White privilege and other matters

[robmatic]

Is that a white bloke having a go at a member of the BAME community for being racist?

[Slick]

Any enquiry into inequality has to acknowledge structural and systemic factors.

Why is this any different? Is this not giving the answers before the enquiry?

The problem with this report, and indeed it seems any debate on race at the moment, is that views are so polarized that both sides are only interested in having their existing beliefs confirmed, and anything that seeks to challenge those views is immediately attacked as wrong.

About anything it seems

[Fangle]

Dead Tigers says we mustn’t group the Afro-Carribeans with the African Americans. But anecdotally they seem to do rather well in the States.

Yes, they are helping each other a lot via their strong communities, the black-Americans don’t.

I’ll take DT comments with grain of salt, as he came to the US illegally, got his green card and has been a staunch critic of the country since then.

So they do poorly in the UK, but well in the US.

[JM2K6]

Why is this any different? Is this not giving the answers before the enquiry?

The problem with this report, and indeed it seems any debate on race at the moment, is that views are so polarized that both sides are only interested in having their existing beliefs confirmed, and anything that seeks to challenge those views is immediately attacked as wrong.

About anything it seems

Sorry Slick but Lobby's take is horseshit. It ignores what the many reports up until now have said, the obvious way this one was set up from the start to parrot the Government line, and the failings of the report itself. "Both sides"-ing this one is pathetic.

Some of the stuff in this report is just arrant bollocks, red meat for the culture war and for their elderly, reactionary, racist base. They even tried to claim the ONS says that BAME people suffered more from COVID purely because of circumstance (geography, population density, work roles) when the ONS report they link to states the opposite! (edit: they also had the gall to state "despite higher death rates, they didn't die in larger numbers than white people" well yes they're fucking minorities who died at a higher rate, do they need to have more actual dead bodies than white people for this to matter?!) Trump did shit like this with the 1776 Commission.

You'll be reading a hell of a lot of pushback from a lot of people and organisations who know their shit on this, and it's not because of some "both sides" nonsense, it's because the report is a PR move and a disgrace. The only reason this thing exists is because the Conservatives and their supporters fucking hate being told that this country isn't amazing, and that goes double whenever minorities are involved.

[Biffer]

The report says that the Windrush scandal was clearly discriminatory. But it also says there's no institutional racism. So does that mean that the report thinks that individuals at the Home Office at the time were racist? If not, where did the discrimination come from?

[JM2K6]

The report says that the Windrush scandal was clearly discriminatory. But it also says there's no institutional racism. So does that mean that the report thinks that individuals at the Home Office at the time were racist? If not, where did the discrimination come from?

Presumably "Theresa May and Amber Rudd are massive racists" is the answer?

Another powerful speech by David Lammy:

[Woddy]

The problem with this report, and indeed it seems any debate on race at the moment, is that views are so polarized that both sides are only interested in having their existing beliefs confirmed, and anything that seeks to challenge those views is immediately attacked as wrong.

About anything it seems

Sorry Slick but Lobby's take is horseshit. It ignores what the many reports up until now have said, the obvious way this one was set up from the start to parrot the Government line, and the failings of the report itself. "Both sides"-ing this one is pathetic.

Some of the stuff in this report is just arrant bollocks, red meat for the culture war and for their elderly, reactionary, racist base. They even tried to claim the ONS says that BAME people suffered more from COVID purely because of circumstance (geography, population density, work roles) when the ONS report they link to states the opposite! (edit: they also had the gall to state "despite higher death rates, they didn't die in larger numbers than white people" well yes they're fucking minorities who died at a higher rate, do they need to have more actual dead bodies than white people for this to matter?!) Trump did shit like this with the 1776 Commission.

You'll be reading a hell of a lot of pushback from a lot of people and organisations who know their shit on this, and it's not because of some "both sides" nonsense, it's because the report is a PR move and a disgrace. The only reason this thing exists is because the Conservatives and their supporters fucking hate being told that this country isn't amazing, and that goes double whenever minorities are involved.

I think you've just proved Lobby's point. He was reacting to the quoted comment immediately above his post, which stated that any report MUST include this or that otherwise it's complete bollocks. He was neither backing nor criticising the report itself, merely reflecting that there is no proper debate; rather just confirmation echo chambers bouncing off each other. I think he includes the report itself in that, so implicitly agrees with some of your critique of it.

However, you appear to have read what you wanted to argue against in Lobby's post rather than what he actually said; which was the entire premise of his complaint at large.

And I agree with Slick that that problem extends to most areas of public "debate" at the moment. Sadly.

[fishfoodie]

So if Inequality is the problem, & not race; will; Ian ''I'm a sad cunt who knows that having even having a pretend double-barrelled name will enhance my career' Duncan Smith, be finally shot into the Sun ?

Shirley the cunt behind Universal Credit would deserve such a fate ?

[Torquemada 1420]

The report says that the Windrush scandal was clearly discriminatory. But it also says there's no institutional racism. So does that mean that the report thinks that individuals at the Home Office at the time were racist? If not, where did the discrimination come from?

Presumably "Theresa May and Amber Rudd are massive racists" is the answer?

That it needs to be stated is a significant part of the problem.

[JM2K6]

About anything it seems

Sorry Slick but Lobby's take is horseshit. It ignores what the many reports up until now have said, the obvious way this one was set up from the start to parrot the Government line, and the failings of the report itself. "Both sides"-ing this one is pathetic.

Some of the stuff in this report is just arrant bollocks, red meat for the culture war and for their elderly, reactionary, racist base. They even tried to claim the ONS says that BAME people suffered more from COVID purely because of circumstance (geography, population density, work roles) when the ONS report they link to states the opposite! (edit: they also had the gall to state "despite higher death rates, they didn't die in larger numbers than white people" well yes they're fucking minorities who died at a higher rate, do they need to have more actual dead bodies than white people for this to matter?!) Trump did shit like this with the 1776 Commission.

You'll be reading a hell of a lot of pushback from a lot of people and organisations who know their shit on this, and it's not because of some "both sides" nonsense, it's because the report is a PR move and a disgrace. The only reason this thing exists is because the Conservatives and their supporters fucking hate being told that this country isn't amazing, and that goes double whenever minorities are involved.

I think you've just proved Lobby's point. He was reacting to the quoted comment immediately above his post, which stated that any report MUST include this or that otherwise it's complete bollocks. He was neither backing nor criticising the report itself, merely reflecting that there is no proper debate; rather just confirmation echo chambers bouncing off each other. I think he includes the report itself in that, so implicitly agrees with some of your critique of it.

However, you appear to have read what you wanted to argue against in Lobby's post rather than what he actually said; which was the entire premise of his complaint at large.

And I agree with Slick that that problem extends to most areas of public "debate" at the moment. Sadly.

?!

I've read exactly what he said. And responded to exactly what he said. The difference between "I don't believe structural or institutional racism exists" and "we think this report should acknowledge structural and systemic factors" isn't what Lobby or Slick think it is. Claiming that the problem with this report & any debate on race is that "anything that seeks to challenge those views is immediately attacked as wrong" is deliberately missing the point. The report was preordained to be a whitewash. The "views" aren't being "challenged", they're being completely ignored in order to further the interests of the Government using the most weaselly methods possible. This, after the Lammy review, the Grenfell report, the Windrush report, the MacPherson report, the MacGregor review? The report is an absolute embarrassment. It deserves to be attacked. Not because it "presents a different view" but because it's patently wrong, it uses some incredibly twisted logic that doesn't bear scrutiny, it ignores the mountains of evidence provided by previous reports, and it can't even follow its own logic to its conclusions (see Biffer's post).

The fact that people immediately attacked it isn't evidence that Lobby is right. It's evidence that a lot of people thought it was patently horseshit. Lobby's post is evidence that Lobby's keen on some both-sides bullshit.

I mean fuck, this is the report that suggests that "people with black names not getting jobs because employers consider them lower class" to be a class problem not a sign of structural racism, and that tries to put a positive spin on slavery and empire, and literally lies about what the ONS says about COVID deaths; this report is a piece of shit, written by a piece of shit who's said piece-of-shit things many times over the years.

It's incredibly transparent Trumpian nonsense. Again.

[Biffer]

Yeah, I don't think you'd find many people who are saying that the report is a whitewash who would disagree that deprivation, class and lack of social mobility associated with them aren't an equally massive problem in the UK. But using the fact that we're in an hugely unequal society that these fuckers are mainly responsible for creating from the ashes of the post war economic collapse as a distraction to go 'there's no racism, look over there' is horseshit.

It's a deliberate attempt to polarise the argument and set an agenda where they can say the left concentrates on racism, the right concentrates on poverty. It's replicating the polarised politics of the US by baiting sections of society.

[JM2K6]

Yeah, I don't think you'd find many people who are saying that the report is a whitewash who would disagree that deprivation, class and lack of social mobility associated with them aren't an equally massive problem in the UK. But using the fact that we're in an hugely unequal society that these fuckers are mainly responsible for creating from the ashes of the post war economic collapse as a distraction to go 'there's no racism, look over there' is horseshit.

And the fucking nerve to add on the idea that we're an exemplar... It's naked jingoism.

[Paddington Bear]

To push this another way - which Western Nations have a better situation than us on race?

[JM2K6]

To push this another way - which Western Nations have a better situation than us on race?

The EU have done studies on this. Impossible to truly rank it, but we're not top, nor are we the worst. Having a government that is trying to airbrush history and ignore reality is not helpful, though.

[Calculon]

Dead Tigers says we mustn’t group the Afro-Carribeans with the African Americans. But anecdotally they seem to do rather well in the States.

Yes, they are helping each other a lot via their strong communities, the black-Americans don’t.

I’ll take DT comments with grain of salt, as he came to the US illegally, got his green card and has been a staunch critic of the country since then.

Didn't DT come to the USA as a child? If so, he could hardly be blamed for the illegality of his actions. I always though he was a staunch critic of the Republican party and the left wing of the Democrats, but a equally staunch supporter of the moderate Democrats. Never got the impression that he was anti USA.

[JM2K6]

Double post

[JM2K6]

To push this another way - which Western Nations have a better situation than us on race?

The EU have done studies on this. Impossible to truly rank it, but we're not top, nor are we the worst. Having a government that is trying to airbrush history and ignore reality is not helpful, though.

[Marylandolorian]

Dead Tigers says we mustn’t group the Afro-Carribeans with the African Americans. But anecdotally they seem to do rather well in the States.

Yes, they are helping each other a lot via their strong communities, the black-Americans don’t.

I’ll take DT comments with grain of salt, as he came to the US illegally, got his green card and has been a staunch critic of the country since then.

Didn't DT come to the USA as a child? If so, he could hardly be blamed for the illegality of his actions. I always though he was a staunch critic of the Republican party and the left wing of the Democrats, but a equally staunch supporter of the moderate Democrats. Never got the impression that he was anti USA.

Hey wait, I didn’t blame him for coming here illegally and I don’t know if he was a kid or a teen, i liked him and we had few good conversations but he passed the republican/democrat line a long time ago and started to be more like “ if it’s white it ain’t right” , he got banned few times for his racist remarks.

[Calculon]

Yes, they are helping each other a lot via their strong communities, the black-Americans don’t.

I’ll take DT comments with grain of salt, as he came to the US illegally, got his green card and has been a staunch critic of the country since then.

Didn't DT come to the USA as a child? If so, he could hardly be blamed for the illegality of his actions. I always though he was a staunch critic of the Republican party and the left wing of the Democrats, but a equally staunch supporter of the moderate Democrats. Never got the impression that he was anti USA.

Hey wait, I didn’t blame him for coming here illegally and I don’t know if he was a kid or a teen, i liked him and we had few good conversations but he passed the republican/democrat line a long time ago and started to be more like “ if it’s white it ain’t right” , he got banned few times for his racist remarks.

OK, that's wasn't my impression of him. I didn't think he was a racist.

[Fangle]

DT had many run-ins with Eldan and made a number of unsavory/racist remarks to him. Sometimes I couldn’t follow his logic.

[Paddington Bear]

To push this another way - which Western Nations have a better situation than us on race?

The EU have done studies on this. Impossible to truly rank it, but we're not top, nor are we the worst. Having a government that is trying to airbrush history and ignore reality is not helpful, though.

Appreciate you are not google but would be interested to read this study.

Anecdotally I have found working in a number of European countries eye opening for the overt nature of racism there.
Not necessarily that there’s more of it, no way of telling that, just that people are very happy to give you their opinion in a way you absolutely would not in the UK and expect to keep your job.

[I like neeps]

https://www.politico.eu/article/boris-j ... ssion=true

Johnson's most senior aide doesn't seem too impressed.

[I like neeps]

To push this another way - which Western Nations have a better situation than us on race?

The EU have done studies on this. Impossible to truly rank it, but we're not top, nor are we the worst. Having a government that is trying to airbrush history and ignore reality is not helpful, though.

Appreciate you are not google but would be interested to read this study.

Anecdotally I have found working in a number of European countries eye opening for the overt nature of racism there.
Not necessarily that there’s more of it, no way of telling that, just that people are very happy to give you their opinion in a way you absolutely would not in the UK and expect to keep your job.

Maybe true but depends what kind of country you want Britain to be. I once had a waiter in Croatia refuse to take an Asian friends order and people would do slanty eyes on the street and this is 5 years ago. Saying "well Britain isn't that racist" I don't think is where you want to be.

The biggest problem with the report is the congratulatory reception around yes. Yes, congratulations inequality is making live equally miserable for all races.

[Paddington Bear]

The EU have done studies on this. Impossible to truly rank it, but we're not top, nor are we the worst. Having a government that is trying to airbrush history and ignore reality is not helpful, though.

Appreciate you are not google but would be interested to read this study.

Anecdotally I have found working in a number of European countries eye opening for the overt nature of racism there.
Not necessarily that there’s more of it, no way of telling that, just that people are very happy to give you their opinion in a way you absolutely would not in the UK and expect to keep your job.

Maybe true but depends what kind of country you want Britain to be. I once had a waiter in Croatia refuse to take an Asian friends order and people would do slanty eyes on the street and this is 5 years ago. Saying "well Britain isn't that racist" I don't think is where you want to be.

The biggest problem with the report is the congratulatory reception around yes. Yes, congratulations inequality is making live equally miserable for all races.

I think it’s possible for multiple things to be true at once:
1) Britain has less of a problem with race than most of it’s western European peers, and can be seen by them as a model of how to progress
2) we still have plenty of work to do ourselves
3) we (white Brits) have a largely horrendous attitude to education that causes a huge amount of our problems

[robmatic]

The EU have done studies on this. Impossible to truly rank it, but we're not top, nor are we the worst. Having a government that is trying to airbrush history and ignore reality is not helpful, though.

Appreciate you are not google but would be interested to read this study.

Anecdotally I have found working in a number of European countries eye opening for the overt nature of racism there.
Not necessarily that there’s more of it, no way of telling that, just that people are very happy to give you their opinion in a way you absolutely would not in the UK and expect to keep your job.

Maybe true but depends what kind of country you want Britain to be. I once had a waiter in Croatia refuse to take an Asian friends order and people would do slanty eyes on the street and this is 5 years ago. Saying "well Britain isn't that racist" I don't think is where you want to be.

The biggest problem with the report is the congratulatory reception around yes. Yes, congratulations inequality is making live equally miserable for all races.

It would be nice if we could find some middle ground between self-congratulation and self-flagellation though.

[robmatic]

Yeah, I don't think you'd find many people who are saying that the report is a whitewash who would disagree that deprivation, class and lack of social mobility associated with them aren't an equally massive problem in the UK. But using the fact that we're in an hugely unequal society that these fuckers are mainly responsible for creating from the ashes of the post war economic collapse as a distraction to go 'there's no racism, look over there' is horseshit.

It's a deliberate attempt to polarise the argument and set an agenda where they can say the left concentrates on racism, the right concentrates on poverty. It's replicating the polarised politics of the US by baiting sections of society.

This would be less effective if we didn't have as our major left-wing party one which seems to have completely forgotten about inequality and class.

[Biffer]

Yeah, I don't think you'd find many people who are saying that the report is a whitewash who would disagree that deprivation, class and lack of social mobility associated with them aren't an equally massive problem in the UK. But using the fact that we're in an hugely unequal society that these fuckers are mainly responsible for creating from the ashes of the post war economic collapse as a distraction to go 'there's no racism, look over there' is horseshit.

It's a deliberate attempt to polarise the argument and set an agenda where they can say the left concentrates on racism, the right concentrates on poverty. It's replicating the polarised politics of the US by baiting sections of society.

This would be less effective if we didn't have as our major left-wing party one which seems to have completely forgotten about inequality and class.

So it's the lefts fault? OK, thanks.

[Slick]

I think it’s possible for multiple things to be true at once:
1) Britain has less of a problem with race than most of it’s western European peers, and can be seen by them as a model of how to progress
2) we still have plenty of work to do ourselves

I think I'd largely agree with this.

Do we still have structural racism, damn right, and we should be doing everything we can to eradicate that. But I do think we are genuinely trying to get there.

I think we have to be honest about a few things as well. We have a multi million pound race relations industry that employs thousands of people. There is never going to be complete agreement because it isn't in a lot of peoples interests.

I think a lot of the really overt racism is between other immigrant groups and I'm not sure how we deal with that.

[Hal Jordan]

That "new story" about slavery ultimately bringing benefits to the descendants of slaves is just astonishing.

I see at least one "contributor" to this gaslit mound of distraction has said he wasn't contacted and had nothing to do with it.

[Torquemada 1420]

To push this another way - which Western Nations have a better situation than us on race?

The old "we are far from being the worst, go live in Russia if you don't like it" argument , eh?

[Torquemada 1420]

This would be less effective if we didn't have as our major left-wing party one which seems to have completely forgotten about inequality and class.

Because, by and large, they are also populated by people of privilege. Even if they haven't forgotten, they have no ability to empathise.

[Paddington Bear]

To push this another way - which Western Nations have a better situation than us on race?

The old "we are far from being the worst, go live in Russia if you don't like it" argument , eh?

Was more comparing us to France, Germany and Italy

[Glaston]

My letter about my Covid jab had an extra page which had info in more than dozen different languages.

My sister living in France had a letter that had just one language.

UK is institutionally racist.
Hmmm!

If the UK is institutionally racist then so is every other country i nthe World.

[Ymx]

The report says that the Windrush scandal was clearly discriminatory. But it also says there's no institutional racism. So does that mean that the report thinks that individuals at the Home Office at the time were racist? If not, where did the discrimination come from?

Presumably "Theresa May and Amber Rudd are massive racists" is the answer?

Another powerful speech by David Lammy:

Must admit I’ve only watched half of this. But it begins by him listing a bunch of people who have had horrible experiences, and then makes a huge leap that it’s because of race as if it’s fact or proof.

[Marylandolorian]

My letter about my Covid jab had an extra page which had info in more than dozen different languages.

My sister living in France had a letter that had just one language. Was it in Arabic or French ?

UK is institutionally racist
Hmmm!
If the UK is institutionally racist then so is every other country i nthe World.

In the US it’s the same, most federal and states official papers are in many different languages, are the USA racist? Nah

Have you heard about Assimilation vs Integration, it’s a choice made by a sovereign country.
Also, If you have been living in a country for a while maybe you should learn its language.

[Marylandolorian]

To push this another way - which Western Nations have a better situation than us on race?

The old "we are far from being the worst, go live in Russia if you don't like it" argument , eh?

Was more comparing us to France, Germany and Italy

You won

Canada beats all of us.

[Paddington Bear]

The old "we are far from being the worst, go live in Russia if you don't like it" argument , eh?

Was more comparing us to France, Germany and Italy

You won

Canada beats all of us.

Yeah Canada was the place that sprung to mind as the best placed of Western Nations on this. Never been there, mind

[sockwithaticket]

First Nations people say hello...

[Torquemada 1420]

To push this another way - which Western Nations have a better situation than us on race?

The old "we are far from being the worst, go live in Russia if you don't like it" argument , eh?

Was more comparing us to France, Germany and Italy

It wasn't meant literally.

[Random1]

Where the fuck have you lot found the time to read a 200 page report?!

Oh. Wait a minute...