A truth race report critics are blind to
CAN WE talk about race? That’s really talk about race – because a report released last week which should have been music to the ears of everyone involved, instead has been dismissed as tokenistic trash. The Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities was set up by Boris Johnson in the wake of the Black Lives Matter and other protests last year and in its landmark report it noted that while there is still much to be done, the UK stands “like a beacon to the rest of Europe and the world” in the way it has worked with racial issues in a white-majority country.
It reported that children from many ethnic minorities do as well if not better than white pupils, workplaces are becoming more diverse, opportunity is increasing and pay gaps are closing.
It hailed groundbreaking legislation in anti-discrimination and equal opportunities that has set this country apart from many others and said despite the ceaseless claims to the contrary, there is zero proof of institutional or structural racism here.
Given that race now seems to be a key factor in virtually every aspect of our lives, you might have been excused for thinking that this would have been greeted with a crescendo of warm appreciation. Not so. For some politicians, shrillvoiced commentators, agitators and the hard-left this was akin to lighting the blue touchpaper on the biggest firework in the box. Even someone as supposedly smart as Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer got involved and said he was “very disappointed” with the Commission’s findings.
What? Is he seriously implying he’d have been happier had it been suggested modern-day Britain is akin to the US state of Alabama in the 50s or 60s?
The problem he faces is that his Labour Party likes to position itself as being the party for so many ethnic minority voters that it cannot be seen to be supporting this report – despite the fact that nine of the 10 distinguished people who authored it are themselves of black orasian origin.
And pity that poor panel. Never mind it includes a surgeon, economist, former senior police officer and educationalists, they’ve been derided as “place” people.
Remember, there is an entire industry on the defensive here. After all, what
THE EASTER holiday couldn’t have come soon enough for most of the parents and staff at Batley Grammar School in West Yorkshire, as the term ended with angry demonstrations at the school gates after a religious education teacher showed a cartoon of the Prophet Muhammad to a class of pupils.
Seeming to show a questionable level of responsibility for his own wellbeing, the teacher was suspended by the school and it is now reported he has left his home, is living under police guard and has said to his family not only will he never feel safe to return to his job, he doesn’t even feel safe to return to Batley. Two other teachers have also been suspended.
Can I remind everyone: we are living in a Western country that values freedom of speech. While it is never right to knowingly cause offence, in the context of a class discussing matters such as depictions of faiths down the years this would seem to have some merit, if done sensitively.
While a petition supporting the teacher has gained over 60,000 signatures, the school has announced it has commissioned an independent inquiry. But this is unlikely to report back until the end of May. What can take TWO months to investigate? This delay is damaging to everyone involved, allows tensions to continue to be stoked and has to be expedited at once.
would the armies of “race advisers”, charities, unconscious-bias trainers, quangos and commentators do if they didn’t have this old – and now palpably false – trope to fall back on? Never mind the report clearly stating some “overt and outright racism persists” and some communities continue to be “haunted” by troubling echoes of the past, this very “unhappy band” dismiss it entirely.
And if we’re so racist, how come statues are being removed, the historical names of buildings and roads changed? Hardly the work of a nation having the Ku Klux Klan in its DNA, is it?
As with most things in life, the truth
probably lies somewhere in between. While we have come a long way, there is more work to be done and to dismiss the progress made as tokenism is hugely unfair. One of the findings is how people in the lower-income sectors seem to assimilate and get along together far better than those in higher wage brackets. That rings true.
Rather it is the race-obsessed middle classes who see offence where there is none. How ironic that those who preach tolerance are so instantly hostile and intolerant towards something for one simple reason – it dares to tell them what they don’t want to hear.
THE Everyone’s Invited movement has highlighted a potentially hideous scandal that needs to be investigated at once.
But it has also exposed some other troubling issues.
Firstly, the position of the police. Norfolk Police Chief Constable Simon Bailey urged parents to report any abuse to the police – whether their children were offenders or victims – adding their children’s “account will be believed and we will deal with it appropriately”.
What? That goes against the most basic principle of policing, namely ABC. That is: Assume nothing, Believe no one, Confirm everything.
You’d have hoped a chief constable might have been aware of that.
And in education Dr Joe Spence, the headmaster of Dulwich College in London – one of the many private schools caught up in all of this – made the valid observation that it appeared we’re expecting schools to be responsible for the behaviour of their pupils for 24 hours of every day of the year, regardless of where they might be.
While a full investigation is required, along with all necessary support provided for anyone damaged in any way by this, keeping a sense of perspective is absolutely vital too.