Just saying …
When you add the many tributaries that flow with the river of the Black Lives Matter campaign it seems to me – who must declare an interest because I write as a white British old age pensioner – that it all gets terribly confusing, especially since I’m both heartily in favour of ‘equality of opportunity for all’ and yet also probably dripping with precisely the unconscious biases and attitudes that tick all the boxes identifying me as being precisely the sort of chap that those campaigning on behalf of the BAME or other minority communities are complaining about.
There are two sides to every story, of course.
To those who accuse Britain of being a – possibly the – perfect example of a nation who went off conquering far-off lands around the world and exploited their mineral and other natural wealths, got deeply involved in the slave trade when that was a “thing” and should therefore apologise, acknowledge all our sins, remove all statues erected in honour of slave traders (and/or all street and building names referencing our colonial past), and quite possibly pay “compensation” to any modern country and/or indeed any BAME person now alive who can claim direct descent from anyone who was ever a slave, there is a ‘push back’ which I admit may or may not entirely deflect or neutralise these ‘woke’ demands.
Without seeking to be condescending or adopting a superior holier-than-thou attitude, over the centuries Britain, a relatively small nation, has had a massively beneficial effect upon the world out of all proportion to its size.
Throughout the length and breadth of its one-time Empire it exported and established its language, its legal, democratic and administrative principles, its intrinsic senses of “doing the right thing”, integrity, honesty and fairness of treatment for all.
Some of the territories concerned had thereby been transformed from an original endless state of internal and/or tribal or racial conflict, operating largely by corruption and bribery and in many cases existing in a general state in which they were to all intents and purposes (until the British got there) ungovernable and totally incapable of harnessing any national resources they had for the greater good of all.
My point is that, arguably, there are nations and continents around the world that – whilst undoubted having been exploited for gain over hundreds of years by Western/European countries – are now enjoying general living conditions and economic success that, to put no finer point upon it, they would never have attained by the 21st Century in the unlikely turn of event that Time could ever be wound back and they had been left to develop at their own pace, i.e. without any contact with, or indeed influence from, the various “colonialist” nations now supposedly in the dock falling over each other to abase themselves before the altar of political-correctness in as abject a manner as dear old Auntie (the BBC).
It seems to me that there is a difference between, on the one hand, immigrants to this country (arriving legally or not) who buy into the British way of life as we know it – or possibly that should be “as we fondly, through rose-tinted glasses, falsely remember it to have been some thirty of forty years ago” – and by a combination talent, hard work (and yes sometimes having to overcome any inherent prejudices that might otherwise have held them back) establish themselves in society and – on the other hand – those arrive here and immediately set themselves up effectively living “as they used to be in the 
country they came from”, e.g. never learning the English language, operating by laws and conventions quite different to the equivalents we have here and avoiding all efforts to join the rest of us … well save for doing whatever is required to “plug into” the welfare state and the long list of campaigners and charities who specialise in espousing the causes of the downtrodden, disadvantaged and the “discriminated against”.
I return to one of my opening statements. Without doubt “equality of opportunity for all” is a worthy and positive thing to fight for and promote – and it comes squarely under the heading “Diversity”.
However, the kind of “Diversity” less attractive to me – to take an example which I don’t know is de facto or not – is the type which e.g. demands that rap music should have an entitlement to be “in the Top Ten” and/or regularly given airtime in the mainstream media, irrespective of whether it is widely popular, apparently simply because it springs from a minority culture or interest group.
I take issue with that and with any number of similar examples.
