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WHAT do you do when the demand for offence is greater than the supply?
Why, you go scouring the land looking for things to be offended by, of course.
The woke have decended on the ships that feature on the iconic club’s crests, claiming they hark back to Britain’s involvement in the slave trade[/caption]
Woke Guardian journalist — Simon Hattenstone — admits that his theory may not be watertight[/caption]
That is one of the great tasks the permanently offended have.
They are busy looking at everything up and down the country in order to claim that it is offensive.
Generally, this is done by seeking out anything tied up with the cardinal sins of racism, colonialism and slavery.
That is why organisations such as Heritage England and Defra have spent recent years trying to prove that the British countryside is “racist”.
It is why all of our institutions, from our universities to our great national collections, are “auditing” themselves to find out if they benefited from the past.
No less a figure than the King is backing an inquiry into whether or not the monarchy benefited from slavery.
Guilt by association
I could save him both money and time by delivering the verdict on that.
But I hardly think it worth my time, let alone the King’s.
The fact is that we are here because the past happened.
Of course we should try to get that in a proper light.
It would be ridiculous to pretend that everything in our past was pure and perfect.
But it is just as ridiculous — in fact, more so — to pretend that everything in our past is terrible.
And that everything in our present must be attacked through guilt by association.
One of the few joys, though, has been watching this revolution eating its own.
As all revolutions do.
For years the left-wing Guardian newspaper has led the stampede.
It has condemned as racist everything from the monarchy to gardening.
So what a joy it has been in recent months to see The Guardian wake up to its own history.
For while other British journals of the day were anti-slavery, the founders of The Guardian actually made vast sums of money out of the practice of slavery.
If it hadn’t been for the money they made off enslaving black people, perhaps The Guardian would not be in print today.
Now, late in the day, the paper has woken up to its own history and started to “investigate” itself.
Yet part of that process seems to be a desire to spread the blame around.
To pretend that since the Left’s house organ is mired in original sin, everything else must be too.
The extremes to which this can go became clear again this week when the paper ran an attack on the crests of Manchester United and Manchester City.
Why them, for goodness sake?
Well, you see, the sleuths at The Guardian have discovered that the crests have ships on them.
OK.
And ships were sometimes used, in the past, to transport slaves.
Therefore, every time these emblems are worn or waved, people are celebrating slavery.
Or something like that.
The author of this piece of garbage — one Simon Hattenstone — admits that his theory may not be watertight.
After all, the crest of the clubs comes from the city’s coat of arms, and that was designed in the 1840s, decades after Britain had abolished slavery and was paying in blood and treasure to abolish its practice across the high seas.
Besides, most people in the area believe that the ship exists on the crests to celebrate the Manchester ship canal, something that had absolutely nothing to do with slavery.
Still, Hattenstone says: “Once seen, the ship can’t be unseen.”
Well, I suppose so.
In the same way that anyone with delusions may find it hard to unsee things.
But any rational person doesn’t have to share such delusions.
Just because one person starts talking through their hat doesn’t mean everyone else has to talk through the same route.
Of course, Hattenstone tries to find others to support his claim.
By way of evidence he cites one reader who apparently wrote to the paper claiming to have Jamaican origins.
Mad lefties
This person said they had been on “a mission” to change the clubs’ logos, claiming the ship is definitely a slave ship and that while “our ancestors are screaming for justice” they are apparently “mocked by the very tools (ships) of the trade that decimated the African population”.
Yet the first people who decimated the African population were African slavers, who sold their brother and sister Africans for centuries.
Go do something about that.
The ships on the logos of these beloved football clubs “mock” nobody.
But people will see whatever they want to see.
Mad lefties and professional grudge-bearers see evils that aren’t there.
I see the logos of a proud city and proud clubs, from a country which — more than any other — has a huge amount to be proud of.
Left-wing Guardian newspaper has condemned as racist everything from the monarchy to gardening[/caption]
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