WHITE BABIES
..and the Publishing Industry
In early 2022 there was a concerted effort by right wing papers and right wing commentators to tell women to have more babies.
The centre and left commentariat were incensed. Rightly. Columns were written by nice white lady after nice white lady asking who are you to tell us to have more babies? Do you know how much child care costs? etc.
What was missed however as it often is by middle class white columnists was that the right wing papers and right wing male commentators weren't just wanting any old babies to be born. They wanted White babies.
At the time I said the following..
Two days ago there was a concerted and what looked like coordinated effort in the Right wing press to push "we" must have more (white) babies.
The great replacement theory is espoused by lots of the US right wing too e.g Steve Bannon. Here look to Lord Finkelstein and Michael Gove.'This ‘culture war’ was happily stoked and inflamed by Tory politicians over months to encourage the white majority to ignore the plight of black and brown people as we are criminalised, stripped of citizenship and made stateless at the whim of the Home Office’
Referring to the Nationality and Borders Bill.
“There are gonna be days of white women columnists writing about this in the MSM because it 'affects' them and their friends. They will not note that this is about white replacement theory or give credence to WHY these articles have been cropping up in The Times and elsewhere for at least 6 months.’
The writer Jonathan Tranter intervened into the debate with the words of sanity.
The later results from phase 1 of the census showing ethnicity will add more clarity. If it was just white Brits the population would shrink, not only growing more slowly (which the initial results show). Doesn’t need “radical ideas”, just means allowing more immigration!!
Earlier Tories knew this, Cameron playing bad cop going on about controlling immigration, working with Osborne who was doing nothing of the sort.
The SNP admit they need more immigration for their economy (even if they don’t say it’s because Scotland’s 97% white).
I thought of white babies again this week when the news broke that a Palestinian family of six were granted asylum here. Four of them are children.
Sky News reported that the family that fled Gaza, had been granted the right to live in the UK following an appeal - they had applied to enter the country through a Ukrainian refugee scheme.
The mother, father and their four children - who were aged seven, eight, 17 and 18 in September - were displaced after their home was destroyed by an Israeli airstrike.
Their intent was to join the father's brother, who has lived in the UK since 2007 and is a British citizen.
Both the leader of the right wing Tory party and the leader of the nominally left wing Labour party took to the dispatch box to thrash out which of them were more disgusted by the court’s decision. Neither of them came out of it looking well. But especially not the former human rights lawyer.
The author Shanice Octavia McBean noted on X the platform formerly known as Twitter noted,
‘Fund the genocide. Provide weapons for the genocide. Provide political cover for the genocide. But still use a family of 6 traumatised Palestinians to whip up a moral panic about refugees you helped create.
Unthinkable inhumanity. I hate these people with every fibre of my being.’
I concur seeing as in December 2024 a study and needs assessment of children carried out by a Gaza-based NGO sponsored by the War Child Alliance charity found that:
– 96% of children feel that their death is imminent.
– 49% of children want to die as a result of trauma
– 92% of the children were “not accepting of reality”
– 79% suffer from nightmares
– 73% exhibit symptoms of aggression.
– More than 20,000 children are missing
James McLaughlin asked the following:
A big question which I have yet to hear anyone ask Keir Starmer: Aside from racism, why shouldn't a Palestinian family be allowed to claim asylum here?
Palestinians are per capita some of the highest educated people in the world. They have proven themselves resilient and resourceful.
Historically, the UK has done more to force them out of their country than any other nation. They have every right to come here if they choose.
Of course, they would much rather stay in their country, have it recognised as a state, be allowed to build, import and export, collect rainwater, be free from arbitrary detention, murder, and ethnic cleansing. All we have to do is stop doing these things to them.
The filmmaker and journalist Saeed Farouky even more incensed said,
This is one of the most vindictive, hateful, malicious things I've ever seen from a British government. I'm not exaggerating. The extent to which both Conservatives and Labour want to see Palestinian suffer and die is sickening
One single Palestinian family of 6 from Gaza was allowed to settle in the UK, and that was enough to spark a debate in Parliament in which Labour vowed they would never again allow Gazans to claim asylum and settle in Britain.Here's the video.
Here's the video. Truly disgusting and disturbing. Badenoch says 200,000 Ukrainians have settled in the UK, big cheers from the MPs. Then says 6 Gazans also settled, a wave of boos from MPs. This is fascist rhetoric in parliament.
Post 2020 the analysis and concern about racial justice has been noticeably absent or has at least subsided in the publishing industry. Many of whom made various statements and promises at the time to increase their diversity in-house and of their authors.
Continue reading beyond the paywall where I discuss changing my book so I am a white woman instead of black and change the opening paragraphs so it’s about white babies rather than black. It's good..