Kemi Badenoch is the Business Secretary.
She is also the minister for inequality.
And she is desperate to be the leader of the Tory party.
To prove herself fit for the last role, she is promoting her ability to ignore facts, and demand that otherwise do likewise. As the Guardian notes this morning:
A new front has emerged in the culture war as Kemi Badenoch, the equalities minister, condemned an academic study an MP described as “woke archaeology” that examined whether ethnicity was a risk factor with medieval plague.
The background, as they explain, is:
The paper, published in the journal Bioarchaeology International, examined the remains of 145 people buried at London plague cemeteries, 49 of whom died from the plague.
By examining five features of the skulls and comparing these with a forensic databank covering modern and historical global populations, it estimated the likely heritage of people who died and found that those of African heritage were disproportionately more likely to have died from plague than people of European or Asian ancestry, compared with non-plague deaths.
The work found that those of "African heritage were disproportionately more likely to have died from plague than people of European or Asian ancestry, compared with non-plague deaths." It also noted that the sample size was small.
In response, Badenoch has said that "the idea of structural racism being a factor in health outcomes, which she has previously rejected, could be damaging even 700 years later."
Three things stand out. The first is that ethnicity is a factor in health care. For example, I note this from a publication by Parliament on black maternal health (their title):
The UK has one of the lowest maternal mortality ratios in the world. There are, however, glaring and persistent disparities in outcomes for women depending on their ethnicity. Maternal mortality for Black women is currently almost four times higher than for White women. Significant disparities also exist for women of Asian and mixed ethnicity. These disparities have existed and been documented for at least 20 years, but only received mainstream attention and Government action since around 2018. Considerable credit for putting the issue on the political and public health agenda goes to campaigners, such as Five X More and Birthrights, who have worked to publicise the issue.
As a matter of fact, ethnicity is a factor in UK healthcare, and it looks very likely that structural racism has a significant role to play in that fact, based on the evidence.
Second, you cannot avoid that fact by denying the existence of structural racism, as Badenoch does, persistently.
Third, you cannot prevent people coming to the conclusion that structural racism has a role, based on the evidence, by telling them that this is not the case and that they must not make that claim, as Badenoch has done in this case by writing to the employer of the lead researcher to make a complaint.
Why note this?
Firstly, because Badenoch is in denial of the truth.
Secondly, because this is the logic of the Rwanda Bill being played out elsewhere. It is clear that the Tories are now going to say that problems that are very obviously real do not exist and keep repeating that until they get traction with the denial.
Third, this is a fascist propaganda methodology in action. Tell a lie. Repeat it often. Never waiver. Then, win acceptance of the untruth and make a basis for action.
All of which is profoundly worrying.
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How would Badenoch explain the existence of BME housing associations which I understood arose because of concerns about structural racism (yes they exist, I visited one in London in the 1990’s)?
In my equalities work as an equalities champion at one time in my organisation, BME colleagues revealed that they had a particular name for the likes of our Kemi. I was taken aback by it, but there is kernel of truth there when you look at her background?
Kemi seems to have been ‘white-washed’. Or is it ‘wealth-washed?’.
Either way, isn’t it shocking what privilege does to one’s perceptions? And she wants to be in charge! Hah!
I too noted this appalling disclosure moment and, apart from its G&S qualities, what struck a particularly chilling note was Badenoch’s deliberate?/stupid? claim that the research was based on phrenology, which it clearly was not. A lie to bolster a bigger lie to cover up and deflect from a real world problem. That is unpleasantly reminiscent of other regimes and the recruitment of bogus ‘scientific’ parades of probity in support of unconscionable falsehood.
As ever the question is,,,, When does the fool become the knave?…. or given the “batshit” craziness of this Tory ‘government’…. Can we even tell the difference?
Re a sentence from the above post (14th December), is there an error in the punctuation?
In response, Badenoch has said that “the idea of structural racism being a factor in health outcomes, which she has previously rejected, could be damaging even 700 years later.”
I copied the Guardian
Various editors and Journalists who have worked for him have said that the secret of Rupert Murdoch’s success is that he has always directed his Newspapers and TV stations to appeal to racists and misogynists.
It has obviously been a strategy that has proved a runaway success in Australia, Britain and the USA. Not only in making Murdoch a very rich man, but also paving the way for the Fascism that now threatens the survival of Democracy and even the survival of the human species.
Regarding the Rwanda bill.
The much wider point of this terrible bill seems to be designed to repeat the lie that the human rights act and ECHR prevent our Sovereignty from acting as Tories desire. Is it not just a trojan horse to distract from the real aim of taking the UK out of the human rights act? Tell the lie, repeat and repeat again.
Geoff
There are two other issues:
1: Badenoch’s timetable must include calculations about the far right rise in Europe and the possibility of Trump regaining the presidency of Gilead. She may well be de nos jours by 2025 on a surge of far right ascension (although I think in UK this will not gain the traction some think, despite some 20% of the population being likely to vote with race an issue – they’re dying out).
2: Her attack on archaeology (and by extension palaeontology via common techniques) is all of a piece with the denialist tendency against the Out Of Africa thesis of human origins and the Eurocentric view of the ‘Great Leap forward’, a myth promulgated by white racist pseudoscience. Techniques and evidence are attacked as being ‘woke’, despite evidence to the contrary.
Kemi Badenoch – and – equalities – minister – A contradiction in terms. Need I say more?
https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/640382/signatures/new
I guess not many people have seen this. Mine’s the only signature in my constituency.
Please sign and pass on.
Signed