I’ve finally realised what’s been bugging me when Coldplay’s Chris Martin told to two fans from Israel at a Wembley concert just days ago: “I’m very grateful that you’re here as humans and I’m treating you as equal humans on earth.”

He used the very same language that the US used against its Blacks in the 1950s and 60s. It’s in fact the language that framed its 1788 Constitution that counted Blacks as three-fifths of a person.

What prompted my epiphany is that I’m watching Netflix’s series on Hurricane Katrina that devastated the impoverished Black population of New Orleans. Its impact on me as a White Australian derives because I was there in that city, loving the hospitality of all people of all backgrounds who opened their arms to me just weeks before Katrina hit.

So, I now have a message to all celebrities and artists of all mediums: STOP this language right now. If you have a narcissistic need, seek a psychologist.

In my Australia, the majority of us pride ourselves on acceptance, enshrined in law or not, of all races, colours, creeds, sexual persuasions, abilities and political beliefs. That might be a hard thing for Brits to understand right now in their country being divided by politicians on racial, colour and creed lines for their own gain.

But Downton Abbey’s Hugh Bonneville pushed me over the edge today with vision of his ITV improv interview in Leicester Square, where for no reason he pontificated on “Gaza City”—nothing to do with the artistic celebration for which he was there.

If you do not stop this speech, you will be opening the door to a flood of bigotry that like Lake Pontchartrain will jump its levies from antisemitism to Blacks, to gays, to women, to Asians that will undo 50 years of Equal Opportunity and Anti-discrimination effort the West has purposefully put itself to, in order to make this world a safer, kinder and fairer place.

Stop it now, because as WW2 showed, there is barely a gap between forcing gays and gypsies to wear coloured patches on their concentration camp pyjamas once you start identifying people by a yellow star—or deigning to view them as “human” in 2025.

Do you want to make art that tells the story of the human condition? Then do it, sing it. But if you’re going to stifle who can act, sing, paint, write, rhyme and celebrate in reply—then you are the brain rot of an early 21st century humankind that instead, should be a beacon of hope given the horrors that the 20th left us.

© 2025 Adam Parker.
Picture credit: Captioning and still from video posted by @MacTaskForce on X September 2 2025. Coldplay concert Wembley Stadium UK August 31 2025. Original video source unknown.