Wednesday 28 September 2022 10:38 PM IRAM RAMZAN: I learned the Left hate black or Asian aspiration - if you don't ... trends now
Some people have the strange belief that if you are brown or black, you must think and behave in a certain way.
When I was at secondary school in Greater Manchester, a few of the young Asian lads would occasionally give me the derogatory — and, I have to say, inaccurate — nickname 'white girl'.
Or they'd call me 'posh'. Why? Because I tried to speak well, didn't use slang words and occasionally wore short skirts or tight jeans. In their eyes, then, I didn't behave like a typical British Pakistani girl — who would have been more covered up and have a bit of an accent.
What this has exposed is a mindset all too common on the Left: that any non-white person who subscribes to broadly Conservative tenets of aspiration and self-improvement should be despised, castigated and dismissed as somehow 'betraying' their race
Though I laughed it all off at the time —and gave as good as I got — the comments occasionally stung.
That was 20 years ago. And yet this week has reminded me that, in some quarters, things really haven't changed.
Rupa Huq, the MP sister of the ex-Blue Peter presenter Konnie, has faced a barrage of criticism for describing Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng as 'superficially' black at a Labour conference fringe event.
Rupa Huq, the MP sister of the ex-Blue Peter presenter Konnie (left), has faced a barrage of criticism for describing Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng as 'superficially' black at a Labour conference fringe event
The truth is that, far from being 'progressive' as it constantly claims, the Left is actually strikingly hidebound
In a clip shared to the Guido Fawkes political blog, the not-so-honourable member for Ealing Central and Acton said in rather unlettered fashion: 'Superficially, he is a black man. Went to Eton, I think, he went to a very expensive prep school, all the way through, the top schools in the country. If you hear him on the Today programme, you wouldn't know he is black.'
Where do you even start with such an appalling remark? Aside from the blatant racism, how does being privately educated stop someone from being black?
And who, precisely, is an authentic — that is, not 'superficial' — black man? Someone who grew up on a council estate and speaks like the rapper Stormzy?
Lest we forget, Ms Huq, who is of Bangladeshi heritage, was privately educated at the £20,000-a-year Notting Hill and Ealing High School. Very nice, I'm sure.
And just like her telegenic younger sister, she speaks in a perfect cut-glass accent. Does that make the Huqs 'superficially' Asian? Of course not.
Lest we forget, Ms Huq, who is of Bangladeshi heritage, was privately educated at the £20,000-a-year Notting Hill and Ealing High School. Very nice, I'm sure
But the MP's ugly vitriol didn't stop there. She also seemed to label the former Chancellor Rishi Sunak a 'little brown guy', while adding that the recent Tory leadership race was 'superficially' a 'multi-culty' contest, given that ethnic-minority candidates such as Suella Braverman and Kemi Badenoch were in the race.
Her comments rightly led to an outcry. Conservative Party chairman Jake Berry demanded that Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer condemn Huq's outburst as 'nothing less than racist'.
At first, Huq had the gall to stand by her racist rant. But then she backed down and apologised. She has now been suspended from the Labour Party, pending an investigation. Let's hope — vainly, perhaps — that she learns something from this ugly episode.
But the damage has been done. For what this has exposed is a mindset all too common on the Left: that any non-white person who subscribes to broadly Conservative tenets of aspiration and self-improvement should be despised, castigated and dismissed as somehow 'betraying' their race.
I thought I had left this warped outlook behind me in the playground. But whenever I have written an article, in this newspaper or elsewhere, about the problems within South Asian or Muslim communities — from extremism to women's rights — I have had a volley of racist insults thrown at me from the 'Be Kind' brigade. They have called me a 'coconut' (brown on the outside, white on the inside), a 'sell-out' and even a 'House Muslim' — that is, a Muslim who does the bidding of the powerful non-Muslim majority. Add my job working for this paper, with its proud conservative tradition, and I might as well be a full-on traitor in the eyes of the Left.
Kwarteng was born in London to Ghanaian parents: he studied hard at Eton and Cambridge, had a flourishing career in the City and became Chancellor at the age of just 47
As an outspoken Asian woman, I don't fit into a neat box for them — and they despise that. I know plenty of other South
