Indeed, but it’s worth telling the full story. After the Revolution of 1789, the French National Assembly explicitly excluded the Declaration of the Rights of Man from applying to its colonies. 1/

https://twitter.com/WilStHill/status/1694636787782529365

The French authorities on both sides of the Atlantic were terrified about news of revolutionary developments in France reaching its colonies. The governor of Saint-Domingue confided in a letter to the French secretary of the navy, shortly after the fall of the Bastille, that… 2/

Well, this should be interesting. Just received an email from @Telegraph informing me that they’re running an article about me. 1/ Some months ago, I received an invitation from @openinnovteam, which is a cross-government unit that "works with academics to generate analysis and ideas for policy” to talk about the themes of my book *Not So Black and White*. 2/

A thread to add some context to my @Observer column (), especially given some of the discussions about it. 1/theguardian.com/commentisfree/… I was not trying to make a case specifically against pronatalism, nor specifically to link it to racial ideas or eugenics. I was, rather, pointing out some of the problems, paradoxes and contradictions with contemporary rightwing natalism. 2/

Here’s Nigel Biggar from his new book *Colonialism: A Moral Reckoning*, providing a moral assessment of British brutality in the aftermath of the “Indian Mutiny”, including the practice of tying victims to the mouths of cannons to be blown apart: And, also from Biggar’s book, a brilliant bit of whataboutery on Britain’s role in the Opium Wars:

Given the continuing debate about Suella Braverman, and why she could have such odious views on immigration given that she (like Priti Patel before her) is Asian and a child of immigrants, a few points to think about: 1/ 1. Braverman, Patel, etc do not have odious views simply on immigration. They have equally odious views on welfare, workers’ rights, etc. They are rightwing Tories and their views, like those of white rightwing Tories, on all these issues are shaped by their broader ideology. 2/

I don’t define who “belongs” by arbitrary divides such as racial categories. And that is as true in Japan and Senegal as in Britain or America.

And no, “white≠European”. Many Europeans are not what we now call “white”. I am European as much as, say, Boris Johnson is. 1/

https://twitter.com/NICHOLA29589571/status/1572583931169607680

And many Europeans we now think of as “white” were historically not deemed so. A little thread on that. 2/

To start the new year as I mean to go, quoting from Barbara Fields (from a paper on race, identity, immigration and whiteness studies): 1/ “Whereas exploring how European immigrants became white is all the rage, no one deems it pertinent to such exploration to ask how African and Afro-Caribbean immigrants became black. 2/

60 years ago today, on 17 October 1961, the bloodiest act of state repression of street protest in Western Europe in modern times took place in Paris. 1/
bbc.co.uk/news/world-afr… Some 30,000 people, mainly Algerians, took part in a protest in support of Algerian independence. Though the figures are still unclear and debated, it is likely that between 130 and 200 people killed at the hands of the police. And virtually nothing was said about it. 2/

“White British pupils living in disadvantaged circumstances are the lowest attaining group”

No, not from today’s Select Committee report on white working class pupils but from Steve Strand’s report from 2008. (dera.ioe.ac.uk/7916/1/DCSF-RR…). 1/ And 7 years ago there was another Select Committee report on exactly the same issue: publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201415/cm… 2/

Will probably write about Race Commission Report properly for Sunday, but a few thoughts. Having spent much of the last few years questioning arguments about racial disparities, insisting that we need to think about the complex interplay of race and class… 1/ …and suggesting that the racial categories we use are often not useful in understanding many social problems we face, I might have been expected to like the Commission approach. I don’t. It’s an odd report, marrying the polemical with the empirical to the detriment of both. 2/

On the complex relationship between race, class, culture and education: @TomChivers unpacks some of the data: unherd.com/2021/03/britai… I’ve been making some of these points (including on school exclusions) for a while:

kenanmalik.com/2020/10/20/on-…

kenanmalik.com/2018/01/07/bac…

kenanmalik.com/2020/08/30/rac…

kenanmalik.com/2020/07/28/bla…

kenanmalik.com/2020/06/16/rac…

kenanmalik.com/2019/07/15/the…

2/

A few thoughts on the Batley school Muhammed image controversy. Since the facts are unclear, these are as much about the general issues as the case itself.

1. There is no right not to be offended. This is as true in a classroom as anywhere else. Context matters. 2. The boundaries of speech are, of course, different in a classroom than in the world outside. One is dealing with minors, building a relationship with them, encouraging them to think, and to think about issues that they may not have, or may not have wanted to.

It will be interesting to see if “WEIRD” becomes the framework for defining certain sections of the population that supposedly reject “the ideals of individualism, moral consistency and the type of sequential logic used in alphabet-based writing systems”. 1/

https://twitter.com/Alex__1789/status/1351158107292880896

There is, though, a long history of seeing the “lower classes” in the same terms as non-Westerners, as fundamentally, and anthropologically, distinct from the elite. It was a central theme of nineteenth century racial thinking. 2/

Many people have seen those horrific photos of black labourers in the Belgian Congo having hands & feet (not just theirs but their children’s too) chopped off as punishment. What I hadn't realized was that 18th century American colonies had laws authorizing similar punishment. 1/ A 1707 Virginia law authorised courts in the case of runaway slaves “to order such punishment to the said slave, either by disbembring, or any other way, not touching his life, as they in their discretion shall think fit for… terrifying others from the like practices.” 2/

@RavinAnend @manick62 @rakibehsan @buffsoldier_96 Apologies for a slow response – I’m still under the threat of deadlines. Apologies, too, for a twitter thread that’s more like a mini-essay. Twitter, unfortunately, is not best platform for discussing issues such as this. 1/ @RavinAnend @manick62 @rakibehsan @buffsoldier_96 Before starting, can I say that @JohnAmaechi’s argument is both cogent and illuminating. Some of the abuse he has received is unwarranted. However, I also disagree with him. 2/

‘Suppose Germany had developed two bombs before we had any bombs. And suppose Germany had dropped one bomb, say, on Rochester and the other on Buffalo, and then having run out of bombs she would have lost the war.’ 1/ ‘…Can anyone doubt that we would then have defined the dropping of atomic bombs on cities as a war crime, and that we would have sentenced the Germans who were guilty of this crime to death at Nuremberg and hanged them?’ 2/

A few thoughts on the Trevor Phillips controversy. I’m in two minds as to whether to post this on Twitter as the very nature of Twitter discussions serves only to exacerbate the polarised character of the debate, and erase nuance. But here goes (and it may be a long thread). 1/ As in many of these controversies, it’s become a case of taking sides and of portraying @TrevorPTweets as either hero or villain. I see him as neither. Though simply to say that is these days often to invite denunciation from both sides. 2/

This is where we’re at now. Border guards of an EU country shoots at migrants, tries to ram their boats to overturn them. And people say ‘But what else can we do?’ 1/

https://twitter.com/AGB88888/status/1234719672613761026

Actually, people have been saying this for a long time. For, however shocking that video, the only thing unusual about it is that it’s EU border police doing this rather than those of neighbouring countries that the EU pays to do its dirty work. 2/ kenanmalik.com/2019/12/02/an-…

@battleforeurope Thanks for this. My apologies for a slow response, I’ve been off Twitter for a few days. And as this has become a battle of the long threads, here’s another (very) long thread in response… 1/ @battleforeurope Before I get on to your substantive points, let me say that the problem isn’t that I ‘feel’ misrepresented. I was misrepresented and deliberately so. You say that apart for passing off a headline a quote from me ‘the rest of my thread is a fair analysis of the article itself’. 2/

@battleforeurope Given that you ‘quote’ me in this thread as saying things I never have, attribute views to me that I don’t hold, and refuse to engage with my actual arguments, I’d normally be reluctant to respond to what appears to be written in bad faith. But here goes, anyway. 1/ @battleforeurope First, if you can show me where I write ‘the idea that the British working class is socially conservative is nonsense’ I’d be interested (and I don’t mean the headline which, as you know, authors don’t write). 2/

In fact, concepts of race and colour have been labile throughout history. As late as the nineteenth century, concepts of racial differences were not at all like those of today. 1/ For instance, in 1865, the Daily Telegraph reported on a demonstration in Southampton against Edward John Eyre, the governor of Jamaica. Eyre was at the heart of controversy over his brutal and bloody suppression of an uprising by Jamaican peasants. 2/