Can We Please Have Some Racism?

The Left hungers for racism–of the approved sort–but it is hard to find. Trevor Noah, the host of the Daily Show, went looking for racism in the ascension of Rishi Sunak as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. Noah purported to see a “backlash” against Sunak, for which there is zero evidence. To be fair, though, when has a total lack of evidence ever stopped a liberal comedian–isn’t the Daily Show supposed to be comedy?–or newsman?

Noah’s racism-hunting safari did not go over well in Great Britain. The London Times reports:

Rishi Sunak has insisted Britain is not a racist country after a US talk show host claimed there had been a backlash over the country’s first prime minister of colour.

Trevor Noah, 38, who presents The Daily Show, caused anger after a segment from the programme was uploaded to Twitter titled “Unpacking the Backlash to Rishi Sunak”.

In the two-minute 52 second clip, viewed more than one million times, Noah insisted there were “people saying that Indians are going to take over Great Britain” in response to Sunak becoming PM.

Has anyone said any such thing? No.

[H]is comments were questioned by Britons including the former health secretary Sajid Javid, while Sir Trevor Phillips, ex-head of the Commission for Racial Equality, called them “completely wrong”.

That is putting it politely.

Phillips said: “This is basically smugness on steroids. He’s making his audience feel comfortable and superior about a country they know absolutely nothing about.

“This is an audience that likes to think that it – and only it – understands racism and that it is an enlightened elite that can look down on everybody else. That’s who he is playing to.”

“Smugness on steroids” describes American liberalism very well. And ignorance of other countries is more or less universal on the American Left.

Noah claimed that there was a racist backlash against Sunak. But there wasn’t:

He said: “Watching the story of Rishi Sunak becoming England’s first prime minister of colour, of Indian descent, of all these things and then seeing the backlash is one of the more telling things about how people view the role that they or their people have played in history.

“And what I mean by that is this, you hear a lot of the people saying: ‘Oh, they’re taking over, now the Indians are going to take over Great Britain and what’s next?’”

A lot of people? Name one.

Noah failed to mention any examples of a race backlash in Britain, instead namechecking the right-wing Fox News host Tucker Carlson.

He said: “You see people like Tucker Carlson all the time saying ‘You know what they’re trying to do? They won’t stop until black people and women are in positions of power’ … so what?”

Of course, Carlson never said any such thing. How pathetic are American liberals like Trevor Noah? The Brits piled on:

Javid, who was Sunak’s predecessor as chancellor of the exchequer, said Noah was “simply wrong”.

He tweeted: “A narrative catered to his audience, at a cost of being completely detached from reality.

“Britain is the most successful multiracial democracy on earth and proud of this historic achievement.”

“Completely detached from reality” describes our liberals well.

The prime minister’s spokesman said Sunak doesn’t believe Britain is a racist country.

Social media users also questioned Noah’s comments with some accusing him of “projecting” American views of race onto Britain.

Tom Holland, the historian and author, wrote: “As ever, the inability of American liberals to understand the world beyond the US in anything but American terms is a thing of wonder.”

I think these Brits have an outdated concept of American race relations–I am talking about normal Americans, not liberals–but that is another story. For now, let’s just note the absurdity of the Daily Show going prospecting for racism in, of all places, the fact that the son of Indian immigrants is now the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.

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