By MICHAEL BLACKBURN.

SOMETHING ODD HAS happened to television adverts over the last couple of years, something odd but so consistent that it has to be deliberate and not merely the perception of a paranoid mind. In nearly all of them (not so much with cars, for some reason) from furniture to food, there is an over-representation of non-white people. There’s a smattering of sub-continental Asians and the occasional Chinese but the majority are Afro-Caribbean. Families are often represented as multiracial, usually with an ethnic father. To social-justice warriors, the fact that I have noticed this and am speaking about it reveals me to be a racist, white-supremacist bigot, obviously. Luckily, I don’t care. And, as it happens, quite a few other people have noticed it as well. They’re used to being called racists, so they don’t care either.

I’m in good company on this, despite being an alleged white supremacist, because the facts bear me out on my dismay. I recently asked a friend what percentage of the population he thought was white. He replied 30% or possibly as much as 50%. He was a little taken aback when I told him that it was 86%. Only 3.30% is black.

It is disturbing to realise how seriously skewed public perception can be. It is easy to have these misperceptions if you live in London, for instance (59% white), or many of our other urban areas, where immigrant communities are concentrated. You could almost forgive all those pure-minded folk in the BBC and other media organisations, and those bods in advertising that Britain is a multicultural, multiracial society, given that they live and breathe and have their being in such utopias of diversity. While there are a few clear-eyed critics about, the identity-merchants have done well in convincing so many of the 86% that these utopias are the norm everywhere.

Anyone who likes television drama or dramatic adaptations, will also be aware of the obligatory shoehorning in of various ethnic groups irrespective of current or past reality.

There is a track record of this kind of disinformation in the media. It’s only a couple of years since the infamous Twitter spat over the BBC’s fake de-whitening of Roman Britain, into which Prof Beard lobbed her unhelpful comments. And one of the many faults of the last few series of Doctor Who (all of which made it eventually unwatchable) was the increasing presentation of earlier periods of Britain as being multiracial. And anyone who likes television drama or dramatic adaptations, whatever the genre, will also be aware of the obligatory shoehorning in of various ethnic groups irrespective of current or past reality.

What’s new here is that this rampant identity correctness has manifested itself in advertising. And, as in the so-called factual productions of television, representations of non-whites is grossly out of proportion. That’s why I won’t forgive those responsible for them. They’ve made such a noise over the years about proportionality that you’d think they’d have the decency to abide by their own pronouncements, but no. A falsehood is still a falsehood even if the intentions are well-meaning. And in this case I don’t believe the intentions are well-meaning. Whoever puts these ads together either doesn’t know the facts or does know them but is willing to ignore them. I’ve usually assumed that the lefty types who are generally to blame are not cognisant of the dull reality of figures. These days I think it’s more the case that they don’t care even if they do know the truth.

They’ve all come off the conveyor belt of cultural conformity that is the British education system so they’re all incapable of observation and individual thought. In many ways they’re still at the kindergarten stage of mentation: as with children, the notion of cause and effect, of consequences following actions, of unintended consequences resulting from good intentions, is beyond their ken. As long as they carry out their programmed dogmas everything will magically turn out right. It won’t sell any more sofas or television sets, though. Black, brown and yellow folk seem to have cottoned onto the fact years ago they can buy the same stuff as whitey. They don’t need some patronising adverts to tell them that. But we all know that’s not the point. The point is to rub the white population’s nose in diversity, to adapt the phrase Andrew Neather revealed about Blair’s immigration plans back in New Labour’s first term.

As with all identity politics, the intention is not to unite but to highlight differences and turn those differences into divisions and conflicts.

The continuous denigration of national identity I can understand – it’s been a staple of leftism for decades. This specific assault on whiteness as part of that identity is more recent and takes the pernicious nastiness to another level – and potentially a more dangerous one. It’s always been around to some extent (white liberal guilt being a staple of bourgeois morality since the days of South African oranges and apartheid), but this new virulent form arises, I suspect, from the egregious campaign of Clinton in the 2016 American election, in which the spectre of white nationalism was evoked (everyone shout Pepe!). I can’t see how this can be of benefit to ordinary people. As with all identity politics, the intention is not to unite but to highlight differences and turn those differences into divisions and conflicts.

Thus the loudest anti-racists turn out to be the biggest racists of all. They think being anti-white is not racist, which gives them carte blanche(!) to be as dismissive and abusive as they want about the majority and not expect some sort of blowback. Britain never was multicultural and multiracial and it still isn’t, no matter how many curry and kebab shops fill our streets and no matter how over-represented ethnic groups are on television. Deep in their suppurating, resentful hearts the left know this and it drives them mad.

♦

Currente Calamo columnist, poet and writer Michael Blackburn lives in Lincolnshire. A Royal Literary Fund Fellow at Lincoln University (2005 – 2008), his poetry has appeared in numerous publications and anthologies over the years, including Being Alive (Bloodaxe) and Something Happens, Sometimes Here (Five Leaves Press). His most recent book is Albion Days (perennisperegrinator press). Sucks to Your Revolution is a collection of his Fortnightly columns.