Racist insult: Phillip Adams attacks Kamahl

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Just when you thought 2022 had nothing more to offer, along comes Phillip Adams. What a time to live.

The top ABC presenter is a famous atheist, but any other non-believer in the country could be forgiven for instantly getting on their knees to thank the Good Lord for the pompous hypocrisy of his lost sheep this week. Honestly they should charge for the tickets.

For everyone who missed it – which seems like a strangely high number – Adams called legendary Australian singer Kamahl “Honorary White”. He did so publicly, in writing, and directly to Kamahl himself.

Kamahl’s crime was to question Adams’ Twitter tirade against Don Bradman following revelations that he had written a letter to Malcolm Fraser after the 1975 election urging the new Prime Minister to stand up to Socialists and unions.

Given that Bradman was a noted businessman, stockbroker, and conservative, the fact that he was not too fond of socialists and unionists seems hardly surprising. But for a handful of die-hard Whitlamites still recovering from dismissal, it apparently meant The Don was also a white supremacist.

Fittingly, Adams opened the baton at 10:59 a.m. on Boxing Day with a tweet that read, “Bradman refused to meet Mandela?

It came after a 9:03 a.m. response to an earlier Adams post from the cheerfully named user “Poppy Maclean” who said of Bradman: “He refused to meet Nelson Mandela on the grounds that he was a ‘terrorist’. ‘…why do we love men who play with balls?’

A few red flags there. But not enough to prevent Lucky Phil from returning home two hours later. Perhaps he should have waited for a response from a real journalist, cricket podcaster Paul Dennett, who responded to Poppy that afternoon:

“Hi – I didn’t know about this. I can’t find anything on the net but I’m interested. Do you have a link by any chance?”

Spoiler alert: Poppy didn’t and so Paul didn’t run with it, politely noting the lack of, well, anything.

Still, Adams was convinced and Kamahl was confused, responding to his “Bradman refused to meet Mandela?” tweet with this simple question:

“Why do you think Sir Donald Bradman refused to meet Mandela? Why do you think the greatest “spotman” (sic) of all time welcomed me into his home from August 1988 every year, until he left us in 2001? He also left me letters he wrote every year. Why Philip?

Quote tweeting Kamahl’s innocent question so all of his 75,000 followers can see it – rather ironically given that it now appears to have been deleted – Adams replied:

“Obviously, Kamahl, he made you an honorary white man. While one of the most important political figures of the 20th century was deemed unworthy of Bradman’s endorsement.

This is precisely when every sane Aussie will hear in their head the sound of Family Feud’s homemade synthesizer that goes “Wenh-wonh”.

The investigation did not say that Phillip.

As many better reporters than Adams have since effusively told him, his assertion that Bradman refused to meet Mandela is nothing short of bullshit. Its genesis seems to lie in a visit by Mandela to Sydney in 2000 which Bradman, then 92, was too ill to attend. He died five months later.

Instead, Bradman sent a letter and gift presented to the South African hero praising him as “a champion of humanity and a man with compassion for humanity”, according to sports journalist Neil McMahon. Mandela also revered Bradman.

And so, on the facts themselves, it appears Adams is dead wrong and perpetuating what his nemesis Donald Trump would call fake news.

But more illuminating is the absurd sight of a supposedly progressively white man telling a black man who dares to question him that he’s not really black.

Indeed, it’s hard to imagine a meaner, derogatory and racist slur against someone who was truly a dark-skinned pioneer of Australian entertainment and culture when he was predominantly white and suffered a lot of racism and ridicule as a result.

And yet, it is so often the trope of choice for leftist intellectuals and activists when they encounter a person of color who dares to deviate from their worldview. Any black man or woman who succeeds in the world without a radical agenda is characterized as an “uncle Tom”, a “coconut” or, as Adams himself called Kamahl, an “honorary white”.

And if you think this is an isolated incident, just ask conservative Indigenous leaders like Warren Mundine and Jacinta Price about their experiences with so-called tolerant progressives.

Indeed, it is such behavior that often makes me hesitate to call myself a man of the left. What I am, however, is a man of principle. I believe in free speech and I don’t want Phillip Adams canceled, advised, censored or fired.

All I’m asking is that people imagine that what he said, that a black person he disagrees with must be an “honorary white” – a despicable South African term for people of color deemed acceptable to the apartheid regime – was rather said by any non-leftist commentator.

Imagine if that had been said by Piers Morgan or Jeremy Clarkson about Meghan Markle. Imagine if that was said by Alan Jones or Andrew Bolt about anyone. And then imagine the white-hot nuclear attack that would engulf the world.

The silence you hear now is the sound of hypocrisy.

Read related topics:Joe Hildebrand

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