The Irish city of Cork was recently the site of an "anti-racist" summit, which featured some audacious claims, like: Ireland should be “ashamed as a country” for accommodating more white refugees than black ones; that George Nkencho was shot by Gardaí because “killing a black man is an achievement” in Ireland; and that even poor white people have inherent “white privilege,” Gript Media reported.

The Minister says she "rejects" the comments, but other than that, the response seems to be metaphorical hands-in-pockets and a shrug.

I wonder if a "far-right" event was held in Cork City Hall featuring TDs, Councillors, and the Lord Mayor, if the reaction would be this blasé. https://t.co/jSZlFVepDs

— Ben Scallan 🇮🇪 (@Ben_Scallan) May 31, 2024

On Thursday night's episode of The Ezra Levant Show, Gript reporter Ben Scallan joined the show to provide more insight into this event, and how, years removed from the death of U.S. man George Floyd in police custody, funding is drying up for so-called anti-racist organizations.

One of the speakers at the event, who runs an anti-racist organization, shed an interesting light on how these groups work and how they need to keep people focused on racism or else their funding will dry up:

She said that now, that's massively tapered off because that was several years ago now, the conversation has moved on. And so now, you have to work much harder to keep the funding flowing. She said it's important that we keep racism and anti-racism on the agenda in order to keep, and this was the word she used, in order to keep tendrils going out into society. 

My jaw hit the floor when I heard that. This is really astonishing that what I've been saying for several years now, particularly in the context of, for example, Ireland's hate speech bill, is that there are groups who directly benefit from the perception that a country like Ireland, or like Canada, is a horrible racist country.

The analogy I always make is, if you don't have leaky pipes then you don't need a plumber. And if you don't have a racist society, you don't need professional ant-racist campaigners.

So, it is directly beneficial to an organization that is designed to fight these bogeymen, to say 'oh, Ireland is horrifically racist, there's a rise in hate crime, people are being attacked because of the colour of their skin.' 

And, so, I thought that was a stunning admission on the part of that particular speaker.