Oh Equity - Lawrence Fox... what happened next....

[Lordfrontpaw]

Equity apologises to Laurence Fox, and its Race Equality Committee resigns.

Tweet:

'On 17 January a series of tweets were posted by the @EquityMEM Twitter account about Laurence Fox's appearance on BBC Question Time. We are sorry that in the tweets he was called a 'disgrace' by Equity. Please read Equity's full statement. 'equity.org.uk/news/2020/march/laurence-fox/

Suggesting someone shouldn't be employed most certainly is discrimination and a kind of violence.

The kind of violence that isn't violent? Suggesting someone shouldn't be employed is encouraging exclusion, would probably feel scary and threatening of your livelihood, but not violent.

Equity: our lawyers told us to avoid court by issuing an apology. Which we did in the most obvious and lawyerly way possible.

Equity sub-committee: how very dare you. You should have gone to court and lost and made it ten times worse. We resign!

Idiots.

Unfortunately the stupidity andextremismof both factions (e.g. Mr Fox vs. the Equity Race Committee)

As another poster said , Fox isn't an extremist. He disagreed with a member of the audience who from his perspective insulted him.

probably feel scary and threatening of your livelihood, but not violent.

It's not violent but its quite bad enough. It sounds as if Equity were treating him as a blackleg, just like what happened in the 70s. It's bullying.

It seems as if the non elected committees seem to think that they are gods within their organisation and can dispense their communications without permission from within their own little bubbles. Each committee ought to have a responsible adult and a lawyer on board!

Identity Politics doesn’t survive engagement with the individual. We all are after all a minority of one. Unfortunately there are two approaches to group identity: integration and segregation. Identity politics unfortunately feeds into the segregationist mindset although many may claim that it’s the opposite. Problem is when you set up group experiences as inherently exclusionary you are strengthening the forces of segregation. Segregation is the very essence of racism/segregation etc.

Unfortunately these observations don’t tackle problems of racism/sexism/bigotry etc. We will still have those demons to confront it’s just unfortunate that in the long run identity politics will fuel those forces not remove them.

Sorry end of first paragraph should read “racism/sexism etc”

As another poster said , Fox isn't an extremist. He disagreed with a member of the audience who from his perspective insulted him.

His QT performance was one thing but I've listened to quite a few interviews and podcasts with him and he's said some pretty out there stuff. I'm glad he's pushing back against identity politics (we should all be) but he's gone way too far the other way. Let's just say I can't imagine many posters on FWR would approve of his ideas about feminism.

Well that’s where it gets complicated definatelygc I don’t think you can have feminism in it’s modern incarnation without identity politics.

God how I'm fed of up with this country.
Really had enough.

Isn’t the backlash against identity politics just another form of identity politics itself?

It’s usually protested by the same demographic, probably because they fear loss of status.

God how I'm fed of up with this country...

Where would you prefer to live?

I don't think many posters on this board care for ANY man's opinion of feminism. He seems like a perfectly nice bloke, a bit unaware about some things, still smarting from his very public divorce, and trying to hang onto his career while the world goes mad around him. I wish him well and hope he gets more acting gigs. Another series of Lewis (dare I wish for a series of Hathaway) would make me very happy. Cue the orchestral music and sweeping views of Oxford.

RomeoLikedCapuletGirls

Is it though? The Guardian, to its credit, published a piece from a black American who was fed up with how the Democrats lumped all Black voters together as a bloc with scant regard to the differences between them.
(They then went the other way and had an article from a journalist of Indian heritage who essentially wanted Rishi Sunak, Priti Patel and Suella Braverman to focus more on their Indian heritage, the idea being that you have to come together as a bloc to get what you want).

Isn’t the backlash against identity politics just another form of identity politics itself?

People can change sex just by identifying as their target sex.
vs
It is not possible to change sex.

This doesn't look like identity politics to me.

No - it is identity politics.

It's naïve to think that the knuckledraggers among us won't assert their own identity, just as all manner of other groups are busily being encouraged to do.

It's not even about knuckledraggers. The logical result of identity politics is that everyone will see themselves through that lens, because it's the only one that is proposed or acknowledged, and the only one that carries any political power as well.

If I think back, I think it's been on the rise in people's thinking for about 10 years. Perfectly nice people who just want to be anti-racist have been taught that it means they must see and class people primarily according to their identity group, and I can't think of any justice movement that hasn't been significantly impacted.

Well that’s where it gets complicated definatelygc I don’t think you can have feminism in it’s modern incarnation without identity politics.

Is that a good thing though? There is nothing protecting any movement from errors or taking a wrong direction. I think that a lot of civil rights thinking is going to have to unpick their ideas and discard or rethink certain things, I don't see why feminism would be any different.

HorseRadishFemish

My choice of where to move is very long, which is the only thing that's keeping me sane.

Identity politics has been brewing for a long time. Unless we are able to critically analyse this mechanism for viewing the world, I don't think we will make much progress in the long-term.

A lot of people who consider themselves to be 'progressive' will experience a lot of discomfort in examining this ideology because it touches on so many areas like feminism, minorities, social justice etc.
Creating a simplistic hierarchy where some identities are inherently good but downtrodden, while other identities are inherently evil or corrupt is a very lazy way to analyse complex social issues and the 'solutions' end up causing more problems.

I agree Nonnymouse. I think that discomfort may be the limiting factor in our ability to do that.

One hypothesis is that this is what happens when people dont have religion. In previous centuries these are the head bangers who would be burning people at the stake and demanding confessions. I'm not religious at all, but unfortunately the human desire for conformity is strong, and when you believe that you are correct and others are evil, these guys can justify pretty much anything. Add in Twitter mobs to the equation, and you have the perfect means for zealous individuals to force what they believe is a righteous cause on the rest of us.

I think late-stage capitalism may have something to do with it. We are being subtly and very deeply taught that we can dictate reality, as all-powerful consumers. It's not just identity politics, I see it in people unable to understand very simple facts and unable to accept reality (nb protests in America against the lockdown). It both infantilises and produces a sort of supernatural sense of entitlement.

Feel like you want to be a woman? Ought to be a woman? You can be one! Just complain loudly, and obtain the money. The universe can be reordered to suit.

It could be the absence of religion, Student, only I don't know if religious people are showing themselves to be particularly immune to this kind of thinking, either.

The amount of misinformation on this thread by people who clearly aren’t even member is shocking.

Pp referring to them as unelected - they ARE elected!!

Really, anti-racism is bad, and ethnic minorities wanting their own elected spokespeople is a crime, because anti-racism is “leftie” and so is being pro-trans and therefore “woke” so by extension racism is a good thing and to be applauded because woke=bad therefore anything anti-woke (like abusing black people) = good.

Why are you bringing trans issues into a racism case anyway, nothing that happened involved trans people in any way?

Have you actually read the outright abusive and libellous comments the new (UNELECTED) Ethnic Minority Council - the ones who secretly replaced the ELECTED council members who quit?

Have you read the overt racial abuse and seen the fake troll accounts used to harass Daniel?

Oh and are you aware of Equity’s internal systemic sexual abuse of women scandal?

I guess sexual abuse is okay because only those evil “liberal woke identity police” are objecting to it.

Very telling that not one poster here has any criticism about Equity’s president posing arm in arm with a man accused of being a serial abuser of women.