Rita Panahi: Climate catastrophist captain a big fat hypocrite

China’s tally of useful idiots grows longer by the day and now, big fat hypocrite Pat Cummins — our Australian cricket captain — has joined the list.

When you obsess endlessly about white supremacy and the ills of the past, and are determined to see the world through the filter of racial politics, then you’re likely to make a monumental goose of yourself.

Though much of the media is guilty of pushing a particularly vacuous brand of race politics, every now and then someone emerges from the pack to really disgrace themselves.

This week that someone is the ABC’s Stan Grant who penned a piece for the taxpayer-funded goliath that has been mocked far and wide.

Here’s a sample of Grant’s work: “It is not possible to understand China without understanding race and racism. Specifically, without understanding whiteness,” and “the Chinese Communist Party has a deep racial consciousness. It is there in the reminder to its people never to forget the hundred years of humiliation at the hands of foreign powers – of white powers. Yes, that humiliation was at the hands of the Japanese, too, but the Japanese themselves cannot be separated from the project of whiteness.”

ABC presenter Stan Grant.

Umm say what now? And, just when you think Grant has reached rock-bottom, he finds a shovel and starts digging.

“China today is seen as a threat to the West. A threat to the so-called global rules-based order that is itself rooted in a race-based order,” he wrote.

Then this unintentionally hilarious ending: “If whiteness is power, Xi Jinping is its champion. The continuation of white power, in darker skin.”

At least when Dave Chappelle wrote his black white supremacist sketch he was trying to be funny.

Understandably, and thanks to the magic of social media, Grant’s column quickly became the focus of national and international mockery.

This is just a sample of the online reaction: Bertrand wrote: “What the hell did I just read? I knew @abcnews was pretty big on race-baiting divisive stuff but this is just another level of insane.”

Polis wrote: “The article is so stupid it kind of turns back around into being funny.”

Bewildered Belgian academic Anton Jager said: “What the hell am I reading?”

Former Beijing correspondent Benjamin Carlson provided this insight: “The 100 Years of Humiliation he is referring to is a part of the Communist Party’s official history and curriculum. It is used to justify the party’s rule.”

But Grant is not alone in offering ill-considered commentary on China.

In recent days we’ve had Paul Keating’s musings on why Australia should not get involved in any geopolitical conflict in defending Taiwan against Beijing aggression.

The former PM also advised the Albanese government to “walk away” from the AUKUS partnership.

Australian test Captain Pat Cummins. Picture: Chris Kidd

Not to be outdone in the clown stakes is the painfully woke captain of the Australian cricket team Pat Cummins, whose incoherent far-Left activism may have cost Cricket Australia a $40m sponsorship deal with Alinta Energy. Meanwhile, he is happy to promote a Chinese company with an appalling track record.

Not only is the climate catastrophist captain a big fat hypocrite; his carbon footprint is massive thanks to all that air travel, plus he’s also been pictured driving one of the highest emitting luxury cars on the market.

But worse than all that is the Cricket for Climate activist’s promotion of a Chinese company, LONGi, placed under restrictions by the Biden administration for using slave labour from Uyghur internment camps.

The hypocrisy was too much for Senator Matt Canavan who tweeted: “Why is the Australian cricket captain promoting a Chinese solar panel company that has been implicated in using forced Uyghur labour in Xinjiang?”

China’s list of useful idiots is growing longer by the day.