You are very lucky that you have not lived in a country where unemployed anti-authority lefties and/or anarchist youth spend their days destroying storefronts of middle class owners, invading businesses and bullying employees, throwing Molotov cocktails at the police, and illegally occupying building they turn into dumps. And they do these in the name of anti-fascism action. Sadly, I have experienced these in Greece so I can tell you fascism, hatred, and violence is not limited to one side of the ideological spectrum. And for that matter, neither is idiocy.
Angela it may surprise you those on the far-left are just as volatile as those on the far-right. But I'm talking about the extreme element here, not moderate or conservative lefties. And I might add the far-left here in Australia are becoming just as extreme in demonstrations.
There is no equivalence between extreme left-wing views and extreme right-wings one. I'm not denying that left-wing extremism exits but it's much smaller and much less mainstream than right-wing extremism.
There is no mainstream left-wing political party advocating the behaviour you are suggesting whereas in the UK, and elsewhere in the world, there are right-wing political parties deliberately encouraging hate against Black, Asians and minority ethnic (BAME) people in order to achieve their political objectives. Many in the mainstream media attack any extremism from left-wing groups but are often apologists, if not part of those, denigrating BAME communities.
When BAME people try to call out racism the reaction is often one of the following:
- You are just playing the race card (subtext = it's not a problem, you are just creating one for your own advantage).
- There is extremism on the left too (subtext = avert your attention from the widespread anti-BAME racism and focus on the relatively small amount of left-wing extremism).
- The UK is the most tolerant country in Europe (subtext = why are you complaining about the racism you are experiencing, it would be worse if you lived elsewhere).
- Black people can be racist too (subtext = let's focus on the tiny problem of anti-white racism instead of addressing the much bigger issue of anti-black racism).
In every case, it's just an excuse to deny that we have a serious and growing anti-BAME racism problem used by people who want to find a reason for taking next to no action to deal with a system that they benefit from.
Joaquin Phoenix gets it and expressed it so eloquently when he accepted his BAFTA yesterday
"I think we truly have to do the hard work to understand systemic racism. I think that it is the obligation of the people that what created, perpetuated and benefit from a system of oppression to dismantle it, so that's on us."
