Is David Starkey a Racist?

Until a week or so ago, possibly the darkest stain on Cambridge University's recent history was the so-called Cambridge Spy Ring, a group of young men recruited from Cambridge in the 1930s to pass intelligence to the Soviet Union. The most well known were Guy Burgess, Kim Philby and Donald Maclean. Given that they acted as spies for the Russians during and after World War II, this was a serious, indeed treasonous, offence. 

Another Cambridge graduate, Bertrand Russell, had travelled to Russia in 1920, and despite meeting Lenin and being given the grand tour he came away with grave doubts about the Russian Revolution. Not so the lads of the Cambridge Spy Ring, who ignored Stalin's subsequent horrific slaughter and starvation of his own people, clinging for decades to the belief that Soviet communism was the best available political system. Doubtless they lived in their own echo chamber, which admitted no doubt, no contrary information. 

But Cambridge could not itself be blamed for the recruiting and subsequent activities of these men. It's not as if the university actively promoted or even condoned their behaviour. Which is why the university's recent actions are a far worse stain on its reputation.

At the beginning of July a well-know historian and Cambridge academic, Dr David Starkey, was being interviewed by the conservative commentator Darren Grimes. In rejecting claims that slavery is genocide, Starkey said, "Slavery was not genocide, otherwise there wouldn't be so many damn blacks in Africa and Britain, would there?"Of course this was construed as irretrievably racist, but let's look at this as calmly as we can.

First, Starkey appears to be working with a definition of genocide that means the complete elimination of a cultural, racial or ethnic group: blacks clearly weren't the victims of genocide because there are so many of them now. But few people use this strict meaning from the Latin derivation, and take genocide to mean the killing of a significant number of one group. To do otherwise is to be like the pedant who insists "decimate" means eliminating one-tenth. Yes, originally this was so, but no-one uses it like that anymore, and language, in the end, is about usage not etymology.

However, slavery was not genocide for another reason: genocide essentially involves the intention to wipe out a group of people, whereas the intention of slavery was to use humans as commodities, to make money by reducing labour costs drastically. So Starkey was right, but in full conversational flight he produced a poor argument for why slavery is not genocide.

Was it racist? Yes. Did it warrant not only a huge social media backlash but him having his visiting professorship at Canterbury Christ Church University terminated immediately and being forced to resign from his honorary fellowship at Cambridge University? Let's consider this in the context of a prior event.

On 23 June Professor Priyamvada Gopal, in the middle of the Black Lives Matter storm, tweeted, "I'll say it again. White lives don't matter. As white lives." In response to the strong negative reaction this provoked, which was inevitably characterised as from the far right, the convenor of Cambridge Stand Up to Racism, Roger Green, said, "Cambridge is a proudly diverse and unified city ...  We will not allow Neo-Nazis to spread hatred and division in our midst. Cambridge Stand Up to Racism stand with the targeted academic [Gopal] in unity against the common threat of the far right.”

Cambridge MP Daniel Zeichner said, "Cambridge is a proudly tolerant city. There is no place for racism and those who try to spread hatred will always get short shrift here. Cambridge is an outward looking place and we stand united to say no to racism." The Cambridgeshire Constabulary also issued a statement: "We confirm our earlier position that the widely reported tweet from Professor Gopal does not constitute an offence and she is not under any investigation."

So Professor Gopal was defended, protected and even promoted, while Starkey was lambasted and had his emeritus career destroyed. Given short shrift. But which statement is really worse? Which is more racist? As mentioned, Gopal tweeted her comment in the midst of the Black Lives Matter protests. And the protests were not about how black people live their lives, but about the loss of lives, about the killing of black people by the police. The thrust of the whole protest was that black people should not be killed. So, if you state, in that context, that white lives don't matter, what you are saying is that it doesn't matter if white people are killed. That is the direct implication..

So, Starkey is indicating, perhaps, in his reference to "damn blacks" that he doesn't much care for black people, as one might talk about the damn government or damn students. Gopal is saying that it doesn't matter if white people are killed. White lives don't matter. What's more, Starkey's remark was part of an in-depth conversation, where one might put a point badly. Gopal carefully and thoughtfully tweeted her comment, at her leisure, and was unrepentant.

I think it's stunningly clear who was the worst offender here. Gopal's comment was appallingly racist,  even an incitement to  racial violence, whereas Starkey's was merely offensive, and indeed insignificant when measured against the tsunami of abuse hurled at white people at the time. Gopal deserved, and deserves, dismissal and social condemnation, if the university is even remotely serious about saying "no to racism".

Cambridge University's assumption that racism is something nasty white people do to the poor black people is both morally infantile and intellectually bereft. Framing the reaction to Gopal's statement as the intolerant and racist heart of the matter is straight-out Soviet-speak. But then perhaps not unexpected. Doubtless they live in their own echo chamber, which admits no doubt, no contrary information.They should be ashamed. This is a black mark on the institution that remain through the coming centuries.

Harry Wiren