DIARY
DAVID ENGLISH New York Every time I come to the United States, I think of Lord Beaverbrook. He sent me there in my formative years and then sud- denly pulled me out just as I was going native. I was bitterly resentful at the time but I now realise that my old boss, while not necessarily meaning to, actually did me a great favour. But for him, instead of living in a reasonably sane and civilised country, I would probably be a demented citizen of the world's greatest madhouse. For I can- not help thinking that is exactly what the United States currently is. A British friend who has just taken over a top job in a famous company was briefed by staff lawyers and 'Diversity in Employment' counsellors for hours before he was allowed to have any contact with his staff. He must on no account clap a female col- lee on the back and say 'well done'. It mi ght be considered demeaning and by touching a woman he could face a charge of sexual harassment, which might cost him his Job. He could throw his arm around a man and that would be OK — unless of course one or both of them was gay. He should on no account ever compliment a female staff member on her looks or her 'Clothes- That would be highly dangerous. Wehaven't spent all this money head- hunting you from Britain to have you sent back again. So be careful.' He was bemused. But then he came across the first of many examples of the lunacy which is grIPPIng American business.
woman magazine researcher returned to work after a long sick leave. Presumably to build her confidence, she came back exquisitely maquillaged, with a new hairstyle and wearing a 'drop dead, designer outfit. A male colleague sent her a note, complimenting her on looking gor- geous and asking her out to dinner to cele- brate her return. She, outraged, took the note to her supervisor, who reported him for ,'or sexual harassment to the 'conduct' department who are now presumably busy investigating him, while at the same time helping him to write his grovelling apology toII a.1 female members of the staff. These ,self-criticism sessions imposed by the ever- 0_ urgeoning harassment industry have eerily familiar overtones of Chairman Mao s China. A Boston Globe columnist, David NYhan, learning a friend had ceased attend- lug basketball games since getting married, told a colleague, 'Yeah, he's pussy-whipped these days.' This colourful American ver- sion of our phrase 'henpecked' so desper- ately upset a woman who 'accidently' over- he. ard it that she immediately denounced h The paper's Race and Gender depart- ment involved Nyhan in a long self-cnti- cism session to 'help' purge him of sexist thoughts. Only after writing a public apolo- gy and accepting the company's fine of $1,250 (to be given to a woman's charity) was he allowed to keep his job.
Ihave now come to the conclusion that all American men are pussy-whipped. The Wall Street Journal reported this week that such is the strain on men in modern Ameri- can society that more and more are falling prey to anorexia nervosa and bulimia, for- merly thought only to affect women. These are diseases of unhappiness and many American men are deeply unhappy. I am not surprised. I was shocked at dinner with a woman and her husband who have been my friends for many years. She has always seemed full of good-humoured common sense, yet on this occasion uncharacteristi- cally endorsed the current orthodoxy which argues that as many as one in two female children are abused by male relatives. I said this was obvious nonsense and she answered, 'Well, I was certainly sexually abused as a child.' This absolutely shattered me, for we are the kind of friends who have told each other everything about our past lives. So why had she never mentioned this to me in the 30 years we had known earch other? 'Because I did not realise it until recently,' she answered. She had gone to one of the 'recovery memory' seminars for women, which are springing up all over America, and it had become clear to her that a favourite uncle who used to sit her on his lap when she was seven years old had done so to arouse himself sexually. Why hadn't she noticed this at the time? 'Well, I probably did but I suppressed it. I instantly forgot it.' But now the 'recovery memory' sisters had dragged it out of her, I said, she was highly fashionable. She didn't like this remark, nor did her husband who had sat nodding supportively while she had talked. It's all true,' he said aggressively. 'This happens so much more than you imagine.' So what about him? I asked. Had he sexu- ally abused his daughters and nieces when they were young? 'I don't know,' he replied hesitantly. 'But I hope I didn't.' Presumably he will find out soon enough when the next generation of females in his family attend their 'recovery memory' seminars. No one seems to realise how much America is being damaged by this dehumanising Orwellian activity. Everyone seems too brainwashed to complain. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the White House itself, where the incumbent slavishly genu- flects to every nuance of political and sexu- al correctness. But then perhaps fittingly he is probably the most pussy-whipped Ameri- can male of them all.
Dr Leonard Jeffries, the controversial and anti-Semitic black academic, claims that the slave-trade was financed by Jews. This caused a storm of anguish and denial. But nobody says that the whole debate is absurd. Everyone was involved in the slave- trade, the English, French, Portuguese, Spanish, Americans, Dutch, Arabs and the Africans themselves. Some of the Por- tuguese traders were Sephardic Jews. That's history. A black friend listening to this said, 'Yes, that's all very well, but were the Jews more involved than anyone else? That's the real question.' Such attitudes have caused many naive black college stu- dents to believe that only the Jews were involved in slavery. This week a student newspaper produced in New York ran an article by 19-year-old Todd Williams which among other things claimed Jews were 'try- ing to "extinct" blacks out of everything including existence'. The whole of New York's Jewish community rose in fury demanding an apology, which they got frf:—.1. the college but not from Mr Williams. Sig- nificantly, four Jewish youths were attacked by blacks near the campus a few days later.
What has caused America to descend into this snake-pit? I believe it is the hyphen, which seems to have a peculiar malevolence in the United States. Wherev- er it gains ascendancy in American-English, it causes trouble. Child-abuse, date-rape, acquaintance-rape (the hyphen is mandato- ry here) are the foundations on which sexu- al policing was established. And, of course, the hyphen is dominant in ethnic America where race relations have never been worse. There are no longer any unhyphen- ated Americans. They're Italian-Ameri- cans, or Polish-Americans, Jewish-Ameri- cans and Black-Americans. Today there are even Black-Hispanic-Americans. The hyphen is balkanising the United States and triggering an on-going series of ethnic conflicts. I do not believe the First Amend- ment specifically protects it. It should- be banned forthwith in a last-ditch attempt to restore America's mental health.
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