Institutional racism doesn’t exist

[Forwhatitsworth101]

www.theguardian.com/world/2021/mar/31/uk-an-exemplar-of-racial-equality-no-10s-race-commission-concludes

Thoughts please... I’m lost for words

I thought April fools was tomorrow?

Racists deny racism exists, what a shocker.

Reading some updates on The Guardian - this is a response from the GMB union.

"Only this government could produce a report on race in the 21st century that actually gaslights black, Asian and minority ethnic people and communities.

This feels like a deeply cynical report that not only ignores black and ethnic minority workers’ worries and concerns.

But is part of an election strategy to divide working class people and voters. It’s completely irresponsible and immoral.

Institutional racism exists, it’s the lived experience of millions of black and ethnic minority workers. We’re paid less, we’re more likely to be in high-risk jobs during the pandemic, we’re more likely to die from Covid, we’re more likely to be stopped and searched, to be arrested and to go to prison."

I saw the headline and actually laughed out loud. Literally nothing surprises me any more (and I'm only in my twenties!) .

(PS I'm BAME but not black, hope it's ok for me to contribute here? If not, my sincere apologies.)

Full report here -

assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/974507/20210331_-CRED_Report-FINAL-_Web_Accessible.pdf

They released it at 11.30am to ensure that they could edit it properly first.

I wouldn't expect anything more tbh.

It's the typical rhetoric of this country.

@SimonJT

I thought April fools was tomorrow?

Racists deny racism exists, what a shocker.

So are you saying that the authors of this report, who are (with one exception) BAME, are racist? And no, they do not deny racism exists. They are very clear that it does and make 24 recommendations to improve the situation.

Oh here they come....

And they clearly haven't read the report by the terminology they are using....

So a racist PM gets a report which shows the UK is not racist.

I wonder how that happened?!

It truly gaslights those who know racism exists and will be used by racists to shout “nothing to see here”

(White person, apologies for intruding).

@InThisMultiverse

It is a product of institutional racism.

Exactly this.

Many of the 24 recommendation are specifically written to exclude race as a factor. They may well say that they therefore treat underlying issues such as poverty but they are not recommendations to address institutional racism or even race at all. Haven't read the whole report, yet, but as an example it doesn't address disproportionate exclusion rates in schools ( just make the school day longer because that'll do it , keep them off their mopeds).

Tony Sewell is a divisive character. He may well be 'BAME ' but he announced in advance of chairing the commission that institutional racism is not something he believes exists. Mirza is head of No 10's policy unit.

My jaw dropped when I saw this. Even the sky news presenters are questioning the truth of the report !

Forgive me for posting on this board as a white person. I did consider starting an alternative thread elsewhere to discuss this, but anticipated the likely pile-on of apologists for this report and got annoyed before I even started.

I want to express my solidarity with those who have been gaslighted by this report today. It is so incredibly disappointing and infuriating that, even after a pandemic that has so disproportionately impacted on black and Asian communities and after the momentum of the BLM protests last year, we have yet again missed a crucial opportunity to be honest about the reality of race in this country.

Saying that structural racism does not exist will not make it go away. Laying the blame at the door of disadvantaged communities will not resolve the problem.

We need honesty and we need change. It doesn't look like we are going to get either of those things yet.

"Institutional racism doesn’t exist".

Tell that to the woman who phoned in to David Lammy on LBC the other day.

Just to be clear, I was responding to one specific post which effectively called the authors of the report racist and suggested that the report denies racism exists. I am aware that the report thinks we should stop using the term BAME but used it as shorthand anyway.

There is a lot I disagree with in this report. But I don't think calling the authors racist is a helpful contribution to debate.

It is disgraceful. 💔

@SkaterGrrrrl

"Institutional racism doesn’t exist".

Tell that to the woman who phoned in to David Lammy on LBC the other day.

She was clearly racist but that doesn't prove the existence of institutional racism. One of the areas where I disagree with this report is in its view that there is no institutional racism, but individuals being racist is not institutional racism.

The police arresting 3 times as many black people as white people is an example of institutional racism, in my view, as is the courts being more likely to remand black people in custody and sentence black people to prison. There are plenty of other examples. So no, I don't agree with the authors on this point.

I think you are right about what would happen on the main boards alexa.

Sewell is very New Right in his views. Blames single mothers and female teachers for all sorts of things. He is also homophobic. However, he wasn't the only person on the commission, of course.

twitter.com/PriyamvadaGopal/status/1377181616750006280

@Piggywaspushed

Of course, the focus on white working class is because they believe they might get votes from them. And want to keep them.

They never seem to realise that not all working-class people are white.

This is on page 8 of the report where they are talking about decolonising the curriculum.

The ‘Making of Modern Britain’ teaching resource is our response to negative calls for ‘decolonising’ the curriculum. Neither the banning of White authors or token expressions of Black achievement will help to broaden young minds. We have argued against bringing down statues, instead, we want all children to reclaim their British heritage. We want to create a teaching resource that looks at the influence of the UK, particularly during the Empire period. We want to see how Britishness influenced the Commonwealth and local communities, and how the Commonwealth and local communities influenced what we now know as modern Britain. One great example would be a dictionary or lexicon of well known British words which are Indian in origin. There is a new story about the Caribbean experience which speaks to the slave period not only being about profit and suffering but how culturally African people transformed themselves into a re-modelled African/Britain.

I have lots of issues with this part particularly the last part.

@KevinTheGoat divide and conquer is how you get an Empire and keep it... that's until the "natives" realise who their common enemy is.

but how culturally African people transformed themselves into a re-modelled African/Britain.

I might be being thick, but I don't even understand what this is supposed to mean.

[quote Forwhatitsworth101]@StarCat2020 with respect this thread is about the report on institutional racism- please don’t try to derail with Sarah Everend.[/quote]
That wasn’t derailing

Thoughts please... I’m lost for words

Unfortunately they would result in deletion.

I've had a quick skim of the report rather than review it properly but initial reaction is a lot of cherry picking of statistics and experience to fit a message. So a big focus on working class white boys underperforming at school and a failure to address why those underqualified white boys still get better jobs and higher pay than equivalently or better qualified black boys.

Mirza has form going back at least 5 years working with BoJo. The only comment I've seen in the report that makes sense to me so far is the lumping together of all minorities into one bucket and the need to consider the overlay of economic class.