Julia Hartley Dooda - Consistently Racist

Pride of place on the Zelo Street wall of Acceptable Dinner Party Racism is an article by self-promoting TalkTV host Julia Hartley Brewer, from the days when the Express was a real newspaper, and she was the political editor of its Sunday edition. “Don’t draw a veil over free speech” was the headline.

Pretentious? Who, moi?

And the target was Scary Muslims™. “I’m bored with Muslims. Bored with being told what I can and cannot say about Islam. Bored with Muslims moaning about how they are victims of racism and religious intolerance because someone dares to disagree with them … These are the sort of statements that currently come under the category of ‘things that most of us are thinking but are afraid to say out loud’”. Sadly, there was more. A lot more.

We are regaled with “the professional Muslim complaints brigade … the rest of us are just tired of having Islam thrust in our faces, day in, day out … I look forward to the day the Muslim Council of Britain chooses a female leader”. Hold on to that last one for a few more minutes, it’ll come in most useful. But meanwhile, there was more of that dog-whistling to come.

“No other religious group settling in Britain has felt the need to separate themselves from mainstream society to the same extent as many Muslims do [no citation] … why live in Britain if they hate our values so much? Those coming to our shores have a duty to adapt to our society … if you don’t like Western liberal values or Judaeo-Christian culture and history, perhaps Britain is not the best place for you to make your home”. Subtle or what?

Had Ms Hartley Dooda been whingeing about, oh I dunno, Jews and Judaism instead of Muslims and Islam, she would have been - rightly - run out of journalism. And thus the acceptable racism. Demonising Sharia Law is, for the right-leaning part of our free and fearless press, fine, but one peep about the Beth Din and your copy ends up - equally rightly - on the spike.

No matter, Ms Hartley Dooda then goes further: We In The West have a culture that is superior. “All cultures are not equal and some are better than others. Indeed, I would argue that our Western values are superior to the medieval values of Islam [no citation] and more highly developed and, indeed, more moral than anything than anything Islam has ever come up with”.

Well, that’s mighty white of you. Developed? Moral? Superior? Like sticking our collective bugles into other countries’ business, especially if it’s a country in, oh I dunno, the Middle East? Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, the entire Indian sub-continent, Egypt? Bombing the crap out of them? Screwing their economies?

And so we come to the latest example of Ms Hartley Dooda’s consistent bigotry, together with her selective recollection of that all-conquering culture. Now she is no longer a mere hack, but a host on Murdoch noise floor occupant TalkTV, and in the latter role has just “interviewed” Palestinian MP Mustafa Barghouti, who you can tell as he’s a doctor.

Except this was not so much an interview, but more an authorised shouting-down. “Oh my God, for the love of God, let me finish my sentence, man … maybe you’re not used to women talking” was followed by the doubling down of bigotry as she sneered “Sorry to have been a woman speaking to you”.

Consistent. Consistently racist. Shola Mos-Shogbamimu, who you can also tell as she’s also a doctor, put it directly. “When White women wield the power of White supremacy, it’s intentional. This display of dehumanising Palestinian MP Mustafa Barghouti & disrespect of the Palestinian people is deliberate. Racist-Arab trope & entitled superiority by Julia Hartley-Brewer here is disgusting. Yeah … it’s symptomatic of a deeply racist Britain”.

This is what Sayeeda Warsi has battled against for so long. While the deeply unpleasant Doug Murray The K gets away with similar bigotry, being regularly published by the right-wing press. Ms Hartley Dooda will claim it’s only about FREEZE PEACH. Her pals out there on the right will agree, and applaud her stance. The racism will continue. Those practising it will be duly rewarded.

The only reason we don’t officially have a racism problem is simple: nobody will admit it. Nothing to see here, move along now, rinse and repeat.

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