Things we won't say about race...

[MillieV]

Has anyone watched it last night? I found it very interesting and refreshing.

What did you think?

Planning to watch on catch up later so will come back to this thread

I dipped in and out

Thought the thing about people living near people like them was a bit oversimplified-dont people mostly live where they can afford to live/where the local authority puts them

As for the Met data on arrests per area and type of crime-is that watertight evidence of exactly who is doing what where? I'm not so sure. That looks to me to be evidence of who the Met catch and the courts prosecute

What I found most interesting was that the multicultural policies that were meant to create equality fostered a system that let groups be exempt from what is considered the norm.

It's so true.

How much more tolerant do you become if it's a person belonging to a minority group versus someone who's White? I know some very left-wing people who make excuses for a person's behaviour that they would find unacceptable if that person had been white and middle class.

I struggled to understand what outcome he wanted.

For the most I agreed with him.
Very refreshing to hear but it won't change anything...

I didn't really get the point of it really.

I thought it was a really good programme!

It's funny the things that people feel they mustn't say because they think it's racist. The bit where he explained that statistics aren't racist (or something like that). Really good.

However, can I ask, why is a pharmacist such a popular job for Indian women? The programme said something like 1 in 8 chemists are Indian, but why is that? What's the allure?

I'm another one who didn't understand the point - if people won't say it, suggest what we should actually say and for what purpose?

Many Indian families regard medicine as a prestigious career and push their daughters into it. So the statistic about pharmacists is not surprising to me. In fact in my borough I would say it's more like 1 in 8 pharmacists who are not Indian women.

That is something which is not PC to say but why not when it's true?

chiili

What's not PC - or is in fact racist - is to apply generalised comments about a race. To assume all people who belong to a particular race have similar characteristics in behaviour and attitudes. That can then be used to demonise groups and apply labels to whole groups of people.

I watched the programme.

I thought it poorly researched and fodder for UKIP voters and racists, in the main.

Colour of your skin is a red herring really, it's about different cultures, which happen to align with race broadly. Just that without knowing a person as an individual, the first thing you see is race and that humans seem to be programmed to call up stereotypes (which could be positive or negative). You can have oriental looking people with very distinct cultural traits, most UK people would consider Japanese, Korean or Chinese as being the same race, but they are culturally very different. You cannot deny that there are elements of truths in some of these cultural traits or stereotypes, even though you could recognise that it is un-PC to say so for risk of "demonising" a whole group. But if we talk about an innocuous "stereotyping" of, say, the Japanese tending to be great at queuing, for example, nobody seems to object to this "sterotyping" as being racist or un-PC.

I think the general discourse and thinking in this area is woefully not fit for the purpose of debating this sensibly and cutting to the heart of the issue, it is so predictable for the thread to descend into the language of racists, stereotypes, PC vs unPC etc..

My detailed thoughts are here
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/_chat/2335330-Trevor-Phillips-race-programme-Ch4-tonight

But, in the main, I thought he was worrying out loud and hadn't really thought it through. Discussing a few statistics isn't going to change anything. He wants change. But, I don't believe he knows which changes or how to get them.

Ot but crikey I canno9t imagine a more boring job than being a pharmacist!

I'll watch it on catch-up, I forgot it was on. I generally find Trevor Phillips quite interesting.

I can think of plenty of jobs more boring than being a Pharmacist! It must be great to be that knowledgable about chemistry and drugs.

Still trying to figure out the point they were making .

Take the pharmacist example some have mentioned. He said 1 in 8 pharmacists in the UK are Indian women. So the majority (7 in 8) are not Indian? He didn't tell us that there are 12000 pharmacies in the UK. So assuming 3 or 4 pharmacists in each, that's 6000 Indian women pharmacists. Indian population is about 1.5 million. So the vast majority of Indian females in the UK are not pharmacists. So what was his point?

I watched it with interest as an ethnic minority who has grown up in the UK.

After over 30 years, and having been to grammar school and university here, I am (I think or I hope) a fully integrated member of UK society, but in recent years I've come to the conclusion that when other people look at me, they might only see an ethnic minority (and all the associated traits) even if I see myself as fully British. As a minority, how you see yourself and how you feel inside (as a British person) and how other people see you could be very different. You can clearly see Trevor suffering from this phenomenon on a daily basis just from the program.

I think the point was that he should be able to say these statistics without being flamed for being racist.

It is not racist to point out statistics - but when the issue being talked about is things like crime, the statistics need to be reliable, accurate and need context.

UKIP and the "Romanian crime wave" is a case in point. They misused / misunderstood the statistics and then demonised Romanian people based on these "statistics" they read. Unfortunately, people keep repeating them - zombie statistics which won't die.

Context and numbers are everything.

Statistics can be, and often are, manipulated. And the interpretations of such statistics can be flawed.

I couldn't see how the statistics relating to black people being more likely to be murderer by another black person led to the conclusion that racism has no part to play in "black crime", so called. That seemed something of leap, to me.

How to misuse statistics for your own agenda

blogs.channel4.com/factcheck/factcheck-romanian-crimewave/18207

In that particular example you cite Alis, as I understand it, I think the implicit assumption there is that racism is something white people do to black people. Therefore, the statistics that blacks are more likely to be murdered by other blacks (as opposed to whites) "means" or leads to the conclusion that racism has no part to play in "black crime".