What do you think of Kemi Badenoch?

[WithAnXXHere]

As the title says!

I really like her. She's straight-talking, has had a real job, isn't slagging everyone else off, and has clearly worked for everything she has.

The only downside for me would be her lack of politics experience. But I'm sure she could hire the right people to help her if she became PM.

"Uppity" was first used in the American Deep South for black people who "didn't know their place." It was first used in the Uncle Remus stories to describe black people who were too assertive. It didn't exist as a word before that but it's closely associated with the English word uppish which would have been used in the 19th century.

It's an interesting word though, it's connotations have clearly changed in the last 100 years. It means something quite different now and I don't really believe in not using words because of what they used to mean. Particularly because the word is so well suited to Liz Truss that without it I don't know how to describe her.

Who is most to the “left” out of the remaining candidates? I’d hate for a hard right person to get in. Sunak? Tom Turwhatshisface?

Crazy to think Brexiteer Sunak is now perceived as "left"! Shows how far Brexit / Boris really shifted the Tories across. Rudd / Grieve et al would now look like loony lefties in comparison. (I speak as a centre leftist).

I think it's important to realise that "black women" is not a homogeneous group by any means. Kemi's ethnic background is Nigerian and she spent part of her childhood there and, knowing a lot of Nigerians, I'm completely unsurprised by her views on critical race theory.

Nigeria is a majority-black and very economically successful African country. There is a very entrepreneurial culture and no patience for lack of hustle. Although there is tension between individual ethnic groups, there's no overriding idea of the white man keeping you down. If you come from that to a world that tells you you should constantly be on the lookout for the ways white people are secretly racist and you should accept lower standards because you're so hard-done-by (e.g. easier classwork to "help" struggling black students) - of course that feels aggressively patronising. You KNOW that you are capable of reaching the top because you see it around you every day. It rankles when you constantly see "why bother, white privilege is eternal, you will never succeed, the system pervades your whole life, you will never escape it", and you don't want other black children to grow up hearing that message.

As it happens I do think there is some racism in the UK, Kemi's class background probably does shield her from a lot, and other black experiences are different from Nigeria's, but importing the American-style CRT stuff is not the answer IMO. She's right to push against it.

I agree that Black is increasingly unhelpful as a demographic in the UK.
I read a thoughtful Guardian article about the lessons of the Tory leadership contest for Labour which said
"Besides, “ethnic minority” is too broad a category to have much electoral meaning: black Britons’ experience is not the same as British Indians’, which is not the same as British Pakistanis’".

Which is true in some ways, but still bundles "black Britons" as a single group instead of recognising that Britons whose parents came from Nigeria or Ghana in the last few decades have some very different characteristics from those whose grandparents came over on Windrush. Important similarities in experience of racism too of course.

The mainstream media is very slow to understand this. For decades (1980s and early 90s) "we need some ethnic diversity" normally meant "cast a Windrush descendant" and the British Indian and Pakistani descent communities were seriously underrepresented. Now the MSM has got the message on that, but it still tends to see all black people in the UK through the lens of the Windrush.

I'm aware of it's origins that why I used it.

'she could hire the right people to help her...'
Do you know how the parliamentary system works in England?

Do you want to keep digging there, Sugarfree?

I think I can still see the top of your head...

People that 'don't see colour ' are extremely problematic in a world with systemic racism.

People like Kemi, who had privileged upbringings, went into good jobs, married white people and deny racism exist are not going to want to help reduce inequality. Quite the opposite: she'll go hard on poc to prove to the establishment that they themselves are all right (case in point Priti Patel)

This is interesting. I do recognise much of what you have written there from some of my Nigerian friends now you've mentioned it

This thread is

MotherOfRatios, a black woman, expresses an opinion disagreeing with Kemi Badenoch's politics and position on certain issues.

And Sugarfree, a white woman who likes Badenoch's politics, lays into MotherofRatios with the below:

What you really dislike is them getting all uppity by going with whatever politics they feel represents their values and their best interests and not appreciating who their true masters are.

You ought to be ashamed. I bet you don't though!

In reality, MotherOfRatios is a black person going with whatever politics she feels represents her values and best interests. And Sugarfree is trying to assert herself as MOR's true master...

Blow me, you couldn't make this shit up.

Can some one link evidence to the school side of things!

Her campaign video lays out her ideas on schools etc. It just gives a taste of her right wing views and 'pull yourself up your bootstraps' mentality. Nobody should need any extra support for anything.

"The right wing cannot move their attention off it"

So the disgusting rape and death threats and the never ending cascade of vitriol directed at J.K Rowling for example, from maladjusted bullies - exists only in the imagination of "the right wing"?

Or Roger Scruton, and Kathleen Stock amongst several other academics, hounded from their jobs, for having the "wrong opinions".
The 'Punch a Terf.' misogynists, to Lesbian women repeatedly told by "trans advocates" that they must start accepting sex with "trans women lesbians" in possession of penises, or else they'd be guilty of hate?

This is all just in the fevered minds of the Conservative Party and Nigel Farage?

"We must require schools to concentrate on effective whole class teaching of rigorous subjects rather than allocating tight resources to superfluous support staff and peripheral activities. "
Her speech on Tuesday.

amp.spectator.co.uk/article/read-kemi-badenoch-s-bid-for-prime-minister/amp

Kemi is a typical Tory bigot who'll do anything to stoke up culture wars. Fancy saying Ben & Jerry "epitomises the tendency to put social justice before productivity and profits, one cause of our “economic, social, cultural and intellectual malaise” when they are a super-successful company who grew their profits in a stagnant market 9% last year.

She'll do well in the party as she HASN'T GOT A CLUE and is a liar like the rest of the Tories.

I don't think any black people believe in " a world that tells you you should constantly be on the lookout for the ways white people are secretly racist and you should accept lower standards because you're so hard-done-by (e.g. easier classwork to "help" struggling black students)"

You've got some seriously weird views if you believe easier classwork is given to help black students, the opposite is happening, they are given harsher punishment www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-60807681

Like most people you show complete ignorance dismissing CRT , do you even know what it is? (hint) its sole purpose isn't to make white people 'guilty' like Kemi and her cronies believe.

All of these things. Do some bloody research OP.

She won’t win. She’ll probably get a cabinet position though.

Dim.
And scarily right wing.

Scarily right wing, yes.

Dim, absolutely not.

Dim would help mitigate the odious hard right nastiness. Unfortunately she’s highly intelligent too. She makes me shudder.

She's living proof that being an ethnic minority female does not equate to having empathy, caring for the under-privileged or having views any different from other hard-right Tories.
So yes, another Priti.

I'd quite like the candidate least able to mask their hard right views to win though so voters can really see what they're getting.

It is patronising of white liberals to assume all ethnic minorities have socially liberal views. If anything, at least among the older generations, socially conservative views regarding gender, work, sexuality, religion etc are the norm. However the stink of Enoch Powell etc remains just enough in the Tory party for people to feel reticent about voting for them. It is significant that Kemi is of West African rather than Caribbean background and feels comfortable in the Tory party as opposed to most black Labour MPs being of Caribbean background and Windrush descended. She has less context and sympathy for that history. It reminds me of how most major black politicians in the US (Obama, Harris) are not African-American a little, although obviously not such a neat analogy as totally different histories.

"It is patronising of white liberals to assume all ethnic minorities have socially liberal views."

Well I wouldn't know (I'm an ethnic minority) and I don't think that was the point of my post - 'Kemi's brown so she might dupe non Tory voters into thinking she's not right wing' is Tory PR/populist media spin, was the point I was trying to make.

Its worth noting though that statistically, ethnic minorities in the UK have historically (and in some cases still) not voted Tory. This may well have been in part for similar reasons to why historically those on lower incomes didn't vote Tory.

Whilst in a booming economy those people who benefited economically (and many of those were ethnic minorities) shifted their vote to the right, those who continued to be marginalised, disadvantaged etc, may have been less likely to.

Come the recessions, the vote very much shifted to the right, for other, more insidious reasons which were less likely to be persuasive to many ethnic minorities.

And the only people who would consider a middle class, privately educated son of a pharmacist, married to a millionaire, as somehow 'underprivileged' are members of the Tory party. Most people don't have those privileges and that includes most ethnic minorities.

It wasn’t the point of mine either @dameofdilemma. Interesting that someone should make that interpretation though.