A Cambridge academic was criticised yesterday after he declared he could not bear to live next door to Jamaicans who ‘play reggae music all day’. George Steiner, 79, who is also a novelist, said he believes racism is inherent in everyone and that racial tolerance is merely skin deep. Mr Steiner, whose Jewish family fled to America from Paris before the Nazi invasion of 1940, said: ‘It’s very easy to sit here, in this room, and say “racism is horrible”. ‘But ask me the same thing if a Jamaican family moved next door with six children and they play reggae and rock music all day. ‘Or if an estate agent comes to my house and tells me that because a Jamaican family has moved next door the value of my property has fallen through the floor. Ask me then!’

Mr Steiner, who has been an Extraordinary Fellow at Churchill College, Cambridge since 1969, added: ‘In all of us, in our children, and to maintain our comfort, our survival, if you scratch beneath the surface, many dark areas appear. Don’t forget it.’

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