The way you talk about your garden may be racist
Academic alleges garden talk reflects the “crisis in white identity in multicultural Britain”
It. Never. Stops.
Via David Thompson, The Telegraph reports, Is Gardeners’ Question Time racist?:
It is the softly spoken radio show that provides good-natured help and advice to thousands of gardeners every week.
So regular listeners to Gardeners’ Question Time may be horrified to discover it has been accused of peddling racial stereotypes….
But Dr Ben Pitcher, a senior lecturer in sociology at the University of Westminster, claimed the programme’s regular discussions on soil purity and non-native species promoted nationalist and fascist beliefs.
STOP. THE. PRESSES.
LET. THE. “ACADEMIC”. SPEAK.
Speaking on another Radio 4 programme, Thinking Allowed, the academic said: “Gardeners’ Question Time is not the most controversial show on Radio 4, and yet it is layered with, saturated with, racial meanings.
“The context here is the rise of nationalism. The rise of racist and fascist parties across Europe. Nationalism is about shoring up a fantasy of national integrity. My question is, what feeds nationalism? What makes nationalism powerful?”
Dr Pitcher said the “crisis in white identity in multicultural Britain” meant people felt unable to express their views for fear of being called racist, so expressed their racial identity in other ways, such as talking about gardening.
Speaking on the same programme, Lola Young, a crossbench peer and former professor of cultural studies, backed Dr Pitcher’s analysis.
She added: “I remember back in the late 80s-early 90s when rhododendrons were seen as this huge problem, and people were talking about going out rhododendron-bashing.
“That was at a time when Paki-bashing was something that was all too prevalent on our streets.”
When David Thompson sent me the link, he joked: “Well, Soil is Sort of Brown…”
(Featured Image Source: Gardeners’ Question Time)
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Comments
This article is corny, and you sir are full of beans.
Well, the writing was a bit florid, but Dr. Pitchers thesis is rather pot-bound. That was the root of the piece, surely.
But the Prof. at least sowed the seeds of thought…
RoundUp Dr. P. and give ‘im a good threshing.
Some people try so hard to LOOK smart, they end up BEING dumber than a potato.
Seriously, the show was called “thinking aloud” you would think they would actually try thinking, I mean it is aloud after all.
At least the POTATO’s eyes serve a purpose.
None so blind as those that will not see. — Matthew Henry
Not many black or brown flowers out there.
Plants are either native or exotic . Part of being eco is to have majority nativist landscapes with careful selection of exotics .
I can think of a few things that are brown occasionally it looks black if you eat too much liquorice but really it is dark green.
after a box of ice cream (oil) sandwiches mine is black.
smells about the same as an orchid too….
If you grow Black-eyed Susans you will be arrested for abusing women.
“saturated with, racial meanings”
Pitcher do you mean like the term, “Paki“?
I’m a Master Gardener…so how does that fit in to the Raaaaaacist narrative?? As a Master…I’d have to say that the non-native species rampaging through my garden are positively fascist. You chop the buckthorn (brought over from Europe…those oppressive, colonizing racists) down, seedlings spring up elsewhere. Herbicides? I mix them up at the highest concentrations (Bayer makes great garden products…yes, that IG Farben Bayer)…still that Canadian thistle (Blame Canada!) re-sprouts. I’d give anything to be able to grow a rhododendron in this dense black soil that’s good for nothing but corn and soybeans. And brown flowers? They are usually pollinated by flies and so they stink. How about sexist? Don’t plant a female ginkgo (commie Chinese fossil) unless you want a stinking mess, or a female Osage Orange unless you want your neighborhood inundated with six-inch diameter potential weapons. Yup, gardeners: racistfascistsexistbigothomophobes.
[I’m a Master Gardener]
Master, huh?
Racist pig!!
damn.
busted.
now I got to start arboring or something.
Arboring fugitives?
I knew it. There is garden variety racism.
Thread winner.
In my neck of the woods, “native species” of plants are sanctified by respectable liberals and leftists, some of whom have promoted campaigns to get rid of “non-native species” over large expanses of land.
Who knew that they’re all just acting out their racism in sneaky ways?
Dr Ben Pitcher is an intolerant bigot. A theory as asinine as his shouldn’t receive publicity; it should be completely ignored.
yeah, there are plenty of “non-native” species that are huge problems. But most people I know call them “invasives”, since that is the real issue.
For one thing, yeah, they come from other places, but they take over natural habitat and crowd out everything else. It’s when they escape their designated cultivation that they become a problem. Most don’t, but I just read that 82% of woody invasives were introduced for horticultural purposes.
They are often invited in because people think they offer some “diverse” benefit, but then they prefer everything else die off, to make room for them. They haven’t learned to “coexist”. You might even say these invasives hate America’s natives.
People should choose what to grow in their gardens, and quality (not “diversity”) is key. Importantly, a garden is much easier to control than say, 50 acres of hilly woods with bush honeysuckle spreading everywhere. The birds spread that stuff everywhere.
Obama spreads Guatemalan teenage drug dealers and all over America, and while we screen real immigrants for disease, the CDC lets the illegal invaders come through with any number of diseases or lice, putting them on our planes and trains, and covertly releasing them in our towns. Why does Obama so hate the native species?
Hey wait the left wants us to get back to the Earth. Are they implying that we should start being racist?
“But Dr Ben Pitcher, a senior lecturer in sociology at the University of Westminster, claimed the programme’s regular discussions on soil purity and non-native species promoted nationalist and fascist beliefs.”
Racism ex nihilo! Creator du jour: Dr Ben Pitcher!
I suggest reading anything written by retired prison doctor and psychiatrist Anthony Daniels (Theodore Dalrymple, an English writer) to find out how things are working out culture-wise in Britain under elite intelligentsia such as Dr Ben Pitcher.
One example:
“Our Culture, What’s Left of It: The Mandarins and the Masses” by Theodore Dalrymple(a true ACADEMIC)
Thorny multiculturalism is revealed in the chapter “Barbarians At the Gates of Paris”
http://www.amazon.com/Our-Culture-Whats-Left-Mandarins/dp/156663721X
The interview:
http://www.orthodoxytoday.org/articles5/GlazovDalrymple.php
What a strange world.
If Franz Kafka were alive today, would he be considered just a historian?
Seriously, in today’s racially-charged political climate, what avid gardener doesn’t look over his/her shoulder before saying the word “spade” or “hoe”? The hyper-offended have caused more than a few of us I’m sure to substitute the generic term “garden tool” instead.
“The greatest service which can be rendered any country is to add a useful plant to its culture.” ― Thomas Jefferson
And there we have definitive proof that Jefferson was a racist, with his use of words like “service”. Of course he means “slavery”. And by “rendered” he’s obviously foreshadowing “rendition”, but you knew that without my saying.
Finally there’s “culture”, and we all understand what THAT means.
What flowers are those in the garden?
Black Narcissus.
There are no bounds to the idiocy of these people, because they are in a rather pathetic cult of infantile narcissism. They’ll never grow up and face their idiocy.
We need to push them out of the way and relegate them to the cribs they belong in. Put John Boehner and ‘Fail-Rinse-Repeat’ Prebus belong in there with them.