It is a sad aspect of public life that a quick route to success and notoriety for minorities in the UK is to express the most reactionary opinions imaginable. Witness Kwasi Kwarteng randomly and needlessly blurting out slavery apologia on Piers Morgan’s show, or the careers so far of Priti Patel and Suella Braverman. They will have their own views as individuals, but at the same time powerful people and institutions are aware of how useful it is to have their own prejudices mirrored, rendered acceptable, laundered perhaps by a minority voice, with the effect that it ostensibly shields them from criticism.
That regrettable effect is particularly concerning when a doubt is raised as to whether the views, as presented to the public, are a true reflection of honestly held opinion or a distortion designed perhaps to further advance the toxic culture wars.
A couple of weeks ago, the young rightwing commentator Dominique Samuels, who is Black, claimed on X (formerly Twitter) that the MailOnline had asked her to be “the face of a ghostwritten, negative, verging on racist piece” about the Notting Hill carnival last year.
Samuels also claimed that a Daily Mail article from 2021 with her byline, about racism accusations by Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, against the royals (“This clash of the royals was about culture … NOT colour”), was in fact ghostwritten for her, although she says it did broadly reflect her opinions “at the time”.
I spoke to Samuels, and we had a very enlightening conversation about her experience. According to her, after declining the opportunity to put her name to the ghostwritten draft produced for her, she has not heard back from the Mail’s main comment desk.
She was under the impression that ghostwriting in this fashion was “pretty much standard” practice. It is not. Although she had the chance to discuss her views on the content of the pieces, and of course to turn them down, the episode has caused considerable disquiet on social media and in the Black press, with many concerned that the entire practice of using a Black person to be the face of deliberately controversial articles on race that they haven’t written and that may ultimately, through that unsatisfactory indirect process, not wholly reflect their views, feels opaque and wrong.
When asked for comment, a representative for the Mail said that when commissioning comment pieces they “always discuss the points to be raised with the authors and sometimes supply help with drafting. This applies to all contributors including politicians and other public figures. Articles are not published without the author’s cooperation and approval. On this occasion, a year ago, after an exchange of drafts, Dominique Samuels decided that she did not wish to proceed, and nothing was published.”
If there is anxiety about it all, that’s partly fuelled by the context: a concern that a practice known as racism laundering is widespread and goes well beyond the media.
A potent cocktail of moral licensing, commerce and identity politics, racism laundering is a process in which the skin colour of an ethnic minority appears to facilitate policies, practices and narratives that would otherwise be condemned as bigoted. Those involved may indeed hold bigoted views themselves. They may be seeking advancement, or simply be reckless. They may be used as part of a wider agenda. But in any event, whatever the motivation, the effect is that they become a defence mechanism against clear instances or accusations of racism.
It is probably not a coincidence that – aside from the six-day blip of Grant Shapps – every home secretary appointed to this series of reactionary governments since the Windrush scandal broke has been a visible ethnic minority. Doubtless they have possessed administrative talent, but they have also solved the problem that, post-Windrush, it would have been difficult if not impossible to have white home secretaries pushing racist policies. Thanks in part to racism laundering, Britain took on the appearance of taking steps forward, while actually galloping backwards.
Post-Windrush scandal (which is still ongoing), a white home secretary would have struggled to sell the Rwanda plan, the barges or the idea of attacking migrant boats with the Royal Navy. Or jetskis. Even worse, a white home secretary would surely have faced censure for uttering things such as “These sick Asian paedophiles are finally facing justice”, as Sajid Javid did, or refusing to condemn fans who booed the national football team as they showed solidarity with antiracist causes, as Patel did.
In 2021, the Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities report was published. It was framed as the independent work of 12 commissioners, 11 of whom were Black and Brown. However, it was alleged that No 10 distorted their work to play down institutional racism and that some commissioners weren’t able to see the full report before it was published, raising concerns about its independence. Whatever the hopes or intentions of those involved, the big winners were divisive ideologues in a reactionary government with illiberal views on race.
In a recent discussion with LBC’s James O’Brien, the Labour MP Dawn Butler gave her view of a cynical kind of politics. “Ultimately, they get promoted because of the things that they are saying,” she said. “So you can’t have a white home secretary saying the sort of things that Suella’s saying and get away with it that easily, I don’t think. So it’s very strategic of the government to place people with those kind of views and meaning in those positions.” Dan Wootton of GB News labelled Butler “Labour’s race-baiter in chief”. Others might view her as clear sighted.
So Samuels has her view of her dealings with the Daily Mail. It disputes her account. But for those who worry about how narratives about us are created and communicated – and how policies that do us harm are popularised and brought to fruition – the episode provides much cause for debate and food for thought. Samuels, commenting on social media, asks a pertinent question: “Before you jump on the outrage bandwagon ask yourself why some papers routinely pump out these sorts of narratives and who they are REALLY serving by keeping people divided.”
The combatants of the culture war are many and varied; that we know. But perhaps it is being fought in ways we barely understand.
Nels Abbey is an author and broadcaster. His new book, The Hip-Hop MBA: Lessons in Cut-Throat Capitalism from the Moguls of Rap, is out next year
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