The woke roll back continues

Horrible thread. This is not a good thing. I haven’t RTFT and don’t plan to either.

I’m not sure what was ‘packaged’ about my response, @TempestTost?

The McKinsey research is particularly interesting and compelling I find, not just because of the huge body of data it uses and strong research methods, but also because it’s been able to track progress over time.

It’s your prerogative to disagree of course.

Ithink there are a heck of a lot of questions around that research. Whether that actually represents a causal relationship being the most fundamental.

There are people on the left who talk about banning Reform. As far as I know it's not an organized group though. Just the usual numbnuts who think that they should ban whatever doesn't fit into their ideology because its bad.

I'm not sure what the comments about the judiciary were meant to refer to specifically but there have been some real issues with the courts like the stuff in the judge's handbook about insisting that assault victims use preferred pronouns. They have been very captured. But maybe she meant something else.

The pp's dismissive post struck me as rather packaged.

I think the substantial body of reporting done by McKinsey (for one) showing the benefits (including in relation to financial performance) that diversity brings to organisations probably takes it out of the realm of a ‘faith based statement’ in fairness.

I was wondering about those comments about the judiciary and banning Reform. I'm not in the UK so I have no idea what she's on about.

It's an interesting question - the idea that "diversity" brings benefits to a business is pretty much a faith based statement as far as I can see.

Sometimes, some kinds of diversity can. Sometimes, some kinds can cause difficulties. In a lot of instances they are pretty neutral.

A certain amount of diversity of personality and thinking styles can usually be pretty helpful in a workplace. Not always though.

And APGARs are supposed to be a very quick screening, that's part of the point.

One of the reasons APGAR scores are so useful as a dirt line basic assessment is because they don't actually require any equipment. It really doesn't matter what has gone wrong, if you are in a field, if there has been a hurricane and there is no power, you can do those assessments. They don't work as well if you only do them in emergency situations, it's much better if they are practiced constantly.

That's not to say that if a test that was better should come in it shouldn't be considered though of course downsides should be looked at too. One poster above mentioned reducing beeping equipment - there are also people who think it's much better not to remove the infant from the mother at all if possible which also tends to less invasive approaches.

I think a really interesting question though is whether the bar should be around race based equivalency. WHat if someone invented a new test that meant problems were caught 50% more often, but it worked better for black babies, and was only a 20% improvement for white ones? Would we therefore not want to use it?

Is it a reasonable assumption that it is always possible for treatments and screening tools to work equally well for everyone? For every group? It's a great goal to be able to treat everyone with equal success but surely we know that is not always how it works? It doesn't mean we think they are worth less.

What a garbage post.

Who's seeking to "outright ban" Reform?

Two-tier policing? Which right-wing idiot did you pick that phrase up from?

"Undermining the independent judicial system?" I thought that was the Daily Mail day after day when the judges said that your mate Johnson couldn't shut down parliament.

Have I got that wrong?

Clown.

So I bow out - live in your bubble, whilst I proactively change mine. That brings me great joy!

<<snort>>

Actually I think newmummycwharf1 has gone back to school so doesnt have as much time for mumsnet. Any serious individual would have been pleased to give documented examples of the benefits that diversity has brought - but businesses are cutting back on the gravy train because it hasnt brought those benefits,

I used to employ a lot of people from ethnic minorities. When people faced a lot of discrimination those that managed to make it to applying for the posts I recruited for were frequently better qualified and better motivated than other potential applicants. No positive discrimination as such, they deserved their jobs. They were harder working and more loyal because they feared they'd find it harder to go elsewhere. As discrimination reduced the standard of applicants dropped back to a similar level to other applicants. Now I expect it's fallen below it because the woke have told them to claim discrimination for anything and everything. So "early adopters" did reap benefits from having more diverse employees but that benefit has vanished.

And because 'pink all over' isn't an adequate screen even for White babies - as the report says. Apgar scores where introduced in the 1950s. The recommendation includes a systematic review of other scores that may be more robust. Pulse oximeters are non-invasive and more accurate for everyone (not perfect - so ongoing research there too).

And the reason I am being snarky and no longer engaging on this thread is that the most robust evidence - including systematic reviews is presented and the response is 'hyperbole'. The conversation is not with fruitful or helpful as the evidence provided is not being critically appraised.

So I bow out - live in your bubble, whilst I proactively change mine. That brings me great joy!

Just another thing on the recommendation that all newborn infants have their blood oxygen levels screened with the use of pulse oxymeters:
The recommendation is that, because currently BAME newborn infants are exposed to more unnecessary assessments than white newborn infants, therefore all newborn infants should be exposed to an unnecessary clinical assessment procedure that most of them don't need.
My mind isn't made up on this, maybe that is the best way forward. But I'm not convinced and I think it's dangerous hyperbole to say disagreement can only be racism.

@newmummycwharf1
“It is possible that you are more learned on the topic than the vast number of Professors of neonatology and Obs &Gynae involved in conducting the systematic reviews used to inform this policy paper:
https://www.nhsrho.org/research/review-of-neonatal-assessment-and-practice-in-black-asian-and-minority-ethnic-newborns-exploring-the-apgar-score-the-detection-of-cyanosis-and-jaundice/
”
I doubt it. I’d prefer it if you posted without sarcasm because it makes it difficult to follow your argument.

“It is also possible that you are aware that systematic reviews/meta-analysis are a higher level than randomised controlled trials - so the highest level of evidence”
The section of the report comprising a systematic review of studies of APGAR testing in newborns of differing ethnicities only includes six studies, but some of those are really big studies so: good data. What it shows is that a low APGAR score is more likely to be associated with infant mortality for (racialised) white newborn infants compared with (racialised) black newborn infants. However, the association is still there for all infants, “The impact of the Apgar score on neonatal mortality was considered in two large, linked birth-death datasets. The first (Mihoko Doyle et al., 2003) included 6,544,004 infants and the second (Li et al., 2013) included 25,936,357 infants. Both studies found that low Apgar score is predictive of neonatal death across different ethnicities.” (p30 of your linked report).

“If the positive predictive value of a screening tool is lower for a group of people - it is not fit for purpose for that group and needs updating. To most people - that goes without saying. The point is to improve the screening tests to the rate of detection is improve for all babies it is applied and intervention introduced early to prevent negative outcomes including death.”
I thinks it’s dishonest of you to add “including death” at the end of your paragraph. The negative outcomes for BAME newborns are all to do with over-assessment and over-treatment, there is no increased risk of infant mortality for BAME newborns associated with routine APGAR testing.
And I’m not sure that I agree this makes APGAR testing unfit for purpose. If APGAR testing were generating false negatives for BAME newborns I hope it would have been abandoned long ago. I don’t think it’s as clear cut for false positives. One policy and procedure change suggested in your linked report is that all newborn infants (or maybe just BAME newborn infants, I can’t actually tell from the way it’s written) have their blood oxygen levels assessed via use of a pulse oxymeter. This is an objective screen with no regard for skin colour, but it also involves pressing the oxymeter around the infant’s big toe, and it brings another piece of medical paraphernalia into the birthing suite, another beeping machine. There is a big push from birthing mums to only bring in the beeping machines when they’re absolutely needed at the time of birth, and the nice thing about the APGAR screen is that it just involves a midwife looking at bub – which she’s likely to be doing with joy and affection anyway.
Maybe the issue is whether you think midwives don’t give the “well perfused” APGAR point to BAME newborns because they’re racist, or if it’s because it’s harder to tell, looking at a newborn infant with dark skin, that said skin is well perfused. Maybe it’s better to hand the assessment over to the machines, which are thoroughly objective. But I think that’s a moot point (and I don’t think it’s necessary).

“Again - hope that helps.”
This sounds passive-agressive and snarky but I’m not sure what you’re being snarky about.

What a refreshingly open-minded response [sarcasm]. This exemplifies the problem: no engagement with the actual points made, mostly sneering.

That is so offensive I don't know where to start.

I think the pro EDI people need to start calling out the crazy excesses of it if they don't want the baby thrown out with the bathwater.

This article is interesting. On a very basic level it highlights why people are starting to push back on EDI. If what is contained in this article is true and not misrepresented in any way it is pretty shocking that this is they type of material aimed at children in the name of EDI. I don't even think that material like this can be said to have it's heart in the right place.

https://dailysceptic.org/2024/09/01/outrage-over-school-textbook-branding-traditional-irish-families-as-bigoted-while-glorifying-diverse-families-and-forcing-kids-to-choose-sides/

There's the authoritarian left and there's the libertarian left. The libertarian left supports freedom of expression. The authoritarian left supports only their freedom to express themselves.
I'm not in the UK, so I'm not familiar with what they are doing to the judiciary. Can you explain?

@XChrome

The issue I have with the hard left woke is that they are fascist in trying to silence by either threats of de platforming those that disagree with their views whether that be JK Rowling or even Farage.

They are also authoritarian and anti democratic in seeking to outright ban certain political parties such as Reform.

They are undermining an independent judicial system through political interference (two tier policing).

So yes I do see the hard left woke as a serious danger to us all.

This seems relevant from Don't Divide Us...

https://dontdivideus.com/2024/08/23/diversity-anti-racism-and-the-threat-to-education-in-schools/

Well said, @XChrome It's kindergarten politics. Serious leftists would be more interested in analysing the origins (and finances) of the gender movement.

I'm as left as it gets. I have been since childhood, was born into a family of active leftists. However, I think -scratch that- I know, that political correctness has gone too far.
I have been attacked for simply not liking the things currently in vogue among people who consider themselves woke. For example, when the Wonder Woman movie came out and morons were blithering about how "empowering" it was for women, I said it's not, it's just the usual hot women in skimpy clothes. I quickly had a gang of "woke" attackers threatening me. There are tons of examples of leftists who disagreed with the howling woke mob (about things both as trivial as that and more weighty matters) who were attacked and "cancelled" for it.
Just look at this Israel/Palestine craziness. The university woke crowd have rallied in support of Hamas and attacked Jewish students. While I do think Israel is incredibly aggressive, that is inexcusable. The wokies are drunk with power, the power to condemn others and "cancel" them. That's what it's really about.
That's what the left has come to among younger people; doing shit like supporting Hamas and threatening to kill J.K Rowling to prove how virtuous they are, which is ironic af.
I don't recognize this woke left as anything like the old guard, who were the people who really affected change about the things that matter most- income equality, human rights, etcetera. It's performative, hive-minded and staggeringly irrational, obsessed with gender ideology (and whatever else is currently fashionable) and punishing independent thought among their own ranks.
This bullshit only hands right wing scum wins. The current left needs to grow up.