WHITE LIVES MATTER

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Jake Hepple, a Burnley supporter, was the man primarily responsible for an aircraft flying a banner stating ‘White Lives Matter Burnley’ at the start of a football match between Burnley and Manchester City. The stunt occurred moments after players from both teams were on their knees. Afterwards, Hepple posted on Facebook: ‘I’d like to take this time to apologise … to absolutely fucking nobody. It’s now apparently racist to say White Lives Matter, the day after three white people got murdered in Reading, but all we’ve seen on the TV is Black Lives Matter after George Floyd got murdered. What a mad world we live in.’ The Reading attacker, Khairi Saadallah, yelled ‘Allahu Akbar’ as he attacked people in a park with a knife.

The police, after initially threatening prosecution for a banner that ‘caused offence’, decided not to charge Hepple as no crime had been committed. The Burnley football club said that they would ban all those involved. Hepple was sacked by Paradigm Precision, an engineering company where he had worked.

Meanwhile, Dr Priyamvada Gopal, an academic at Cambridge University (a fellow of Churchill College), tweeted ‘I’ll say it again. White Lives Don’t Matter. As white lives.’ Twitter deleted her post as being hate speech. However, she did not lose her job, and in fact was promoted to full professorship. This is despite her being totally unrepentant. She complained loudly about receiving offensive comments (as she would have expected) and said: ‘I would also like to make clear I stand by my tweets, now deleted by Twitter, not me. They were very clearly speaking to a structure and ideology, not about people. My Tweet said whiteness is not special, not a criterion for making lives matter. I stand by that.’

Gopal further wrote: ‘Now we have the opportunity to carry out a resolute offensive against the white, break their resistance, eliminate them as a class and replace their livelihoods with the livelihoods of people of colour and LGBTQ.’

A statement released by the university said: ‘The University defends the right of its academics to express their own lawful opinions, which others might find controversial. [It] deplores in the strongest terms abuse and personal attacks. These attacks are totally unacceptable and must cease.’

The Cambridge branch of the University and College Union (UCU), also showed their solidarity with Dr Gopal, wroting: ‘Solidarity with Priyamvada Gopal – being targeted with vile sexist and racist abuse for speaking up against white supremacists. We are proud to be your colleagues both on the picket line and off it. BlackLivesMatterSolidarity.’

A week earlier Gopal tweeted: ‘With deep regret but with 17 years of consideration behind it, I have finally decided on my behalf & of other people of colour @Cambridge_Uni to refuse to supervise any students at @Kings_College. ENOUGH IS ENOUGH of the consistently racist profiling & aggression by Porters.’ King’s College responded: ‘We have investigated the incident and found no wrongdoing on the part of our staff. Every visitor was asked to show their card during the course of that day, as the College was closed to everyone except King’s members. Non-members such as Dr Gopal were asked to take alternative routes, around the College. This was a matter of procedure, not discrimination … We categorically deny that the incident referred to was in any way racist.’

Gopal was born in Delhi India, in 1968. After completing her education at the University of Delhi and Jawaharlal Nehru University in 1991, she moved to the USA where she taught and completed a PhD in colonial and postcolonial literature at Cornell University in 2000. She moved to the University of Cambridge in 2001. She is cited as being interested in a number of issues including ‘gender and feminism, Marxism and critical theory, and the politics and cultures of empire and globalisation’ – ie she is a communist.

So, in the UK in the 21^st century, under a Tory Government, saying ‘White Lives Matter’ is a sacking offence, whereas saying ‘White Lives Don’t Matter’ is OK. Furthermore, an immigrant who is openly anti-White and stirring up trouble is lauded and promoted, rather than being sent back from whence she came.