BBC Radio 4 - Moral Maze, Racial Justice
"‘Let's agree for a start that there are certainly aspects of British society like any society which are racist, but you're making a different point, you're saying it's systematically racist. Now, how can that be when there are so much black and minority ethnic success in the country? For example, 35% of NHS consultants are British Asians. They’re only 7% of the population. British minority ethnic, black minority ethnic representation on screen is 23% compared to 40% of population and black kids are outperforming just about white kids at school. This is not a systematically, this is not evidence of a systematically racist society, surely?’
‘I've very much think it is, because when you even dive in these stats and the reasoning behind them and why they're being pitched in this way is very reductive of the actual situation at hand. So, for instance, when you're looking at the curriculum, you can say that black students are performing highly in many different areas.
But again, when we think about the, the idea of curriculum and black British history, and also Asian history, minorities’ histories that is embedded within the curriculum, it's stretched to a point you have to attend university, or you have to do a master's degree to learn about our fight within this country to deserve the same kind of rights and equality. And now what I see is a big glaring issue is the fact that we don't have a colonial history.
I feel a Hirschman wrote an article the other day regarding the fact that when she was learning history in school, which is about I would say, 20 odd years in the past in comparison to myself when I was in primary school and secondary school, she learned about the Tudors, the Kings and Queens of England and that kind of British history and then there’s a convenient skip all the way to World War One. When it came to black history month we would learn about African slave trade. But through the lens of America’…
‘I actually think that the message that is being sent is sending a really disempowering and demoralizing message to a young generation of young black British people, but people of ethnic minority heritage in general who are living in a society that has genuinely made leaps and bounds when it comes to race relations in this country… the gentleman mentioned in regards to kind of the curriculum.
Well, first and foremost, I don't think, you know, curriculum, the curriculum should be instrumentalized to put forward a political agenda. But at the end of the day, the fact that we're even having a conversation, which is used to massively reorder and expand the history curriculum in this country is indicative of a society that is genuinely willing and open to listening to the grievances and concerns of a minority population.’...
‘The disproportionate suffering in black community in relation to COVID-19.’
‘So this is the problem of the kind of blanket systemic racism argument that the the kind of attempt to paint this one dimensional picture misses the complexities of the issue at play. So there's quite a few reasons. Many people are still investigating why ethnic minority have disproportionately been affected by it. But there are actually some reasons that we can draw on now. Actually, working class people in general have actually been disproportionately affected by COVID-19 and ethnic minority for many of the more recent immigrants of the UK in the past four years are more likely to be in the working class population. And there's also issues to do with diet. There's also issue to do with the fact that more ethnic minorities are doing front facing roles and how to work and during the day’…
‘In answering the question, you're simply confirming the premise of the question, which is yes, of course, the reasons why parts of the minority community be most effected is because they are poorer, lower paid, more likely to do jobs that other people don't want to do, even though many of them will have been here two, three generations. Isn't that evidence of the fact that there is still a significant problem here?’
‘Well, again, so a problem is not the same as it being evidence of systemic racism. That's a very different thing. So there are a whole range of contributing factors to that, in terms of the fact that, as you've mentioned, and as I mentioned, most ethnic minority people, not all but most of them came through immigration in the postwar years. It takes time to build up intergenerational wealth and move up the social ladder. This is not, you know, it'd be absurd to think that people that some people actually I think it's something like a third of ethnic minority actually have come in the last 20 years, you automatically have the same wealth and higher class as the people that have been here.’...
‘There isn't actually any clear indication that, you know, there are stories told about black history that contribute to a wider discourse, which frames black people as making a significant and positive contribution to British history. Now, that is the issue, not the issue of what is listed within the curriculum. The issue actually is, is how are black people positioned within that curriculum? And how is their contribution to British heritage framed? Because when we're talking about black British history, one of the things that becomes the seminal focal cornerstone of the black experience is slavery.’...
‘You're talking about the way in which, in your view black children are not sufficiently reflected, or their lives of experiences and backgrounds aren’t reflected in the curriculum… but let me flip it the other way. How important do you think it is for black British children to study for example, Shakespeare.’
‘I would say it's hugely important, but it isn't any more important than studying, you know, suffragette movements by black people, you know, thinking about different discourses around black people. I think the most important thing is we want to have you know, my my whole idea around education is that it prepares people to take their place within society and to reside within that society. One of the more important aspects is to have this kind of toolkit, I guess, where you have knowledge that you can engage with different types of people from different types of backgrounds. Now, while there's nothing wrong with black children learning about Shakespeare, I equally think it is as important to learn about other, other canons of history, black or indigenous, and that isn't within our education system currently’...
‘It is the case that at different times, majority populations express more or less prejudice against minority populations. And that differs a lot of time. So for example, 15, 20 years ago, you'd have found that most of the racial prejudice in the UK was against black people. And now you find it against Muslims and that the levels against black people would appear attitudinally to have gone down very greatly. On the other hand, if you ask black people themselves, we did a benchmark Report for the Human Rights Commission 64% of black people are still saying they're experiencing prejudice or discrimination. It's and so you know, clearly, it's not the case this has gone away, it might have changed its appearance or it might have been directed towards other groups for a while. People are not suddenly much more egalitarian and fair minded. So some groups, they'll be very openly prejudiced against them.’...
‘[He thought Britain’s] a systematically racist country, due in his view to the legacy of colonialism’...
‘But when I put to him that we were on a massively successful trajectory. We've got, you know, maybe four, 9 in 10 people now wouldn't see racism as an issue for the United Kingdom, that somehow that was brushed under the carpet and wasn't really that important. But that said, there was an acknowledgement on his path that we were still in the foothills of that, that battle, and there had been some progress. I think that he was very keen to belittle what progress there had been.’
‘Well, he did more than that. He actually said we, I think almost in terms that we weren't even moving forward’...
‘I found it very interesting when discussing the curriculum, they kept coming back to this business, that the curriculum effectively excludes black experience. And, first of all, I don't think that's true. But what I picked up from that was a deep sense of, really a sense of isolationism, on their part, and they're not alone in this. And it's this belief that in order for a society not to be racist, it has to, it has to educate its minority ethnic children in their own history, the history of where they came from. And this is a terrible disempowering thing. And this was why I asked Dr. *something*, whether it was so important in his view, that black British kids learned about Shakespeare because in my view, the single most important thing is not to confirm ethnic minority children in any understanding of where they've come from, it is to make sure that they can take part as equal citizens in this society by being taught about this society and feeling a part of this society. And that's why I think this emphasis on colonialism not being taught properly in school, which I think is basically incorrect anyway. But that's why I think, conceptually, it is so very dangerous.’
Amazing mumbo jumbo: 'We are over-represented in positions of power, but we're really oppressed because our history isn't taught because it's insignificant historically'
Of course, the fact that men do dirty and dangerous jobs women don't want to do isn't evidence of systemic sexism
It's amazing that he wants to put black people in the curriculum just for the sake of it regardless of whether it's objectively justified. If Shakespeare is just as important as black suffragettes...
The disconnect between 'racial prejudice' and perceived prejudice or discrimination suggests that at least one side isn't representing reality accurately
Grievance mongers are unable to acknowledge progress, since that will lose them their power
