The battle against the Left's ideology of racial victimhood has only just begun
We have entered the opening phase of a vicious new culture war. A Government-commissioned review, launched in the wake of last summer’s Black Lives Matters protests, has come to the heretical conclusion that race is less important than family and class in explaining the outcomes of different groups. The Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities report is a forensic and unapologetic challenge to the liberal-Left conviction that the UK is structurally bigoted. It finds no evidence that institutional racism exists in Britain. In fact, it points out that, in some areas, such as education, particular ethnic minorities outperform their white counterparts. Even more boldly it ventures that UK should be seen as a model for other white-majority nations.
Hours before the report was even published, it had already been trashed by the Left-wing activists who dominate discourse on race in Britain. Maurice Mcleod, the chief executive of Race on the Agenda, blasted the report as “government level gaslighting”. Halima Begum, head of the Runnymede Trust, called it a “gross offence” to grieving families of ethnic minorities who have died of Covid. Black Lives Matter, which has bloomed from a grassroots rabble into a slick establishment operation, snipped that it was “perplexed” by the report’s methodology and “disappointed” by oversight of police racism.
A hostile reception is, on one level, a good sign. The report is a brave first step in confronting the Neo-Marxist ideology that has poisoned conversations about race. Its emphasis on concrete evidence rather than patronising theories – from critical race to unconcious bias – is radical. It is a deep rejection of “political blackness” – a post-communist doctrine seeded in the civil rights solidarity of 1960s, which lumps minorities together in a battle against capitalist white privilege. The inquiry’s jettisoning of the term BAME is not merely “semantics”, but the start of a fierce academic battle. The cliched acronym epitomises the 30-year colonisation of the cultural mainstream by the hard-Left, travelling from radicalised anthropology departments to executive boardrooms, public bodies, and media outfits.
Tony Sewell – the Brixton-born educationalist who led the Commission – is trying to shift the debate away from victimising meta-theories towards a more nuanced discussion about race. His investigation is barbed with inconvenient facts. The ethnic pay gap has shrunk to 2.3 per cent overall and barely registers for employees under 30. Diversity is improving in professions like medicine and law. Sewell’s report dares to broach the complexity of black Britain.
It finds, for example, that the exclusion rate for black Caribbean pupils is double that of their black African counterparts. Black Caribbean pupils are the only ethnic minority group that do not do as well or better than their white counterparts. Sewell has expressed his hope that this will go down as a landmark report which changes the dialogue over coming decades. That depends on how much fight – and skill – the centre-Right possesses.
It will have to overthrow a hard-Left nexus of academics, NGOs and political agitators. They have been calling the shots ever since a notorious coup against the Institute for Race Relations in 1972. A three-year guerilla assault on the body, led by the novelist Ambalavaner Sivanandan, resulted in resignations, and a watershed shift in research focus from black people to white institutions. Sivanandan’s theory of “institutional racism” – that it is first finds venomous roots in the laws of the land (for example in biased immigration legislation), and then branches out to the executive and judiciary – went mainstream in the wake of the tragic murder of Stephen Lawrence.
Since then its even more ambitious cousin, structural racism, has found evidence of oppression in everything from the benefits system to Kew Gardens' plants. Unconscious bias training has become a multi-million pound industry. Youth groups pitch themselves as intermediaries between black teens and “white-dominated” police and social services. Lecturers ride a gravy train of anti-racism advocacy and book deals on decolonising human rights.
The only way to challenge such a vast, profitable and entrenched enterprise is to build a rival one in parallel. Funding must be secured for academic research into the challenges faced by the specific groups outlined in the Sewell report – particularly Caribbean Brits, the white working class and British Pakistanis. New NGOs and organisations with the same granular focus will also be needed. Yet this is the easy part. More difficult will be to contest a victimhood mentality that is becoming as entrenched as religious dogma. For all its troubles, America offers some inspiration here. Latinos and Afro-Americans identify as American in a way their British counterparts don’t because the country’s founding ideas – like freedom and the American Dream – are so bewitching. We desperately lack our own story of Britishness fired by energetic values.
Winning hearts and minds will also demand sensitivity and courage. The Tories need to tread carefully as they make inroads into the political vipers nest of “parental responsibility”. They will also have to alter their language. We need to shift the debate, not from “inequality” to “culture” – but to “counter-culture”. The problem is not the customs of some immigrant groups per se but the toxic attitudes that have spread among second and third generation Britons.
Most controversially, it is important not to fall into the trap of downplaying Britain’s race problems. Woke teachings have enjoyed such momentum in recent years because multiculturalism has failed. The orthodoxy that tensions resolve themselves if you give immigrants cultural “space” has proved naive. Conservatives must confront the basic truth that progress can be both enriching and a destructive. They might well find more support for this revelation than the home truths of the Sewell report.
It is no coincidence that the ethnic groups who feel the paradoxes of immigration most profoundly have rejected metropolitanland’s sunny mythology of “samba, saris and samosas” just as virulently as the white working class.
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10 Radical New Rules That Are Changing America
1. Money is a construct.
It can be created from thin air. Annual deficits and aggregate national debt no longer matter much.
Prior presidents ran up huge annual deficits, but at least there were some concessions that the money was real and had to be paid back. Not now.
As we near $30 trillion in national debt and 110% of annual gross domestic product, our elites either believe permanent zero interest rates make the cascading obligation irrelevant or the larger the debt, the more likely we will be forced to address needed income redistribution.
2. Laws are not necessarily binding anymore.
President Joe Biden took an oath to “take care that the laws be faithfully executed.” But he has willfully rendered federal immigration laws null and void. Some rioters are prosecuted for violating federal laws, others not so much. Arrests, prosecutions, and trials are all fluid. Ideology governs when a law is still considered a law.
Crime rates do not necessarily matter. If someone is carjacked, assaulted, or shot, it can be understood to be as much the victim’s fault as the perpetrator’s. Either the victim was too lax, uncaring, and insensitive, or he provoked his attacker.
How useful the crime is to the larger agendas of the left determines whether a victim is really a victim and the victimizer really a victimizer.
3. Racialism is now acceptable.
We are defined first by our ethnicity or religion, and only secondarily—if at all—by an American commonality.
The explicit exclusion of whites from college dorms, safe spaces, and federal aid programs is now noncontroversial. It is unspoken payback for perceived past sins, or a type of “good” racism. Falsely being called a racist makes one more guilty than falsely calling someone else a racist.
4. The immigrant is mostly preferable to the citizen.
The newcomer, unlike the host, is not stained by the sins of America’s founding and history. Most citizens currently must follow quarantine rules and social distancing, stay out of school, and obey all the laws.
Yet those entering the United States illegally need not follow such apparently superfluous COVID-19 rules. Their children should be immediately schooled without worry of quarantine.
Immigrants need not worry about their illegal entry or residence in America. Our elites believe illegal entrants more closely resemble the “Founders” than do legal citizens, about half of whom they consider irredeemable.
5. Most Americans should be treated as we would treat little children.
They cannot be asked to provide an ID to vote. “Noble lies” by our elites about COVID-19 rules are necessary to protect “Neanderthals” from themselves.
Americans deserve relief from the stress of grades, standardized testing, and normative rules of school behavior. They still are clueless about why it is good for them to pay far more for their gasoline, heating, and air conditioning.
6. Hypocrisy is passe. Virtue signaling is alive.
Climate change activists fly on private jets. Social justice warriors live in gated communities. Multibillionaire elitists pose as victims of sexism, racism, and homophobia. The elite need these exemptions to help the helpless. It is what you say to lesser others about how to live, not how you yourself live, that matters.
7. Ignoring or perpetuating homelessness is preferable to ending it.
It is more humane to let thousands of homeless people live, eat, defecate, and use drugs on public streets and sidewalks than it is to greenlight affordable housing, mandate hospitalization for the mentally ill, and create sufficient public shelter areas.
8. McCarthyism is good.
Destroying lives and careers for incorrect thoughts saves more lives and careers. Cancel culture and the Twitter Reign of Terror provide needed deterrence.
Now that Americans know they are one wrong word, act, or look away from losing their livelihoods, they are more careful and will behave in a more enlightened fashion. The social media guillotine is the humane, scientific tool of the woke.
9. Ignorance is preferable to knowledge.
Neither statue-toppling, nor name-changing, nor the 1619 Project require any evidence or historical knowledge. Heroes of the past were simple constructs. Undergraduate, graduate, and professional degrees reflect credentials, not knowledge. The brand, not what created it, is all that matters.
10. Wokeness is the new religion, growing faster and larger than Christianity.
Its priesthood outnumbers the clergy and exercises far more power. Silicon Valley is the new Vatican, and Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google, and Twitter are the new gospels.
Americans privately fear these rules while publicly appearing to accept them. They still could be transitory and invite a reaction. Or they are already near-permanent and institutionalized.
The answer determines whether a constitutional republic continues as once envisioned or warps into something never imagined by those who created it.
https://www.dailysignal.com/2021/04/01/10-radical-new-rules-that-are-changing-america
*********************************************UK: National Trust members launch campaign against charity's 'woke agenda' as it accuses it of 'lecturing' the public and 'demonising' history
National Trust members have launched a campaign against the charity's 'woke agenda' as it was today accused of 'lecturing' the public and 'demonising' history.
Restore Trust was established following furious criticism of a report detailing links between 93 of the Trust's properties and historic slavery and colonialism.
The group, described as a forum where members can 'discuss their concerns about the future of the charity', says visitors should not leave venues feeling their history has been 'demonised'.
They say there has been a 'relentless diminution of standards' at the Trust and have accused the charity of 'patronising' and 'lecturing' the public, according to the Telegraph.
Restore Trust, which has 300 supporters, has also hit out at the charity for underestimating its 'open-minded' members who 'understand that history is complicated'.
The group hopes to restore the Trust's 'apolitical ethos' and help it return to 'doing what it does best' by maintaining historic buildings, interiors and artefacts, gardens and countryside to the 'highest standard'.
It also aims to help restore 'the aesthetic experience' of the Trust's historic houses and gardens 'so that visitors can enjoy them visually, spatially, and sometimes peacefully, without intrusive interpretation.'
Another goal noted on the Restore Trust's website is 'to use history responsibly as a tool for understanding, not as a weapon.'
The campaign was launched by National Trust members who hope to remind bosses of the purpose of the charity following outrage over its apparent 'woke agenda.'
Last September, the National Trust published a controversial audit which detailed links between 93 of the properties in its care and historic slavery and colonialism.
Winston Churchill's former home, Chartwell, in Kent, was among the properties on the list because the wartime Prime Minister once held the post of Secretary of State for the Colonies.
The move prompted a fierce backlash in some quarters, including from some MPs and peers, and the trust faced accusations of 'wokeism' and of jumping on the Black Lives Matter bandwagon.
Following complaints, the charities regulator opened a case to examine critics' concerns and whether the trust had acted outside its charitable purposes with the report.
It was concluded last month that the National Trust acted in line with its charitable purposes and there were no grounds for regulatory action against it.
In a blog post published after the judgement, the trust's director general Hilary McGrady vowed to continue exploring the 'contentious' history of its properties and said the body would maintain its 'retain and explain' approach.
But critics hit out at the organisation for its stance, with former Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage saying he had become 'increasingly appalled' by the 'woke route' which he said the trust was pursuing.
Leading historian and journalist Professor Simon Heffer, who left the trust last month because of its recent actions, told MailOnline he was 'astonished' that the Charity Commission had not censured the body.
He added the organisation had taken a 'political decision that the British empire was wicked construct' and said their September report displayed 'breath-taking ignorance' and a 'complete absence of nuance' in its findings.
Among the 'main concerns' of Restore Trust are the colonialism and slavery report, which it said has 'serious shortcomings and is one-sided in its conclusions'.
Members added it was 'not clear that the report is an effort to promote better understanding of country houses in their context rather than an attempt to portray country houses and the families associated with them in a negative light'.
One of Restore Trust's founding members said: 'This idea that history is being suppressed is wrong, but I think what people object to is being told a one-sided or subjective version.'
They also raised concerns over the closure of smaller historic properties and proposed redundancies of curators.
A spokesperson for the National Trust said: 'We listen to concerns and criticism and are in regular contact with supporter groups and are always interested in hearing constructive feedback.'
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PETER HITCHENS: We've seen it before... the 'rape culture' frenzy will ruin innocent lives
The hideous process of prejudice and hysteria which led eventually to the outrageous treatment of several honourable men and women has begun again.
The frenzy about alleged 'rape culture' at schools has rapidly lost all touch with reality or proportion.
Perhaps it took off because the allegations were first made against expensive private schools, so reviving the ancient myth that the authorities are covering up the misdeeds of the rich.
But it was quite obvious very quickly that the undoubted poisoning of young minds by pornography is present in all schools, rich or poor. Yet by that time, it did not matter.
The frenzy had begun. And a senior police officer was once again declaring that 'victims' would be 'believed'.
It was this utter loss of restraint which brought about the shameful treatment of Lord and Lady Brittan and Field Marshal Lord Bramall, prominent people publicly humiliated and their lives hideously and painfully disrupted, on the word of a 'victim' who was not a victim, but a fantasist.
Does Mr Simon Bailey, Chief Constable of Norfolk and the national police 'lead' on such matters, have no capacity for learning from mistakes? He was specifically singled out in the report on the Operation Midland fiasco, conducted by the retired judge Sir Richard Henriques.
Sir Richard objected to Chief Constable Bailey's use of the word 'victim', when guilt had not been proved. He said: 'A police officer has a duty to investigate, as part of the criminal justice process, determining whether or not a complainant is proved to be a victim.'
And he advised: 'All 'complainants' are not 'victims'. Some complaints are false.
'Throughout the judicial process the word 'complainant' is deployed up to the moment of conviction, whereafter a 'complainant' is properly referred to as a 'victim'.
Since the entire judicial process, up to that point, is engaged in determining whether or not a 'complainant' is indeed a 'victim', such an approach cannot be questioned.
'No Crown Court judge will permit a 'complainant' to be referred to as a 'victim' prior to conviction. Since the investigative process is similarly engaged in ascertaining facts which will, if proven, establish guilt, the use of the word 'victim' at the commencement of an investigation is simply inaccurate and should cease.'
Sir Richard added, in a lengthy attack on the police habit of saying that 'victims' will 'be believed': 'Any policy involving belief of one party necessarily involves disbelief of the other party. That cannot be a fair system.'
I thought we had been through all this. Even the unsatisfactory Metropolitan Police chief Cressida Dick said as long ago as April 2018 that she had told officers they must have an open mind when an allegation is made and that their role was to investigate, not blindly believe.
Yet last Monday, on BBC Radio 4's Today programme, Mr Bailey said: 'If parents are aware that their son or daughter has been a victim of abuse then please come forward and report the abuse, your son or daughter, their account will be believed.'
He went on, astonishingly, to urge parents to turn in their own children if they suspected them. The BBC's presenter, typically, offered no challenge to this peculiar and questionable stuff.
It's the current groupthink now, just like the groupthink that led police to believe the warped and ridiculous fantasies of the unpleasant Carl Beech, and so to an inexcusable police raid on Lord Bramall's home. Everyone knows that now. But they didn't seem to grasp it then. A moment's intelligent thought, and the good old presumption of innocence, could have prevented all that.
Well, then, surely it's the duty of the rest of us to throw a bucket of cold water over these frenzied people. No compensation, no reluctant police apology, ever makes up for the damage done by hysteria.
Investigate allegations seriously. But leave it to the courts to decide on guilt or innocence. Presuming guilt is the road to disaster.
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My other blogs. Main ones below:
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com TONGUE-TIED)
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)
http://john-ray.blogspot.com (FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
https://heofen.blogspot.com/ (MY OTHER BLOGS)
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Kristina Pimenova, once said to be the most beautiful girl in the world. Note blue eyes and blonde hair
Bliss: What every woman wants: to feel safe and secure in the arms of her man. Robert Irwin and Rorie Buckey. See
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