JazzG I haven't read it no, to be honest I don't really care too much about Elon Musk's views
I get it because I don't either, but since you are arguing that allegations of racism are overcooked, you might want to read the type of stuff that is circulating. I found that Dominic Green piece reckless.
The piece treats these two big logical leaps as givens:
- Some Pakistani migrants committed horrible crimes, so horrible crimes are caused by Pakistani migration.
- Some institutions concerned about avoiding racism failed, so institutional failures are caused by concern about avoiding racism.
I am not really exaggerating, these two claims are stated fairly literally in the piece.
The latter conclusions it largely leaves unstated are that Pakistani migration has gone too far and should be stopped, and that "corrupted" institutions should stop being worried about avoiding racism. It also implies that the public—the "we" of its audience—agrees vehemently.
"Pakistani" operates in the piece as what is called a floating signifier. The figure it refers to is roughly the same as the made-up "asylum seeker called Ali al-Shakti" malicious talking heads used to foment white nationalist unrest after the Southport stabbings.
This kind of discourse has no specific concern about Pakistani migration. The idea is to identify an enemy, an outsider or an intruder. The rhetoric thrives on its flexibility—it can always say "Oh I don't mean all [name of enemy] are bad, some of my best friends are [name of enemy], the truth is we need to celebrate some [name of enemy]".
The premise is that serious social problems are being caused by [name of enemy], and will be resolved by the punishment, removal, exclusion or elimination of [name of enemy], with the lens used to name the enemy that of race, religion, nationality, etc.
This is why critical commentaries refer to this kind of public speech as racist. If the response is always to insist it is deeply offensive to call it racist, it's fair to ask what the word "racism" is supposed to be for.
