Woke Madness Across the Pond

This is part of our continuing series of accounts by readers of how they shed the illusions of liberalism and became race realists.

I grew up in South Wales in the 1970s and 1980s. It was an insular working-class community clinging to the imagined glories of a socialist past and fighting against the economic reforms of the 1980s out of what British commentators still call tribal loyalty, a phrase which even then they were careful to use only about the white working class.

In my childhood, nonwhites were such a small minority that any interaction with them was rare. I was not aware of any racial tensions. The real dividing line was class, not race.

I was lucky to have poor but ambitious and hardworking parents and to have reached the age of 18 at a time when higher education was free of charge and standards were generally high. The nonwhites I met at the universities I attended were all bright, law-abiding, and generally pleasant to be around. There was far less tension there than there had been growing up as a bookish type in a largely anti-intellectual environment.

The media stereotype of the race realist in the UK is that of a tattooed, coarse, uneducated thug whose interests revolve around soccer, violence, cheap beer, and fried food. I believed that for many years, during which I made a reasonably successful career as a commercial lawyer which allowed me to live in relatively crime-free areas and enjoy music, theater, and travel across Europe. I simply didn’t think about race. I knew it was a problem in the United States, but Britain was different. I thought that such British race problems as existed seemed to be as much about the hostility to hard work and success among parts of the underclass created by generations of welfare dependency and low expectations.

My views started to change in the early 2000s when what was then known as political correctness infected culture across Europe. It became impossible to go to a Shakespeare play without between a third and a half of the cast being chosen for their race instead of their ability to speak verse. Classical concerts were plagued by mediocre fillers in the first half, selected by reference to the gender or ethnicity of the composer, paid for by taxpayer subsidy and forgotten after the first performance. White musicians are now being dismissed from opera orchestras to make way for less talented blacks. At the same time, a taxpayer-subsidized orchestra of black players programs the justly forgotten Florence Price alongside Beethoven and everyone is too polite, or too afraid, to comment on the unfairness of the comparison (3). The same establishment is also too afraid to comment on the success which Asian musicians have achieved, and entirely deserve, on the basis of talent, ability, and hard work.

My conversion finally happened when I had to deal with the effect of anti-white prejudice and woke ideology in my profession. Judges in England are appointed by a body called the Judicial Appointments Commission (JAC). It contains a minority of judges and lawyers, and a majority of human-resources types steeped in diversity and woke ideology. In order to be appointed, you have to demonstrate that you “understand the importance of diversity, take an anti-discriminatory approach and demonstrate sensitivity to the particular needs of different communities, groups and individuals.” Anyone reading articles on AmRen probably understands that this is code for demonstrating conformity with woke ideology. The JAC publishes annual diversity statistics, each year boasting how the proportion of white men being appointed is yet again lower than it was last year.

I want to be very clear that this is not sour grapes on my part. I would be a very bad judge. I lack the patience. I would be bored. I am a natural competitor, not a natural referee. But I want the referee to be fair, competent, and worthy of respect. I regularly appear in front of diversity hires who are none of those things. Thankfully they tend to be at the lower end of the judiciary, dealing with preliminary issues and leaving trials to higher-ranking judges, but promotion now depends on politics and not ability, so promotion for some of them is only a matter of time.

Some of the diversity hires lack the intellectual capacity to come to grips with conceptually difficult issues. Others lack the temperament to work through long and tedious material. A dispute about loans between a company and its directors, and the tax treatment of them, is not going to be very interesting, but it still needs to be decided fairly. There are too many who exhibit bad temper, favoritism and laziness in equal measures.

It is professional misconduct for a barrister to express a view that the judiciary contains diversity hires. In September 2020, a barrister was naïve enough to trust his opponent and express the view that a judge had been appointed only because she was female and south Asian. He was fined and publicly reprimanded. The fine is low, but the reprimand is enough to harm his career forever.

I see my clients suffer injustice. I cannot risk telling a client the reason for it unless I trust that client enough not to repeat what I say.

The organization where I work has started demonstrating its conformity to woke ideology. Without any consultation with the members, it published a statement on its website last year commenting on the riots in the UK prompted by the death of George Floyd. One would have hoped for something to the effect that an accused person is innocent until proven guilty, that justice requires dispassionate consideration of the evidence, and that violence and wanton destruction of property are always wrong. That isn’t what my organization said. It isn’t what any of the organizations said.

There is a concerted attack on European culture, the rule of law, the English common law system that has developed over centuries, and white people in general. That led me to the dissidents who oppose these things. AmRen and sites like it have shown me the underlying reasons for black underachievement and for white self-loathing. I had no interest in biology, IQ, or human biodiversity before coming here. Now I feel that I have a better understanding of what we need to preserve for the next generation and the lies being told to us to try to stop us doing that.

If you have a story about how you became racially aware, we’d like to hear it. If it is well written and compelling, we will publish it. Use a pen name, stay under 1,200 words, and send it to us here.