TRIGGERnometry - Starkey, Racism and Cancel Culture with Katharine Birbalsingh

Episode Date: July 8, 2020

Headmistress and founder of Michaela Community School, Katharine Birbalsingh joins us for a third time. Support TRIGGERnometry: Paypal: https://bit.ly/2Tnz8yq https://www.subscribestar.com/trigger... https://www.patreon.com/triggerpod Find TRIGGERnometry on Social Media:  https://twitter.com/triggerpod https://www.facebook.com/triggerpod https://www.instagram.com/triggerpod About TRIGGERnometry:  Stand-up comedians Konstantin Kisin (@konstantinkisin) and Francis Foster (@failinghuman) make sense of politics, economics, free speech, AI, drug policy and WW3 with the help of presidential advisors, renowned economists, award-winning journalists, controversial writers, leading scientists and notorious comedians. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Mom, can you tell me a story? Sure. Once upon a time, a mom needed a new car. Was she brave? She was tired, mostly. But she went to Carvana.com and found a great car at a great price. No secret treasure map required. Did you have to find a dragon? Nope, she bought it 100% online, from her bed, actually.

Was it scary? Honey, it was as unscary as car buying could be. Did the car have a sunroof? It did, actually. Okay, good story. Car buying you'll want to tell stories about. Buy your car today on... Carvana.

Delivery fees may apply. Hello and welcome to Trigonometry. I'm Francis Foster. I'm Constantine Kissing. And this is a show for you. You want honest conversations with fascinating people. As you can see, today we're on location, a secret location, and our guest, the returning guest for the third time. Today is the headmistress of the Michaela School. Catherine Berbber Singh, welcome to Trichinometry. Hi there. Thanks for having me. It's great to have you here. Let me set the context very briefly for why we're having this conversation. Because we spoke to you only a couple of months ago. Yes. And it's unusual for us. to come back to the same guest, but we've talked with you about education a lot.

Yeah. Today we wanted to talk about something that we never talk about in society nowadays, which is, of course, racism, right? That never gets talked about at all. But the reason is, you know, this controversy with David Starkey happened. You had some interesting thoughts about it. Francis and I have talked about it on live streams and got a lot of hate from every side

for trying to just work out what we think about it. Yeah. And you and I were having a very interesting conversation on Twitter where you were saying that you thought that not only was this comment that David, and we'll get into what it was, made was racist, but actually he has a history of making these comments. And then you added to that quite unusually

that you quite like David at the same time. And I just think that's such a weird thing to even be able to say in modern society. So just give us your summary of what you thought, you know, David made this comment, maybe remind everybody what it was, what he'd said in the past, and what your take on this whole situation is.

Yeah, well, David Starkey has made many racist comments over the years. You know, we're talking more than a decade that I know of his racist comments, but presumably there have been others before that. And I think actually part of the reason why he's so bold is because he's managed to get away with these kind of comments for so many years. And as I said, I quite like David Stalky. You know, he's a funny guy. He's so eccentric, and I've met him, and he's very entertaining. And I know that's odd to say, because people sort of think, But if you're racist, then you must, you know, you're the worst person in the world. You know, you're Hitler, is how we think.

And the thing about the word racism is that it really just span. You know, people right from, you know, the little old lady who clutches her bag when a few young black boys, you know, go by to Hitler. And then there's everything in between. And, you know, I would even go as far as to say that everybody, you know that Avenue Q song, you know, that Avenue Q song, you know, everyone's a little bit racist sometimes, you know. Like, I kind of say that is the case. I would say Starkey's a step above that, though. He's not just everybody's a little bit racist.

And most recently, the things he said, I mean, I actually went through, I have a little list here of stuff in his most recent interview with Darren Grimes that he said. I mean, the main thing was there's so many damn blacks in Africa. You know, what on earth? I mean, it's not just the fact.

that he said that, the damn blacks in Africa, but I mean, the contempt with which he says it, you can see it on his face. Now, I know some people will say, oh, but, you know, how do you make that judgment? Well, you know what? If he just said that one comment, and that was it, then maybe you might give him the benefit of the doubt, but this has been happening for years. I mean, and also throughout the thing, I mean, other things he said, you know, he said, well, we think of slavery as a terrible disease when in fact, and I thought, well, sorry, what, slavery is a good thing? I mean, he, this is what he, you know, he says, he talks about blacks and their lifestyle and their music and their dress. I'm like, well, do I have this lifestyle? Do I listen to this

music and dress like that? I mean, I think I look rather nice, actually, what I'm wearing. I'm certainly not pulling my trousers down and bopping along as Starkey would seem fit to describe me. He talks about statues. If you did that, the show would get a lot more views, believe you may. We would be crushing it on YouTube. He talks about statues. He talks about statues. and he's dismissive of statues coming down, which, you know, I don't agree with statues coming down. But his dismissal of them, he says, well, slavery was not the equivalent to the Holocaust.

Like, what? So that's why statues shouldn't come down? I mean, he's so lazy in his intellectual thought when it comes to race. So lazy. And this is a man who's extremely intelligent, very good with words. And when people say to me,

oh, but he just slipped up in his speech. No, David Starkey doesn't slip up, okay? This is a man who's very eloquent, and he knows what he's saying, and he's allowing himself to be lazy in these spheres because he doesn't care, and he doesn't think it's important enough to get it right. He also talks about how, well, slavery's done now. It was 200 years ago, so we don't need to discuss it now because it's all done. Well, actually, slavery was only just finished, we only just finished paying off for it, you know,

for the slavers who were paid off. We've only just, in the last couple of years, finished paying them. So the fact is slavery isn't done. Now, I happen to be against reparations for slavery. I'm against the statues coming down, but David Starkey is a racist. Now, things that he said in the past, on News Night in 2010, he talked about how the whites have become black. And what he meant by that, actually coming back to the lifestyle and the dress of black people, he was meaning that there is a culture among some white young people

to copy kind of gangster American style rap artists and so on. Well, that's a very different thing than saying they've become black. Are these white chavs, as he called them? Are they copying me? I don't think they are. But he's unable to make that distinction. And I found it very interesting on Twitter because when people would try and defend him,

and I was horrified by the number of people who were defending David Stalky, a number of my own followers, I might add. And I think it's because a number of people follow me who don't see these issues because I often defend white people against racism that is against white people. And because I'm critical,

of that, they see me as being on their side when I'm most definitely not on their side, I'm on the side of the truth. And what else is he said? Oh, he said that David Lammie sounds white. Now, how does David Lammie sound white? I mean, what is it, what is it to sound white? Rucky men is educated. That's exactly right. He's well spoken, he's educated. Well, so for Starkey, when you're white,

you're well spoken, when you're black, you know, you dress in a certain way, you're a gangster, essentially. it's beyond a shadow of a doubt that David Stark, he's a racist. Now, that doesn't mean he's Hitler. I don't think he's going around committing hate crimes. But I do think he's a racist. And that's when the conversation then gets interesting about, you know, what do you do with that and so on. But for me, it is perfectly obvious that he's a racist. He twists, every time he talks about black people, he twists his face in this kind of, just this way as if he's kind of horrified, you know, in the way that I do. when I'm talking about racism. And he's never stopped. And people have pulled him up on this time and time again. They pulled him up with the Lammy comment,

with the whites have become black comment, and he's never changed. And so, you know, I'm a headmistress. I'm a teacher at heart. And I always believe in giving people a second chance. That's what you do with the kids. You know, you say, well, look, this is how you got it wrong.

Let's do it again, you know? Stocky has never, never accepted that opportunity. In fact, he's just got worse and worse over time. And so it is hard to then think, well, what do you do? I don't believe in cancel culture. I have to say. Well, let's just pause there. Let Francis with his slightly gammon voice.

Oh, you know, there's one more... I like that. She points at me. I'm talking about reminding me of racism. Well, there's one more thing on my list, which is that he talks about Churchill and how complex a man he was. And people often accuse Churchill of being a racist for the Bengal. famine because he ensured that the food that was on its way to them, we rerouted and be brought

to the soldiers. And that was a very difficult decision. And one might say, yes, he decided partly because he believed that Indians were inferior and he did. But he was also trying to win a war. So I kind of, I want to give the guy some slack. I get it, you know. He says this about Churchill and says that Churchill thought that Indians could not

govern themselves, which you've got to be a bit of a racist to think that, right? You think people can't govern themselves. Well, Stalky goes on to agree with Churchill. He says, well, the only reason why they could afterwards was because we, British, had been in charge for so long in the first place. Well, I mean, now I can forgive Churchill because he was a man of his time. Stocky is here right now in 2020 saying that. And I have a problem with that. And I think it's quite right that we should call it out. We ought to. And the worst of that whole thing was Darren Grimes at the end saying, and what should we conservatives do? Because we conservatives need to fight back. And I was thinking, wait a minute, I would consider myself to be a conservative, certainly a small

C conservative. I'm not a big C, but I'm a small C conservative. I don't agree with David Starkey. And I know a whole load of other conservatives who wouldn't agree. And it is really worrying when we equate those kind of antiquated and racist views with conservatism, because because they really had nothing to do with each other. And that's why you should always watch trigonometry, not Darren Grimes. So we talk about Starkey, and you mentioned that he's a man of great intellect.

He's very interesting. He has a lot to offer society and a lot to offer our culture. What do you do with someone like that when they have views that you've described as racist? Do we just put them away and then forget about them? Or do we try and rehabilitate them? I mean, it's a very difficult question.

Rehabilitation is a good one, you know. What I'm always doing on Twitter, when I'm talking to people, I'm always trying, and sometimes I can get a bit annoyed, but I try and keep it under control. And I'm always trying to explain things to people so that over time they can come to see, oh, well, maybe actually I might reconsider my views on that. And so I was doing that a lot over the Starkey thing.

And I was trying to explain to people why he was racist. And I think some people took on board, a lot of what I was saying. I think others didn't, but perhaps next time they will. I did notice that a lot of people would try and defend him by saying he'd said something else other than what he'd said. No, no, no, but he said that the blacks, that the whites were taking on American gang culture.

No, no, no, actually. He said they'd become black. And so because they like Stalky, they wanted to defend him. Now, the thing about racism, it's kind of like, people make the mistake in thinking with right and left. they think there's kind of a line. And they think that the lefties are the good people and the righties are the bad people.

And there's this line. When in fact, it's a circle that goes like that. And the extreme left and the extreme right meet each other there. I would say the same thing comes for the line that people think exists between the woke and the racists. So there's the woke and the anti-racists over here.

And so you might put Antifa right at the end there. And then you've got the racist over here. And I wouldn't put Starkey right at the end. You know, I'd put the National Front right at the end, right? But it's not like a line. It's a circle. And so the National Front meets up with Antifa down here. And the woke, I would say, are down here. And I think that they're pretty racist too. And the David Starkey types over here as well, I think they're pretty racist. And ultimately, what is racism? So racism, as I keep trying to explain on my on my Twosophede, is when you are unable to look at somebody and just treat them as a human being,

You judge them by the color of their skin. And what I mean by that is, oh, I don't know. When I used to live in France, people would tell me to go back to Algeria. So they just look at me and think, oh, she's obviously from Algeria. Of course, I've never been to Algeria, but, and they would tell me to go back there. That's pretty obvious. But then there are other times where people ask me to be part of a group or on a board or something. And then they'll say, well, we want you to be there because you'll tick the diversity box for us.

and I think, well, you know, I'm really skilled. I do, what I do in education, I think is pretty amazing. You know, and I've set up a school. There aren't that many people who have had the kind of obstacles that I've had to overcome in order to achieve what we've achieved here at Michaela. And yet, the reason you want me is because I tick your diversity box. Now, what my color does at that moment is it prevents them from seeing me as a person. They can't see my accomplishments.

They can't see me for who I am. All they can see is my color. That is racism. Now, the people who are doing that are on the left, okay? So they've come on the circle this way. The David Stalkies of the world who think, oh, well, she's black, so she must listen to certain types of music. He's on that side.

So it's the judgment of somebody, according to the color of this skin, and not being able to see past that. And, of course, because color is a big part of somebody, you see it right away. So, you know, you're unlikely to look at somebody's eye color. You know, you won't catch that as quickly. But color is hard to not see.

So you see that right away. And so it is good, I think, to talk about race and to talk about these things to make people aware. Now, I know some of my Twitter followers will be horrified to hear me say this, you know, the idea of unconscious bias and so on. There's a lot of truth in the unconscious bias point that the left always put forward

or that the woke put forward. And what they mean by that is that people make subconscious decisions all the time about others without sort of realizing what they're thinking about other people. And unless you question that about yourself and think, hmm, well, is it that I always hire men and never really think about women or I imagine that men are stronger? When I say stronger, I don't mean physically,

I just mean better leaders or more in control. And that's an assumption of mine. Maybe I should think about that because, you know what, I might be missing out on some great candidates when I'm hiring them who are women who I want to employ. Similarly, with black people, you know, there are all sorts of ideas and stereotypes. And people then think, oh, but stereotypes are okay. Well, no, they're not.

That is racism. That's what racism is. Now, the problem we've currently got is that if you're considered to be racist, people don't go, everyone's a little bit racist. They don't do that. They say, canceled. You've got to lose your job. You're going to lose your family.

You've got to lose everybody. And so, of course, everybody's then running around on eggs. Shell's going, oh my goodness, I'm not racist, I'm not racist. And that's really unhealthy. And so, you know, if I was talking to black friends, I would be saying, I'm not sure, I'm not sure what we want is to kind of browbeat white people into feeling so uncomfortable about race that they never say anything, they never think anything, and they're just worried all the time. you know, don't we want to have conversations and hear what they have to say? And then if we're constantly beating people over the head, all you do is make people go quiet.

And then they're really uncomfortable. So, yeah. So coming back to that point about Starkey, what do we do? The difficulty with Starkey is that he is in a position of authority in a university. And he is teaching young people. And that is difficult because there's no question. in my head that a man like that should not be teaching in this school. I don't think so, because I do think he's a racist, and I don't think he's willing to change, because many people

over years have challenged him on this, and he hasn't been willing to do that. Having said that, he needs to be given the opportunity to do so. And I think this will have come as quite a shock to him because he's got away with it for so long. There are such things as, you know, suspensions, disciplinaries, you know, you have a conversation. There's a lot of in-between before just, you know, firing somebody. I do think we need to have some sort of standards for people, especially in education, because they've got a really important and sensitive role in developing young people. I do think at university, look, the universities are so woke that the young people there could probably argue stalking into the ground, so I'm not sure they need protecting so much,

you know. But I don't think it's as straightforward as some people on the right thing. which is that there just should be absolute freedom for everyone to say whatever they want. You know, I mean, it was interesting. I put it on my Twitter feed, and I said, well, should we allow Holocaust deniers on TV every night? Should they be out there just saying that the Holocaust never happened? And I had somebody tweet me, you know, an article,

well, obviously the Holocaust didn't happen. I mean, how could you be so stupid that happened? Welcome to Twitter. Well, you know, and the thing is, is that the assumption is when people say, yes, but we just need to let everybody say whatever they want, and the truth will come out. And I think that's because we're in 2020

that we feel so secure in saying that because the assumption is, well, obviously we wouldn't take on racist views. Obviously we wouldn't all start denying the Holocaust. But history has shown that people can be very sheep-like and they can just follow somebody who has a lot of charisma, somebody who's well-spoken, you know. And so there's a reason why Germany,

it's illegal to deny the Holocaust in Germany. There's a reason for that, and I get it. Now, it's not illegal in this country, but we would not. We wouldn't put Holocaust deniers on television. We wouldn't give a massive voice, and that's the thing about Starkey. He's got a big voice.

You know, he's being interviewed. He's on TV. Do we want that? There's a difference between canceling somebody and making a decision of, you know what, they're just too contentious to put on television in terms of the things that they're saying.

Now, I know what people will say to me at that point. They'll say, but who decides? Who decides who get, who we don't do that with? Well, who decides right now? We don't put Holocaust deniers on. So somebody's deciding that. I'm not quite sure who is. I mean, maybe it's just, I don't know,

the general public and what they will put up with. Yeah, I also think that people, one of the reasons why the country feels so under siege, and I understand, I also feel under siege at the moment, and I do think there is a culture war. And I mean, the irony of this is, you know, I'm going on about Starkey being racist, but I'm, I really am on the other side of the culture war, you know, as you know, we've had many conversations. You know, I consider myself to be a small C conservative. But Starkey is definitely a racist. And we need to have a, we need to have discussions. We do need to be open about these things. But what Twitter has shown me is that there are quite a lot of white people out there. who refused to have the discussion. You know, I'll tweet about Peter Friars, he's an author,

he wrote a historian, he wrote a book in 1984 called Staying Power, the History of Black People in Britain. And it gives you loads of facts about Black people in Britain. And I tweeted this a number of times, saying, well, read this, you know, hey everybody, if you want to know, and it's really big book, you want to know more about Black people in Britain, why don't you read this?

And then you'll be more informed. I would get tweets back saying, thank you, I'm educated enough. And I think... Look, I spend a lot of time telling you what's wrong with the world. So let me tell you about something that's actually right. Sleep. Specifically getting more of it, better quality.

The kind where you wake up and feel like a human being, rather than someone who's been thrown down a staircase. Most mattresses are just layers of synthetic foam and crossed fingers. You're spending a third of your life on the thing. And most people have no idea what's actually in it. Avocardo green mattress is different. Their mattresses are certified organic, built from natural material. designed to actually support your body properly rather than just hold you in one position until morning.

The craftsmanship is real. These are mass-produced objects. Someone has put thought into them. I'll be honest. I'm not the person who thinks carefully about where he sleeps. My dating history will tell you that. I'm the person who's been on the same mattress for eight years and called it fine. But the older I get, the more I notice that fine isn't actually fine. Your body tells you, if you're going to invest in anything for your home, your bed is is the one that pays you back every single night. Avocado products are made, not manufactured, and thoughtfully crafted with real materials to deliver lasting comfort and support.

Go to avocadogreenmatress.com slash trigger to check out their mattress and furniture sale. That's avocado greenmattress.com slash trigger. Avocado green mattress.com slash trigger. Sorry. You've made this point, Cash, and I think it's a very valid point, that if the invitation to educate yourself

doesn't come from people like you, but it comes from the woke camp who are saying, if you don't agree with me, it's because you're bigger, here's 50 books like white fragility that you must read. People will become resistant. And I think that's a big part of the issue. But let me come back to David,

because we've had David on the show. Yes. And I'll be honestly, I was not aware of the news night comments. I was less political at the time. But we spent an hour with him, then we went for dinner. He was articulate, intelligent. He agreed with many of the things you said about Jean-Jacques Rousseau.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I agree on lots of stuff. Right. Absolutely, which is why we're having this conversation. You're someone with a very nuanced and sensible view of these things. He never, in our conversation, said anything that was in any way inappropriate, in my opinion. He didn't make any racist comments. No.

He was a lovely guy. He was charming. He was funny, as you say. Yeah. Right. So I guess the question for me is, what do we do now? You know, you talk about this guy shouldn't be on, shouldn't be perhaps on television as much or at all, right? So if you're opposed to council culture, how do we, how do we do we do it? Do we have him back to talk about what he said? Yeah.

Do we never talk to him again? Well, maybe. Yeah. You have him back and you see whether or not, I'm always want to give people another chance. But then we're racist. But then we're racist, right? I mean, we're already racist. We're already racist. It's too far.

We've gone down that route. Well, I don't think so. I think I would want to talk to Starkey. I would want to say, look, can't you see how you say things? Can't you see how it comes across? Can't you see? Like, look, this is how, if you wanted to say, you could have had an interesting discussion with Darren Grimes

about whether or not slavery was genocide. You could have given the definition of genocide and said that you think that it means that you need to have had the intention to wipe a certain people out. And to be so lazy in your speech, there's so many damn black people in Africa, I mean, you know, and so dismissive.

Like, who are these people, you know? Do you really think that's what he meant? Because this is the counter-argument that was hoping Francis would put forward to you, but he chickened out. So let me put this to you, right? When he was talking about that, My initial perception, and I'm just putting it out, I'm not saying, this is true, I'm just saying that was my initial perception.

His exasperation was at what he perceived to be the stupidity of the counter argument. In other words, he wasn't talking, the use of the word damned was not, he didn't mean it to be about the black people. He meant it to be about the stupidity of the argument that he was countering. Yeah, that is an odd thing, seeing as his interviewer was so sycophantic that he was. he even described himself as being a thiccophant. He wasn't arguing with somebody and getting heated in the moment and getting really angry because the other person was being unreasonable.

He was just, he had the platform. He could say whatever he liked. He was in total support with the person who was interviewing him. It makes no sense the idea that he would be so frustrated. And there's a whole series of things that he then says in the interview as I've been through and things that he said in the past that, Lammy sounds white, you can't get around that one.

And so all the people who are trying to explain away, well, he must have meant this, he must have meant that. What, over the last decade? He must have meant X, Y, and Z. I mean, the fact is, the man is very lazy when it comes to his language around black people. And that's because he doesn't think black people deserve that attention. He doesn't think that it matters what he says. He thinks he can get away with being rude, racist, and obnoxious, and it doesn't matter. And I'd love to say that to him, you know?

I wouldn't be rude about it. I'd be a lot less kind of heated than I am right now. I'd want to show him and explain it to him because I'd really hope that he'd come around to what I think is the right way of thinking. Maybe we should get you both on the show. Well, I'd be more than happy to talk to him and try and persuade him. I really would. And that's because I don't believe in cancel culture

and I don't believe in giving up on people. And that is because I'm a teacher. I never give up on any kid, you know? You always keep trying. because there's always, you're always got to keep trying it. And it's the same thing now for me, because I tend to be fighting the woke and tend to be fighting the left

because I believe in traditional education, I believe in teachers standing at the front, I believe in holding children to account, I believe in discipline, all of these things, for some reason on the left, they've just abandoned all these ideas, God only knows why. And I'm always trying to explain to them via Twitter

and via the talks I give, conversations with you, all of this stuff about why it is that more small C conservative's thinking is what we need to do. And I've done that for some time. And what I find really often, either via DM on Twitter or when I go to an event, people come up to me, and quietly whisper to me, I really like what you're saying. I'm not going to tell me their name. They're quietly come and tell me. Or they'll say, I didn't like you a few years ago. And I really didn't believe what you were saying, but I can see it now. I've been following you on Twitter, and I can see it.

I see what you're saying. It's just taken me a few years. People can change their minds. I changed my mind. You know, I used to be a real lefty teacher. I used to be, I used to think like a typical lefty teacher. You know, the reason why schools were failing is there wasn't enough money. Black boys weren't achieving because of institutionalized racism.

I mean, a whole variety of things that I thought. I changed my mind over years. And that was the experience of teaching that taught me to change my mind. Also the fact that I'm just open-minded. There are a lot more open-minded people out there than we realize. And there are, of course, the extremes. And I've met them both on my Twitter because they're, and more recently with Starkey, I met my right-wing followers who were just digging their heels in and saying,

no, people who are saying, well, obviously we're not racist. We follow you, Catherine. So you follow a black person on Twitter, and that means you're not racist? I mean, like, and then I come to realize in talking with them, and that's where it's really interesting, because I would never meet these people normally. And, you know, I once many years ago met up with this, when I used to write my blog, I used to write a blog called to Miss with Love, and this was the day when there were no blogs. And there was this guy called BNP member, and he was a member of the British National Party. And he used to come in and comment

on my blog, because in those days, Twitter didn't exist. So if you wanted to have a conversation, you had to do it via comments on the blog. And all these left. would come on and argue with him and he would say things and I always found him quite interesting. He was an intelligent kind of self-taught guy, a white working class guy up in the north. And then I suggested to him, you know, it would be really interesting to meet you because I never met a BMP member before. And so I met up with him. And it was so fascinating because he arrived and he was hobbling along. And I said, oh, you know, he was in a suit. I mean, you know, I was in jeans and whatever. And he said, oh, yeah, my feet hurt because the shoes are new.

He had bought the suit and the shoes to meet with me. And he said, well, you know, I figured you went to Oxford University, so I needed to get dressed up for the occasion. This was really weird. You know, at the same time, he was explaining to me about his girlfriend and how he'd gone around that morning to his girlfriend's house and they had a little toddler. And he wanted to say hello to his son.

And he didn't, she wouldn't let him hold the boyfriend. boy because she said you're going to see that black woman and you're going to contaminate him. And so I'm not letting you hold on to him. So all I'm saying is that race is complex. You know, on the one hand, this guy, this is the kind of guy he is and this is the environment in which he mixes. On the other hand, he's getting dressed up in a suit and shoes that hurt his feet because I've been to Oxford University. You know, I just always believe in trying to keep an open mind and in talking to people. And And so the race thing, you know, it's the other thing that I wanted to talk to about was school and how we teach, you know, because one of the big problems at the moment, I see

on my two-defeet, a lot of white people who are very worried about what's going to be taught at school. And they're, I mean, I've spoken to people, I mean, friends of mine and so on, who have said they're worried about the Black Lives Matter influence and what, you know, work that's being sent home that white kids have to interrogate their whiteness and they need to talk to their parents about their privilege and what they do as white people and and that it's dangerous stuff and I do I worry about them and it's something that we would never do here at Michaela now I have to say most of our kids here are ethnic minorities but there are a few white kids I would just never want to divide the children in that way children

children nowadays, one of the ways in which we have so advanced as a country, is that when I was a child at school, they talk about going to the P.A.K.I. Shop, and if I was in the room, they go, oops, sorry, you know. And it was normal to call people names. Nowadays, calling kids names, a racist name in the schoolyard, it's the worst thing you can do. The kids would all jump on you. There's no way. The kids will not tolerate racism. So to divide them, according to race and make them see this thing. And that's the point about the circle. Woke people are constantly talking about race and constantly defining us. Identity politics says that a black boy cannot identify with Shakespeare. Identity politics says that black kids

can't learn their French verbs. They need to learn French rap instead. That's why the woke are racist. That position is racist. And what is so terrible is that these woke people think, not all of them, I'm sure not all woke people think like that, but some of them,

they think that to be anti-racist is to keep doing that. And that is racist, which is why it's a circle. The extreme right say, for instance, that brown people, black people cannot be British. The woke would never want them to be British.

And in schools, one of the things that we do here at school is that we talk about being British all the time. We're all British together. We have a British flag, flying with pride outside. We've seen God save the Queen and Jerusalem. I vow to thee my country.

When England was playing in the World Cup, we had England flags everywhere. All I ever did was talk about football. I don't know anything about football. But I made sure I found out about football so I can talk about it to the kids, you know? Now, and that's because I want us all to be British. And this is a really important point,

which is that the nation's state which the woke reject is what binds us together and stops us from being racist. If you don't have the nation state, the nation state, it's a group of values. It's our country. We believe in democracy.

We believe in the rule of law. We believe in the right to be gay and not have policemen throw you off the top of a building, which will happen in many countries around the world, right? Now, our country stands for something, and we are British, whether we are white or black. Now, the fact is that too many people are ashamed of being British. So we reject the nation state when it's the one thing that stops us from being

tribal. Because if you get rid of your nation state, then you have to reduce the race. And then you're white, I'm black, and I'm going to be with my people and you're going to be with your people because we were reduced to tribes. And that is how the one great thing about the West is that nation state. Well, no, not the one great thing. There's loads of great things about the West, But one of the biggest great things is that we have a nation which binds us together in terms of its values. But because too many British people, in particular white British people, I would add, are so guilty because of the British, you know, history of colonialism and slavery and so on. Which, sadly, there are some people who are quite proud of that. And I do think that we should be ashamed of that.

But that doesn't mean that Britain do new great things as well. And when we teach our histories you see here at Michaela, we teach British history. And we teach British history the good and the bad. And we don't sit there and say, white people are good, black people are bad, sorry, black people are good and white people are bad. And we don't relate it to the presence. So we don't say things like, look at how black people were treated during slavery. It's the same as what happens now with racism.

We wouldn't do that. We teach British history. And that's because all of us have an entitlement to be taught British history so we can all feel British. Now, that includes slavery. That includes the Amritsar M massacre in India. That includes Gandhi. That includes colonialism. That includes the Atlantic slave trade.

We would also include civil rights and North America because that helps to shape the world that our children are growing up in. We also teach things that aren't British, so the French Revolution, for instance, because again, that's part of Europe. Now, all of that helps to ground our children. If ethnic minority children are constantly told that they're not British by well-meaning white people. And what I mean by that is they're well-meaning teachers who are ashamed of being British so they never talk about it. Or the media who go on about race all the time or who go on about not being... they don't celebrate Britishness, right? They don't do that.

In fact that minorities feel like they don't belong to their own country, if they feel like the establishment is against them, whether or not it is, that's a different argument, they cannot succeed. It's impossible to succeed. And it is our job as educators to make children feel as if they belong to their country. And if we believed in the nation state

and in our values as being British, we wouldn't reduce ourselves to tribalism. But that is where we have now reached. And that is why the woke are running around saying, white privilege, black people are good, need to take down the statues, and they've lost their minds. And they're just running around,

they don't know what they're doing. And that isn't to say there aren't racist people, like David Stocky as an example. Racist complex. And our culture, sadly, has just deteriorated to this point. because we have lost the values of the nation state. And it's a really powerful thing that you're talking about.

But as someone who was a former teacher, I saw this coming into education around about 10 years ago. So I attended, for instance, a seminar on how to teach black boys and how we have to expect different from black boys. And the thing that's really racist about that is seeing black people as this monolith when you go, all right, so we're talking about black, but what do you actually mean?

Do you mean West African? Do you mean Caribbean? Do you mean Congol? Yeah, yeah. All these different things. Exactly. And... Which is exactly what Starkey does.

Yeah. It's exactly the same. But which is people from both sides do that, right? Yeah. So I guess my point is, if both sides do that, how do we solve this problem? I don't know. We do things like this. Well, that was great, did you?

Look, we do things like this. We talk about it. This is actually the first time I've been able to explain in, you know, one of the reasons why I thought this would be great, you know, to try and explain in detail why I think we've reached this point in this country. You know, the two sides, like I say to you, there are people on Twitter, you know, racist.

I mean, I tell my Twitter followers. I think some of you are racist. And they follow me. If you can't see that Starkey is racist, I think you've got a problem with the race. I really do. Because the thing is, you watch it, and you think, oh, well, David Lammy sounds white, that's all right.

It doesn't jar with you. You don't go, oh, wow. that's a bit weird. That's because you can't hear it. And you don't, you don't hear it because you yourself have similar thoughts. And that's why I think you yourself are also racist. However, I love them. She's directed. I don't know. Hold on. I think that is a little bit unfair because, for example, I myself, I watched strictly the Darren Grimes clip, just the clip. Yeah. I was not aware of anything David said previously. Yes, yes. And I watched that clip, and I listened to it. And I thought, well, I know David as to the extent that I do. He never said

anything inappropriate when we spent time with him. I watched this clip and I can see that maybe his intent wasn't racist. Okay. So it's a lack of knowledge on my part. But didn't you at that point go, I thought it was a very ill-judged comment. Yeah, fine. But, but, but I'll tell you why. But that's important. Okay. You immediately, your reaction was, ooh. Yes. Now, you then tried to rationalize it because you like him. To understand. No, I tried to understand why he may have made it. Well, because you're giving him the benefit of the doubt now. Yes, exactly. And you're trying to trying to rationalize it because you're thinking I like this guy, he's a good guy, he can't possibly have meant that, so maybe he meant this. And I totally understand that. And actually, had it

been just one comment that he'd made, I probably would have done the same thing. It's the history, and not just the history, but all the other stuff that he says in the whole interview that then makes me go, look, obviously this guy has a problem. What you did was natural and human nature. So this is my point is, when you and I had a conversation about it, I hate this word, because it's misused, but you quote-unquote educated me, if you like, right? You persuaded me by giving me more information. Yeah, fine. So that's why I think it's maybe not the most helpful thing to say,

if you can't hear it, then you're thinking in racist ways because I was just giving someone the benefit of the doubt. Yeah, yeah. No, I mean once you've heard all of my evidence. Oh, sure. Right? If you hear all of this and are still saying, no, but David Lammy does sound white,

then we've got a problem. But you need to remember that when I say that the person's racist, I don't mean they're Hitler. I mean, I think you're racist. I think you're probably a good dad or a good mom and a nice brother and sister to somebody. And, you know, I'm not saying, I'm not saying you commit hate crimes.

And that's not what I'm saying, right? But isn't that part of the problem, Catherine, and I don't use this term, right? That we almost see if someone's a racist, it's almost like being a paedophile. It's like the worst thing that you can be. The moment you say somebody is a racist, everyone's like, well, they are the worst person in the world.

I know. I know, and that's a real problem because, as I said at the beginning, racist kind of spans everything from the little old lady who clutches her bag to Hitler. And obviously, there's a huge number of things in between. And I also do think Avenue Q, everyone's a little bit racist, you know, and it isn't the end of the world. But it is good to talk about these things. And the reason why people get so angry about it, I suppose, with racism is that it's not something anyone can change. You know, your race is something that's what you are. And you, from the point of view of black people, the reason why that book, you know, why I'm no longer talking to white people about race,

which I tried to read and actually couldn't read because I found it so awful. You know, so I'm not a proponent for this. You know, I don't, but I do get the point. It can get very frustrating as a black person constantly explaining race to white people. Because white people don't have the experience of racism, they can, it's very hard to explain it. And then they don't necessarily understand and then you go back and forth.

And when I was younger, I probably would have been a lot more hot-headed and thought, forget this, you know, you're just an idiot white person. I'm not talking to you anymore. But, you know, I'm older now. I am a headmistress. I believe in talking to people. You know, a lot of these people are young and they're hot-headed. And I forgive them for that because I was hot-headed too when I was younger. It's hard to keep your cool, especially when you're talking to a white person who is just refusing to listen to you

and refusing to recognize that his or her experiences are not the same as the black person's experiences. And, you know, I once gave a talk the battle of ideas about white privilege. I believe white privilege exists. But I also believe that pretty privileges exist and tall privilege and firstborn privilege. There's all sorts of privileges that we all have. And we tend to just talk about white privilege. But if you're the first born and if you're the only child, you're super privileged. And you're far more likely to do well in life if you're an only child than if you're the fourth born.

If you're really attractive, you're far more likely. If you're ugly, you're however many more times likely to go to jail. You know, like there are all sorts of privileges that one has in life. But people tend to take the opinion of either you really believe in white privilege or there's no such thing as white privilege. Well, actually, there is. It's just that there's a middle way. And I'm always trying to say on Twitter, there is a middle way. You can believe that Starkey's a racist, but also believe that he shouldn't be canceled in the way that he was, that there should be a conversation.

It's just that nobody allows these conversations to take place because they just go, bam, and then that's it for whoever it is. Well, we're having it now. So let's make you talk about this. For me, white privilege is more nuanced even than you're talking about, because I think I would certainly acknowledge that in every society there is majority privilege. The majority ethnic group enjoys a certain level of privilege. I find the concept of white privilege quite insulting personally,

because a lot of people would look at me and say that I'm white, but I've experienced plenty of racism. So when someone says, well, you're white, therefore you have no idea about racism, well, that's not accurate. So I am then being judged as a member of an ethnic group by someone who's quite ignorant of my background. People who look like me in Russia are called black in Russia,

and treated accordingly. In this country, people have been racist. So that to me is why it's a bit of a problem because it's used as a wedge issue to drive people apart. Whereas when it's used in a more sensible way, you talk about majority privilege, high privilege, attractiveness privilege, you put it in that sort of context, then you're not saying to why people you have some kind of original sin, for which you must perpetually atone. And that is the way that it has been.

I agree, I agree. Which is where a lot of the pushback, in my opinion, and a lot of their resentment comes from. Which is where you then have people go, I don't have any privilege, what are you talking about? Yes. Right? And I think this is why you talk about the circle. Right now it seems to me like the woke people are now driving quite a few people on the other end

further down towards the racist right if you like. Well, exactly. And what we need to do is be at the top of the circle. That's where we should be aiming to be. You don't want to be woke. You don't want to be, you know, extreme right. You know, I would say Antifa, I suppose, to match up with the extreme right here.

But the next step up from that, you don't want to be them. You want to be in the middle. And that means looking at every situation, having a nuanced conversation. The thing about racism is that it is complex as an idea. And it requires unpacking in the way that we're doing now. And, you know, it's really interesting about your background. I mean, I suppose what you're then saying is that you're not really white. And so that's what you're saying. I don't think you're one. I've been trying to get rid of you for a while. Now you're canceled, mate. You're going to be

And then you're saying, well, people have just misunderstood that, and that's fine. I mean, they're just... What I'm really saying, Catherine, and I think it is quite important, is that, look, you are mixed race yourself, right? I have friends who are... We have a friend who's from Barbados, for example, and he's quite light skin. And he talks about, well, black people treat me differently because my skin isn't quite black enough. There's all sorts of...

So what I'm really saying is, don't judge me by my skin color. Don't judge me by who you think I am. ask me, what is your experience? What has happened to you in your life? Why do you think what you think? Yeah. And then let's have a conversation. And you know what you're saying there?

You're saying, please don't be racist. Right. That's what you're saying. You're saying, treat me as a human being. Don't just judge me on the color of my skin. And too often now, white people are being judged for the color of their skin. And that is wrong.

And I'm often commenting about that on Twitter, which is why I then get a bunch of racists following me because they think, aha, it's a line. She's on our side. And actually, it's a circle. And I'm criticizing the people down here, they're just right next to them on the other side over here on the circle. Isn't part of the problem when it comes to white privilege

and something that I get quite frustrated about is that people use white privilege and they discuss it. And normally it's people from a very middle class, upper middle class background. But if you say to somebody who is white working class that they have privilege, when a lot of them really, really struggle, that's going to make them very, very angry.

It's something that we don't talk about in this country, which is class privilege. Yeah. Well, and that's another, I mean, I didn't, I talked about Prissy. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But the thing is, is that if you take a white working class person and then the black working class person, well, the white working class person does have white privilege in comparison to the black working class person. But in comparison to the white middle class person, obviously the middle class guy has the class privilege. I mean, the thing is, is that, I'm even doing it like that. This business, you know why we're all doing it? It's because of the victimhood. Olympics that we've got going on, which is that we have created a culture where you are liked, the more of a victim you are. And so everybody's trying to hold on

to as much victimhood. So even the royal family, you know, I mean, they're white, they're pretty rich, they're all families. So then they start talking about mental health. Because it's the only thing, it's the only card that they can play. Mental health issues, yeah, yeah, yeah,

we too are victims. And the reason why everybody's having to grab on to whatever, victim card they can to be able to play is because that is how our culture as a society has become. Once upon a time, you wanted to be the hardest working. You wanted to be the guy who overcame every obstacle and the one who provided for your family and so on. No more. No, you want to be the guy who's the most depressed. And that is depressing that our culture in our society now in Britain is one where we are aiming for the lowest denominator. That's mad, right? And that's what

why we're having that argument of, well, who's more oppressed? Is it the white working class guy? Is it the black working class guy? Is it the black middle class guy? I mean, for goodness sakes, people need to pull themselves together. That's what I think. You know, the fact is, you know how many people fought me to set up this school? You know, you know how many people, you know, for three years I had to fight all these people.

People used to have placards out with Tory teacher written on there. They sent me racist emails. They used to shout abuse at me. I would have parents evenings and they would, they would, they would, they would, they would go in the parents' evenings and start screaming abuse. They would stand up just to cancel me. You know, I have been canceled. We talk about cancel culture.

I lost, I was out of a job. I was told I would never work in the state sector again. Now, this is 2010. Before, I wasn't on Twitter. Twitter was a very small thing then. So people don't really remember. I got canceled. I lost my whole livelihood.

I lost everything. I couldn't work in the state sector. I was told that was it. And it took me three years of struggling, struggling financially, struggling in terms of my health. I got very ill because I was attacked so often, the vitriol that came my way. Why? Because I dared to stand up at the Conservative Party conference and tell the truth as I saw it, which was that the education system was broken.

Now, that's crazy. But what I didn't do was sit around, licking my wounds saying, oh, I'm a victim, I'm a victim. What I did was I picked myself up. And every time I give an assembly, I say to the kids, when they knock you down, you pick yourself up and you keep on going. Because that's all life's going to do. It's going to keep knocking you down. And sometimes it's because you're black. sometimes because you're female, sometimes because you're gay. Sometimes it's because your mother got killed when you were six years old. Sometimes it could be anything, right? It doesn't matter. You're going to have obstacles.

It doesn't matter what they are. You have got, with the kids here, we have got to instill a sense of resilience in them so that they can overcome those obstacles. And what I can't stand about the woke is all they're ever doing is telling my kids that they're oppressed, telling my kids that they can't make it in this world, telling them they don't belong in their country, which is to undermine all of my good work. That is what I feel.

All the time, I feel so frustrated. Why am I fighting the woke all the time? Because they are the number one people that stop my kids from succeeding. So, you know, stalky and his racism, I mean, I do think he's a racist, and you will see me on Twitter there, going at it, telling everybody how racist he is.

But he is not my worry. My biggest worry are the woke because of what they're doing to my kids. And they don't realize it. They think they're doing good. In Martin Luther King's time, it was easy to see. Martin Luther King, good, Cluthux Klan, bad.

You know, it was obvious. Now it's not so obvious. We've got the circle, nobody understands it, nobody understands what it is to be racist. We got people campaigning to make sure that we're teaching Stormsy in music class instead of Mozart. Oh, great, so my kids won't know who Mozart is. You know, I once gave an assembly. This was right at the beginning when we opened at the school. And I was showing them Beethoven's fifth and I played it, da, da, da, da, da, you know, I wanted them to know Beethoven.

And I showed a picture of him with his wig. And then I said how difficult it was for them growing up nowadays because they don't come across this kind of music and actually I was talking also about the kind of awful music they can come about where, you know, women are shaking their booty and all that kind of stuff. And I was saying, you don't want to listen to Beethoven instead. And I said, when I was growing up, there was Kylie Minogue.

Kylie Minogue was the worst that there was, you know. Then later at lunch I was eating with them. And it turned out when I was talking to them, they thought that Beethoven and Kylie Minogue were contemporaries. The thing is, is that we don't realize how little kids know in schools, right? People are saying, oh, well, we were never taught about slavery. Listen, they're talking about decolonizing the curriculum. What I'm always saying to everybody is there's no point in talking about the curriculum

when kids are leaping out the window, you know? And when I say the leaping out the window, what I mean is that behavior is so poor, right? Or the teaching methods are so poor that nobody remembers anything that they've been taught. You know, there is so much work to do on our school system. You want to know what the solution is? You ask me what the solution is? It's school. It's education.

Why am I so passionate about education? Because kids are the future, right? And we have to teach them properly. But what are we now doing is a knee-jerk reaction to Black Lives Matter? We're running around telling white kids to interrogate their whiteness. I mean, what kind of insanity is that? Look, we need to be teaching a good history, British history curriculum. That's what we need to be teaching.

We need to have assemblies that make the kids feel like they've belonged. long. You know, I would say to everybody, I'm going to show, I brought it so I could show our book, The Power of Culture. It is all written by Michaela Teachers, and it's written, look, you know, actually I got a bit here, which I thought I might read out from one of my head of history, who says here, there's no reason why medieval kingship cannot be taught alongside the economic revolution of the peasants revolt. Because often, the woke will want, let's talk about the peasants revolt. Don't teach them kings and queens. Well, why can't we teach them both? There's no reason why the codebreakers at Bletchley Park

during the Second World War cannot be taught alongside the tragic story of Alan Turing. Why is it tragic? Because Alan Turing, he broke the Enigma Code. Amazing. He was gay. Because of the time, he ended up committing suicide. You can teach both, right?

You don't just have to teach. Britain is so brilliant. Look, we broke the Enigma Code and leave his life out. You can also include it, right? In fact, a chronological narrative of English and British history does not make it harder to incorporate the stories. It makes it much easier. But you know what they teach in schools? They teach history through medicine in time, through crime. I'm telling you, look, if I went into detail on this

about how history is taught, it is scandalous, right? The reason why nobody knows anything is because of the way which we teach and because of the behavior in our schools. And then they say we do it. So, Catherine, there's a question that I've been wanting to. I feel like I'm on the end. Catherine feels quite strong. My mother, drink everybody is from Latin American. It does remind me of a Venezuelan party when the rum comes in. Everybody gets very passionate. You're making very good points, by the way.

Yeah, absolutely. But the question that I wanted to ask is this, doesn't it come down to the way the woke and the way they behave and victim of it? It's that, isn't it just easier to be a victim? Isn't it just easier to roll up and go, you know what, I'm oppressed, you know what? Like, if you, what you went through, it would have been so much easier to go,

you know what, everyone's against me, everyone doesn't like me, it's because of my conservative leanings or whatever else I give up and the entire system is against me, then simply going, you know what, I'm going to fight against it. I've got these hurdles,

but I'm going to overcome them, whatever my hurdles might be. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. So it is easier. What we always say to the kids is, think about what your legacy is going to be when you're on your deathbed. When you look back at your life,

what are you going to be able to say you accomplished? And do you really want to look back and say, well, everybody was racist, so I couldn't possibly make something of my life, or everybody was sexist, so I couldn't do X, Y, and Z? Or do you want to be able to say there were these obstacles and I overcame them? and I contributed, right?

People always say, well, what makes you so passionate about education? Because I want to be able to lie on my deathbed and say, I did something. I made the world into a better place. We teach the kids about personal responsibility, about duty. You are responsible for yourself. You know, I am the master of my fate. I am the captain of my soul. We say all the time.

Now, because you can make a difference and change something in your life. My whole point of having a good school is to enable children to change their stars. Because if all schools are doing is just enabling the working class kids to just end up doing whatever, you know, as they would have done, enabling middle class kids to take the jobs as the bankers and the lawyers, then we're not doing anything. I want to change things for these kids or at least give them the opportunity, give them equality of opportunity. That is what we should be doing in schools. We shouldn't be going around telling white kids to question their privilege. What we need to be doing is giving them all a sense of Britishness because they will then naturally come to these things themselves. Right.

They will question their own people. privilege at some point, or they will question their own lack of privilege. Because when you give kids lots of knowledge and teach them lots and love them, they are then able to run with it. People come here all the time. We get 600 visitors every year and they say, how come your kids are so inquisitive? How come they're so curious? Look at all their hands up in the lessons. How come they're so resilient? It's because we teach them. But you have to believe in the basics of really great discipline and great teaching methods of standing at the front and leading forward. But over the last 30, 40 years, we've lost that in education. And now we're talking about decolonizing the curriculum. It is not

about decolonizing curriculum. It's about getting good behavior in our schools. But I don't know. Nobody, no, I'm not going to say nobody's listening. They are listening. They are. They're the silent majority. I'm absolutely convinced that the silent majority are on my side. Of course they are. But, Catherine, speaking about changing the world and people who have, you mentioned Martin Luther King earlier. And I want to be a lot of the same. I want to to come back to that because I think it's important. I've had conversations in the last few days with people where I was saying I feel like we've moved away from his dream. I feel like we're not judging each other on the content of our character and that troubles me. You know, you talked

about identity politics. It's exactly the opposite of what he was talking about. And people legitimate, I mean, I'm not making this up, will say to me, Martin Luther King was a coconut. People say that? Yeah. What? Yeah. Why? Well, because he was, he was he was not woke enough for them. We have reached levels of insanity that I've... Right. So Martin Luther King's getting cancelled next. But my question, look, these people are very stupid who say that.

But my question to you would be, I mean, people... I don't even... Martin Luther King is a co-cone. I'm sorry. Yeah, he was selling out black people. So meaning, you've stayed to your audience, meaning that he's white on the inside and black on the outside. That I get a lot, you know, that you get...

Oreo cookie, coconut, race trade, all the rest. Yeah, exactly. But basically what they're really saying is his view that we should treat people as individuals is insufficiently taking into account structural issues, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Now, do you think we just, with society,

we need to just go back to that? Or do you think we need to incorporate some new thing into that vision of the world? Yeah, good question. So, like the thing about structural racism, there's a difference between, what I would say systemic or structural racism and institutionalized racism. People tend to use them interchangeably.

I don't think they are. What is structural and systemic is what Martin Luther King, I mean, these people are idiots. That's what he was fighting against. He was fighting against racist laws. Yes. And it was lawful to divide the toilets. He was fighting against racist laws. We no longer have racist laws.

We have the Equality Act. We do not, there is no structural racism. Okay, that just isn't. What people mean is that there's institutional racism. Now, institutional racism is more of a cultural thing, cultural racism. So when people ask me to do X, Y, and Z, like tick a diversity box, I would say that was more institutionalized racism. It's not that there's one individual who's a racist going, I hate you, Catherine,

you're black, or even, you know, well, actually, I mean, I suppose they are seeing, they are judging me on my color. But it's so institutionalized, they don't realize that they're being racist. That's what institutional means. You know, I was speaking to my head of history this morning actually about, about Tudor Times. In fact, because of Starkey, there's a woman called Miranda Kaufman who's written this book on black Tudors. Because what people don't realize is that there have been black people in this country since Roman times. Now, the vast majority of them, of course, came in the 1960s.

But there were, I don't know, a couple hundred black people living here in the Tudor Times. And it'd be good to include that. Why not, in the teaching of history? Now, David Stocky actually refers to this, and he refers, for instance, to John Blank, who is this trumpeter for King Henry the A's. And he's a black guy. And, I mean, he has access to the king. I mean, you know, and he dismisses it. These people and their ridiculous nonsense about this sort of stuff.

Well, why are you dismissing this, David Stalky? It's of interest. Isn't it interesting that there were black people living here during Tudor times and people don't realize? I mean, I find that interesting. the diversity aspect of Britain and England over, over, I mean, this is English. I mean, John Blank was English. It's very English. I mean, that's something that black people probably wouldn't even say of themselves now.

And yet here's a black man, King Enemy of the Eighth. And, you know, like, it's amazing. It should be interesting. And it should be interesting to a historian like David Starkey. And yet he dismisses it, right? Now, stuff like that should be taught alongside. Because otherwise, people leave school thinking that, Black people only came to this country in the 1960s. It's not true. You want to teach accurate history.

Right. But Catherine, come back to my point. Come back to my point. Yeah, yeah. What's your point? Can I remember. Yes. Right. Well, you love education and so you're always keen to draw back to it. But I want to just broaden it a little bit. So let's just come back to Martin Luther King. Yes. Is his vision, which is judge people on the content of their character enough? Okay. So what I would say is, we have come. so far in terms of race, Martin Luther King would never have imagined us coming this far. He wouldn't have known what that looked like. So he was fighting structural in systemic racism because he was fighting the laws.

We now have the Equality Act. That no longer exists. We have a kind of culture. I do think there is a cultural and institutional racism that exists. And we can talk about that because the kind of far-right racism of, you know, calling somebody a name in the street and all that has nearly disappeared. I mean, it's gone away. I say nearly. Look, I live in London. A guy on Twitter, an Indian guy on Twitter the other day said, look, I've lost count of the number of times I get called the P word, you know? So I don't know. I don't actually know what it's like outside and the rest of Britain. I certainly know in London. There's no way that that sort of thing would happen to me. And I have seen the change of things over my lifetime. And, you know, I can remember the 80s and very different. So we have come so far that we can now talk about racism, which is just more when they talk about unconscious bias and all that. We're talking about more subtle forms of racism, which is why I don't think we should be canceling people, because gosh, it's not the same kind of racism as calling somebody the P word or the N word and so on.

It's nuanced and it's interesting and we should talk about it and by talking about it, we change it. But what happens, because we've got cancel culture, everybody on the other side then just says not talking about it, not interested, and they shut down. and then the other side go and pull statues down. And then we just got this race war. And where the hell are we going to go to from there? But isn't part of the problem as well, that there's this narrative, which is that we've never been more racist,

the far right are rising again. They've become ever more emboldened. And all of a sudden, you get both sides just getting aggravated at that. And then you get the woken saying, right, we need to rise up, we need to fight. And then the other side go, well, they've got too much power. This is ridiculous. Yeah, it's a fight for power. That's what it is.

And, you know, this whole situation reminds me a bit of the kind of Israel and Palestine, you know, neither side is listening to each other. And you're right, things get exaggerated. And I don't think that helps anybody. I mean, look, I wish we could bring some forgiveness into this, you know? We've lost sight of religion. You know, Jesus believed in forgiveness. And people make mistakes. I think we need to forgive. In our own lives, we need to forgive. You know, personal, you know, friends, boyfriends, girlfriends, all of that. You need to forgive. But you also

just in life, you know, that's why I say I'd happily talk to David Starky, because I would, I forgive, you know. And then you need to forget, you know, and then you need to move on. But if you're going to keep bashing, you know, it doesn't help anybody. And yeah, it's... And then people go to the extreme. What I was going to say about John Blank was that on the one hand, you want to teach that we're black people

in Tudor times. But what you don't want to do is go the other way where you're teaching everybody all about black tutors and you forget about all the white ones. And then people come out thinking that Tudor times were all black people. You know, like, and the white guilt thing

is highly problematic. And I would say to, I mean, look, I always say, I don't want to talk to white people, but I suppose that I'd say to white people, my advice is always you need to find a black friend who isn't just bashing you, who has some complex ideas around race, you know, so I think about myself

as having complex and nuanced and understanding, who can be critical of racism, but can also see that racism is directed towards white people. And if you can find somebody like that, then you might be able to trust some of the things that they tell you about the racism that they experience. And that white people should try and get rid of the guilt. The guilt doesn't help anybody.

There's a great book by Jason Riley called Please Stop Helping Us. He's an African-American. And he's talking to liberals and he lefty liberals. And he's saying, look, I know you're trying to help us, but you're really not helping us. You're hurting us. And to all your kind of lefty viewers, I would say if you have any... Thank you, Catherine.

We've got at least three, so... We actually have, most of our viewers are actually disaffected lefties. Oh, okay. Well, I would say read that because, well, you know, he just explains why the help isn't helping. I would also be aware... I mean, I hate saying all of this, because I sound like some, you know, like I'm some arrogant twit saying, White people do what I say. But anyway, you know, if you feel really guilty

and if you're so worried about being a racist that what you're doing is running around, making it look like you're non-racist, so you're putting a black box up on Instagram or you're putting a letter on your corporate website, we believe in Black Lives Matter. I'm like, did you ever, did you know, Black Lives Matter before? Are you just putting up now because you feel pressure

from society to do so? You know, if that's what you're doing, stop. try and think how can you live a good life. You can give money to charity. You can go and work in a soup kitchen. You can go and become an inner city school teacher. You can become a social worker. You can do all sorts of things to make the world a better place.

I have spent over 20 years working with kids in the inner city. I've dedicated my life to education and reform. And I've taken a lot of flack for it. I've lost my livelihood and the ability to work in the world that I love. and then I had to spend three years, vitriol, heading my way constantly. You know, I've done everything I can. And I know that I can sit on my deathbed at the end of my life and look back and say, yeah, I did something, you know.

That's what we should all be aiming for. Don't worry about how you appear right now. Forget about how you appear. You know, I talk to you, honestly, just now, I just tell you everything I think. I'm not thinking, gosh, what will people think of this? Who's going to hate me? Who's going to like me? you know, what I would say to everybody who I'm talking to, you know, the white people who are rolling

their eyes and saying, you know, she's such a woke, crazy person, or the other ones who say, my God, she's so, she's such a racist or whatever. Look, it's coming from a good place. You know, it's coming from my heart. I'm trying to do what's right. And I'm trying to hold the middle ground. We all need to head for the middle ground. And remember the circle that I spoke about. You don't want to be really woke and you don't want to be really on the really right, you know. You want to be somewhere in between. I'm a small sea conservative because I believe in personal responsibility and duty and obligation and tradition. You can believe all those things and still be an anti-racist, you know?

Well, Catherine, on that note, we are out of time. Yeah. It's great to chat with you. And we always ask the same question, Dan, which is you're going to run out. this being the third time being on the show. What is the one thing that we're not talking about that we should be talking about? And don't say education, because we're right about that.

Yeah, no, it's true. Well, I hope after people watch this video, they might talk about the circle idea that I'm saying, and that there is racism on both right and the left. I don't think we recognize the racism on the left enough, and we don't talk about it enough. And people take refuge in the left because they think that's what makes them not racist.

are anti-racist. And I want to push this middle way. That's where you can be an anti-racist, by not being on either of these sides that meet in the middle. Perfect. Well, thank you so much, Catherine. If people want to follow you on Twitter, you are at... Miss Snuffy, so that's Miss with an underscore Snuffy, Big S, and U-F-F-F-Y. Thank you so much for coming on. It's been a brilliant interview. And thank you so much for watching. Check in for another live stream or another wonderful episode, and we'll see you very soon guys. See you very soon. Take care and don't miss the live streams Tuesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday. At 7pm.