Racism and all the bad -isms

Away End - General Chat
1730

I didn’t raise the notion of closure in the first place, and I am acutely aware that we are three middle aged white men having a discussion about how to move on from the slave trade. Y’know, we might not be the most important voice in this?

I reject the notion of guilt and sin. I have had that idea pushed at me in the past as part of critical race theory, and I challenged it then, and I’d challenge it again. This should not be about guilt and it’s not about the sins of the father, or anything like that.

We should be able to acknowledge that our society has been shaped by the slave trade, and we have had advantages conveyed on us by that, while also understanding that we didn’t personally participate in it or support it at the time (although it’s an interesting thought experiment - if you were living 250 years ago, would you have been an abolishionist? In a deeply and overtly racist society, how much would you have been willing to go against the grain? Nobody can say for sure)

Anyway, I don’t know how to fully provide closure for the slave trade. I don’t think it’s even my place to suggest what that might involve.

But lets loop this round to the original seed of the conversation. Part of whatever closure looks like, it surely involves re-examining how we display and contextualise history from that period. When an institution or collection decides to do this, a role we can all take is to embrace that and see the positives of that effort, rather than be the boring old fart moaning about cancel culture and political correctness gone mad.

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1731

Should rename this this Daily Mail comments section thread.

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1732

Because like the daily mail some people just come to troll :wink:

1733

[quote=“Klopptimist, post:1728, topic:1336, full:true”]
Because you vaguely alluded to them and use said allusions to attempt to prove your point. Justify or retract. Otherwise I can just say you’re wrong. That can be asserted without facts can equally be rejected without facts. Cheers Hitch, ish. [/quote]

Mate, if you can’t accept that our society is structurally racist, then any conversation about the lasting impacts of the slave trade is going to be utterly futile.

Have a read of this.

Or this

I could start listing examples of structural racism, like how people of colour are more likely to be economically disadvantaged, less likely to hold top jobs, more likely to be in unskilled and low pay jobs. How there is still a racial pay gap. How people of colour are still underrepresented in academia and senior roles in top companies. More likely to die early. Less likely to be promoted. More likely to be the victim of police brutality, but I’d be here all day. It goes on and on and on and on.

It’s self evident. You simply cannot have a society where people of colour are so routinely discriminated against in every facet of their life and claim it has nothing to do with structural racism.

And finally a country with no racism problem, does not produce a report on racism so fucking blatantly racist in its execution and bias, that the office of the United Nations Commissioner on Human Rights feels compelled to step in to warn against it, accusing it of normalising white supremacy.

https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2021/04/united-kingdom-un-experts-condemn-reprehensible-racism-report

So I appreciate it feels like I’m evading the question, but as long as you don’t accept that our society is structurally racist there really isn’t any point. The structural racism experienced by people of colour is massively influence by the conditions laid down by slavery. If you don’t believe the former, there is no context for a conversation about the latter. It would be like trying to have a conversation about whether Klopp should be playing Hendo or Fabinho at the six, with someone who doesn’t believe Liverpool Football Club exists.

As for your point about LFC, I think it’s pretty banal. A lot of The City of Liverpool’s history is tied up in slavery, but the city has gone to great lengths to confront and place that history in its proper context. I’m not aware of LFCs founding being rooted in slavery, but regardless I think you would struggle to argue that the modern LFC isn’t an inclusive organisation.

1734

Ah well, I suppose that big lass winning a ballet award balances everything out then. :roll_eyes:

It’s interesting that you think giving the sole black lass out of over a hundred an award was structural racism, but you’re glossing over the fact that a ballet competition with over a hundred entrants had one black girl competing.

Can I let you in on a secret? When we give out a weekly player of the day award at the kids football I coach, we don’t always give it to the best player. Sometimes it’s about trying hard or responding to the coaching, or just because they haven’t had it for ages.

It’s political correctness gone mad.

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1735

And that is absofuckinglutely the problem. You’ve nailed it. You see life is like that. The important thing is to teach kids is that it’s not about winning, it’s about trying hard.

Enjoy that £4000 fuel bill working hard in a shit job because you’re not very good at it. Or maybe, just maybe, encourage kids to do things they are good at? On a Liverpool forum, home of first is first, second is nothing. Show me the runner up and I’ll show you the first loser etc we have a post that rewards effort not achievement. Priceless.

You’d HATE me as you kids’ headmaster. Not headteacher, I’m a master. But what about the kids who can’t run fast or play football? Celebrate their other achievements! Nobody’s good at everything but everybody is good at something. Go on, disagree with that…….

1736

Like I said, an absolutely pointless thread.

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1737

As a general observation, without researching data too precisely, I’d say the amount of black TV presenters and footballers, just to use 2 examples, are significantly higher than the overall UK population demographics ratio.
Not sure about politicians, are there more than 3 in every hundred?

Regarding “regular” jobs, no idea, but contrary to TV presenters, where there’s probably a certain amount of “box ticking” goes on, regular jobs are more likely to be similar to footballers, you get picked if you’re good enough.

1738

That’s demonstrably untrue. It’s been shown time and time again that people of colour don’t get interviews and and jobs even when they are equally or better qualified for the role. And the same goes for promotions, pay rises etc.

The root cause of this is unconscious bias, and we all display. Me, you, everyone. We can’t help it. It’s how our brains are wired. We subconsciously select according to people like us.

The way to address this is by putting measures and processes in place to account for this and avoid it.

1739

At seven and eight years old, football isn’t about win at all costs and second is nowhere mentality. It’s about enjoying the sport and playing for fun. They have the rest of their lives for that.

99.9% of the kids who go through our junior football club are not going to be professional football players. So just let them have fun.

1740

Well I’ll have to take your word for that.
I don’t have the figures and facts on that, although I suspect neither do you.

It would be interesting to know though, if I pick 3 random occupations, recruiter, doctor, car salesman.
Are more than 3 in every hundred black?

Thought provoking, and I’m sure no-one would advocate selecting personnel because they’re black just so they can say they’re exceeding those numbers.

1741

Just not pointless enough to stop you looking and making a pointless comment though.

1742

http://csi.nuff.ox.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/Are-employers-in-Britain-discriminating-against-ethnic-minorities_final.pdf

There are are loads of studies on this. And it’s a fairly easy methodology to replicate. Send out thousands of identical applications for jobs - sone with ‘English’ names, and some that suggest a black or POC origin, and see what comes back.

1743

Maybe better to look at the issue globally. Jim Crow in the U.S. only ended in the 1960s and South African apartheid in the 1990s. The issue is certainly still a fresh one and not from centuries past.

Not to mention bananas thrown at footballers in our own day.

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1744

Cough BBC cough

1745

Some info a bit contradictory though.

On average, 24% of applicants of white British origin received a positive response from employers, compared with 15% of minority ethnic applicants applying with identical CVs and cover letters. All of the minority applications clearly stated that they were either British-born or had arrived in the country by the age of six and had obtained all their education and training in Britain.

Minority ethnic applicants, including white minorities, had to send 60% more applications to get a positive response from an employer than a white person of British origin. While applicants originating from western Europe and the US were treated almost as well as the majority group, people of Pakistani origin had to make 70% more applications. The figures were even higher for those of Nigerian, Middle Eastern and north African (MENA) origin, at 80% and 90% respectively.

Big differences there isn’t there?

1746

There is a clear rationale for organisations like the BBC adopting a strategy of exceeding representation beyond the national baseline, and adopting a positive discrimination framework for public facing roles. If you want to create a more equal and less racist society, then part of that has got to involve normalising race and putting people of colour in people’s living rooms.

Is it fair on white people who are equally qualified. Nope, but suck it up. We’ve had it our own way for a very, very long time.

1747

So basically you’re saying it’s okay to punish this and future generations for things that happened in the past.

That’s discrimination.

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1748

If you are in a position of privilege, any efforts to create equality will feel like oppression.

If we want to live in a meritocratic society where everyone gets a chance, and people are not discriminated against because of the colour of their skin, or their sexuality, or whatever, then that is going to require people like you and me, to give up a little of our privilege. It might feel a bit harder to get a job, but that’s OK. It’s just getting a bit harder because we’ve had it much easier than we should have for a very long time.

It’s always a bit disappointing to hear white people complaining about discrimination, when that discrimination is done for a positive reason, and literally the rest of society is stacked in their favour.

1749

This is literally the opposite of what CRT states. Critical [insert] theory states that where inequality is baked into a system, unequal outcomes are perpetuated even in the absence of individuals who support those outcomes. So for CRT, racist outcomes are produced by a racist system even in the absence of people who are racist.

If you want to deny the inequalities baked into our system then that is one thing, but such blatant misstatements of what the theory is marks you as at best an unserious person.

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