UK academic sues university after losing role in critical race theory row

[RoyalCorgi]

Guardian story:

www.theguardian.com/world/2021/aug/16/uk-academic-sues-university-losing-role-critical-race-theory-row-leeds-beckett

This is pertinent here for two reasons. One is that the academic who is suing Leeds Beckett is using the argument that "critical race theory" is a protected belief, using the Forstater case as a precedent:

"In June, finding that gender-critical views were a protected belief, the employment appeals tribunal said only views akin to nazism or totalitarianism were unworthy of protections for rights of freedom of expression and thought under the Equality Act."

The other is that critical race theorists tend to support the trans/queer theory agenda. In this particular case the academic in question was apparently sacked from her advisory role by Leeds Beckett University after her organisation tweeted to a black person first that he was a "house Negro" and then that he was a "coconut". Apparently these terms are part of standard discourse in critical race theory and so should be protected under the law.

And there was me thinking they were just terms of racist abuse...

Anyone wanting to know more about CRT

Very dangerous and I would not want to see it rolled out here

Well Khanom is certainly drawing attention to the activities of The Race Trust here (I think it is based in Manchester).

It appears to be an organisation which encourages the use of racist language in public discourse and has determined that it can blame Critical Race Theory advocates for using such racist language as being part of their 'normal discourse'. Its web site advertises it's 'Racial Literacy Training' but who would have thought that incorporated apparently advocating for the use of racist terms?

I don't imagine there are many CRT advocates willing to back her, and they'll be plenty who will make every effort to dissociate themselves from her, now rather public, views.

Calvin Robinson has highlighted that 'Racial abuse is not a protected characteristic'

Calvin Robinson Twitter

Some contributors to the thread are noting that a ruling in her favour will be confirmation that CRT is racist, and its believers are seeking racism to be a protected characteristic. That's stretching things a bit, but Khanom seems to be hell-bent on pushing CRT under-a-bus.

I'd be surprised if the case succeeds. As a PP has mentioned, the judge in the Maya Forstater case made it clear that, while Maya had the right to hold and express her belief, it didn't give her the right to insult people. It seems clear that the terms "coconut" and "House Negro" were used as direct insults to a particular individual.

It also seems to me that the critical race theorists are on very dodgy ground if they try to argue that these particular terms of racist abuse are in fact a reflection of a particular system of belief. Because if they won, then it seems a very small step to racists arguing that their own offensive terminology is simply a reflection of a coherent belief system.

Legally, part of the issue has to be whether a particular set of beliefs constitutes a belief system - we know now that veganism does, and gender-critical feminism does. Religion also does. But critical race theory? I'm sceptical.

A slight [merail] which I hope is tangentially relevant. Following various links, I arrived at: The Purity Culture of Progressive Christianity: Additional Reflections

For example, I was in Selma on Sunday for the 50th anniversary of "Bloody Sunday" and the Selma to Montgomery Voting Rights March. And in Selma there were lots of examples of this. For instance, at the foot of the Edmund Pettus Bridge there was a young African American man screaming at other African Americans calling their lives and alternative forms of activism into question. He rebuked them, saying things like "Ya'll are going home back to your plantations!". What I was witnessing was an intramural squabble between African Americans. And a purity psychology was at work. The same purity psychology that was at work when Malcolm X called Martin Luther King, Jr. an "Uncle Tom" and a "House Negro."

experimentaltheology.blogspot.com/2015/03/the-purity-culture-of-progressive_12.html

For me, it highlighted the difficult discussions about the progressive form of any ideology and the inevitable disputes around purity. I had a start of recognition when I read it because of the similar language to that which contributed to this incident. [/merail]

@DeeCeeCherry

Veet When I was growing up in south London the term ‘coconut’ was often used to describe people who were black and spoke too posh (too ‘white’) and/or who dated a white person (particularly for black women who dated white guys).

More lies.

I'm in South London. White Son-In-Law. DD hasn't been called a coconut.

Coconut is a term some use for Black people who vocally disparage their own, in the quest for 'cookies' from White people.

Don't blame Black people for terms arising from the seediness of racism, enforced divisions and prejudice.

I went to Grammar school nobody ever called me a coconut.

This narrative that if a Black person is aspirational and educated = other Black people call them names, needs to stop. As does the actions of a few meaning all Black people think and act in the same way.

We are not a monolith and it's extremely narrow-minded to present that we are.

You are very ready to accuse people of lying. And no one is saying all black people think the same. Given that they are talking about a term that some black people sometimes use for other black people, that seems pretty obvious.

It's pretty usual that people use words like these, which are meant to be offensive, in a few different ways, so it's unlikely there is only one, "correct" usage. Many people are fairly indiscriminate when trying to be offensive.

@SmokedDuck they really don’t It's pretty usual that people use words like these, which are meant to be offensive, in a few different ways

Their is only one way to take coon or house negro it’s only used in theses circumstances

Black and Asians who date outside their race
Black and Asians who are conservatives
Black and Asians children who do well at school
Black and Asian who don’t think the U.K. is the worst and or think their colour is the least interesting thing about them

Those Rasict terms have not been reclaimed and are not positive the idea that black people sit round calling each other coons 🤷‍♀️

Did you actually read the post, The post I responded to wasn't one about such terms being reclaimed, it was saying that they were used to disparage people who were seen as acting white in some way. The poster being responded to said,

When I was growing up in south London the term ‘coconut’ was often used to describe people who were black and spoke too posh (too ‘white’) and/or who dated a white person (particularly for black women who dated white guys).

To which DeeDeeCherry responded,

"More lies".

That is exactly the way I've heard the term coconut, or sometimes Oreo, being used. It's accusing someone of acting "white," and basically accusing them of being a lick-spittle.

[quote Mango1982]**@SmokedDuck* they really don’t It's pretty usual that people use words like these, which are meant to be offensive, in a few different ways*

Their is only one way to take coon or house negro it’s only used in theses circumstances

Black and Asians who date outside their race
Black and Asians who are conservatives
Black and Asians children who do well at school
Black and Asian who don’t think the U.K. is the worst and or think their colour is the least interesting thing about them

Those Rasict terms have not been reclaimed and are not positive the idea that black people sit round calling each other coons 🤷‍♀️[/quote]
I agree with this.

Not RTFT but I have read the news article. She posted racially offensive comments on a public forum in order to offend one specific individual particularly about his race, but she thinks she shouldn't face recourse because of it and she claims to be anti racist?

Yeah nice try. When you throw a ball up in the air it falls back down to the ground. Do people not learn that these days?

We could also recall Rio Ferdinand, defending his brother who was the victim of racist language used by John Terry, who called Terry's team-mate Ashley Cole a coconut for giving Terry a good reference.

As noted above, we should be wary of importing US discourses whole if not predigested, because that way, as in another thread here, a Suffragette ribbon on a fence becomes 'a noose in a tree,' an image that has no place in UK history.

We all know there are racist undercurrents between different ethnicities in the UK; between blacks and Asians, between Asians of different religions (see Ayub Khan Din's "East is East," where George Khan speaks of 'bloody Indians.') And there is also a very real phenomenon of tensions between black British of African descent and those of Carribbean heritage, where the vilest of insults can sometimes be exchanged.

Pretending this is all lies motivated by rascism is no help to anyone.

Is the problem with interpreting a suffragette ribbon as a noose really that the UK has a different history? Or that it's completely idiotic and probably a deliberate attempt to falsely accuse people of bigotry?

I don't see it as all that different than the guy who went into the cafe with old pictures of coal miners from the Appalachians and accused the cafe owner of posting pictures of people in racist blackface.

CRT doesn't make more sense in the US, it's still a pernicious and in my view racist philosophy. It perhaps makes more historical sense that it because very popular there first. But the UK and other countries already have many of the precursors of CT, including a certain kind of mutated marxism, and postmodernism. Plus it's a way to try and assert power for some. So it's maybe inevitabble it would spread outside the US.

...Sure they're idiots, but the semiotic anchor they reach for is part of an imported discourse. We are different. When Craig David toured the US, he was told to keep his white guitarist offstage. To his credit, he refused.

....and in reflection of the Craig David anecdote, Jimi Hendrix had to come to London to play rock. In the US, he was pigeonholed in a way he would not be over here.

I just don't think academia is quite so separated by nationality, it's a very integrated system on an international basis. Academia is IMO as much where this has begun to infiltrate the population at large, and academics outside the US don't seem to be any more immune to CRT.

I think crt means a lot of different things to different people, but at it's core it's the idea that institutional and structural racism exists and part of that is the white people may not be aware of their privilege. Not engaging with it because you see similarities with some things people say and TRA rhetoric means that we end up understanding less about both the oppression of women and bkack people. This is also means the pomo/Judith butler nonsense strengthens its reach

Yeah nice try. When you throw a ball up in the air it falls back down to the ground. Do people not learn that these days?
Bookmark
*issue for a while that literally has been happening no one bats a eye lid at the racial abuse thrown it’s often who’s saying the thing rather than the thing there saying some of the rasict things Biden has said and people were like 🤷‍♀️He’s on our team
I believe Biden said if you don’t vote for me your not really black😳 *

This is not exactly on topic but I hope it's a contribution to the debate.

My old housekeeper (moved to Texas now) is Latina. She told me that she was criticized by her friends and family for "trying to be one of the white girls" because she was careful in her language and was following her doctor's advice to lose weight (she had very high BP, diabetes, high triglycerides) and advising them to do the same, given that they had the same problems, as a result of their diet and not taking exercise. One of her friends had a son of 11 who was diabetic, mother (also diabetic) couldn't work as she had to take care of him, electricity cut off (we did get that bit sorted out).

She lost a lot of weight in the time I knew her and controlled her diabetes through diet, despite not having proper healthcare before Obamacare, & did what exercise she could.

Go figure.

@Mango1982

Anyone wanting to know more about CRT

Very dangerous and I would not want to see it rolled out here

@Mango1982 I think that ship has well and truly sailed.

I believe Biden said if you don’t vote for me your not really black

He did.

Setting aside the slurs used, surely it’s staggeringly racist to expect all black people to share one hive mind on politics or anything else? How does this reductive viewpoint survive even a moment’s thought?

@LazyViper you would have to ask the likes of James o Brian the new type of progressive has no tolerance for any view that upsets the Apple cart

Did you see the videos of Antifa shouting coon and Uncle Tom at black officers during the blm riots in the Us 😳 while holding BLM a flags

The look of confusion I get when people realise I am a conservative because they assume all black people have the exact same view as David lammy and dr Shoa 🤷‍♀️

The issue boils down to the fact they simply wouldn’t allow any black people on with counter views until talk radio and GB news came along

So people assume we all think the same
I am fiercely against CRT

I have been appalled by BLM and think their harmful to black people and racial relations in general

And I really wish footballers stop pretending kneeling is not interwoven with BLM and keep out of politics

Mango1982 it's absolutely crazy. This 'progressive' madness is all from the same rule book.

@highame your comment about CRT letting wealthy people off the hook is really interesting. I know this is an imposition but if you had the time to expand on it I’d be so fascinated.

Can I also just say in the 90s I suffered mostly Rasict abuse from people on the right

But now I have to say most of the racism is coming from the left

The re introduction of segregation by race

The re introduction of group guilt

Race being made into the most important factor about someone

And the idea of equality of out come rather than opportunity

People placing worth on what you say based on your race rather than what’s actually said 🤷‍♀️

The re racialist view is very scary

@upthefrogs from what I've read, companies are adding more diversity to their boards and also supporting diversity in their advertising, who they give money to etc., support visibly (that could be one of the reasons trans rights has been bumped up the agenda, it's a new group to band-waggon). I read/listened to a webinar where 'greenwashing' was used as a comparator. Companies with no intentions of greening had departments focusing on the environment and these departments grew and grew. The same has happened with the equality - the companies employ diversity guru's who then grow their departments to the point where they have massive influence over all matters of policy. The departments can move through all the diversity groups at random and companies look like they are thoroughly on board with equality, but they are only interested in the superficial equality, not paying more equal wages.

It has become more obvious recently with big tech, who are 'taking over the world' with massive wealth for some whilst the workers (of all groups) are paid poorly. Things might have got worse for workers since the 'equality bandwagon' of CRT took off. It's new and therefore holds the attention of the young more than class based theory. If you look at the old style Marxists - they haven't changed their view, Class is important. Same with GC feminists, sex is the oppressor as opposed to third wave, who think language matters. In all cases, the superficial is a bullseye for capitalism, can earn as much as you like and widen the equality gap, whilst pandering to the academic interpretation....and the Harvard guys get to keep their positions in society - top of the pile

Hope you get the drift, only on my second coffee.

I've mentioned Kenan Malik's book 'From Fatwa to Jihad' in another thread. In it, he wryly recounts that in the space of a few short years he went from being referred to as Indian, then Pakistani, then black, then Asian, and finally Muslim.