“Softly, Softly, Catchee Monkey"—Adrian Davies On "Optics, Ethics, and the Cause"
05/19/2018
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As Hubert Collins notes below, American Renaissance is releasing videos of their recent, successful, conference. This one is by British barrister Adrian Davies, who I believe spends a lot of his time either defending people accused of racism by the authorities, or in the alternative, suing media outlets that randomly accuse people of being Nazis.

The video description says

After the setbacks of 2017, British barrister Adrian Davies says it is time for reflection and analysis. Mr. Davies argues that white advocates must think very seriously about how they present themselves. “We need to inspire and win over the best people in our societies,” says Mr. Davies, “and we are not going to do that by behaving in a fashion that attracts only the mob.”

Mr. Davies warns against the “Marxist fallacy” that history will break our way without anyone taking action or making sacrifices. We must also not make excuses for flawed leaders simply because they have thrust themselves forward.

I laughed when I saw that the title on the American Renaissance conference report was “Softly, Softly, Catchee Monkey: Optics, Ethics, and the Cause.”

“Softly, Softly, Catchee Monkey" is an expression meaning something like "Slow and steady wins the race", with the implication of not frightening the game, and used to be common in Britain.

The point is it sounds racist—it's originally a West African proverb—and thus is not the phrase I personally would have used in a discussion of "optics". But of course, it's for an American Renaissance audience.

World Wide Words says

The phrase was later adopted as the motto of the Lancashire Constabulary’s Training School. It was advice to aspiring police officers that a bull-headed approach wasn’t the best way to nab criminals. This inspired the title of the British television police series, Softly Softly, from 1966 onwards.

Here's Adrian Davies:

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