Student's 'English bash' deemed racistMcLellan apologized, of course, saying (in part):A student at a university that prides itself on being among the most multicultural in Britain has been branded "racist" after distributing invitations to an "English party".
Rugby captain Timothy McLellan has been forced to apologise after pinning up posters around the campus promising the event would have "no bongos, shisha pipes or Arabic music".
The 20-year-old law student had intended the flyer to be a joke poking fun at parties held at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, which typically have an ethnic theme.
The choice of the word 'English', which I now regret, was not intended to mean that it was a party for white English students but was rather intended to express that the party's vibe reflected England's mainstream culture, which in itself is not racially exclusive.Well, mainstream English culture may or may not be "racially exclusive," but it is (as McLellan clearly implies) substantially different than the cultures celebrated at the School of Oriental and African Studies.
The incident reminds me of one that I witnessed 25 years ago, when I was, for a while, taking a bus to work. The regular bus driver was a white gentleman of Southern extraction. Most of the passengers were Asians and West Indian blacks who attended a community college located near a stop toward the end of the bus route. My stop was the last one on the route.
It was usual for everyone on the bus but me to disgorge at the stop located near the community college. One day, after the students has swarmed from the bus, the driver turned to me and said "I think I'll go to Germany, where I can see some Americans." (This was, of course, before the Muslim invasion of Western Europe.)
I understand what the bus driver felt, just as I sympathize with Timothy McLellan. There is -- or was -- a mainstream American culture,* just as there is -- or was -- a mainstream English culture. It is now de rigeur to deride those cultures and to say that their proponents and practitioners are insensitive racists. What does that make the proponents and practitioners of sub-cultures and imported cultures, especially those whose aim is the overthrow of the mainstream culture?
Mainstream Americans and Englishmen, arise. Shake off your apologetic airs. Assert your cultural pride. Illegitimi non carborundum.
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* The American mainstream was: upper lower-class (i.e., non-redneck) to upper middle-class; against welfare (charity was for the helpless and hopeless, and it began at home); for punishment (as opposed to excuses about poverty, etc.); overtly religious or respectful of religion (and, in either case, generally respectful of the last six of the Ten Commandments); personally responsible (stuff happens, and it's rarely someone else's fault); polite and helpful to strangers; patriotic (the U.S. was better than other countries and not beholden to international organizations, wars were to be fought to victory); and anti-socialist (being anti-communist was a given). Racist views, to the extent they were held, were expressed only to people one knew well (and who were of a like mind); such views were not acted upon violently or even impolitely. The "f" word and similar expletives were closeted, as well. Homosexuality and "shacking up" were disgraceful novelties, not "lifestyles" to be venerated.
Mainstream Americans might have been white or black, Christian or Jewish, rural or urban, college-educated or not, but the mainstream was wide. I knew mainstreamers well. They were to be found on main street, in side streets, and even in universities -- often among the faculty. They abounded in public education, where they taught mainstream values.
The mainstream began to dry up when universities began to spew forth "educators" whose beliefs run contrary to those recited above (i.e., for welfare, against punishment, etc., etc., etc.). Those "educators" have long since done the bidding of anti-mainstream élites, in and out of academia. Thus the mainstream is now a relative trickle in an arid valley of Leftist sentiments, which have become so commonplace that they are parroted even by persons who do not consider themselves Leftists.
