The racialisation of Emma Raducanu To the identitarians, she will always be an immigrant. please log in to view this image TOM SLATER DEPUTY EDITOR 12th September 2021 please log in to view this image Share POLITICS I’m old enough to remember when constantly pointing out that someone is an immigrant was considered at best rude and at worst really racist. Not so today, it seems, if the commentariat’s response to Emma Raducanu’s stunning victory at the US Open is anything to go by. Last night was special. We witnessed a sporting fairytale unfurl, a new British icon being born, a determined 18-year-old from Bromley making history. All the clichés in the world cannot do justice to Raducanu’s achievement in New York City. But the great and good of Twitter saw what they see in basically every big sporting or cultural event these days: an opportunity to call everyone racist. And as also always happens these days, they ended up revealing that it is actually them who are most responsible for racialising everyday life today. With robotic uniformity, the usual suspects tweeted different versions of the same tweet, nodding to Raducanu’s mixed parentage and the fact she moved to the UK from Canada aged two. ‘Get in. Emma Raducanu the immigrant from a Romanian, Chinese, Canadian family grand slams the haters. This is the Britain we love’, said TV’s Adil Ray. ‘Bloody young people. Bloody immigrants. Fabulous innit’, said #FBPE’s Otto English. ‘Half Romanian, half Chinese. Born in Canada, brought up in the UK. Immigration enriches us, and always has done’, wrote the author Sathnam Sanghera. There are many layers of bullshit to wade through here. Perhaps the most pungent is the underlying implication that Britain is a nation full of xenophobes who have yet to encounter even the most basic, Hallmark-card arguments in favour of immigration – and so need to be pummelled with them at every opportunity. please log in to view this image PODCAST The shadow of 9/11 SPIKED Even a glance at opinion polls and social-attitudes surveys would disabuse you of this notion. Britain is the most pro-migration society in Europe, attitudes towards immigration have actually softened since the Brexit vote. But on and on and on the virtue-signalling goes, regardless. Were this just virtue-signalling it would be irritating enough. But there’s a more unpleasant underside to it all. These people apparently could not help but racialise Raducanu. They all felt compelled to rattle off her ethnic background even before getting around to congratulating her. There was an undeniable compulsion to portray her primarily as an immigrant, as mixed-race, not as a fellow Brit or even just a remarkable human being. It’s funny. We’ve been told for years that asking ‘No, where are you really from?’ is one of the most racist things you can say to someone, the most pervasive of all the microaggressions. And yet that is the exact vibe coming off the Raducanu discussion. They seem to see her as an immigrant first and a Brit second. The woke left can’t help but see her victory in racial terms. So attached are they to a Manichean view of a Britain riven with racism and xenophobia that they inevitably end up reaffirming and lending more meaning to ethnic and migratory identities, over and above treating people as human beings and fellow citizens. To them, Raducanu will always be an immigrant. That’s hardly a progressive position to hold.
Don't be ridiculous. The author is completely twisting the point, which is that I and the other people have been pointing out the hypocrisy of those that complain about immigrants but ignore the fact that Raducanu is the daughter of immigrants because she's good at tennis. To them, Raducanu will always be an immigrant. This is the complete opposite of what I think.
No she won't always be an immigrant She got to the UK legally Or did she and her family sneak in illegally in a dingy Her family are more British than you are You were just born there They chose to become British When I say this to the kiwis it winds some of them up no end
Of for ****'s sake. My initial post, when I said, '****ing immigrants' was ironic, and was meant to point out the hypocrisy. I can't help it if some people don't understand that and I'm not going to apologise for it. I, and the people the author quotes, were celebrating the fact that Raducanu's British success is the product of what the racists hate. Immigration is a good thing and I, and the people the author attacks, happily consider Raducanu to be British. The author has chosen to twist that to make some pathetic anti-woke point.
Maybe Stan (I think it was him who said it) was right after all and ‘nations’ and ‘borders’ are ridiculous.
But you could also say that you and the people the author mentions, feel the need to emphasise her differences to yourself, and use these differences to “weaponise” her race, purely to make a point to suit your agenda. Could that not be classed as subconscious racism ? Not having a go at you personally Strolls, I agree with so much you say, just now thinking out loud I guess
Who’s gonna serve them coffee ? Who’s gonna deliver their groceries ? Who’s gonna look after their kids ? Who’s gonna clean their toilet ? The middle classes must have their commodity.
Again, not having a go at you personally Strolls, however I think ‘weaponising’ her race, however subconsciously, is precisely what you did. Therefore I do think the author had a very good point.
The author said 'To them, Raducanu will always be an immigrant'. This is a complete travesty of what I, and those he derides, actually think. It seems to me that the 'weaponisation' accusation comes mainly from people who are made to feel uncomfortable by having their hypocrisy exposed.
But it’s not though……subconsciously you and others felt the need to emphasise the fact that she is an immigrant. It suits your need, to emphasise her ‘difference’ to someone born here. It happens time and time again….on both sides
The emphasis is not subconscious, it's deliberate and ironic. It's a celebration of the fact that she's a shining example of the positive impacts of immigration and a two-finger salute to those that complain about it in other circumstances.
She actually retired from exhaustion at Wimbledon this summer. Just before she took her A levels and got top marks in difficult subjects like Maths. She has talents all over the place!
In which case Jamie Oliver should be prosecuted for promoting a healthy Mediterranean diet, the racist bastard
