WHEN IT’S OK TO CAST A WHITE ACTOR

Most of the knife violence committed by teenagers has been by young men from immigrant backgrounds. The two most infamous recent examples are the 2024 Southport slaughters and the 2023 Croydon butchering of a teenage girl. More generally, London has had a succession of adolescent gun and knife murders, with gangs/drugs – and the machismo of violent rap music – often involved.

So it’s sadly predictable that the ecstatically-reviewed Netflix drama, Adolescence, features a white English schoolboy, unexpectedly knifing and murdering a teenage girl because (it transpires) she accused of him of being an ‘Incel’ and following Andrew Tate. It’s been eagerly praised by Keir Starmer, as a ‘documentary’ highlighting the misogynistic indoctrination underway, of vulnerable white boys. Useful propaganda, for his free-speech attacking online ‘safety’ bill.

Perhaps some will think I’m unduly drawing attention to race. But why wasn’t a black actor used for the killer, since most of these crimes have such perpetrators? The use of a white actor is especially notable, as there’s usually a clamour about not representing ethnic groups in TV casting. Adverts are an especially obvious example, where mixed-race families are seemingly obligatory. Like it or not, Progressives have made race a constant element in our culture – and they’re not the only ones allowed to discuss its use.

More broadly, why have there been no dramas about the numerous Islamic terrorist attacks? Notably the Manchester teenage concert bombing which killed twenty-two people, ten of them teenagers. Surely the constant horrors we’ve faced from Islamic terrorism are suitable – and vital – topics for dramatic exploration? But with the exception of Morrissey’s brave song Bonfire of Teenagers, the artistic response is to demand people ‘don’t look back in anger’ and parrot: ‘diversity is our strength’.

Because by some unwritten rule, the only TV dramas on domestic terrorism feature far-right English nationalist groups, ensnaring vulnerable white youths. Islamist terrorism comprises 75% of MI5’s caseload but only 11% of Prevent referrals are related to Islamist terrorism.

Professor Ian Acheson, a counter-terrorism expert says:

Art is not life, particularly when it comes to combating violent extremism. We know that all the data show the pre-eminent terrorist threat to national security in this country is from Islamist ideology. But this is never emphasised in fictional representations of the threat. The reason why is obvious and also dangerous. It’s far less trouble to exemplify an extreme Right-wing risk that exists mainly in the heads of progressive professionals. While this can make for compelling viewing or great educational tools, it also adds to the feeling that simple cowardice is in the director’s chair.

And note that the one drama about the vast grooming scandal (Three Girls) was withdrawn by the BBC, never to be reshown. They’d also demanded that a new ending was added to the original script, with a Muslim women’s group in Rochdale condemning the abuse – something which apparently didn’t happen in real life.

Perhaps it’s useful to know that one of the writers of Adolescence is a member of ‘Hope not Hate’, the pressure group which condemns as ‘far right’ anyone who mentions the very high rates of violent crime (especially against women) committed by certain immigrant groups. Hope not Hate’s founder meddled in last summer’s rioting, tweeting incorrectly that a Muslim woman had acid thrown in her face. He wasn’t prosecuted for this, unlike those on the other side who received long jail terms for less incendiary postings.

The truth is that white – especially working class – boys often feel ‘marginalised’ because they are. The focus Adolescence will force on them will further demoralise what’s already the most disadvantaged group, educationally. Many middle-class female teachers alternately pick on, patronise – and sometimes ridicule – such boys. I once heard a colleague say (about a Year 9 boy she claimed was sexist): ‘I’m going to make him cry this afternoon’. And she did; whose benefit was this for?

The ‘Incel’ panic has triggered far more concern than the huge ongoing grooming scandal, or the massive over-representation of some immigrant communities in gang and knife violence. There’s a deliberate diversion, away from the unavoidable failings of multiculturalism.

In my 18-years teaching – just outside a city with an infamous grooming problem – I never once heard it discussed by teachers, or with pupils. In contrast, Andrew Tate was a constant target for anger and angst. I knew teachers who regularly warned about him, giving assemblies and lessons castigating male attitudes and ‘toxic masculinity’. And I received numerous PSHE resources on Incels, but nothing on grooming gangs and double-nothing on their undeniable link to Islam. Most shockingly, there were no warnings given to girls about being groomed, despite this affecting some at the school – one of whom I believe committed suicide.

Middle-class female teachers – who comprise the majority in the profession – seem obsessed with threats from the ‘far-Right’ and online recruitment of boys into its ranks. I think this isn’t just avoidance of the awkward truths about Islam, but an implicit recognition that they’re ideologically prejudiced against white working class boys and don’t hesitate to show this disdain in the classroom. It’s routine to hear sneering and snobbish comments about them, in a way which would (rightly) be unthinkable for any other group.

I don’t believe such teachers are blind to their bias. They know what they’re doing and can see that sullen alienation and resentment in boys is the result. I’ve been in English department meetings where boy were labelled as a ‘problem’, ‘letting the school down with their results’, with no discussion on how such dismissive pathologizing might be the cause. Their approach is that it’s the boys’ role to fit around their progressive viewpoint, which regards maleness as a problem and men as oppressors. If some Year 9 boy gets it in the neck, to appease their anger, so be it.

The same mindset, in a different context, was behind Starmer’s immediate response to last summer’s riots, labelling them as ‘far right’ but refusing to accept (whilst knowing, in alarm) the obvious cause: the enforced dogma of multiculturalism he’s supported. Denial and deflection, in both cases.

Or is our progressives’ constant dwelling on a supposed right-wing backlash actually an invocation, a wish and a need for it to happen? To justify their labelling England as some racist hell-hole and their gleeful clampdown on free speech, done with such remarkable speed that it was obviously planned well before.

In fact, is the social breakdown caused by multiculturalism deliberate? The progressives consolidate power by creating and provoking a backlash, which then consolidates two-tier rule under the guise of ‘equity’ and maintaining stability. A fascinating parallel with many empires, where minority groups were given favoured treatment, to make controlling the majority easier.

In the process, national identity is destroyed, by default and by demonising any sense of Englishness or Britishness. It’s already true that fewer and fewer school children feel loyalty to what’s fast becoming an international airport. Labour’s new educational plans will make that irreversible.

Doubtless this may seem paranoid or dangerous. But people should ask themselves: how much do I now recognise in this country; was I ever consulted about the huge changes; if not, who agreed to them?

Because they didn’t just happen.