Hanson was right. Anti-white racism is real

THE fact is, numerous examples suggest Pauline Hanson was right about growing anti-white sentiment, writes Miranda Devine. This is where identity politics has led us.

WHEN I was a child growing up in Tokyo, my sister and I were spat at in the street ­because we were white.

My parents were told they shouldn’t enrol me in a Japanese school because I was white or, more accurately, “gaijin”, meaning foreigner.

Nevertheless, I attended the school for a short, miserable time, until I was moved to an international school with other children of expats.

So, despite the toxic burden of having white skin, I do understand racism, not that you should have to experience it to understand it, but identity politics does not allow any longer for empathy or imagination.

In a certain place, at a certain time, I discovered it was not “OK to be white”, or, for that matter, black, brown or any colour other than the one deemed acceptable. Only the unworldly or blindly arrogant believe that any single skin colour is magically exempt from racism on this big planet.

This is the curse of identity politics, a dehumanising ­reversion to an ancient caste society in which people are judged, not on the quality of their character or their ­actions, but on characteristics buried in their DNA, like skin colour. It segregates us into competing groups of victims and oppressors. It is the seedbed of hatred and war, accentuating differences rather than recognising our common humanity.

One Nation Leader Senator Pauline Hanson’s Senate stunt was grounded in fact. Picture: Gary Ramage

Which brings us to Pauline Hanson’s stunt last week to move a motion in the Senate saying: “It’s OK to be white”.

The furore that erupted after Coalition Senators voted for the motion spooked the government into the worst own goal of the short Scott Morrison prime ministership.

Greens leader Richard Di Natale ranted that Hanson had taken the slogan from the “white supremacist movement”. Being white is “a ticket to winning the Lotto… it’s the privileged white Anglo community that are the ones occupying the seats of influence.”

Labor, which has succumbed entirely to the politics of identity, chimed in with a claim that the phrase was the “battle cry” of white supremacists and neo-Nazis.

So, the government caved in, claiming its support for the motion had been a “regrettable … administrative error”, and restaged the vote so it could oppose it. Now the record shows the Morrison government thinks it’s not “OK to be white”.

What a way to win votes. If conservatives should learn one thing from Donald Trump it is that you don’t win the culture wars by allowing your opponents to define the language.

Even if an innocuous phrase has been used by white supremacists, so what? They probably say “hello” a lot, too. Is some tiny group of racists somewhere in the world going to dictate how the rest of us use language? Who gave them such power?

The fact is that Hanson is correct. Anti-white racism ­exists and is on the rise, ­especially against white males, and it is not succumbing to a right-wing brand of identity politics to acknowledge that reality. It simply is trying to remedy an injustice.

Here are recent examples:

Tara Coverdale and her sons were barred from a multicultural playgroup for being white.

SYDNEY mother Tara Coverdale and her red-haired sons were ejected last year from a playgroup at Sydney’s Alexandria Park Community Centre because they were too white. “Can I ask what your cultural background is?” a staffer asked. When Coverdale said she was “Australian”, she was told: “I’m sorry, you can’t come here. It’s for multicultural families.”

NEW codes of conduct introduced this year ask Australian nurses and midwives to acknowledge their “white privilege” when treating indigenous patients.

WHITE audience members were separated from “people of colour” at a University of Melbourne dance performance in June. They were made to stand outside and listen to a lecture about white privilege before being allowed to enter the theatre.

LABOR party bumper stickers criticising “mediocre white men” were sold at a fundraiser last year for inner-western Sydney Labor candidate Anna York.

WHITE South African farmers are being tortured, murdered and harassed off their farms as their government prepares to expropriate their land without compensation. Yet, when Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton said Australia would welcome them, he was slammed as a racist by Australian leftists.

THE UK Labour Party charged white people 25 per cent extra to attend a Jeremy Corbyn rally in February.

AMERICAN biology professor Bret Weinstein was forced out of his job after objecting to an event at Evergreen State College in Washington in which white people had to leave campus for the day.

THE New York times appointed columnist Sarah Jeong to its editorial board ­despite her record of racial hatred towards white people. Among her twitter offerings: “#cancelwhitepeople.”

LABOR leader Bill Shorten in June declared the problem with indigenous affairs in Australia was “know-it-all whitefellas”.

LISA Annese, head of the ­Diversity Council Australia, complained in July there are too many white heterosexual males in airport lounges.

You might be a pacifist in the culture wars, or maybe an appeaser. But sooner or later you’ll be conscripted.

You have to take a stand, especially if you’re a Coalition MP.

@mirandadevine