But who had mentioned Critical Race Theory before you did?
It seems on twitter to be used exclusively as a stick to hit so called "woke" people and woke itself is now used as an insult to dismiss any position or view that people could and should be treated more fairly and with dignity and respect.
CRT is not what most people think about or even have heard about when they oppose racism.
And educating ones self is not "re-education", another loaded dog whistle word.
Deciding someone from the middle East must make his money from a kebab shop isn't a critique of CRT, it just lazy and racist. Whether the person making that "joke" is racist is another question.
I assume that this post is addressed to myself. I shall attempt to address each point.
The OP's post outlined his thinking on the concept of 'white privilege' which is the central tenet of CRT, hence the critique. If you read the post, then you will see that it is the theory which underlies the arguments made.
There is a world of difference between those that believe that 'people could and should be treated more fairly and with dignity and respect' and the woke. The first is a laudable, but suitably vague catch all that few would disagree with. The latter is a self proclaimed anti-racist who also happens to be a credulous, simple minded racist.
Re-education? First mentioned here: 'It begs the question, is it possible to re-educate a racist?' by Algarve. This was what led to my first post - you can see it in the thread.
As far as the original post that sparked all this, I certainly would not choose that hill to die on, as it were. As I said at the time, it was tired and unfunny - in fact it was the first time he posted something similar. Racist, yes probably. Embarrassing? Definitely. I don't know what he was thinking, personally, but people make mistakes. The fact that it clearly bombed and left him looking a tit was punishment enough for me - he humiliated himself and that's got to hurt. In a sensible world, he deletes it and we move on. But this is not a sensible world, obviously. There's outrage to be had and I find that just as tiresome as his original 'joke'. It's like the fuel that powers our brave new world. Some people really seem to thrive on it.
Others see it differently and that's up to them. We are adults; we are allowed to have different opinions, aren't we?
However, I don't get this bit: 'Deciding someone from the middle East must make his money from a kebab shop isn't a critique of CRT, it just lazy and racist. Whether the person making that "joke" is racist is another question'.
Who was doing that? I don't think it was mentioned. There seems to be a bit of confusion in your post.
Still, we can't get everything right all the time. I'm not perfect and clearly you aren't either.
Yet most of the "outrage" was not from people criticising the kebab shop racism but those defending him and his right, and theirs, to tell racist jokes because they always have and because worst things happen in Yemen or knife crime or child abuse, all irrelevant.
The "mock outrage" line along with PC gone mad and now woke are used to close down any discussion on racism and if that fails then there is always some whataboutery
Hopefully nothing bring closed down here, this is a good discussion and I’m glad it’s out in the open.
The crap comments raised after the initial ‘problem’ post are not happening here.
But who had mentioned Critical Race Theory before you did?
It seems on twitter to be used exclusively as a stick to hit so called "woke" people and woke itself is now used as an insult to dismiss any position or view that people could and should be treated more fairly and with dignity and respect.
CRT is not what most people think about or even have heard about when they oppose racism.
And educating ones self is not "re-education", another loaded dog whistle word.
Deciding someone from the middle East must make his money from a kebab shop isn't a critique of CRT, it just lazy and racist. Whether the person making that "joke" is racist is another question.
I assume that this post is addressed to myself. I shall attempt to address each point.
The OP's post outlined his thinking on the concept of 'white privilege' which is the central tenet of CRT, hence the critique. If you read the post, then you will see that it is the theory which underlies the arguments made.
There is a world of difference between those that believe that 'people could and should be treated more fairly and with dignity and respect' and the woke. The first is a laudable, but suitably vague catch all that few would disagree with. The latter is a self proclaimed anti-racist who also happens to be a credulous, simple minded racist.
Re-education? First mentioned here: 'It begs the question, is it possible to re-educate a racist?' by Algarve. This was what led to my first post - you can see it in the thread.
As far as the original post that sparked all this, I certainly would not choose that hill to die on, as it were. As I said at the time, it was tired and unfunny - in fact it was the first time he posted something similar. Racist, yes probably. Embarrassing? Definitely. I don't know what he was thinking, personally, but people make mistakes. The fact that it clearly bombed and left him looking a tit was punishment enough for me - he humiliated himself and that's got to hurt. In a sensible world, he deletes it and we move on. But this is not a sensible world, obviously. There's outrage to be had and I find that just as tiresome as his original 'joke'. It's like the fuel that powers our brave new world. Some people really seem to thrive on it.
Others see it differently and that's up to them. We are adults; we are allowed to have different opinions, aren't we?
However, I don't get this bit: 'Deciding someone from the middle East must make his money from a kebab shop isn't a critique of CRT, it just lazy and racist. Whether the person making that "joke" is racist is another question'.
Who was doing that? I don't think it was mentioned. There seems to be a bit of confusion in your post.
Still, we can't get everything right all the time. I'm not perfect and clearly you aren't either.
Yet most of the "outrage" was not from people criticising the kebab shop racism but those defending him and his right, and theirs, to tell racist jokes because they always have and because worst things happen in Yemen or knife crime or child abuse, all irrelevant.
The "mock outrage" line along with PC gone mad and now woke are used to close down any discussion on racism and if that fails then there is always some whataboutery
Hopefully nothing bring closed down here, this is a good discussion and I’m glad it’s out in the open.
The crap comments raised after the initial ‘problem’ post are not happening here.
I wouldn't disagree with your central point - is it wrong to discriminate due to accidents of birth? Yes, absolutely.
However, deciding whether this has actually happened or not is where the nuance comes in. Especially if you think that for instance, literally everything is racist, or on the other hand, that racism does not exist at all....because this will lead to two opposite outcomes; neither of which is desirable IMHO.
Who makes the call is everything, which is why nothing like this is ever simple.
In science you test a hypothesis with only two possible outcomes; either the hypothesis is supported or not. No need for nuance because the data is all that counts and the answer is clear. Science doesn't care about your opinions or your feelings, which is why it is the most reliable way that we know to get objective answers about the physical world around us.
However, in matters 'social' there can never be such a distinction, which is why when non-scientists talk with absolute certainty they are on very dodgy ground, whether they choose to believe it or not. That is fine, as long as they know the difference between opinion and fact. Wokery has never been strong on this (to put it mildly) as it relies on unquestionable belief - things are true because we say they are. There's a reason they don't like science as it allows questioning, which is verboten in their world. Like I said, it's a religion really.
Wokery is a religion? I'd argue that it's racism that 'relies on unquestionable belief', in this instance that certain races are inferior to white people. And questioning their beliefs is definitely 'verboten' as far as those groups are concerned. My view on anti fascism is an old fashioned one. We fought a war against it. Millions of people of all creeds and colours came together to fight for that cause, and many made the ultimate sacrifice to secure victory over it. For many of us it was our parents' generation, for other our grandparents'. Even before the war there was the 1936 battle of Cable street, where a coalition of Jewish groups and what would now be called 'the far left', teamed up to successfully prevent Oswald Moseley and his British Union of Fascists from intimidating the local community. Literally, anti fascism in action. Or were they denying free speech? In the seventies the Anti Nazi League teamed up with Rock against Racism, to protest and march against the growth of the NF and BNP. Quite a few members of this forum attended that march (and certainly the concert at the end of it, and why not). But in America those who stand up against racist groups and the rise of far right groups, are somehow labelled as terrorists by Trump and his supporters. Again, I might be getting on a bit, but what's changed? How has the term 'anti fascism' be turned into such a negative?
Of course there aren't many genuine out and out fascists in Britain now, as far as I know. But if there were, and they decided to march through Brixton or Southall in order to intimidate the local population, would those who'd organised a protest against that march be ANTIFA terrorists, or would they be acting in the same spirit as 'the heroes of Cable Street? I'm aware that my arguments are perhaps simplistic in a complex world, but it sometimes helps to go back to basic principles and values.
But who had mentioned Critical Race Theory before you did?
It seems on twitter to be used exclusively as a stick to hit so called "woke" people and woke itself is now used as an insult to dismiss any position or view that people could and should be treated more fairly and with dignity and respect.
CRT is not what most people think about or even have heard about when they oppose racism.
And educating ones self is not "re-education", another loaded dog whistle word.
Deciding someone from the middle East must make his money from a kebab shop isn't a critique of CRT, it just lazy and racist. Whether the person making that "joke" is racist is another question.
I assume that this post is addressed to myself. I shall attempt to address each point.
The OP's post outlined his thinking on the concept of 'white privilege' which is the central tenet of CRT, hence the critique. If you read the post, then you will see that it is the theory which underlies the arguments made.
There is a world of difference between those that believe that 'people could and should be treated more fairly and with dignity and respect' and the woke. The first is a laudable, but suitably vague catch all that few would disagree with. The latter is a self proclaimed anti-racist who also happens to be a credulous, simple minded racist.
Re-education? First mentioned here: 'It begs the question, is it possible to re-educate a racist?' by Algarve. This was what led to my first post - you can see it in the thread.
As far as the original post that sparked all this, I certainly would not choose that hill to die on, as it were. As I said at the time, it was tired and unfunny - in fact it was the first time he posted something similar. Racist, yes probably. Embarrassing? Definitely. I don't know what he was thinking, personally, but people make mistakes. The fact that it clearly bombed and left him looking a tit was punishment enough for me - he humiliated himself and that's got to hurt. In a sensible world, he deletes it and we move on. But this is not a sensible world, obviously. There's outrage to be had and I find that just as tiresome as his original 'joke'. It's like the fuel that powers our brave new world. Some people really seem to thrive on it.
Others see it differently and that's up to them. We are adults; we are allowed to have different opinions, aren't we?
However, I don't get this bit: 'Deciding someone from the middle East must make his money from a kebab shop isn't a critique of CRT, it just lazy and racist. Whether the person making that "joke" is racist is another question'.
Who was doing that? I don't think it was mentioned. There seems to be a bit of confusion in your post.
Still, we can't get everything right all the time. I'm not perfect and clearly you aren't either.
Yet most of the "outrage" was not from people criticising the kebab shop racism but those defending him and his right, and theirs, to tell racist jokes because they always have and because worst things happen in Yemen or knife crime or child abuse, all irrelevant.
The "mock outrage" line along with PC gone mad and now woke are used to close down any discussion on racism and if that fails then there is always some whataboutery
There may be a few who were doing that. However, we are overlooking the biggest reason things kicked off on that thread.
It was the day after the takeover. What was meant to be a positive takeover thread soon came to be populated with a outrage competition. Both sides needed to take a day off, or at the very least take it elsewhere but that clearly didn't happen. In the end, against my better judgement, I was eventually guilty of this too; but my severe allergic reaction to over the top virtue signalling tends to do that. The person who first posted the 'joke' buggered off pretty quickly, but the klaxon had already sounded and there was a pretty big queue to get on the outrage bus. I just wrote it off as him being a bit of a nob, but then I'm wired differently, I suppose.
As for definitions, there is another definition of woke that I think is quite near the mark: 'Self interested narcissism dressed up as altruism'. Not least when so many publicly signal their virtue whilst exhibiting the behaviour of sadistic bullies towards anyone who dares question the mindless groupthink. I don't think that happened on the thread in question, btw, but it happens on social media all the time. Have you heard of cancelling?
I respect those that live by the creed that they preach unto others. Those that don't I despise more than anything. Have you ever spoken to members of the dominant group within Momentum, for example? They can't stop going on about how anti-racist they are and spend a lot of time making sure everyone knows it. Change the topic of conversation to Israel, however, and it all falls apart pretty damn quickly.
But who had mentioned Critical Race Theory before you did?
It seems on twitter to be used exclusively as a stick to hit so called "woke" people and woke itself is now used as an insult to dismiss any position or view that people could and should be treated more fairly and with dignity and respect.
CRT is not what most people think about or even have heard about when they oppose racism.
And educating ones self is not "re-education", another loaded dog whistle word.
Deciding someone from the middle East must make his money from a kebab shop isn't a critique of CRT, it just lazy and racist. Whether the person making that "joke" is racist is another question.
I assume that this post is addressed to myself. I shall attempt to address each point.
The OP's post outlined his thinking on the concept of 'white privilege' which is the central tenet of CRT, hence the critique. If you read the post, then you will see that it is the theory which underlies the arguments made.
There is a world of difference between those that believe that 'people could and should be treated more fairly and with dignity and respect' and the woke. The first is a laudable, but suitably vague catch all that few would disagree with. The latter is a self proclaimed anti-racist who also happens to be a credulous, simple minded racist.
Re-education? First mentioned here: 'It begs the question, is it possible to re-educate a racist?' by Algarve. This was what led to my first post - you can see it in the thread.
As far as the original post that sparked all this, I certainly would not choose that hill to die on, as it were. As I said at the time, it was tired and unfunny - in fact it was the first time he posted something similar. Racist, yes probably. Embarrassing? Definitely. I don't know what he was thinking, personally, but people make mistakes. The fact that it clearly bombed and left him looking a tit was punishment enough for me - he humiliated himself and that's got to hurt. In a sensible world, he deletes it and we move on. But this is not a sensible world, obviously. There's outrage to be had and I find that just as tiresome as his original 'joke'. It's like the fuel that powers our brave new world. Some people really seem to thrive on it.
Others see it differently and that's up to them. We are adults; we are allowed to have different opinions, aren't we?
However, I don't get this bit: 'Deciding someone from the middle East must make his money from a kebab shop isn't a critique of CRT, it just lazy and racist. Whether the person making that "joke" is racist is another question'.
Who was doing that? I don't think it was mentioned. There seems to be a bit of confusion in your post.
Still, we can't get everything right all the time. I'm not perfect and clearly you aren't either.
Yet most of the "outrage" was not from people criticising the kebab shop racism but those defending him and his right, and theirs, to tell racist jokes because they always have and because worst things happen in Yemen or knife crime or child abuse, all irrelevant.
The "mock outrage" line along with PC gone mad and now woke are used to close down any discussion on racism and if that fails then there is always some whataboutery
There may be a few who were doing that. However, we are overlooking the biggest reason things kicked off on that thread.
It was the day after the takeover. What was meant to be a positive takeover thread soon came to be populated with a outrage competition. Both sides needed to take a day off, or at the very least take it elsewhere but that clearly didn't happen. In the end, against my better judgement, I was eventually guilty of this too; but my severe allergic reaction to over the top virtue signalling tends to do that. The person who first posted the 'joke' buggered off pretty quickly, but the klaxon had already sounded and there was a pretty big queue to get on the outrage bus. I just wrote it off as him being a bit of a nob, but then I'm wired differently, I suppose.
As for definitions, there is another definition of woke that I think is quite near the mark: 'Self interested narcissism dressed up as altruism'. Not least when so many publicly signal their virtue whilst exhibiting the behaviour of sadistic bullies towards anyone who dares question the mindless groupthink. I don't think that happened on the thread in question, btw, but it happens on social media all the time. Have you heard of cancelling?
I respect those that live by the creed that they preach unto others. Those that don't I despise more than anything. Have you ever spoken to members of the dominant group within Momentum, for example? They can't stop going on about how anti-racist they are and spend a lot of time making sure everyone knows it. Change the topic of conversation to Israel, however, and it all falls apart pretty damn quickly.
Not really sure what your stance on racism is.
You bring up momentum, an organisation which I despise and of have been a vocal critic on here.
But what do you think about Racism?
You quote a very psuedo intellectual definitions of woke which is really lots of right wing buzz words.
But in America those who stand up against racist groups and the rise of far right groups, are somehow labelled as terrorists by Trump and his supporters. Again, I might be getting on a bit, but what's changed? How has the term 'anti fascism' be turned into such a negative?
Because in America, Antifa has decided that anyone to the right of Jeremy Corbyn is actually a fascist (including, for example, the left-wing, Democrat mayor of Portland) and that the entire system in America is racist and white-supremacist, including the police, and a suitable response is to burn down buildings, including, for example, the government offices in Portland, as well as killing and maiming police and other people they choose.
Now, don't get me wrong there are plenty of people on the right in the States who I am no fan of either, but it is undeniable that the vast majority of the violence there in recent times has come from the Antifa-left, the overwhelming majority.
In this way, I would question which side the citizens of Cable Street would be on today.
@bigstemarra You say you find it disturbing when ideological positions are stated as incontrovertible, and decry a lack of nuance, but then go on to define 'the woke' as self proclaimed anti-racists who also happen to be credulous, simple minded racists that don't like science. There are many people who wouldn't see their understanding of the term 'woke' reflected in your definition of the phrase. I'm not sure how you can complain about a lack of nuance when you express yourself in a way that borders on the dogmatic.
I must also admit to being baffled by the science comment. What science is it, specifically, that you think 'the woke' don't like?
But in America those who stand up against racist groups and the rise of far right groups, are somehow labelled as terrorists by Trump and his supporters. Again, I might be getting on a bit, but what's changed? How has the term 'anti fascism' be turned into such a negative?
Because in America, Antifa has decided that anyone to the right of Jeremy Corbyn is actually a fascist (including, for example, the left-wing, Democrat mayor of Portland) and that the entire system in America is racist and white-supremacist, including the police, and a suitable response is to burn down buildings, including, for example, the government offices in Portland, as well as killing and maiming police and other people they choose.
Now, don't get me wrong there are plenty of people on the right in the States who I am no fan of either, but it is undeniable that the vast majority of the violence there in recent times has come from the Antifa-left, the overwhelming majority.
In this way, I would question which side the citizens of Cable Street would be on today.
I think this is deniable, and I'm sure plenty will deny it.
However, what I want to ask is what you mean by Antifa and the Antifa-left? I'm
not sure I understand what that means, from your perspective. For the sake of
clarity, I'm not referring to the etymology, which I do understand.
But in America those who stand up against racist groups and the rise of far right groups, are somehow labelled as terrorists by Trump and his supporters. Again, I might be getting on a bit, but what's changed? How has the term 'anti fascism' be turned into such a negative?
it is undeniable that the vast majority of the violence there in recent times has come from the Antifa-left, the overwhelming majority.
Perhaps this antifa conspiracy stuff should be over on the House of Commons US thread and not on a thread about understanding racism. It's a purely political argument that will get very silly very fast.
In an age when POTUS can refuse to condemn white supremacy, and a white supremacist group are on 'standby' to back him up
I will say that I am no fan of the way that Trump expresses himself quite often, but that is simply not a fair characterisation of what was said last night. He repeatedly did condemn it last night (just has he has repeatedly condemned it throughout his presidency - even going so far as to label the KKK as a terrorist group), but the moderator simply kept asking the same question. This would be frustrating for anyone, particularly someone like Trump.
Also, there is a big question over whether it is fair to see the Proud Boys as white supremacists - annoying, yes, trolls, yes, rather more nationalist than would be my taste, yes, but it is an odd white-supremacist group that routinely denounces white supremacism and whose two leaders are a Cuban and a Chinese American!
Trump certainly does not help, but this is all part of the same 'reds under the bed' style moral panic that insists that racism is everywhere (while happily allowing the left to avoid condemning Antifa - ie the ones responsible for the vast majority of political violence in the US at the minute - because they are 'just an idea' as Biden put it last night, with no further questions).
In what universe is "Antifa" responsible for most political violence in the US today? One far right guy killed in Portland and the guy who did it was shot by the police so had no chance to argue his self-defence case. And lots of property destruction. Which I'll come back to.
Two cops killed in California by far right Boogaloo Bois hoping to spark a second civil war. The guy in Wisconsin whose Mum drove him, armed, across state lines to murder two people and maim a third, all the while unchallenged by the police. And his Mum gets cheered by the Republic Party (which makes me fear the Boogaloo Bois are going to get their wish). The woman killed in Charlottesville when a neo-nazi deliberately crashed his car into a protest against a far-right rally. (There's probably loads more but I haven't got time to look).
The discussion points out that some of those counted as left-wing terror killings (such as the killing of 3 cops in Baton Rouge) had ties to Black Nationalism and far right sovereignty movements. But they still erred on the side of classing this as a left wing attack. It only goes up to May, so misses the action in Portland, but to be honest I don't think people defending their city against the far right is terrorism.
Property destruction - yes, it's bad if your property is destroyed. In my view it's not as bad as murder. But if your community has no power, it's all you've got. Breonna Taylor shot while she slept in Kentucky. The cops were so dumb they raided the wrong house and killed a totally innocent person. Will anything happen to her killers? The authorities have already decided that the worst that will happen is that they'll lose their jobs. As America is so litigious I'm sure some lawyer will go after them for damages pro bono. Now, imagine yourself in the position that someone close to you had been killed by people whose ostensible job is to protect? And those in authority had said there's nothing we're going to do about it. If the justice system says killers don't need to be punished, then why should property be sacred?
And you dare to ask what side the people at Cable Street would have been on? They would have seen the parallels straight away - in many ways what's going on in the US is worse because the fascists in 1936 were only armed with cudgels, the ones in the US have automatic weapons.
But in America those who stand up against racist groups and the rise of far right groups, are somehow labelled as terrorists by Trump and his supporters. Again, I might be getting on a bit, but what's changed? How has the term 'anti fascism' be turned into such a negative?
it is undeniable that the vast majority of the violence there in recent times has come from the Antifa-left, the overwhelming majority.
Perhaps this antifa conspiracy stuff should be over on the House of Commons US thread and not on a thread about understanding racism. It's a purely political argument that will get very silly very fast.
I'm sorry Chunes but if you're going to pretend that Antifa aren't supportive and in co-operation with the same BLM who are carrying out acts of violence on the streets of major USA cities then you are being purposely obtuse. The death of George Floyd was the spark that ignited this unrest, which I might add has not yet been given a shred of evidence to suggest the motivations were racial, yet still has since caused an estimated $1-2BILLION in damages since May, 14,000 arrests for criminal activity, 19 deaths by June, let alone all of the riots since then, 150 injuries to Minnesotan police alone with half reporting PTSD and leaving the force.
I could go on with the figures of violence that are somehow justified by the mainstream due to them being 'socially responsible' reasons to cause utter carnage, but Antifa and BLM in relation to the unrest in USA are two sides of the same coin, make no mistake.
I will take the advice and step away to not derail an important thread, but rananegra several things that you have said are either inaccurate or very mischaracterised. If you really want me to explain my opinion over DM, I will, but you don't need to.
An excellent series of posts on the cusp of being diverted.
Conflation has just arrived. I suspected it was only a matter of time. I am tempted to ask SKC to define his labels but I am not sure an oven ready glib interpretation of others interpretation of anti racism can in any way be reconciled to the peaceful protests of millions who saw a black man die under the knee of a policeman.
I did not believe the stories of the bogeyman is coming to get you when I was a child. Why would I start now? Every society will contain those who will speak and act to the extremes whether it be right or left but to suggest such extremes represent the thinking of mainstream protests is disingenuous.
Such protests speak to the standards of humanity people expect to see in their society. Their politics comes with a small p and seeks to ensure no future society has to face such appalling incidents, effectively conducted in their name, ever again.
I have always viewed commenting on matters of race on the Internet as fraught with too many challenges.
The media is simply too anonymous, too much of a blunt tool to discuss the nuances, while too often pointless in registering genuine debate.
Quite simply I cannot speak to your life experiences and you cannot speak to mine.
So there is a very real tendency for people to merely entrench themselves in their existing beliefs and often end up shouting at each other.
I welcome the debate but even within the many excellent dissertations above the labels abound. Perversely for a tool designed for one to one interaction the internet world is consumed by labels. Labels come from stereotyping.
In matters of discrimination stereotyping is a problem.
The truth is much more basic and crucially (just like Covid 19) much more granular.
Discrimination is in the personal lives of us all. People face discrimination across colour, race, gender, class, education, caste, religion, age, disability, health, country, region, spirituality etc., etc., and even dialect.
How each individual handles any discriminatory experience is not a matter of mindset. You don't have walk into a store to fear being followed or drive a nice car through Doncaster to fear being stopped - it is not a self fulfilling prophecy - it does happen - it will happen.
It is not perception it is reality.
That individuals will respond with different sensitivity does not invalidate the need to educate those responsible for any discriminatory behaviour.
As a full time working bank employee I spent a decade as a Staff Association Representative in the 1980/90s where Equal Opportunities was legislated for, and formally introduced, across the industry.
At a seminar on the career path for women the bank advised in its entire Yorkshire Region there was not a single female manager and just one senior female Appointed Officer. I did not even dare ask the question about Asian or Black Managers.
Ironically within days of returning to my London Branch I received a call from an Association member and former work colleague. He had a problem.
Strangely enough he was Yorkshireman who had transferred to London. His problem was he had learned in his annual assessment by a senior manager he had been marked down, probably missing a promotion opportunity, because his communications skills were deemed unacceptable because of his STRONG YORKSHIRE ACCENT.
It was not a matter of how he perceived his position. It had never even crossed his mind nor to be fair those of 99% of the banks management.
So can we please not dismiss the need to be perceptive in matters of discrimination.
Picking up on people's life experiences I do not think my parents ever sat down and discussed matters of race at any point. Race rarely if ever seemed to even cross their mind.
I have always somewhat arrogantly prided myself, for whatever reason, on seeking to treat others as I would wish to be treated myself. All rather self effacing, I know, to the point "how could anyone take issue with such an approach?"
I have, over recent years, recognised it is now probably not good enough.
It is why, though there is an element of tokenism, I welcome the continued "taking a knee". It keeps the issue within public consciousness and the debate in the public domain.
If we are to move forward such debate is crucial.
The debate is the issues of inherent and institutional racism.
I could probably fill 5 posts on privilege in the USA, the Crow laws, slavery and black history. You will know I spent a decade in Texas, while my daughter, her partner and my grandchildren live in New York.
I greatly enjoyed my time in Texas but there can be no doubt it's society is capable of the very best and very worst of humanity.
So no I do not need to speak to other people's definitions, theories or positioning and to be honest I am not even sure I understand what half of them represent.
I will confine myself to just one touch point which for me expresses the starting point for change.
On the matter of protests and taking a knee, a well known and well respected NFL Quarterback by the name of Drew Brees of the New Orleans Saints criticised and advised he would not support the taking of a knee.
He was instantly called out by playing colleagues both black and white for his position arguing he was ill informed and mistaken in his view,
A day later he apologised and withdrew his earlier comments.
He had to concede in over 20yrs of sharing a locker room with playing colleagues 60/70% of whom were black he had never once sat down with any one of them and talked through their life experiences. The life experiences they had grown up with and the experiences many of their families, friends and old neighbourhoods still lived with each and every day.
It had never crossed his mind. He had simply been too busy either consciously or subconsciously looking the other way.
It was an omission he pledged to address and support across society.
One outcome is the campaign to encourage black communities to vote.
Maybe we should reflect it was only in 1965 the Voting Rights Act was passed in the USA finally removing the remaining barriers many US southern states had created to block black voters.
I can relate to the Brees experience. Walking into Texas society from the UK so many things stood out but to those who lived and grown up in such society it was the way things had always been.
i could go to my office of an international company and talk to 12 nationalities who saw the same things yet they did not register at the local barbers when talking with local Texans, caucasion and Mexican who had never left Texas.
Different worlds 20 minutes apart.
So it is the personal debate I seek to understand. It is such dialogue that needs to be held a hundred, a thousand, a million times over and over again.
Not for my benefit, not for your benefit, I am and you are already "coloured" by the experiences of life, but for the future of my grandchildren.
My two beautiful young granddaughters girls live in a vibrant multi racial community and are of mixed race.
Whats that? Do I see a label emerging?
You may not personally believe there is any need for such debate, you may not believe there is an issue, you may simply have better things to do.
That is your prerogative. We all have the right to hide in the enclave of our own thinking but we live in a multi racial world and arguably the influence of Western Europeans over that world which have ridden high for several centuries will continue to increasingly diminish.
I perceive we have a duty of care to future generations to break down the barriers that divide.
Another good post from @Grapevine49 and yes, I have read it all. On the side issue about accents was it George Bernard Shaw who said 'it only takes one (Englishman?) to speak for another (Englishman) to despise him?
Gillis, fair point; I should have taken note of Hanlon's Razor when criticising wokery; the motivations of some will of course be benign, they do not realise that they are actually defending racism in the form of CRT. 'Blame everything on whitey' might seem like a simplistic solution to the world's problems, but is it going to get us anywhere positive? We have already seen a tidal wave of violence as a result; it is simple incitement to racial hatred. I believe that society must be united to to truly progress, but identity politics is in the ascendancy now and we are all to be put in boxes and prioritise what it is that separates us rather than concentrating on what unites us, which I deplore (I'm sure Grapevine put it more eloquently above).
As for why science is disliked by the woke; I think it's because the majority of advancements and discoveries that have given us the modern world were by white men. And they're bad.
But who had mentioned Critical Race Theory before you did?
It seems on twitter to be used exclusively as a stick to hit so called "woke" people and woke itself is now used as an insult to dismiss any position or view that people could and should be treated more fairly and with dignity and respect.
CRT is not what most people think about or even have heard about when they oppose racism.
And educating ones self is not "re-education", another loaded dog whistle word.
Deciding someone from the middle East must make his money from a kebab shop isn't a critique of CRT, it just lazy and racist. Whether the person making that "joke" is racist is another question.
I assume that this post is addressed to myself. I shall attempt to address each point.
The OP's post outlined his thinking on the concept of 'white privilege' which is the central tenet of CRT, hence the critique. If you read the post, then you will see that it is the theory which underlies the arguments made.
There is a world of difference between those that believe that 'people could and should be treated more fairly and with dignity and respect' and the woke. The first is a laudable, but suitably vague catch all that few would disagree with. The latter is a self proclaimed anti-racist who also happens to be a credulous, simple minded racist.
Re-education? First mentioned here: 'It begs the question, is it possible to re-educate a racist?' by Algarve. This was what led to my first post - you can see it in the thread.
As far as the original post that sparked all this, I certainly would not choose that hill to die on, as it were. As I said at the time, it was tired and unfunny - in fact it was the first time he posted something similar. Racist, yes probably. Embarrassing? Definitely. I don't know what he was thinking, personally, but people make mistakes. The fact that it clearly bombed and left him looking a tit was punishment enough for me - he humiliated himself and that's got to hurt. In a sensible world, he deletes it and we move on. But this is not a sensible world, obviously. There's outrage to be had and I find that just as tiresome as his original 'joke'. It's like the fuel that powers our brave new world. Some people really seem to thrive on it.
Others see it differently and that's up to them. We are adults; we are allowed to have different opinions, aren't we?
However, I don't get this bit: 'Deciding someone from the middle East must make his money from a kebab shop isn't a critique of CRT, it just lazy and racist. Whether the person making that "joke" is racist is another question'.
Who was doing that? I don't think it was mentioned. There seems to be a bit of confusion in your post.
Still, we can't get everything right all the time. I'm not perfect and clearly you aren't either.
Yet most of the "outrage" was not from people criticising the kebab shop racism but those defending him and his right, and theirs, to tell racist jokes because they always have and because worst things happen in Yemen or knife crime or child abuse, all irrelevant.
The "mock outrage" line along with PC gone mad and now woke are used to close down any discussion on racism and if that fails then there is always some whataboutery
There may be a few who were doing that. However, we are overlooking the biggest reason things kicked off on that thread.
It was the day after the takeover. What was meant to be a positive takeover thread soon came to be populated with a outrage competition. Both sides needed to take a day off, or at the very least take it elsewhere but that clearly didn't happen. In the end, against my better judgement, I was eventually guilty of this too; but my severe allergic reaction to over the top virtue signalling tends to do that. The person who first posted the 'joke' buggered off pretty quickly, but the klaxon had already sounded and there was a pretty big queue to get on the outrage bus. I just wrote it off as him being a bit of a nob, but then I'm wired differently, I suppose.
As for definitions, there is another definition of woke that I think is quite near the mark: 'Self interested narcissism dressed up as altruism'. Not least when so many publicly signal their virtue whilst exhibiting the behaviour of sadistic bullies towards anyone who dares question the mindless groupthink. I don't think that happened on the thread in question, btw, but it happens on social media all the time. Have you heard of cancelling?
I respect those that live by the creed that they preach unto others. Those that don't I despise more than anything. Have you ever spoken to members of the dominant group within Momentum, for example? They can't stop going on about how anti-racist they are and spend a lot of time making sure everyone knows it. Change the topic of conversation to Israel, however, and it all falls apart pretty damn quickly.
Not really sure what your stance on racism is.
You bring up momentum, an organisation which I despise and of have been a vocal critic on here.
But what do you think about Racism?
You quote a very psuedo intellectual definitions of woke which is really lots of right wing buzz words.
God, I cannot help but be dragged back into this! I promise I will step away.
Your post is incredibly lucid and thought-provoking Grapevine49, but the Drew Brees case is an interesting one. He said that he was well aware that many black people in America had serious problems (indeed he does regular charity work to try and help deprived communities), he was well aware that there were high profile cases of alleged police malpractice and some of them might indeed be so, but he was also aware that the police had a hugely difficult and dangerous job to do, and that many police are killed each year so the dangers are real, also (more importantly than anything else to him) he felt that members of his family and died to defend his country's flag so he would not participate in a protest based around that flag and the national anthem.
So, the question is: in what sense was he actually "ill informed and mistaken", as opposed to being as aware of the facts as people can reasonably be expected to be, and simply taking a different view based on those facts and his own priorities, before later being forced to recant his wrongthink?
Also, I would certainly not say that voter suppression in America never happens, I am sure it does to all communities, but the the black community in America is the one that has the very highest percentage of voters. Far from routinely not having their voices not heard through the ballot box, Black people vote disproportionately more than anyone else in the country.
I thought the opening post of this thread by @Iceman was excellent, I learned a thing or two from it and it provided a perspective to me that wouldn't otherwise be available.
What has happened over the last couple of pages has been equally eye-opening.
Some really interesting posts on here, but also perfectly highlights the problems.
I think that the issue is that you can agree with someone on 90% of race issues (be you a foaming at the mouth racist or the worst of the wokies) but the remaining 10% can lead to huge arguments.
As such, I am not surprised that the debate is becoming more and more polarised, with people congregating around pretty worrying extremes. Obviously your "side" isn't the "extreme one" don't worry, I'm talking about the other lot.
You can have it hinted you are a racist for disliking someone who is black, or called woke for believing in equal rights. Both are tactics to shut the other side down.
I don't think things are moving forward anywhere near as much as people would like to think, all that's happened is that the volume has been turned up, a lot, but a lot of people will just be quiet, which to many might be good, but you won't change their views. Racism is a war of hearts and minds. I don't think anyone ever forcibly had their minds changed...
I think the line about "do you think you are treated differently as a football fan?" above would probably have done more to change one person's mind than most of anything else I've seen to be honest. You change people's minds by relating to them.
I've been reading this thread with interest and many of the views expressed. Think I will make one last post then let it run its course!
There have been a few that have questioned white privilege. I understand that it is difficult to come to terms with and one that people would like to not exist. Maybe the terminology is uncomfortable. However, it is not a concept or theory - it is a reality. That is not to say that there are other groups, such as those with a disability, that don't get discriminated against too. But they are two separate things. A black person raising the issues they face is not saying that others don't have their own problems or that those problems are less important.
There have also been some criticism of the Black Lives Matter movement. I hear the "defunding the police argument" all the time. I don't agree with the defunding statement and I think they made a mistake with that. However, I often don't understand why someone's first position is to raise that. Do you make a decision on a movement based on one element? I have sadly never heard someone say "I really agree with most of what BLM stand for, but I don't agree with defunding the police". The defunding is simply used as an argument to dismiss the whole movement, which is saddening as I would have thought the basic principle of BLM is difficult to argue with. Do people agree with 100% of the policies that the political party they align to put in place? I find that unlikely, but doesn't mean they can't still vote for them.
It's very easy to say that we all should just unite and stop all of the different fractions and identity politics. When I say it is easy to raise that as an argument, it is if you naturally align to the side which is less discriminated against. BLM and other similar concepts are not there to create a divide - it is there to raise the issues and hope that it drives actions for change. There is not one person who wouldn't love for BLM to not need to exist. But how many people in the UK would have heard of Breonna Taylor if the protests and BLM didn't exist. The answer is nobody, because there are hundreds of unknown individuals before her that have faced a similar fate without coverage. Some people would prefer to not acknowledge or accept that discrimination happens against black people. That is a choice you can make if it helps cement your position.
The other area I wanted to address was work policies and individuals being progressed because of their race. I could talk for hours on this, which I do for a living! For every example you give me of someone who has been promoted because they are black, I would be able to give you 50 examples of someone who has been promoted because they are not black. This is clearly shown in the individuals that occupy senior positions in companies around the UK, and promotion / progression data. I can tell you now, the % of companies that have a higher rate of black people being promoted compared to non-black people is almost non-existent. But when people do see it happen the other way around, they feel threatened by it.
When companies put networks / initiatives in place to support BAME individuals, it is there to try and bridge the gap and create "equity". It hasn't yet created equality. So rest assured and to put minds at ease, if you are white, you are still far more likely to progress.
Just to give two examples of why they exist. The company I work with has 17,000 employees. Of those, we have nearly 800 partners. How many are black? Three. And we are ahead of a lot of organisations. When we recruit someone straight from school or university who is black, they look up and see nobody like them. So why would they be any different to the hundreds of black people that have tried to get there before them? We have to create initiatives to give them access to the few senior black people we have to help them aspire, and we have to increase the number of black partners to show it is possible.
Second example is from my Muslim colleagues. How many of us have built relationships and developed opportunities for ourselves down the pub? What % of team socials involve drinking alcohol? For my Muslim friends, all of those events are off-limits and they are almost never considered. So we need to create separate opportunities for them to network and have 1-on-1 time with senior leaders, which others are getting informally down the pub. It is not designed to discriminate against non-Muslims. It is designed to create equity.
There is a lot of good debate on here and a lot of differing views. I'm pleased it has provoked thought and, in the main, sensible and progressive conversations.
Thanks @Iceman for the balanced and fair reply. I'll just drop a few responses below just in the spirit of discussion:
To me, 'white privilege' is a segregationist term. And also one I don't fully understand when used in the UK. In both USA and UK, Asian minority groups tend to out-perform white people on average by quite a margin by most measures of success. Income, family stability, generational wealth among others. The version of 'white privilege' that says this is solely down to 'everybody will face challenges, but your race isn't one of them', if that's all it happens to be then that's a hard position to change as this is solely down to individuals impression and their own desire in how they treat people. I think a more inclusive way to do this would be to discuss class privilege, both-parent-privilege(which happens to be #1 marker for future success) among others which doesn't alienate one race and of-course, would put them on the defensive.
For BLM, their original about us page included statements such as 'disrupting the Western nuclear family', combined with the defunding the police, not to mention the Ted talk easily avilable on Youtube where 2/3 founders of BLM confess to being trained marxists organisers. These fundamental values of the organisation directly conflict with many values that I hold dear, as such I oppose the organisation completely. For those who choose to conflate this with being racist are simply being intellectually dishonest.
In regards to the promotions and progressions, I understand the viewpoint but I can't look beyond the gap that merit should be king. And if merit isn't king, there needs to be tangible evidence as to why. To make any decision based on skin colour alone is simply racist and should be stamped out of any organisation. A better approach would be to simply introduce metric-based performance analysis to justify the positions of promotion if the stats aren't 'equal'.
As for the anecdotal reference of the amount of POC, I'd assume that varies based on the industry, I work in I.T. and as such am in a majority-Asian enivronment, I don't see the lack of white coverage to be racism against white I.T. professionals, I just see my colleagues around me with bags of talent, regardless of their birthplace.
In summary, I don't think we're too far apart in our worldviews. I personally want to be part of a society where people aren't viewed primarily by their primary characteristics. I don't see myself as a white man, I'm just a man. And if I go up against another capable man or woman for a job, I'd want that job to be granted firmly on merit. Not in favour or in opposition of my skin colour. That's why I oppose so much of the rhetoric, I believe we all want the same end-results of equality, I just think the route many of these organisations are taking are doing more to divide us that to unite.
Thanks @Vfrf, some interesting points made. I will respond on a couple, given they were questions directed at me.
I am interested in your statement that Asian minority groups tend to outperform white people by quite a margin in the UK, as I do not believe that at all to be the case. Just look at the Board of Directors of the FTSE100 companies and you will be able to see their representation (not saying that is the ultimate measure of success). Just wonder where your statement on this comes from? I would suggest that a lot of the success stories from Asian minority groups are within family-owned firms which they have developed themselves and earned wealth, rather than being promoted in a public or private sector setting. They have created their own success here, rather than being preferred over others in a competitive environment. That's slightly different.
I get your point on class privilege / parent privilege. However, are you suggesting that a white person and black person from exactly the same class / parental background would be afforded exactly the same opportunities in the UK? I believe the answer would be "no", which is why we can't use that as a foundation. However, I agree that social mobility across all races is vital and companies should do more to promote opportunities to all people from less advantaged backgrounds.
I think we could go around in circles on the promotion point, but this is a scenario I would pose to you. A company has a workforce that is 10% black. But each year, only 2% of the promotions awarded are to black people. Are to we always just assume that it is because the black employees are simply less capable and that the process is fair, or should there be a review and discussion around why there could possibly be those discrepancies? Almost all companies will have metrics and criteria for promotion already, but there are still huge discrepancies. To me, that means you have to try and understand why those exist and how you can support all races progressing evenly. It is pretty much UK-wide in every firm that statistics like those exist, and I will not accept that it is purely because black people are always the less capable individuals. It's not about promoting them even if they don't merit it - it's about understanding why more black people don't merit promotions than others and putting in place targeted interventions to improve their skills. Or, possibly, changing the perception that they don't merit it when in actual fact, they do.
Thanks @Iceman for the balanced and fair reply. I'll just drop a few responses below just in the spirit of discussion:
To me, 'white privilege' is a segregationist term. And also one I don't fully understand when used in the UK. In both USA and UK, Asian minority groups tend to out-perform white people on average by quite a margin by most measures of success. Income, family stability, generational wealth among others. The version of 'white privilege' that says this is solely down to 'everybody will face challenges, but your race isn't one of them', if that's all it happens to be then that's a hard position to change as this is solely down dividuals impressito inon and their own desire in how they treat people. I think a more inclusive way to do this would be to discuss class privilege, both-parent-privilege(which happens to be #1 marker for future success) among others which doesn't alienate one race and of-course, would put them on the defensive.
For BLM, their original about us page included statements such as 'disrupting the Western nuclear family', combined with the defunding the police, not to mention the Ted talk easily
In regards to the promo avilable on Youtube where 2/3 founders of BLM confess to being trained marxists organisers. These fundamental values of the organisation directly conflict with many values that I hold dear, as such I oppose the organisation completely. For those who choose to conflate this with being racist are simply being intellectually dishonest.tions and progressions, I understand the viewpoint but I can't look beyond the gap that merit should be king. And if merit isn't king, there needs to be tangible evidence as to why. To make any decision based on skin colour alone is simply racist and should be stamped out of any organisation. A better approach would be to simply introduce metric-based performance analysis to justify the positions of promotion if the stats aren't 'equal'.
As for the anecdotal reference of the amount of POC, I'd assume that varies based on the industry, I work in I.T. and as such am in a majority-Asian enivronment, I don't see the lack of white coverage to be racism against white I.T. professionals, I just see my colleagues around me with bags of talent, regardless of their birthplace.
In summary, I don't think we're too far apart in our worldviews. I personally want to be part of a society where people aren't viewed primarily by their primary characteristics. I don't see myself as a white man, I'm just a man. And if I go up against another capable man or woman for a job, I'd want that job to be granted firmly on merit. Not in favour or in opposition of my skin colour. That's why I oppose so much of the rhetoric, I believe we all want the same end-results of equality, I just think the route many of these organisations are taking are doing more to divide us that to unite.
I think it's worth noting when you refer to Asian minority groups performing better than white people on average you are referring to East Asians. It is also worth noting in the US these people are labelled as a model minority and hence don't have access to a lot of policies aimed at other minority groups in the country. This is not the case in the UK but from experience it seems there is currently a much better assimilation of Eastern Asians in the US than the UK. As a white person who studied in America I can tell you right now I was treated way better than any other racial group - My Trinidadian cousin who also studies in the states has some horror stories whereas I received nothing but nicety largely as I was British. The same happened to me in China - I was treated like a celebrity because of the colour of my skin - positive racism if you will.
Whilst East Asians perform better on these measures in the UK than white people on average they are still heavily discriminated against. My partner is from Hong Kong and she regularly suffers overt racial abuse in day to day activities be it in the workplace or watching Charlton down the Valley. I personally have never had to deal with any of this.
I second what Iceman said regarding social class. I grew up in a working class family to a single parent on benefits but was lucky to be given countless opportunities to prove myself and change that. Thanks to the way the UK system is set up I attended good universities in the UK and US. Even at my university alone when deciding on exchange placements - they gave myself a good school and then a black friend who had the same grade a school in St Louis - despite the British association for coloured people advising against travel to that area for people of colour at the time. When this was brought up - the white professor with white children stated it's fine and he'd happily send his children there. Class privilege without doubt exists but so does race privilege.
Comments
The crap comments raised after the initial ‘problem’ post are not happening here.
My view on anti fascism is an old fashioned one. We fought a war against it. Millions of people of all creeds and colours came together to fight for that cause, and many made the ultimate sacrifice to secure victory over it. For many of us it was our parents' generation, for other our grandparents'.
Even before the war there was the 1936 battle of Cable street, where a coalition of Jewish groups and what would now be called 'the far left', teamed up to successfully prevent Oswald Moseley and his British Union of Fascists from intimidating the local community. Literally, anti fascism in action. Or were they denying free speech?
In the seventies the Anti Nazi League teamed up with Rock against Racism, to protest and march against the growth of the NF and BNP. Quite a few members of this forum attended that march (and certainly the concert at the end of it, and why not).
But in America those who stand up against racist groups and the rise of far right groups, are somehow labelled as terrorists by Trump and his supporters. Again, I might be getting on a bit, but what's changed? How has the term 'anti fascism' be turned into such a negative?
Of course there aren't many genuine out and out fascists in Britain now, as far as I know. But if there were, and they decided to march through Brixton or Southall in order to intimidate the local population, would those who'd organised a protest against that march be ANTIFA terrorists, or would they be acting in the same spirit as 'the heroes of Cable Street?
I'm aware that my arguments are perhaps simplistic in a complex world, but it sometimes helps to go back to basic principles and values.
It was the day after the takeover. What was meant to be a positive takeover thread soon came to be populated with a outrage competition. Both sides needed to take a day off, or at the very least take it elsewhere but that clearly didn't happen. In the end, against my better judgement, I was eventually guilty of this too; but my severe allergic reaction to over the top virtue signalling tends to do that. The person who first posted the 'joke' buggered off pretty quickly, but the klaxon had already sounded and there was a pretty big queue to get on the outrage bus. I just wrote it off as him being a bit of a nob, but then I'm wired differently, I suppose.
As for definitions, there is another definition of woke that I think is quite near the mark: 'Self interested narcissism dressed up as altruism'. Not least when so many publicly signal their virtue whilst exhibiting the behaviour of sadistic bullies towards anyone who dares question the mindless groupthink. I don't think that happened on the thread in question, btw, but it happens on social media all the time. Have you heard of cancelling?
I respect those that live by the creed that they preach unto others. Those that don't I despise more than anything. Have you ever spoken to members of the dominant group within Momentum, for example? They can't stop going on about how anti-racist they are and spend a lot of time making sure everyone knows it. Change the topic of conversation to Israel, however, and it all falls apart pretty damn quickly.
Not really sure what your stance on racism is.
You bring up momentum, an organisation which I despise and of have been a vocal critic on here.
But what do you think about Racism?
You quote a very psuedo intellectual definitions of woke which is really lots of right wing buzz words.
But where do you stand on racism?
I must also admit to being baffled by the science comment. What science is it, specifically, that you think 'the woke' don't like?
I think this is deniable, and I'm sure plenty will deny it. However, what I want to ask is what you mean by Antifa and the Antifa-left? I'm not sure I understand what that means, from your perspective. For the sake of clarity, I'm not referring to the etymology, which I do understand.
One far right guy killed in Portland and the guy who did it was shot by the police so had no chance to argue his self-defence case. And lots of property destruction. Which I'll come back to.
Two cops killed in California by far right Boogaloo Bois hoping to spark a second civil war.
The guy in Wisconsin whose Mum drove him, armed, across state lines to murder two people and maim a third, all the while unchallenged by the police. And his Mum gets cheered by the Republic Party (which makes me fear the Boogaloo Bois are going to get their wish).
The woman killed in Charlottesville when a neo-nazi deliberately crashed his car into a protest against a far-right rally. (There's probably loads more but I haven't got time to look).
There's a roundup of this (for science people, it even contains a reference to the methodology used) here https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jul/27/us-rightwing-extremists-attacks-deaths-database-leftwing-antifa
The discussion points out that some of those counted as left-wing terror killings (such as the killing of 3 cops in Baton Rouge) had ties to Black Nationalism and far right sovereignty movements. But they still erred on the side of classing this as a left wing attack. It only goes up to May, so misses the action in Portland, but to be honest I don't think people defending their city against the far right is terrorism.
Property destruction - yes, it's bad if your property is destroyed. In my view it's not as bad as murder. But if your community has no power, it's all you've got. Breonna Taylor shot while she slept in Kentucky. The cops were so dumb they raided the wrong house and killed a totally innocent person. Will anything happen to her killers? The authorities have already decided that the worst that will happen is that they'll lose their jobs. As America is so litigious I'm sure some lawyer will go after them for damages pro bono. Now, imagine yourself in the position that someone close to you had been killed by people whose ostensible job is to protect? And those in authority had said there's nothing we're going to do about it. If the justice system says killers don't need to be punished, then why should property be sacred?
And you dare to ask what side the people at Cable Street would have been on? They would have seen the parallels straight away - in many ways what's going on in the US is worse because the fascists in 1936 were only armed with cudgels, the ones in the US have automatic weapons.
Conflation has just arrived. I suspected it was only a matter of time. I am tempted to ask SKC to define his labels but I am not sure an oven ready glib interpretation of others interpretation of anti racism can in any way be reconciled to the peaceful protests of millions who saw a black man die under the knee of a policeman.
I did not believe the stories of the bogeyman is coming to get you when I was a child. Why would I start now? Every society will contain those who will speak and act to the extremes whether it be right or left but to suggest such extremes represent the thinking of mainstream protests is disingenuous.
Such protests speak to the standards of humanity people expect to see in their society. Their politics comes with a small p and seeks to ensure no future society has to face such appalling incidents, effectively conducted in their name, ever again.
The media is simply too anonymous, too much of a blunt tool to discuss the nuances, while too often pointless in registering genuine debate.
So there is a very real tendency for people to merely entrench themselves in their existing beliefs and often end up shouting at each other.
I welcome the debate but even within the many excellent dissertations above the labels abound. Perversely for a tool designed for one to one interaction the internet world is consumed by labels. Labels come from stereotyping.
In matters of discrimination stereotyping is a problem.
The truth is much more basic and crucially (just like Covid 19) much more granular.
Discrimination is in the personal lives of us all. People face discrimination across colour, race, gender, class, education, caste, religion, age, disability, health, country, region, spirituality etc., etc., and even dialect.
How each individual handles any discriminatory experience is not a matter of mindset. You don't have walk into a store to fear being followed or drive a nice car through Doncaster to fear being stopped - it is not a self fulfilling prophecy - it does happen - it will happen.
It is not perception it is reality.
That individuals will respond with different sensitivity does not invalidate the need to educate those responsible for any discriminatory behaviour.
As a full time working bank employee I spent a decade as a Staff Association Representative in the 1980/90s where Equal Opportunities was legislated for, and formally introduced, across the industry.
At a seminar on the career path for women the bank advised in its entire Yorkshire Region there was not a single female manager and just one senior female Appointed Officer. I did not even dare ask the question about Asian or Black Managers.
Ironically within days of returning to my London Branch I received a call from an Association member and former work colleague. He had a problem.
Strangely enough he was Yorkshireman who had transferred to London. His problem was he had learned in his annual assessment by a senior manager he had been marked down, probably missing a promotion opportunity, because his communications skills were deemed unacceptable because of his STRONG YORKSHIRE ACCENT.
It was not a matter of how he perceived his position. It had never even crossed his mind nor to be fair those of 99% of the banks management.
So can we please not dismiss the need to be perceptive in matters of discrimination.
Picking up on people's life experiences I do not think my parents ever sat down and discussed matters of race at any point. Race rarely if ever seemed to even cross their mind.
I have always somewhat arrogantly prided myself, for whatever reason, on seeking to treat others as I would wish to be treated myself. All rather self effacing, I know, to the point "how could anyone take issue with such an approach?"
I have, over recent years, recognised it is now probably not good enough.
It is why, though there is an element of tokenism, I welcome the continued "taking a knee". It keeps the issue within public consciousness and the debate in the public domain.
If we are to move forward such debate is crucial.
I could probably fill 5 posts on privilege in the USA, the Crow laws, slavery and black history. You will know I spent a decade in Texas, while my daughter, her partner and my grandchildren live in New York.
I greatly enjoyed my time in Texas but there can be no doubt it's society is capable of the very best and very worst of humanity.
So no I do not need to speak to other people's definitions, theories or positioning and to be honest I am not even sure I understand what half of them represent.
I will confine myself to just one touch point which for me expresses the starting point for change.
On the matter of protests and taking a knee, a well known and well respected NFL Quarterback by the name of Drew Brees of the New Orleans Saints criticised and advised he would not support the taking of a knee.
He was instantly called out by playing colleagues both black and white for his position arguing he was ill informed and mistaken in his view,
A day later he apologised and withdrew his earlier comments.
He had to concede in over 20yrs of sharing a locker room with playing colleagues 60/70% of whom were black he had never once sat down with any one of them and talked through their life experiences. The life experiences they had grown up with and the experiences many of their families, friends and old neighbourhoods still lived with each and every day.
It had never crossed his mind. He had simply been too busy either consciously or subconsciously looking the other way.
It was an omission he pledged to address and support across society.
One outcome is the campaign to encourage black communities to vote.
Maybe we should reflect it was only in 1965 the Voting Rights Act was passed in the USA finally removing the remaining barriers many US southern states had created to block black voters.
I can relate to the Brees experience. Walking into Texas society from the UK so many things stood out but to those who lived and grown up in such society it was the way things had always been.
i could go to my office of an international company and talk to 12 nationalities who saw the same things yet they did not register at the local barbers when talking with local Texans, caucasion and Mexican who had never left Texas.
Different worlds 20 minutes apart.
So it is the personal debate I seek to understand. It is such dialogue that needs to be held a hundred, a thousand, a million times over and over again.
Not for my benefit, not for your benefit, I am and you are already "coloured" by the experiences of life, but for the future of my grandchildren.
My two beautiful young granddaughters girls live in a vibrant multi racial community and are of mixed race.
Whats that? Do I see a label emerging?
You may not personally believe there is any need for such debate, you may not believe there is an issue, you may simply have better things to do.
That is your prerogative. We all have the right to hide in the enclave of our own thinking but we live in a multi racial world and arguably the influence of Western Europeans over that world which have ridden high for several centuries will continue to increasingly diminish.
I perceive we have a duty of care to future generations to break down the barriers that divide.
When good men doing nothing........
On the side issue about accents was it George Bernard Shaw who said 'it only takes one (Englishman?) to speak for another (Englishman) to despise him?
As for why science is disliked by the woke; I think it's because the majority of advancements and discoveries that have given us the modern world were by white men. And they're bad.
Can't you read?
Lets all try to play the ball.
The issues are the focus surely?
What has happened over the last couple of pages has been equally eye-opening.
I think that the issue is that you can agree with someone on 90% of race issues (be you a foaming at the mouth racist or the worst of the wokies) but the remaining 10% can lead to huge arguments.
As such, I am not surprised that the debate is becoming more and more polarised, with people congregating around pretty worrying extremes. Obviously your "side" isn't the "extreme one" don't worry, I'm talking about the other lot.
You can have it hinted you are a racist for disliking someone who is black, or called woke for believing in equal rights. Both are tactics to shut the other side down.
I don't think things are moving forward anywhere near as much as people would like to think, all that's happened is that the volume has been turned up, a lot, but a lot of people will just be quiet, which to many might be good, but you won't change their views. Racism is a war of hearts and minds. I don't think anyone ever forcibly had their minds changed...
I think the line about "do you think you are treated differently as a football fan?" above would probably have done more to change one person's mind than most of anything else I've seen to be honest. You change people's minds by relating to them.
There have been a few that have questioned white privilege. I understand that it is difficult to come to terms with and one that people would like to not exist. Maybe the terminology is uncomfortable. However, it is not a concept or theory - it is a reality. That is not to say that there are other groups, such as those with a disability, that don't get discriminated against too. But they are two separate things. A black person raising the issues they face is not saying that others don't have their own problems or that those problems are less important.
There have also been some criticism of the Black Lives Matter movement. I hear the "defunding the police argument" all the time. I don't agree with the defunding statement and I think they made a mistake with that. However, I often don't understand why someone's first position is to raise that. Do you make a decision on a movement based on one element? I have sadly never heard someone say "I really agree with most of what BLM stand for, but I don't agree with defunding the police". The defunding is simply used as an argument to dismiss the whole movement, which is saddening as I would have thought the basic principle of BLM is difficult to argue with. Do people agree with 100% of the policies that the political party they align to put in place? I find that unlikely, but doesn't mean they can't still vote for them.
It's very easy to say that we all should just unite and stop all of the different fractions and identity politics. When I say it is easy to raise that as an argument, it is if you naturally align to the side which is less discriminated against. BLM and other similar concepts are not there to create a divide - it is there to raise the issues and hope that it drives actions for change. There is not one person who wouldn't love for BLM to not need to exist. But how many people in the UK would have heard of Breonna Taylor if the protests and BLM didn't exist. The answer is nobody, because there are hundreds of unknown individuals before her that have faced a similar fate without coverage. Some people would prefer to not acknowledge or accept that discrimination happens against black people. That is a choice you can make if it helps cement your position.
The other area I wanted to address was work policies and individuals being progressed because of their race. I could talk for hours on this, which I do for a living! For every example you give me of someone who has been promoted because they are black, I would be able to give you 50 examples of someone who has been promoted because they are not black. This is clearly shown in the individuals that occupy senior positions in companies around the UK, and promotion / progression data. I can tell you now, the % of companies that have a higher rate of black people being promoted compared to non-black people is almost non-existent. But when people do see it happen the other way around, they feel threatened by it.
When companies put networks / initiatives in place to support BAME individuals, it is there to try and bridge the gap and create "equity". It hasn't yet created equality. So rest assured and to put minds at ease, if you are white, you are still far more likely to progress.
Just to give two examples of why they exist. The company I work with has 17,000 employees. Of those, we have nearly 800 partners. How many are black? Three. And we are ahead of a lot of organisations. When we recruit someone straight from school or university who is black, they look up and see nobody like them. So why would they be any different to the hundreds of black people that have tried to get there before them? We have to create initiatives to give them access to the few senior black people we have to help them aspire, and we have to increase the number of black partners to show it is possible.
Second example is from my Muslim colleagues. How many of us have built relationships and developed opportunities for ourselves down the pub? What % of team socials involve drinking alcohol? For my Muslim friends, all of those events are off-limits and they are almost never considered. So we need to create separate opportunities for them to network and have 1-on-1 time with senior leaders, which others are getting informally down the pub. It is not designed to discriminate against non-Muslims. It is designed to create equity.
There is a lot of good debate on here and a lot of differing views. I'm pleased it has provoked thought and, in the main, sensible and progressive conversations.
I am interested in your statement that Asian minority groups tend to outperform white people by quite a margin in the UK, as I do not believe that at all to be the case. Just look at the Board of Directors of the FTSE100 companies and you will be able to see their representation (not saying that is the ultimate measure of success). Just wonder where your statement on this comes from? I would suggest that a lot of the success stories from Asian minority groups are within family-owned firms which they have developed themselves and earned wealth, rather than being promoted in a public or private sector setting. They have created their own success here, rather than being preferred over others in a competitive environment. That's slightly different.
I get your point on class privilege / parent privilege. However, are you suggesting that a white person and black person from exactly the same class / parental background would be afforded exactly the same opportunities in the UK? I believe the answer would be "no", which is why we can't use that as a foundation. However, I agree that social mobility across all races is vital and companies should do more to promote opportunities to all people from less advantaged backgrounds.
I think we could go around in circles on the promotion point, but this is a scenario I would pose to you. A company has a workforce that is 10% black. But each year, only 2% of the promotions awarded are to black people. Are to we always just assume that it is because the black employees are simply less capable and that the process is fair, or should there be a review and discussion around why there could possibly be those discrepancies? Almost all companies will have metrics and criteria for promotion already, but there are still huge discrepancies. To me, that means you have to try and understand why those exist and how you can support all races progressing evenly. It is pretty much UK-wide in every firm that statistics like those exist, and I will not accept that it is purely because black people are always the less capable individuals. It's not about promoting them even if they don't merit it - it's about understanding why more black people don't merit promotions than others and putting in place targeted interventions to improve their skills. Or, possibly, changing the perception that they don't merit it when in actual fact, they do.
As a white person who studied in America I can tell you right now I was treated way better than any other racial group - My Trinidadian cousin who also studies in the states has some horror stories whereas I received nothing but nicety largely as I was British. The same happened to me in China - I was treated like a celebrity because of the colour of my skin - positive racism if you will.
Whilst East Asians perform better on these measures in the UK than white people on average they are still heavily discriminated against. My partner is from Hong Kong and she regularly suffers overt racial abuse in day to day activities be it in the workplace or watching Charlton down the Valley. I personally have never had to deal with any of this.
I second what Iceman said regarding social class. I grew up in a working class family to a single parent on benefits but was lucky to be given countless opportunities to prove myself and change that. Thanks to the way the UK system is set up I attended good universities in the UK and US. Even at my university alone when deciding on exchange placements - they gave myself a good school and then a black friend who had the same grade a school in St Louis - despite the British association for coloured people advising against travel to that area for people of colour at the time. When this was brought up - the white professor with white children stated it's fine and he'd happily send his children there. Class privilege without doubt exists but so does race privilege.