My problem with "Black Lives Matter"

The secretive British branch of Black Lives Matter lost me before some of its supporters started attacking statues, including the iconic figure of Churchill in Parliament Square, and attempting to burn the Union flag on the Cenotoph. Even before its followers proclaimed on the Web that the movement’s true aim was, among other, things to  “dismantle capitalism” and “abolish the police”. It was the very title Black Lives Matter that put me off.

Let me explain by example. At my East End grammar school decades ago, each class was allowed to decided what charity it would support. I campaigned successfully for the League Against Cruel Sports, although I hardly knew what the countryside was, and had never been within fifty miles of a hunt. My decision was a mixture of sentimentality, class envy and sheer ignorance. It didn’t surprise me that toffs enjoyed inflicting ghastly cruelty on our furry friends. But I knew it ought not to be allowed.

Then one day I realised that the title League Against Cruel Sports was (I assume, deliberately) engaging in emotional blackmail. After all, to oppose an organisation which was against cruel sports was unthinkable. No sane person would want to campaign for cruel sports. If the enemies of hunting wanted to be honest they would have called themselves the League Against Hunting. Then, equally honestly, those who suported hunting could set up a League to Defend Hunting. I hadn’t changed my mind about hunting. I’d changed my mind about the League Against Cruel Sports.

In the same way, an honourable campaign to outlaw, say, abortion, might call itself the League to Recriminalise Abortion, leaving other equally honourable people to organise a League to Defend Legal Abortion. But a less honourable group might call themselves the League Against Murdering Babies.(Hands up those who want to label themselves baby killers.)

Back to Black Lives Matter. That sort of title is a virtue-signalling phrase which makes it desperately hard to criticise anything done in the movement’s name. Hence Sir Keir Starmer arranging a photo shoot to exhibit himself taking the knee — the BLM gesture — smartly dressed, in his classy Commons office. Hence police officers doing the same while policing demonstrations which were arguably illegal under Coronavirus regulations.

Nobody, however critical of some BLM campaigns, would, thank goodness, want to found a movement labelling itself Black Lives Don’t Matter. The few who have used the rather less provocative term, White Lives Matter, have been condemned as racist. Some no doubt are. But others are making a legitimate point: all lives matter.

Compare and contrast with the case of Dr Priamvada Gopal, a Professor of English at Cambridge university. She describes her specialisms as including “gender and feminism, Marxism and critical race studies,” as well as “colonial and post colonial literature and theory”. In the course of a tweet on Twitter she commented “White lives don’t matter”. Following a storm of protests, the tweet was deleted. Whereupon she commented defiantly “I say it again: White lives don’t matter. As White lives.” (Don’t ask me what the final three words mean. I’m not well up on Marxist critical theory.) And she insisted that the tweet had been deleted without her consent.

The university authorities isssued a strong statement of support for her right to freedom of speech. Passable perhaps? But why did the university not raise an eyebrow at her controversial comments? As for her Department, it promoted her to a better class of Professorship. Her students can presumably expect lots more Marxist critical theory in the English course. Good luck with that.

One final irony. Professor Priamvada Gopal is a Fellow of Churchill College. That’s right. The same Churchill whose statue Black Lives Matter supporters attacked and defaced with the word “Racist”. Perhaps she has a sense of humour after all.