. But STOP capitalising them for Heaven’s sake. They may have started out as acronyms once upon a time but turned into common nouns and should be regarded as such.
BIPOC is an interesting coinage. ‘Person of colour’ came into common usage fairly recently, presumably as an all-inclusive term which covered anti-black racism and also expressed the fears of Islamophobia and anti-Hispanic feeling stimulated by Trump’s travel ban and policies on migrants. BLM looks in part like an attempt to wrest the focus of anti-racist campaigners back on to black people, so now we have BIPOC, which seems to be breaking down minorities into separate groups again. It’s odd that this is becoming the acceptable term just when the semantically similar BAME is being condemned in the UK as inaccurate (needless to say, within a few days of this debate surfacing in the media I saw one person referring to BAME as offensive). Confess BIWOC is a new one on me, though I have seen BIMPOC (I’m guessing the M is for mixed).
Inevitably, the rhetoric heavily reflects US pre-occupations. We all recognise George Floyd but I wonder how many Americans can tell you who Stephen Lawrence was. Oh by the way, if the discussion turns to gender you can always spot the person who’s cut and pasted their material from a US source by the references to ‘bathrooms’.
A pocs on their pronouncements!
So what does BIWOC stand for? Black Indigenous Wallies of Colour? The W can’t be Women as that would imply Women are not People.
The trouble is not so much our cultural ties with the US. It seem much more a problem of the ignorance and stupidity of our media and academe who uncritically copy everything they see in the US.
A bit silly! As far as the modern Left are concerned, freedom of association IS segregation.
A bit silly! As far as the modern Left are concerned, freedom of association IS segregation.
The greatest cause of trouble throughout the World is now caused by the fact that the US set out in the 1920s to undermine and take over the British Empire.
viz: the present day Middle East, the far eastern part of the WW2 with Japan, every mistake of theirs blamed on Russian hacking etc; etc.
how wrong can you get? You set a high bar with your post.
Brilliant. Too many people seem to have been influenced by the Clash’s “Spanish Bombs” and think that they’re fighting Franco [“Fascism isn’t coming”] when they should have been paying attention to “I’m So Bored of the U.S.A.” instead.
Just wanted to get that in, and I promise never to comment here again.
Brilliant. Too many people seem to have been influenced by the Clash’s “Spanish Bombs” and think that they’re fighting Franco [“Fascism isn’t coming”] when they should have been paying attention to “I’m So Bored of the U.S.A.” instead.
Just wanted to get that in, and I promise never to comment here again.
To “those of us who have studied history”, get your facts straight and stop being so prejudiced against animals.
The sign (mostly outside of B&Bs and rental accommodation) was “No blacks, no Irish, no dogs”.
After WWII signs also said ‘No Poles’
Those were outside people’s gardens when they were setting up telephone lines.
And in the 2000s the ‘Dogs’ was changed to ‘Emotional Support Animals’.
…and, it might be added…was deemed so crass by so many people in the Country that it triggered our first Race Relations Act…which so far as I can recall was widely supported. As to the rest, it’s nonsense…there was never a “Colour Bar” in this Country, and limitations on the male franchise were property-based and colour blind. Hence two MPs of Indian (Parsee) origins in the East End in the 1890’s.
In fact, the lack of a colour bar caused us major problems with our American Allies in WW2 because they wanted one (to keep their own white soldiers happy) and we wouldn’t wear it…and the experience of Black American Soldiers here was one of the reasons they went back determined to change things there.
The Battle of Bamber Bridge is worth looking up respect of this issue…in that case the locals responded to a demand from White US Officers that local pubs enforce segregation…by posting large notices on the village pubs saying “BLACK TROOPS ONLY”… because they had been enjoying the company of the Black American Soldiers based in the area for some time, and could see no reason to change their approach…
My mother told me about this when i was a child. As an example of how non-racist most people were. She also boycotted South African goods because of apartheid. Ahead of her time.
Dramatised by Nevil Shute in The Chequer Board.
My family arrived in London from Ireland after the war. Over the years i often asked at Irish & family gatherings whether anyone saw these signs. No one did but everyone heard about them. It’s been repeated so often, people now believe they were commonplace
The famous photograph of a sign saying “No blacks, no Irish, no dogs” was in fact fabricated by an art student for an exhibition in London circa 1965. If you look at the photo briefly (just Google the phrase to see it) it’s obvious that the words have been crudely drawn on the negative after the image was taken.
The whole claim that landlords used to display such signs rests purely on that one single photo – there are no other photos of any similar signs, and no contemporary accounts from anyone claiming to have seen such a thing in the UK at any point in the 20th century.
But greatly used by the BBC.
From the Guardian of all places…
https://www.theguardian.com/money/2015/oct/21/no-irish-no-blacks-no-dogs-no-proof
And my ancestors are Irish.
My memory of the 50s London was signs, No Asians, Iraqis, Transsexuals, or Art Students.