Woman suing the Tavistock and Portman for racism, discrimination against philosophical belief

[beastlyslumber]

Hadn't heard anything about this until now.

I almost feel bad for Kendi, he pretty much says he's a bit dumb.

I got ticked off a few days back for referring to Boris as a posh white bloke. Why bring race into it, they said. Told me off for being racist. Told me I was calling Kemi Badenoch a victim. I was very confused. Still am.
Surely it's regressive to go back to looking to posh white men with an air of confidence to be in charge when times are tough? Surely those types have been in charge for three plus hundred years, now?

So I make a point of not accusing people of racism and bigotry, but point out the problems with the ideas.

The followers of some of this stuff call themselves racist. Robin Diangelo is a self-confessed racist and if you read / listen to her ideas you can see where she is coming from. Her mistake is to assume that all white people think in the same way that she does. It’s incredible that White Fragility is used as an anti-racist teaching aid in schools and colleges.

That's what winds me up Signalbox! These people admit to being racist and to not being able to see non-white people as equal human beings. Then instead of being horrified at themselves, they try to convince everyone else that they're just as racist as them. It's fucked up.

On the racial segregation thread, the OP admits to being racist and committing racial aggressions and says she is very suspicious of people who claim not to be racist. But we're not supposed to say that she's racist (even though she admits it herself). We're supposed to say that the people who don't discriminate based on skin colour are the racist ones.

And I think these people really truly believe that they are enlightened and good.

So I make a point of not accusing people of racism and bigotry, but point out the problems with the ideas.

I wish others could do the same.

I think your approach is very patient and wise. But I think that also sometimes it's good to be confronted with what you're actually saying. When someone says "I'm a racist and I believe, say and do racist things" then I want to say, "wow you're a racist, that's disgusting." Because it is disgusting! And I hope that they will be shocked and ask themselves why they think it's okay to go around as a self-confessed racist. They comfort themselves that everyone else is a racist, too, but that's just not true. Most people in this country are not racist but I think a lot of people are getting sick of being told they are racist scum on the basis of their skin colour.

Among the (many) ironies of all this, is that Queer Theory and Critical Race theory contradict each other. Queer Theory is all about breaking down boundaries and people can identify as whatever they like especially if it conflicts with everyone else's reality... while Critical Race Theory says everyone exists in a set of Oppressed or Privileged boxes that people can never identify themselves out of.

I don't object to either one as a theoretical model, they are both simplification that can help us understand how some aspects of ourselves and other people and history and society sometimes play out. But when you're required to swallow one of these simplifications whole (or both of them whole!) and treat them as universal truths about race or sex or gender (or anything else) instead of a simplified model - then we're all in big trouble.

Tavistock - there are many departments going to down the same route that GIDS did, too much external influence, without conflict of interests being declared, patients views largely ignored and their treatment is going down the drain.

Many senior staff left before PJ handed his resignation in. Many great senior staff.

I think you have some great points. It gets absolutely tiring that every single thing is being reduced to a set of characteristics in every single circumstance. I just think, bloody hell, get a job or a hobby or something because these people must be so bored if they have all this free time to label every single thing this way.

I am a female, and technically disabled. It drives me up the bloody wall when people use females or disability to virtue signal their ‘goodness’ on my behalf. Please stop. Yes, there are issues with misogyny and ableism in the world, but I don’t do myself any favours to label myself as a victim and go around acting as if I have no control or responsibility over what happens to me in my life. I want to achieve on my own merit, not because someone has created a shortlist for ‘middle aged females with invisible disabilities’ category and they want to tell the world how inclusive they are by thinking of little old me. Fuck off.

What a tragic state of affairs.

I’m still of the opinion that there are still thousands of absolutely outstanding clinicians within the NHS but it’s getting harder and harder for them to work in an effective manner due to the meddling and mismanagement of CEO types like PJ.

I’m just an outside observer, mind you, but I have read through some of the T&P monthly board meeting minutes and it seems like PJ was far more interested in trying to win a BAFTA for the documentary series the trust co produced than he was in running an effective NHS Trust or a top class teaching institution.

It’s particularly worrying with T&P considering the P part specialises in criminal psychology and working with sex offenders and men with antisocial personality disorders.

tavistockandportman.nhs.uk/care-and-treatment/our-clinical-services/portman-clinic/

A culture of politically correct speech policing in an environment like the Portman is the literal road to hell of good intentions. Robust safeguarding frameworks are an absolute necessity and nothing wears holes in safeguarding as effectively as a fear of speaking up.

I will definitely chuck some cash in this crowdfunder. It has the potential to be very important as a recalibration tool that reaches beyond the surface topic of critical race theory, the restoration of the scientific method in clinical research is paramount. Lobby groups and trendy political causes cannot interfere with clinical best practice based on material reality.

I hope she’s* made contact with Sonia Appleby/David Bell/Marcus & Sue Evans, all of whom had roles at T&P outside of the GIDS department, all of whom should be able to see the pattern of ideological capture reoccurring (ideology that seemingly works against the desired clinical outcomes of healthy, well-functioning individuals, and making appropriate treatment accessible to all who are likely to benefit from it, regardless of race, sex, age, sexual orientation, disability status, pregnancy and maternity and gender reassignment).

*I’ve forgotten her name and dare not check before posting as Mumsnet has a habit of reloading and losing my long comments! I’m off to find it again now…

Amy Gallagher!

I agree, it's tragic - you've named four senior clinicians who have left, I know many more - at least another four/five (at least). It's really difficult and people there are working hard to rectify things but simply feels like they are going about it the wrong way at the moment and making similar mistakes that have been made before.

It is going to be really interesting to see what changes the new CEO brings.

And obviously this is personal opinion, from some of the things I have seen, and been told.

It has got to be very stressful for everyone involved.

I’m still of the opinion that there are still thousands of absolutely outstanding clinicians within the NHS but it’s getting harder and harder for them to work in an effective manner due to the meddling and mismanagement of CEO types like PJ.

This is not restricted to the NHS. I was speaking to a cousin who works in research in a technical field in the private sector. Their management have announced an intention to appoint more graduates from humanities subjects instead of science subject - something like 40% humanities. In his very technical research department (their core business) he finds he gets sent these history graduates or English literature ones. They have absolutely none of the core skills needed to do the job (principally high level maths). They get cycled out of the department, but his department are also constantly having to turn down work because they don’t have the staff with the technical skills to do it and haven’t had anyone appropriate to train up. Prior to the new target, the HR were turning down good candidates as not ‘rounded enough’.

Good post; a key point she made was the complete lack of debate or discussion.

Academia is based on open debate and discussion of challenging ideas in order to progress thought and learning.

If you don't, you get group think, echo chambers and the loss of democracy.

Remember those 5 glorious minutes when he got his arse handed to him for being unintentionally transphobic?

‘I think it was last week my daughter came home and said she wanted to be a boy. You know, which was horrifying for my wife to hear — myself to hear. And so, of course, we’re like, “OK, what affirmative messages about girlhood, you know, can we be teaching her to protect her from whatever she’s hearing in our home or even outside of our home that would make her want to be a boy?”’

Was quite hard to find the video clip, it seems to have largely been memory-holed (could only turn up articles on this story on Breitbart and Spiked, two very different news orgs with a shared stance on censorship/free speech)

twitter.com/radcentrism/status/1357390128352694273?

Absolutely astounding that Kendi X instinctively understands that children are learning to hate their material selves due to ongoing absorption of negative cultural messaging (about being female, about being ‘cis’ about being same sex attracted) and (rightly!) wants to protect his daughter from the phenomenon, yet he literally profits from selling books that promote near-identical damaging cultural messages about race.

The sex/gender ‘Queering’ negatively affects gay men & lesbians as much (if not more) as it negatively affects straight people. It affects both girl children and boy children, and while it unquestionably affects women more, it does affect men too, largely due to the anti scientific, chilling effect (hence so many men coming in to the debate from a free speech angle). It negatively affects transitioned people (of both sexes) due to lack of long term clinical evidence and a political environment that makes collecting that evidence near impossible

When I argue against Genderism/Queer theory I do not worry (any more!) about being branded a homophobe or a misandrist or a transphobe.

Similarly, Critical Race Theory in schools negatively affects children of all races (who are absorbing negative stereotypes about themselves that widen social fissures rather than heal them). If this is happening in schools and universities it’s not much of a stretch to believe it can, will and probably already is, causing damage in workplaces and institutions.

I am not scared of being called a racist because I know I want the best possible outcomes for ALL children, all students, all families, all citizens, all service users and onwards.

I just don’t believe critical race theory is a way to achieve those best outcomes and I’ve educated myself by listening to Kendi, to D’Angelo, to Loury, to McWhorter, and many others, and concluding that Loury and McWhorter make a lot more sense!

I think that generally with people like that, including over in AIBU, much of the time the racism they are accusing themselves of is almost imaginary.

In some cases it's stuff that is totally abstract, like they have a good job, they believe, because of their white advantage, so they are complicit in a race based system. Of course there is nothing they can do about this.

Or it's things that are very marginal or even made up. Asking a person where she came from since she was clearly from elsewhere - now that is considered a racist micro-aggression, and your motive doesn't matter. There are all kinds of things like this which can be ascribed to internal racism by someone who wants to push that viewpoint.

Feeling somewhat uncomfortable talking to someone of another race also makes you a racist under this thinking, although if you believe in the possibility of an accidental micro-aggression it's a pretty logical thing to feel uncomfortable. So the ideology creates what it is supposedly against.

I think your method can be really effective, and I suspect you are right about DiAngelo, she can't see that other people do not have her baggage. But some people who have been sucked into this way of thinking can be rather fragile, basically they have been taught to think normal human interactions are aggressive power plays and they believe that about themselves. They are desperate to somehow get rid of the guilt.

Yes you are right. I am guilty of being brash and a bit aggressive in my approach. I lack patience for people's fragility.

I just want people to stop and think, hold on, what am I saying here? I reckon that most people who say they are racist are upset when you call them out for being racist. I feel like something has to crack the cognitive dissonance.

But I'm not disagreeing with you. I think your approach is very effective and less likely to cause arguments!

Both are useful I think. It's a matter of using them at the right time. I'm not always patient by any stretch!

My main thinking in terms of not accusing people is really just that if someone knows they are not a bigot, accusing them tends to mean what you say gets dismissed out of hand. But most people realize they can be mistaken, at least theoretically.

I think it's more about taking them at face value. They're the ones saying they're racist! I'm just taking them at their word.