When the Home Secretary decides to post a tweet stating ‘These Asian Paedophiles’ in 2018 we have reached new level of acceptance.
The problem most people will have with this term is that it generalises a whole community and it would not be used to describe any other community.
For instance you would not be able to use the term ‘black’ or ‘Jewish’ when describing a crime. It just would not happen. You couldn’t do it.
Why would anyone state 'Black drug dealers' or 'Israeli Jewish murderers' - we know better than to generalise a whole race and religion.
Are we now to say that there is a cultural problem amongst middle-aged white men who travel to third world countries to abuse children? Is this how we discuss criminal acts now?
No-one in the Asian community or anyone else for that matter is saying we should not talk about these issues. Have you spoken to any Asian person who does not think these crimes are disgusting and vile?
These are the actions of criminals. And in no way can anyone claim that by pointing out Sajid Javid's apparent disregard for common sense are we acting as if we want to brush the issue under the carpet or wish to ignore it.
This, however, has got to do with the contradictions within what we find acceptable. Here we are in 2018 when the Home Secretary, Sajid Javid is able to openly say ‘Asian paedophiles’ and is even applauded in some quarters for bringing this up. In fact, in the coming days we will read more about this.
The idea is that he is being brave and tackling an issue head on. But is he?
Or is he just, as many Conservative politicians tend to be doing of late, simply talking up race and religion because that is what they think will get them good column inches in the mainstream right-wing newspapers?
There are two major points that need to be addressed here.
First of all, Sajid Javid has Pakistani heritage and has fallen into that common trap where he senses he can’t be racist because of this fact.
This common mistaken belief that one is above such accusations is something that is constantly being repeated across the political and media landscape.
A number of media commentators tend to think they cannot be accused of racism because they are in fact Asian or Black themselves.
By doing so they use words and descriptions that are likely to be found in the comments section of the Britain First Facebook page. But it is okay.
The fact is Sajid Javid is likely to know full well that this is the wrong thing to say but actually does not care, which brings me onto my second point.
Sajid Javid, it seems, is keen to appease the supporters who are likely to agree with his views. It is after all politics and who honestly cares about the five per cent of the population who live in inner-city areas when you can pander to the majority. And that is exactly why he was able to tweet this.
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