From my Twitter account this morning:
I’ve now worked out what the Sewell Report is really saying. It is that it’s minority ethnic people’s own fault they’re not getting on as well as they’d like and it’s down to them to sort it. How silly to think that government or institutional racism had any part in any of this.
— Richard Murphy (@RichardJMurphy) April 1, 2021
And:
That was meant to be appoints, but anoints works just as well
— Richard Murphy (@RichardJMurphy) April 1, 2021
Fake news does not even come close to describing what they are doing.
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It feels as if the Tory party has decided to deliberately provoke young people and supporters of young people. I assume the strategy is provoke them into protest, create fear and insecurity amongst the rest of the population, ride to the rescue with more authoritarian policies that give centralized control over the whole population. This needs to be done before effects of Brexit really take hold and the spread of poverty and job insecurity will will be affecting many demographics, including professionals and managers. But now laws will be in place to suppress them too.
First they came for the idealists ….
Clearly this Sewell Report is a complete ideological whitewash and cronyism of the worst kind by using former Johnson GLC employees to produce this complacent outcome. How many young people from areas like Brixton, Toxteth. Bradford, Smethwick etc did they interview to find out what the true situation is? What is their excuse for the Met to reintroduce sus stoppages of at least 8 times as many black youths are stopped compared with white?
Have you actually read the Sewell report?
Or are you just another commentator predictably attacking it without having read it, because it doesn’t give the answer you want it to?
Tell me what it is that I am getting wrong
That would be a no then. So you are making claims about what the report says without actually having bothered to read it – like various other commentators out there.
Your tweet has no relation at all to what the report says. Had you bothered to read it you would know that.
To put it mildly, people like you tweeting falsehoods out don’t help the cause of race relations in the UK one bit.
But then of course it’s much easier to just scream “institutional racism” then look at the actual situation and the underlying causes for many of the disparities – which as the report accurately points out are much more to do with other factors than race.
I have read enough of the report to get what it is saying
In summary, there is no institutional racism
There is class racism
And social deprivation, part of it chosen, linked to geography
And ethnic identity is sometimes used as a cover and even reinforcement for failure
Plus some expect support, and use institutional racism as a basis fo claims for that support
When you are an academic (and I am, to sufficient degree to say this) you look at the assumptions
The assumption here is that disadvantage is chosen
The reasons why people may not be able to avoid disadvantage are not considered
That the reason why they are denied access to opportunity is not appraised
In other words the possibility that it is institutional racism that creates that situation is not considered
Argue otherwise if you will, but I will take a great deal of persuading
Why? Because the audience says that disadvantage is not chosen. It exo9sts because of the impediments put in people’s way
And some of them are class
But then class and race do overlap
But when you do nothing about it then it is at least in part because of institutional racism
The report is in fact evidence of that
It is institutional racism n itself
So you’ve read a news article or two about the report. Not the actual report itself.
What you then wrote was gibberish. Class racism? What is that exactly?
There is no assumption that disadvantage is chosen. The reasons why people are disadvantaged are considered. Access to opportunities is also considered carefully.
But the report finds that race is not the main contributor to economic and social disadvantage. There are disparities across racial groups, but poor white boys have some of the worst outcomes, and black African and black Carribean boys have vastly different outcomes.
But nevertheless you go back to claiming everything is institutionally racist – even the report itself.
If you are going to label everything as institutionally racist, then really there is no helping and no solution. It’s an intellectually lazy way of reducing the problem down to soundbites you can use to attack people with. I think this pretty much encompasses you – no real understanding, no real inclination to see the situation improve by dealing with the underlying causes which are more often than not race related, just a lazy way to score points against the government.
Just shouting “racist” doesn’t achieve anything – especially when racism is not the key to most of these problems.
OK, you do not think I have read enough
I suggest you go and read what the British Medical Journal has written on this nonsense from Mr Sewell
Then come back and say why they are wrong
I don’t yell racism for no reason
I am very clear there are real issues for disadvantaged people of all races
But decades of research shows the overlap between race and disadvantage is so high it is impossible to conclude that there is not a link
You say there is not
Go on then, why is that? Why is everyone else wrong? The report does not say. As the BMJ points out, it also uses wholly inappropriate data to support its claim e.g. those on life expectancy are taken from Scotland where only 3% of ethnic minority people live and it is flatly contradicted by data for England where most do live
So, using unbiased data tell me why I am wrong
Stop yelling at me – which is what you are doing, and what you came here to do, and present a coherent argument
I assume you mean this article?
https://blogs.bmj.com/bmj/2021/03/31/structural-racism-is-a-fundamental-cause-and-driver-of-ethnic-disparities-in-health/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+bmj%2Fblogs+%28Latest+BMJ+blogs%29&g=w_bmj-com
The article makes a lot of valid points about disparities between racial groups. It then goes on to just label them as institutionally racist, despite not actually having any evidence to link the outcome with racism.
Which is my case in point. If ethnic minorities were being denied COVID vaccines or treatment for the disease, that would be racism. But as far as I know, this is not the case – and the government is actively trying to encourage minorities to have it. Yet the BMJ article is trying to pin higher mortality of COVID deaths on racism.
You are also correct in saying that there is an overlap between race and disadvantage. But correlation does not prove causality. Some minorities have much better economic outcomes than others – so just claiming racism is lazy and wrong.
The fact of the matter is that racism is being used as catch all argument for almost any disparity. It is far easier to blame racism than any other social factor. Coming from a single parent family has far more correlation with both educational attainment and economic disadvantage than race – but by shouting racism very loudly almost every factor other than race is ignored. This is what the report spells out.
As for you – I stand by my comments earlier. You didn’t bother to read the report and made up your own claims as to what it said. Claims which are simply untrue. If you are willing to put out falsehoods and propaganda on social media, it says more about you and your politics than the report itself.
95% of medics who died from Covid were from ethnic minorities
Please explain that
And if you are so sure race has nothing to do with this explain what does cause the obvious discrimination minority ethnic people suffer from, as I know to be true?
Read another comment here from a ‘regular reader’. Since economics does not explain discrimination in that case please explain why the discrimination suffered is real?
To be clear, I am accusing you supporting institutional racism
Tell me why you are not. Because I will tell you, your attitude is deeply offensive, patronising and, based on the lived experience of many, wrong
I should add Irene that there are characteristics of your postings that make you look very much like a troll
I am not convinced that you are a random commentator
“95% of medics who died from Covid were from ethnic minorities
Please explain that”
Are you seriously suggesting that institutional racism had anything to do with that? That the NHS (itself staffed at all levels by ethnic minorities) somehow gave less care to those from ethnic minorities because of some race bias? What an insult to the NHS staff that looked after them and no doubt did all they could to save their lives.
An utterly disgraceful accusation.
NHS staff themselves ask the question why it was that so many of their ethnic minority colleagues that died
And yes, I am saying that they were not properly protected
The purpose of the report is not to prove anything or provide a basis for discussion. It is simply there to muddy the waters in the public mind. The headline is what this is about. The public wont read it (nor will Boris.) But they will take away the comforting idea that the problem is overblown and their prejudice is OK really. Boris knows what he is doing. His purpose has been achieved whatever informed criticism there may be.
Appoint commissioners who are known not to believe in the matter being investigated – and, hey presto ! (zinging housework fairy from a TV ad. at this point) – your problem vanishes. Clearly this principle should be applied more widely. (Hint – it was pioneered in the old Eastern Europe; just check out Czech novels.) Problems with public credibility can be ignored in the absence of an intelligent and active opposition and the presence of an suitably politicised police force. However, beware of cartoonists, poets and creative types for whom censorship and de-funding may be recommended. What could possibly go wrong?
Ah… appoint a new Commission to find out.
Call me cynical. Call me a conspiracy theorist…
When I see such a supposed spectacular snafu emerge from the most PR centric government in Europe if not the world – the masters of dead cats on tables – I wonder what is the latest crap they want to cover up by such diversions?
Is it the continuing lie of BrexShit and its primary purpose?
Is it the dodgy contracts for the spivs of this ‘world war’ against Covid?
The failure to build enough vaccine manufacturing in the country? Or get adequate PPE sorted out?
Is it the extremely large number of avoidable excess deaths over the year? The ONS spring report on deaths last year is what I am waiting for.
Is it the current leaping like lemmings to an even greater number of deaths by the encouragement of get out there for Easter and make more infections, more variants so that it provides continued cover – for the next phase of their long planned subjugation of our hearts and minds?
Is it a march towards an actual war somewhere? A falling into line with the Biden administrations return to war war not jaw jaw in a disregard of genuine International Laws for a self selected ‘Rules based’ one with exceptionality for these Rule makers?
Is it the threat of Scottish Indy?
Or is some demented April Fools joke?
Etc
One thing is certain – there seems to be a concerted effort to inflame racial stereotypes and what better than to have large scale riots with plenty of black faces – not the representative ones at Clapham or Bristol or Manchester that are taking to the streets as I have said would happen, as the attempt to ratchet us down with new laws proceeds at pace with a compliant Opposition and lap dog Speaker.
Yes, apparently if there was ever any institutional xenophobia it was only in the Corbynite Labour Party of 2015-2020 and it was that really really bad type that oppressed a lot fewer and not easily recognisable religious ethnics … which all disappeared with the arrival of the Great Knight Hope.
Call me cynical, a CT or whatever – I find it more than a coincidence that Lammy was ‘attacked’ on a talk radio show (the preferred mainstream narrative manufacturing outlet of ‘the average white man/woman in the street stereotype) about the accusation of not being able to be English because he is Black. A simple emotional button pushing (the supremacist ‘white mans burden’ one) which anyone can easily answer by answering with the question ‘so what do you understand by the idiom of a ‘black sheep’ in the flock/family?
The Pathocracy has always employed psychopaths – they come in all colours.
A different term might be Psychopathocracy. Having said this, i am not contending you are wrong. Indeed, not everyone in this government could be said to be psychopathic, but it would not be wholly misguided to contend that many are psychopath enablers. Isn’t this almost as bad?
I’ve dipped into the report and I’m not impressed.
Basically it’s saying to to the black English (and others) ‘get rich first and then we’ll listen to you’ – but only by co-opting you into the Establishment with a few titles here and there of course to do as you’re told.
Thatcher’s ‘one of us’ mantra (like the Mont Pelerin Society) is still the golden rule. It’s as if Raab and Patel wrote the bloody report.
For if you are BAME not only are expected to work yourself to death to be deemed worthy of inclusion (unlike like many Tories who have been born into wealth do not have to do) but you are also expected it seems to turn your back on the very community you came from!! Disavow yourself at the same time to join an exclusive club who just happens to be in power.
David Lammy is now a saint as far as I am concerned – warts and all.
This is not a report. It’s a hollow PR exercise and lethal to the debates and discussion that we should be having in my view.
That is my feeling too
The Commissioner interviewed on Channel 4 came over as very conceited
Krishnan Guru-Murthy could hardly hide his contempt, and righty so
Some strong views on this already. I have got about 50% through and mountain of detail to digest. Probably needs a couple of reads to completely digest. The approach is certainly different and looking at all factors that drive equality. From the reactions I saw today not sure we get beyond the headlines into any serious discussion.
Read the thread Robin has linked
And read the British Medical Journal
As a middle aged white man I am loathe to comment but I will! Since it is about someone else I also choose to stay anonymous. My wife experiences racism on a regular basis. It has been getting worse for the last few years and particularly so during the pandemic (she is ethnic Chinese). Money insulates us from most of the consequences of racism so we shrug our shoulders and move on……. but it IS there. When I explain this to white middle-aged friends they are surprised and in some cases refuse to acknowledge it is true…. as if they know my wife’s lived experience better than she does! Indeed, some of these “friends” have been dropped. Anyone who thinks that racism is not rife needs to get out more.
Is it institutional? Well, if you take a narrow approach, no – no institution has racism in its constitution. But this is an absurd definition. The more sensible one is to say that institutions reflect their members…. which is racist to some degree or other. Is the UK better or worse than other countries? I don’t know – but I do know that we should try to do better and this report is a step backwards. It makes me want to cry. Yes, really…. I am fighting back tears as I write.
Thank you for your comment
I know the pain of racism
It impacted my father and my in-laws all their lives, deeply negatively.
Your situation is more difficult
And yes, those with no experience always dismiss it
Go well….
“I know the pain of racism”
White middle class middle aged comfortably off man claiming to know the pain of racism.
Trying to wrap yourself in the cloak of victim.
Pathetic.
If you do not think there was racism against the Irish then you are the person deluding yourself
And I saw the impact of that on my father and my in-laws. It was very real
I suggest you stop being a racist
“I suggest you stop being a racist”
Accusing a black man of being a racist? Now you plumb the depths. Trying to play the victim when all you are is part of the problem with accusations like that.
Tell me why a black man cannot be racist?
The evidence that there is racism in majority non-white communities – even substantial majority non-white communties – is compelling
So let’s deal with three things
First I have no idea what colour you are, so how could I be racist to a black personality if I did not know their colour?
Second, yes, whites can discriminate against whites. Have you noticed anti-Semiticism?
And third, black people can be racists too
ANd all that racism is wrong
Now stop making ridiculous claims here
The Irish are not a race any more than the Scots or the English or the French. Your forefathers may have experienced prejudice based on nationality and class ( I doubt high born Irish had a problem ). To equate prejudice based on nationality with racism , which is based on skin color , is just wrong. It’s different. You can keep your mouth shut ( unless your accent is Irish ) or not tell anyone your name. Can’t hide the color of your skin. And yet again white people can’t be victims of racism. So give it a rest.
You are, of course, denying anti-Semiticism in saying that
You are banned
That ‘commissioner’ was laughing at Murthy all the way through that interview. The arrogance was incredible.
It’s good to see social class finally getting a mention.
There is of course a strong connection between being working class (using the modern Essex definition) and poorer outcomes. Perhaps we should have some policies that are pro working class, and the ethnic disparities would largely take care of themselves. But in modern Tory Britain we have a gamut of subsidies to almost anyone who is not working class (using the modern definition) from farmland owner subsidies, planning restrictions and ever increasing pensioner entitlements.
Why would the ethnic issues take care of themselves?
There is not a shred of logic to that
Because there is a significant connection between being working class and being from an ethnic minority.
You are assuming economics solves prejudice
I do not agree
Vitamin D deficiency is an epidemic in the UK and guess who have the lowest levels? There are so many correlation studies it’s unreal, yet there are no clinical trials. Shocking d3 can be made at almost no cost.
Vit D and COVID
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/3…​
Evidence that Vitamin D Supplementation Could Reduce Risk of Influenza and COVID-19 Infections and Deaths.
Prevalence and correlates of vitamin D deficiency in US adults
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2…​
https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/…​
https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/…​
About 42% of the US population is vitamin D deficient. However, this rate rises to 82% in black people and 70% in Hispanics
Vit D deficiency in Ireland
https://tilda.tcd.ie/publications/rep…​
Vitamin D is essential for bone and muscle health
Arizona University
https://integrativemedicine.arizona.e…​
https://www.researchsquare.com/articl…​
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/arti…​
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/arti…
Marcus
Interestingly, in Scotland, vit D deficiency is thought to be linked to the disproportionately higher incidence of MS in our population – over recent years we’ve been encouraged to take vit D supplements, but because there is no direct evidence, they haven’t taken an official response (hand out free vitamin D for instance).
If a link is found between Vit D and cold/flu viruses & we get supplements handed out free to everyone, it could have greater benefits – we don’t have enough sunlight between the months of October and March, and normal diets don’t contain enough Vit D to make up the shortfall.
Now then … this is getting towards Off-Guardian levels of squirrel spotting.
I don’t know if you are being genuinely naive or mischievously rolling the script that I have come across through the last year.
I’ll let the Professor make final judgement on this in my opinion, attempted highjacking of the genuine issue being discussed.
As for vitamins /supplements etc – that is a large and profitable sector in the ‘developed world’ there’s a advert on the back of every London bus and tube train!
Most nutrients and trace elements are available in most daily diets which aren’t processed fast foods.
The infections FROM last spring to summer were post the equinox. There was plenty of sunshine.
Most infections occurred amongst the non white population because that reflected the proportionality of these exposed to the virus through their WORK or their HABITAT.
Bus and Taxi drivers, security personnel, cleaners – the correlation was made – they would travel to work in packed buses and trains and be exposed through that main vector. These in packed households had greater risk. These moving from one care appointment to other etc.
The correlation is clearly there.
It is not with Vit D,C,B ,Chloroquine, zinc…etc.
Which is not to say such a magicky bullet does not exist. I am still waiting to see any studies on Ivermectin – which was a boon for millions of Africans through the decades and may be providing antiviral protection along with its anti parasitic one. It is a drug out of patent and these who were involved in introducing it were disbanded decades ago (but that’s another story – which also involves institutional racism , on a world scale).
Many such drugs may have an effect on conditions they were not initially marketed for – hell even Thalidomide is a useful drug!
So while we are in my opinion disingenuously stirred up with this issue – seemingly out of the blue – I will just leave it with a final observation, a corollary of sorts – why hasn’t Putin limited Russia’s 200,000 Covid deaths by the use of a cheap pill?
Are you suggesting that Arch geopolitical opponents are colluding in this pandemic?
I can envisage scenarios where such a thing is possible- but this is not necessarily the platform for it unless there was a specific article on it.
The majority of space on this thread has, very properly, concentrated on the ‘race’ focus of this Commission’s report and I would now like to raise another aspect which is, I believe, potentially every bit as serious. History.
I was part-way through a detailed parsing of the poisonoous nonsense in pages 89 to 92 (including the ominously totalitarian sounding tone of Recommendation 20) when I spied David Olusoga’s piece in the Guardian – find it at https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/apr/02/sewell-race-report-historical-young-people-britain? .
He makes bitingly clear some of its historical nonsense in relation to BAME/ethnic minority/non-white members of our society – and that is well done and important. However, I would urge readers to dwell also on the absolute ignorance and insensitivity which these pages display towards the non-English nations, currently parts of this “country” – an entity which is also, quite wrongly, described as a single “nation”. It constantly mixes up and confuses Britain and ‘the UK’ and speaks patronisingly of “the” history of Britain/UK. Given the blinkers and the authoritarian tone, the proposals in Recommendation 20 read like a recipe for a single and enforced English (pretendy British) history being imposed on schools (there is zero awareness of a different educational system in Scotland) via set texts, teaching materials and, ye Gods, a “national library” of such ‘resources’.
David Olusoga rightly draws attention to parallels with the similarly historically illiterate 1776 Report in Trump’s US. He is right – but the errors go further and seem to aim to entrench these authors’ distorted and confused vision on future generations of all our islands.
Took about 3 days to get through this report and watched the coverage over the last few days. Government has clearly taken different approach and is not accepting CRT or this type thinking to influence race policy. The approach which goes down to level of looking at inequality as been driven by many factors. Fits with red wall strategy that post code is massive reason for success. We all know that London is richest region of Europe and outside London has some of the poorest areas in Europe.
I think the people that wrote the report are what they call outliers. Not puppets or government representatives but similar to right wing think tanks. The people hold these views and have built their views around the data they see. Which is why a number of the members have appeared on TV and spoken in clear terms about the report. C4 interviewer looked like he was about to explode as the British Indian man coolly explained his position.
I think the 24 recommendations will be implemented along with items that are addressed in other statistics such as representation in civil service and child birth. Not complete blanket agreement.
Outliers I agree
In denial if the issue
And looking for symptoms, not causes
You don’t treat symptoms
All I would say is that if the Tories believe this approach to be correct, then how do they square it with their austerity madness?
If you keep withdrawing money from the economy and services, then surely that reduce opportunities for racial groups (as you are doing for the white group). There’s seemingly no connection to that issue at all – no epiphany about the destructive nature of their fiscal policies or the damage they have caused for the last 11 years and no intention to think again.
This to me is actually the biggest problem with this report and why it cannot be taken seriously – it divorces itself from these factors and seems to look at race in isolation and looks at factors within households or within the cultures of race and seems to totally ignore the effect of external factors (like institutional racism and of course the Governments own extreme and erroneous views on public versus private and much of everything else it does).